Department of the Environment and Energy
Leading with Influence Program
Before workshop 1
There are quite a few resources listed below and we realise you are busy people. So, to reduce the load we have indicated the items that are essential with an *. The items without the asterisk are optional extra information that we hope you will find useful.
The essential items will take about 70 minutes to watch.
Essential watching
Mindsets
* The right mindset for success – Carol Dweck – 18 mins audio
This interview is mostly about organisations and adults. Carol explains why success in early life does not always predict successful adult outcomes. It isn’t just about the talent and ability that a person has. Other aspects covered include: focussing on the process of an activity rather than the outcome in order to learn from it; coaching others; giving feedback; praising talent and ability fosters a fixed mindset, praising the strategy, resilience and persistence fosters a growth mindset.
Definitions: Organisation and Leadership
* The new psychology of leadership: Why and how leaders need to care about group identity
– Alex Haslam – 18 mins video
An organisation: an internally differentiated and purposeful social group.
Leadership: “The process whereby one or more members of a group influence other group members in a way that motivates them to contribute to the achievement of group goals” (Haslam and Reicher, 2002).
Perception
* Unconscious to Conscious – Google – 4 mins video
The implications and applications of exploring different experience in the work place.
Development of Self
* Overview of stages of development and their implications – Robert Kegan – 20 mins video
Stages of self development are generally recognised as existing in childhood. Kegan’s work extends that idea into adulthood. Human beings are “makers of meaning” that “shape our experience” leading to change over time. In this video Kegan explains and gives examples of the Socialised mind, the Self Authoring mind and the Self Transforming mind as one construct of the adult development trajectory.
Note: In the middle part of Kegan’s talk, his “big idea” at about the 12 minute mark, he dismisses one explanation of the phenomenon he observes without giving reasons for that dismissal. However, whether or not his explanation of the “why” behind his big idea is correct, the phenomenon he describes (the increase in the population of the Self Transforming mind) is, I believe, an important one for future generations. The “why” doesn’t matter in this regard.
Working with complexity
Leadership is a complex process. There are simple and complicated bits but overall it is complex. What do we mean by simple, complicated and complex?
* Cynefin Framework – Dave Snowden – 9 mins video
The Cynefin Framework is a sense-making framework (where data precedes framework), not a categorisation model (where framework precedes data). The framework explores the cause and effect relationships within ordered systems (simple and complicated), complex systems, the chaotic, and the disordered (not knowing which context you are in).
Following on from Dave Snowden’s insights, in a work context we are often in the disordered state – not being sure which system is operating. We therefore need to be able to decide which quadrant we are in and act accordingly. And, when in the complex quadrant (the place of leadership) we need to make small, incremental changes that might create the bigger outcomes we need. These need to be implemented as “safe to fail” experiments and amplified or dampened according to outcome. Finally, Snowden refers to the common failure pattern of applying simple solutions to complex situations and “falling over the cliff” into chaos.
Optional watching
Clear Leadership
How to practise clear leadership – Gervase R. Bushe – 10 mins video
In this video, Gervase (pronounced “Jervis”) talks about the practice of leadership. He describes how members of an organisation make up stories about others. He outlines the approach to clearing that interpersonal-mush; how to take responsibility for our own experience and not to take responsibility for the internal experience of others; how to find out about the experience of another person and to explain your experience to them without judgement.
Mindsets
Carol Dweck is a Stanford Professor of Psychology who has done a lot of research around different mindsets – “fixed” and “growth”. Much of her research has been with children since that is when a person’s mindset seems to be formed. However, it is also true that as adults we can change our mindset and generally speaking, having a growth mindset seems to be more helpful than having a fixed mindset.
Statistically, it is likely that some of the people attending this leadership program will have a “fixed” mindset and some will have a “growth” mindset around “leadership”, “professional development” and related concepts. The mindset that you bring to this leadership program is likely to affect your experience of it and the value you get from the time you are dedicating to it. We start this pre-work with the topic of Mindsets to provide a big “wrapper” around your participation at the program.
The following interview with Professor Dweck explores some aspects of the relationship between mindsets and life outcomes with a focus on the work and organisational environment. There are more resources about Mindsets in the “Before workshop day 3” section. If you have time to watch those before Day 1 that would be helpful.
Change your mindset, change the game – Dr. Alia Crum – 18 mins video
4 examples of research about mindsets, expectation and outcomes: in medicine, exercise, diet and stress. This is of relevance to the way we filter our experience of the world and indeed, how we construct that experience.
Definitions: Organisation and Leadership
You Are the Groups You Belong To – Alex Haslam – 12 mins video
Explores the relationship between individual identity and group identity and how that relationship can be used to understand social behaviour (organisations being one example). How you see your Self within that organisation predicts your behaviour within that context. Self is defined by interaction with others. Without others, the concept of a separate “I” dissolves as a category. (See also the Relationship part of Dan Siegel’s triangle in The Neurological Basis of Behaviour and Human Relationships video). What is the category called Self? Shared social identity builds organisations. To understand the Self we need to turn towards the group that the Self is currently within.
The persuasive power of pronouns – ABC radio interview – 20 mins audio
A discussion including Alex Haslam during the 2013 Federal Election about the relationship between “We / Us” vs. “I / Me” and how that predicts electoral and political success. This research is mentioned in the “New Psychology of Leadership” video above and is presented if you wish to explore that further. It has implications for you as a leader by exploring the role of language in building social identity and team / group cohesiveness. Also interesting in the light of political events since that election.
Why it’s time to forget the pecking order at work – Margaret Heffernan – 16 mins video
Leadership must build social capital. That is, a strong followership. Heffernan talks about the productivity cost of competition and the gains from developing a culture of helpfulness. Successful teams: high degree of empathy; roughly equal time to each other (no passengers, no-one dominant); more diversity. People must get to know each other. E.g. hang out at coffee breaks; create structures to foster connection and relationship. “Companies don’t have ideas, only people do”. “What matters is the mortar, not just the bricks”. Social capital is the key to resilience and success. Social capital builds over time and adds value to the bottom line. Leadership creates the conditions for people to do their most courageous thinking and to support each other to do that.
Dare to disagree – Margaret Heffernan – 13 mins video
Framing conflict and collaboration. Seek out people who think differently. Seek disconfirmation. Issues don’t get addressed because people are afraid of conflict. This is often due to the idea of competition rather than collaboration. Conflict is thinking. Skilful disagreement can be encouraged and made safe.
Beyond Measure: The Big Impact of Small Changes (TED Books) – Margaret Heffernan
Optional: A very inexpensive, small and powerful book that expands upon the ideas in the previous video.
Working with complexity
Optionally, but highly recommended, see also: Jennifer Garvey Berger and Keith Johnson: Simple Habits for Complex Times (Book)
This book takes Snowden’s ideas about complexity together with Robert Kegan’s ideas about adult development (see below) and offers three habits that you can use to better work in complex organisational environments: taking multiple perspectives; asking different questions; seeing more of the system you are in. You will be working with these three habits during this leadership program.
Development of Self
The Robert Kegan video above stops abruptly. The audio (link below) is the full audio which buffers pretty quickly and you can skip the bit you have already heard (from time 3:00 to 26:46). This audio is optional but highly recommended if you are at all interested in these ideas.
http://assets.thersa.org/mp3s/20130523RobertKegan.mp3 – 30 mins audio
It is worth considering the interplay of these ideas with Haslam’s Social Identity approach above. What do you see as the complimentary and conflicting ideas? How does Social Identity relate to the opposing Self Authoring “sides” in Kegan’s example (in the audio). How is “us” vs. “them” included and transcended and in what ways does that process create a new, shared, identity?
Self Awareness
What it Takes to Be a Great Leader – Daniel Goleman – 7 mins video
Self awareness – listening to your “gut sense”. Making better decisions and thinking about ethics.
Self management – how we handle our emotions. Self regulation. Flexible responses.
Empathy – understanding other perspectives, care.
Effective communication and collaboration.
6 styles of leadership. How to keep followers in an optimal state for maximum effectiveness and performance. Goleman’s styles: Visionary, Coach, Affiliative, Consensus / democratic, Command and control (only in emergency, so need to know how to do it). You might like to consider how these reductionist styles (and other similar models) fit within the larger construct of adult development and effective leadership? How do we include their value while embracing a bigger picture?
Attachment, videos 1 to 5 and 10 – Dan Siegel
From a series of 14 videos, each just a couple of minutes long. These explore psychological attachment and how that impacts adult relationships at work and at home. We will work with this in understanding defensive reactions and how to manage them in ourselves and others. For the original research behind Attachment Theory see the video series about Mary Ainsworth in the “After the workshop” section below. That also covers Adult Attachment.
Mirror Neurons and Empathy, videos 6 to 8 – Dan Siegel
Primal Leadership – Daniel Goleman – 5 mins video
Leadership is an emotional process and involves emotional contagion. A leader must self regulate first and practice being self aware – notice the state you are in – be mindful. “Listening, observing and noticing the unspoken needs of the group and taking steps to fulfil that need. Sense what needs to happen then make it happen”. Compare this idea with Social Identity Leadership where leaders must deliver what the followers need them to deliver in order to maintain the “moral authority” to lead.