Designing Conversations to Improve Business Theory and Practice

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• Designing Conversations to Improve Business
  Theory and Practice
• and to Encourage a More
• Participatory Culture in the
• Workplace

A presentation by Skip Rowland and Jim
Wolford-Ulrich at the annual conference of the
International Leadership Association, Nov. 5,
2004
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Session Outline

• Dialogue as design process and product
• Courageous Conversations
• Definition and conceptual overview
• Lessons from the field
• Using courageous conversations in the Seattle
  Public Schools
• Skill building in a dialogue practice group
• Using structured dialogue in a business setting
• Using dialogue to form a learning community
• Implications for leaders
• Q A / Discussion

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Communication Can Be Designed

• Organizational members guided by leaders can
  establish norms and protocols for communication
• Requires facilitated implementation
• assessment / planning
• skill training / practice
• measurement / feedback
• Intended to complement other forms of
  communication not replace them

• Purposes served
• Divergent thinking
• Root cause analysis
• Joint application development
• Scenario planning / rehearse execution
• Create shared vision
• Resolve conflict
• Move beyond impasse
• Deepen trust
• Enhance safety and openness
• Build community

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Design as Process / Product

• Design is what leaders do they create with
  others preferred social realities
• Design processes are guided by vision / purpose /
  design intention
• Design is collaborative we co-design
• Design like conversation has an emergent
  quality we dont fully know at the outset the
  outcome we intend
• Designs that work become design patterns that
  can be adapted and fitted to new situations

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Presenter Bio

• Educational Credentials
• Chapman Univ - B.S. Social Science
• Gonzaga Univ - M.S. Management Science
• Seattle Univ - Ed.Doc. Educational Leadership
• Professional Experience
• Entrepreneur Business Owner
• Professor of Leadership Studies
• Global Learner
• Corporate Executive
• Government Administrator
• Race Relations, U.S.A.F.
• Child and Family Therapist

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Courageous Conversations

• Use of structured dialogue as an intervention to
  address racism within Seattle Public Schools.
• Transformational Leadership Leadership model
  for institutional change.
• Culture Groups with a socially shared
  meaningful structure.
• Institutional Racism Organizational behavior
  that systematically subordinates an individual or
  group.

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The C.A.R.E. Package Learning System A model for
structured dialogue and courageous conversations
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The Human Brain
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Preparation of the ImaginationVision Building
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Transformational Communications
Sender
Bridge of Trust
Receiver
1. Good Ideas 2. Appropriate Language 3.
Respect the Receiver 4. Read and Listen
1. Open Mind 2. Read and Listen 3. Decode 4.
Respectful Feedback
Feed Forward
Interpersonal Gap
Feed Back
Reciprocal flow of influence
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Transformational Attitudes
Self Talk Inner voice Self Image Self
Portrait Self Esteem Feelings Self Expectation
Beliefs
INPUT SOURCES
FIVE SENSES
Hearing
Family
Touch
Friends
Brain
Taste
Managers
Smell
BEHAVIOR
Filter
Peers
Sight
Media
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Responsible and Transformational Goals
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Strategic Effort
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Collaborative Reflective Performance Evaluation
Courageous Conversation Performance Evaluation
____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____
Vision Communications Attitudes Goals Resources Ef
fort Overall Score
100
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Additional Lessons from the Field
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Field notes Setting 1

• Dialogue practice group
• 7 Training and OD professionals met monthly over
  a period of 4 years
• Format
• Check in
• Dialogue
• Check out
• Debrief
• Outcomes

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Lessons Learned Setting 1

• Having the form (purpose and protocols) and the
  vocabulary facilitated skill acquisition
• The debrief was an important element that
  promoted group learning
• After a critical mass of participants gained
  competence in the structured dialogue form, we
  felt more free to improvise and adapt the form
• When new members entered the group, it helped to
  go back to using the form and protocols

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Field notes Setting 2

• High tech, telecom RD company
• Fast-paced, action-oriented culture
• As an outgrowth of a middle-manager leadership
  development program, multiple work groups become
  intentional around learning organization
  skills

• Personal mastery
• Team learning
• Dialogue

• Shared vision
• Mental models
• Systems thinking

• HR learning and development staff
• formed a community of practice

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Lessons Learned Setting 2

• Expect frustration and a perceived sense of
  failure / irrelevance at first
• Readiness is key
• Embed the practice of dialogue in solving real
  problems
• Example two work teams discovering they were
  accidental adversaries
• Scatter the seeds widely and water liberally

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Field notes Setting 3

• Teaching masters-level students team learning
  concepts skills
• Left hand column
• Ladder of inference
• Balancing advocacy with inquiry
• These became building block core competencies
  for self-leadership and for productive group
  processes

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Lessons Learned Setting 3

• Concepts are relatively easy to understand, but
  frustratingly difficult to practice, let alone
  master
• Having a shared vocabulary enables peer coaching,
  feedback
• Over time, these skills can be instilled in the
  culture of a learning community / cohort
• Modeling the skills (e.g., by faculty) is
  essential
• These are core self-leadership competencies and
  form the basis for a transforming leadership
  practice as described by Quinn, Kegan, and others

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Courageous ConversationsReflective Exercise

• Pair off in twos.
• Write the words Black and White on your pads.
• Write down under each word the emotions you
  associate with that word.
• Summarize your findings.
• Report out to the large group.

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Implications for Leaders

• Important conversations can and should be
  designed
• Producing intentional change is facilitated by
  intentional communication (Ford Ford).
• Change happens in dialogue
• Conversation is not merely planning for change
  that will occur later.
• Dialogue and collaborative inquiry promote
  generative learning
• Dialogue enables followers to do the adaptive
  work leadership requires (Heifetz).

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Guidelines for Action

• Create space for dialogue and conversation
• Generate awareness, cultivate skills
• Build in continuous feedback
• For example, by using facilitators mentors,
  providing open forums, and encouraging reflection
• Create individual and collective scenarios for
  desired futures
• Trust the process

Adapted from Kurt April (1999) in Leadership
Organization Development Journal
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Your thoughts and questions?

• Thank You!

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Presenter Contact Info

• Skip Rowland, Ed.D.
• Professor of Leadership Management Sciences
• Antioch University
• 2326 Sixth Ave.
• Seattle, WA 98121
• P 253.839.6321
• C 206.227.7215
• E skip_at_bannercross.com

• Jim Wolford-Ulrich, Ph.D.
• Team Leader, Leadership Faculty
• School of Leadership Professional Advancement
• Duquesne University
• 600 Forbes Avenue
• Pittsburgh, PA 15282
• P 412.396.1640
• F 412.396.4711
• E ulrich_at_duq.edu

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References

• April, K. A. (1999). Leading through
  communication, conversation and dialogue.
  Leadership Organization Development Journal,
  20(5), 231ff.
• Ford, J. D., Ford, L. W. (1995). The role of
  conversations in producing intentional change in
  organizations. The Academy of Management Review,
  20(3), 541ff.
• Whyte, D. (2004). Five conversations on the
  frontiers of leadership. Leader to Leader 33,
  20-24.

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Additional Slides
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The Ladder of Inference

• Adopt
• Make
• Reach
• Add
• Start With

• Beliefs Assumptions
• Inferences
• Conclusions
• Personal/Cultural Meaning
• Observable Data

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Dialogue Mental Models

• We are coming to believe that this slip twixt
  cup and lip stems, not from weak intentions,
  wavering will, or even non-systemic
  understanding, but from mental models. More
  specifically, new insights fail to get put into
  practice because they conflict with deeply held
  internal images of how the world works, images
  that limit us to familiar ways of thinking and
  acting.
• Peter Senge, The Fifth Discipline

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Left Hand Column Exercise

• What Im Thinking
• (or Feeling)

• What Is Said

Tacit Assumptions Which Govern our Conversation
and Contribute to Blocking our Purpose in Real
Life Situations
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The Left Hand Column (LHC)

• What led me to think and feel this way?
• What was my intention?
• Did I achieve the results? How?
• How did my comments contribute to the
  difficulties?
• Why didnt I share my left hand column?
• What assumptions am I making about others?
• What is the cost of operating this way?
• What was the other persons LHC?
• Note Some LHC thoughts should stay hidden!

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Advocacy / Inquiry Protocols

• Improve Advocacy
• Make your thinking process visible
• Publicly test your conclusions and assumptions
• Walk up the ladder slowly
• Improve Inquiry
• Ask others to make their thinking visible
• Use unaggressive language
• Compare your assumptions to theirs
• Gently walk others down your ladder

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Intentional Dialogue Principle 1

• Suspend Judgment
• Avoid categorizing people based on their ideas.
• Avoid jumping to conclusions.
• Question your own assumptions.

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Intentional Dialogue Principle 2

• Speak from Awareness
• Be aware of others around you.
• Listen intently to what is said and what is not
  said.
• Be aware of yourself and how you are feeling.
• Speak from personal experience.
• Speak when moved -- not just to break a silence.

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Intentional Dialogue Principle 3

• Hold the Space for Difference
• Be slow to respond to others' ideas.
• Entertain multiple views of reality.
• Accept that others don't see reality the way you
  do.

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Intentional Dialogue Principle 4

• Speak to the Center
• Disassociate what is said from who said it (and
  from what his or her position in the organization
  is).
• Respond to ideas, not to people.
• Honor the collective mind.

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Intentional Dialogue Principle 5

• Balance Advocacy and Inquiry
• Share your left hand column.
• Make your thinking process visible. Walk others
  up your ladder of inference slowly.
• Publicly test your conclusions and assumptions.
• Ask as well as tell. Invite others to slowly walk
  you down their ladder of inference.
• Its okay to wonder out loud.

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The Check In Process

• What is a check-in? How does it work?
• Everyone (in no special sequence) says something
  about where theyre at -- then says Im in.
• Members speak when they feel moved, not merely to
  fill the silence between others talking.
• Comments are fairly brief and may be about their
  personal life, things they are excited about,
  potential distractions, or just how they feel at
  the moment -- whether good or bad.
• The check-in is not intended to be a
  comprehensive summary of everything that has
  happened to the speaker since the group last met!
• Others accept whatever is said -- without
  commenting, responding or taking responsibility
  for how others are feeling. Whatever is just
  is.
• Other members acknowledge each persons presence
  with a Welcome! or Thank you!

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Benefits of the Check-In

• The check-in may appear to be an artificial
  group ritual. Heres the substance behind it
• Encourages participation
• Symbolically gives everyone a voice
• Reinforces a climate of safety, since whatever is
  said is accepted
• Helps each participant become more aware of his
  or her own inner states and feelings and how they
  may be affecting their participation in the group
• Helps each person be present and focused on the
  here and now
• Encourages people to speak personally (e.g., by
  using I statements) and thus to take
  responsibility for their own feelings and actions

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The Check Out Process

• What is a check-out? How does it work?
• A Check-out is often used to conclude a
  conversation, meeting or series of meetings that
  was opened with a check-in.
• Everyone (in no special sequence) says something
  about where theyre at after and as a result
  of the conversation(s) theyve just
  experienced. The traditional closing words are
  Im out.
• Members speak when they feel moved, not merely to
  fill the silence between others talking.
• Comments are fairly brief and reflect how they
  feel at the moment
• Members share a key insight they gained, a fear
  they have about going back to reality, a word
  of appreciation, or any other thoughts or
  feelings -- whether good or bad.
• Others accept whatever is said -- without
  commenting, responding or taking responsibility
  for how others are feeling. Whatever is just
  is.

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Rationale for the Check-Out

• The check-out is a useful conversational form
  for several reasons
• Meets a psychological need people have for
  closure.
• Reinforces a safe communication climate, since
  whatever is said is accepted.
• Members will be more likely to participate in the
  group in the future if they experience that their
  thoughts and ideas are accepted.
• The discipline of a check-out maintains the
  integrity of the conversation(s) which precede
  it.
• Like bookends which keep a row of books upright,
  the check-in and check-out encourage participants
  to keep their conversation focused, intentional
  and purposeful.
• Note a check-out may be followed by a
  debrief, in which participants comment on how
  well they kept the form of the check-in, meeting
  or dialogue, and/or check-out.
• Reflections about how well group members
  performed in any of these relative to their
  stated purpose belong in a debrief, not the
  check-out.

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Five Courageous Conversations We Need to Have

• We need to have the conversation were not having
  . . .
• with the unknown future - what lies over the
  horizon
• with a present customer, a patient, a vendor, who
  all represent the future as it's lapping up
  against the side of our organization
• between different divisions of the organization
• in our work group, among our colleagues - people
  we see every day, or people we e-mail or talk to
  on our cell phone every day
• with that tricky moveable frontier called ourself

Source David Whyte in Leader to Leader (Summer
2004)
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Types of Conversations

• The what happened? conversation
• The feelings conversation
• The identity conversation
• Source Stone, Patton, Heen Fisher. (1999).
  Difficult Conversations How to Discuss what
  Matters Most

• Conversations for
• Initiating
• Understanding
• Performance
• Closure
• Source Ford Ford. (1995, July). The Academy of
  Management Review.