But how do we go about finding a consultant who can give us the help we need? Managers—particularly those seeking to build “learning organizations” — can find themselves frustrated by the quality of advice and services they receive from outside experts. Recent research into the experience of consultants who specialize in organizational learning disciplines suggests that this frustration can stem from the conflicting, unspoken assumptions managers and consultants hold as they embark on an initiative together.

This finding raises important questions for managers: What mental models do you hold about the change process? What role should consultants play? How do your preconceptions shape the relationships you form with consultants? And, finally, what outcomes do you expect — quick fixes or lasting shifts in corporate culture?

To begin to explore these questions, let’s first consider why tackling today’s complex challenges requires a shift in understanding about learning and work. We then examine the role of the consultant in building capacity for ongoing organizational learning.

Building Social Bonds

Thought leaders such as Peter Senge and William Isaacs suggest that many managers fail to bring about needed organizational change because of their assumptions about learning and work. For example, many executives assume that work is best done by finding a technically competent person in the area of concern, having this person determine the most appropriate course of action, and then implementing that action. From this perspective, learning is a process through which individuals gain technical knowledge.

These executives also assume that the best way to determine technical ability is through competition — that is, generating a debate between technical experts to determine who best understands how to help. Feeling the need to be proactive, these specialists may hastily label something as a “problem” and look for the most direct solution: the “quickest fix.” This approach often improves the situation in the short run but actually worsens it over the long term.

Learning experts suggest that this emphasis on technical competence and competition may be useful for relatively simple issues, but not for more complex challenges. The difficulties facing most managers today are generally too intricate for one or two people to determine the right course of action based on previous experience. Each situation is likely to be different from previous ones, requiring solutions tailored to the particular circumstances.

Therefore, rather than focusing on individual expertise, Senge and others recommend a view of work that emphasizes building social bonds — through practicing collaborative tools, such as dialogue, partnership coaching, and visioning — while getting things done. As people develop new skills for conversing and new ways of behaving, they build strong relationships and increase their capacity for anticipating and handling novel situations together. From this perspective, learning means building the capacity to learn together how to meet future challenges.

From Problem Solving to Capacity Building

Thus, to be successful in this rapidly changing marketplace, we need to cultivate groups of people with diverse perspectives who can learn how to come to a shared understanding of the often hidden forces that shape their organizations both internally and externally. In addition, these teams should include those charged with implementing decisions. As a result, they can take more effective action at a fundamental rather than symptomatic level.

In this context, according to Senge and Daniel H. Kim, consultants are ideally capacity builders who develop links between research and practice rather than problem solvers. They provide methods and tools to help others expand their capabilities and skills on an ongoing basis, thereby transforming concepts into practical know-how and results. These consultants may have knowledge in a variety of areas, but the contribution they make is framed as building capacity for learning and interpersonal connections rather than providing expertise.

What are the main differences between a problem-solving versus a capacity-building approach to consulting? (See “Alternative Models of Consulting.”)

Linear vs. Cyclical Processes. Consultants who take a problem-solving orientation typically use a linear process in their work. They first identify problems, then diagnose them, and finally find and implement solutions. At this point, the project or consulting assignment often ends. In contrast, consultants who view their purpose as enabling organizations to continually adjust to change typically implement a cyclical process. With each project or assignment, they generate new information about the organization’s culture and what is required for it to move toward its vision.

Single vs. Double-Loop Learning. Chris Argyris and Donald Schön were the first to describe single-loop and double-loop learning. When we engage in single-loop learning, as is typical of a problem-solving approach, we take action to solve a problem, assess the consequences of our intervention, and use what we learn in taking new actions; we continue this process until we think we have solved the problem. Single-loop learning might involve asking, “Did the action solve the problem? Did we meet the standards we had set?”

In double-loop learning, which is a key element of building capacity to handle change, we assess not only the effect of our actions on the problem, but also the variables that shape thinking within the organization more broadly. We do this by asking questions such as, “What made us think this was a problem? Why did we set the standards in such a way?”

Finite Commitment vs. “Communities of Practice.” Consultants who employ a linear process that has definite starting and finishing points usually view the client relationship as temporary, ending when the contract is fulfilled. Those focused on building capacity using a cyclical approach may utilize contracts to define work they do, but they view their purpose, process, and commitment as long term.

Etienne Wenger has referred to the long-term relationship that can form between a consultant and client organization as a “community of practice” (see “Communities of Practice: Learning As a Social System,” V9N5). While not formally part of the organization, consultants learn together with organization members through their regular interactions. As a result, they create social bonds and a shared repertoire of resources (common language, sensibilities, and so forth) that enable them to collaborate effectively.

These communities of practice do not expire when a contract ends or a project is completed. Rather, the nature of the community shifts from active engagement to “dispersed,” where members keep in touch though they no longer engage with the same intensity. In this situation, consultants feel committed to organizations beyond the life of particular contracts, because they feel they belong to a community. They might, without charging a fee, provide advice outside of a given project.

Experts vs. Capacity Builders. Finally, the role the consultant plays differs according to his or her orientation and the client’s expectations. In a problem-solving approach, a client would expect a consultant to act as an expert in the managers’ area of need. This role might include helping managers determine what they need to do or helping managers who already know what they want to do to implement their plans. On the other hand, clients who understand the power of building capacity for learning may require a consultant to facilitate the process by which members of the organization solve their own problems.

The problem-solving and capacity-building approaches appear to be quite separate models of how consultants can act. We might expect that consultants would consistently adopt one or the other of the approaches. Our research suggests, however, that consultants’ choices are more complex and have a lot to do with their clients’ assumptions about how to tackle the organizational challenges they face.

Handling the Tension

Although many consultants may agree with the philosophy of organizational learning, because they practice predominantly among clients oriented toward solving problems, they feel pulled between the two models. To begin to explore the impact of this tension on client-consultant relationships, we interviewed seven New Zealand consultants who had worked, cumulatively, with organizations in four of the five disciplines that Senge says are essential to organizational learning: team learning, shared vision, systems thinking, and personal mastery. All worked independently or in firms with 10 or fewer associates. Four were founders and managers of their own consulting companies. Only one consultant from any given company was represented in the study. All were either known to the researchers or recommended by one of the other consultants being interviewed.

We chose these consultants because we knew they preferred taking a capacity-building approach in their work and wanted to analyze how they dealt with the tension between the short-term results that some clients wanted them to produce and their personal desire to help the client support the creation of infrastructures for learning. We kept the sample small so we could conduct semi-structured interviews to generate rich descriptions of consulting practices. Such descriptions allowed us to explore the particular issues relevant to consultants as they dealt with the tension between problem solving and capacity building.

We asked the consultants to discuss how they had carried out critical phases of the consulting process with what they considered a particularly important client. They described how they had gained access to the organization, established a contract, collected data, diagnosed needs, implemented solutions, reviewed work, and terminated the consultancy. We also asked them how the relationship with the chosen client differed from relationships with other clients.

Consulting for Capacity Building. After we analyzed transcripts of the interviews, we saw clear evidence that the consultants viewed their work in terms of building capacity. The consultants’ descriptions of actions they took revealed their deliberate efforts to conduct themselves in ways that aligned with organizational learning philosophies (see “Themes from Interviews”). For instance, they sought to understand their clients’ work at a deep level and confront clients with double-loop challenges that went beyond contractual obligations.

In addition, the consultants described the kinds of benefits their clients received in behavioral terms, that is, they didn’t discuss how they solved particular problems, but rather described their clients’ attitudinal changes with phrases such as “greater self-awareness,” “commitment to people issues,” “improved communications,” and “a shift from a managing or controlling orientation to a learning orientation.” One consultant described the benefits in this way:

“I am helping them to work as a team rather than as individuals. So they are benefiting . . . partly from my intellectual input and partly from my facilitation skills, and also from my ability to challenge them. They end up better organized, more focused, thinking slightly differently — sometimes a lot differently — which in the beginning they couldn’t. Generally speaking, they believe they have done it themselves, which is about right because they have developed themselves. The thinking is theirs. The decision is theirs.”

Three participants also mentioned “knowledge transfer to the client” as an important outcome; they didn’t just teach their clients technical “know-how.” One participant described his goal as passing his “cast of mind” or way of thinking about the work to his client. Another said, “One of the requirements of the design is that [clients] are able to perform some of the skills we perform for them and then [the skills] become embedded. So we demonstrate over and over again. . . . Otherwise there is no change in behavior. They have to unlearn 30 years of belief and practice, and I know how difficult that is. But as the project draws down, we will appear less frequently.”

Along with framing benefits to clients in capacity-building terms, participants spoke about adopting organizational learning principles directly into their own practice. For example, three consultants described how they incorporated reflection into their process of review, both with the client and with themselves. One respondent felt that personal reflection was often a more intense form of review than client feedback because “My experience is we tend to be harder on ourselves than clients [are].”

Four participants considered ongoing conversations with their clients — what Juanita Brown and David Isaacs describe as a core business process that contributes to learning — an essential part of their consulting work. Talk in organizations is often focused on making decisions, which in turn creates adversarial relationships that do not encourage reflection or shared understanding. Conversation needs to allow for a full range of contributions — offering new ideas, yielding to the direction of others, and reflecting in silence — to create the conditions for learning.

Some described using conversation not only to establish issues to address but to build commitment to the change processes being considered. One participant said that conversation often replaced the traditional attempts by managers to “sell” change programs to the rest of the organization. Engaging people throughout the organization in conversation about issues of significant concern allowed shared understanding of needed action to emerge.

Limits to Capacity Building. As this study indicates, consultants endeavored to incorporate capacity building into their work with key clients with whom they had longstanding relationships. However, two outcomes from the interviews showed that this approach was not possible in all their projects.

Six participants mentioned clients’ apprehension about taking an overly theoretical orientation, a fear intensified by the fact that some areas of organizational learning — such as systems thinking and reflective conversation — may feel “unnatural” and involve concepts that do not appear to have immediate practical value to the client. One participant described clients struggling to “find the connection between what we are talking about and the bottom line.” To respond to such concerns, these consultants deliberately developed strategies that both delivered practical outcomes and challenged clients to “widen their mindsets.” Often this involved starting the relationship with intermittent contacts and small projects, which built into long-term relationships over time.

Six participants also mentioned the importance of developing trust with the clients before the capacity building work could take hold. Because practicing organizational learning concepts requires the involvement of both minds and hearts, along with deeper levels of communication, consultants reported feeling bolder in confronting clients about issues that needed to be addressed only as trust grew. As one participant put it: “With a stronger relationship with the client . . . I became bolder . . . not letting them ‘wimp out,’ and I would say, ‘Give it a go.’” Another expressed the tendency for consultants to demonstrate personal commitment as they tried to build trust and capacity: “We can’t retreat in the end and say, ‘You paid us to do this thing.’ So we tend to enter into quite deep relationships with clients because of this. The communication modes and the levels of trust are high and we are working with minds and hearts. When we are doing learning, there is no other way.”

Implications for Consultants and Managers

Although this research was exploratory, involving interviews with a small sample of consultants, the results were enlightening to both the interviewers and participants. We had suspected that consultants would have an “either/or” approach to resolving the tension inherent in their position. Either they would operate according to traditional models of consulting, with an emphasis on technical rationality, or they would adapt their practice to reflect organizational learning principles.

We were surprised and encouraged to find that the consultants interviewed had more sophisticated ways of dealing with the paradox. They were able to hold building capacity for learning as an ideal, yet work with clients who did not allow them to put this philosophy into practice. They typically started their relationships with projects aimed at deliverable outcomes that allowed them to establish credibility. Consultants were willing to establish expertise by finding practical solutions to the client’s immediate business problems. At the same time, the participants in this study consciously built relationships with clients that would make capacity-building consulting possible in the future.

Consultants reported being able to do their best work within trusting relationships with clients. Such relationships enabled them:

• To more effectively understand clients’ real needs through deeper insights into the organization.
• To be bolder in confronting clients with fundamental changes that needed to be made.
• To review and improve their own practice openly and collaboratively with clients.

Participants also generally talked about their own responsibility in building trusting relationships. They described strategies such as using small, intermittent projects with clear, practical outcomes and deliberately avoiding language and work that appeared too theoretical or conceptual.

Although the focus of the research was on consultants, this finding has important implications for managers seeking to use consulting services. Because the responsibility for the development and maintenance of any relationship lies with both parties, managers need to understand how to enable consultants to be most effective. In situations where managers do not accept this responsibility, a Catch-22 situation seems likely to occur. For example, managers may hire consultants to build the organization’s capacity for learning, but reward only those who provide short-term, expert solutions to organizational problems. In doing so, they force consultants to compete with each other and offer them little freedom to experiment, act openly, or confront real issues.

While all the consultants in the study reported being able to form successful long-term relationships with some managers, they also cited many examples where executives’ assumptions made it difficult to do so (see “Mike’s Story”). For these consultants, the majority of their clients were primarily interested in having their problems solved.

What challenge does this research hold for you? If you want to lead change in your organization with the help of consultants, you must build trusting partnerships that will allow the consultants to act in a truly capacity-building role. While doing so is based on a set of assumptions that may feel unfamiliar and unnatural to many managers, those who can make this shift in perspective will have an advantage in their efforts to build organizations equipped to adapt to the challenges of the future.

Phil Ramsey (P. L. Ramsey@massey.ac.nz) is a lecturer in human resource development at Massey University in New Zealand.

Paresha Sinha has consulted and taught in India. Her master’s degree included research on consulting for learning organizations. Paresha currently works for the Centre for the Study of Leadership at Victoria University, New Zealand.

For Further Reading

Brown, Juanita, and David Isaacs. “Conversation As a Core Business Process,” The Systems Thinker, V7N10, December 1996/January 1997

Organizational Learning at Work: Embracing the Challenges of the New Workplace (Pegasus Communications, 1999)

Tannen, Deborah. The Argument Culture: Moving from Debate to Dialogue (Random House, 1998)

The post Consultants as Problem Solvers or Capacity Builders? appeared first on The Systems Thinker.

In our organizations too, although we sometimes disagree with our coworkers based on our different roles, perspectives, or styles, we generally reach mutually agreeable and often creative resolutions without coming to literal or figurative blows. We don’t always do so fully or based on a deep understanding of the complexities involved. Neither do we always arrive at agreements that are entirely satisfying to both parties. Nevertheless, daily life would be intolerable and our organizations would grind to a halt if we were unable to compromise well enough to coexist with each other in a state of relative tolerance and truce.

A World of Contradictions

It is usually a mark of social maturity (and not inconsiderable relief) when we can find ways to live and work with each other despite our differences. Sometimes, though, one of the parties may choose to steer clear of those they are in conflict with (avoid the person), circumvent the difficult circumstances (avoid the conflict), or just take themselves out of the situation by moving on (change their environment through flight). This can happen because of imbalances of power between the parties, insufficient communication or conflict-resolution skills, or a lack of incentive for or investment in continuing the relationship.

“Why can’t we all just get along?” asked Rodney King famously, echoing the sentiments of many of us who have at some point or another wondered about the seeming intractability of human conflict.

When employees find a work situation unbearable, they can almost always change their environment and leave for greener pastures. In the days when the economy was booming and opportunities seemed unlimited, unhappy employees merely called a headhunter, sent out a dozen resumes, and were soon swamped with job offers. Employers, on the other hand, found themselves in the position of needing to offer stock options, casual Fridays, flextime, daycare facilities, foosball, and other company perks to attract and retain the best-skilled workers in the market.

Today, while the economy is looking far better than it has in the past couple of years, the employment market is, particularly in some industries, still very tight. In an uncertain economy or an exceptionally tight job market, when good, well-paying jobs are at a premium, even if an individual wishes to flee a challenging work situation, he or she may find it difficult to do so. Beyond a weak economy there may be many other reasons why employees may be forced to stay in jobs that they are unhappy in. They may do so because of health issues, the diminishing market for their specific skills, or a desire not to disrupt their family stability. Disgruntled workers may also stay where they are to protect their pensions or simply because they are unmotivated or lack the confidence to start afresh in a new environment.

Whatever their particular circumstances, in my work as a conflict resolution professional, I sometimes come across individuals who are unhappy in their present jobs as well as people who see themselves as “a bad fit,” philosophically and operationally, with their organizations or their coworkers. As a result, they can’t maintain their customary level of performance and feel demoralized. Disaffected workers in this situation end up living in a world of contradictions, at once fearful of losing their jobs because of sub-par performance, yet dreading going into the office each day. Managers on the other hand, while sensing dissatisfaction and affected by a loss of morale in their teams, are not always able to fire employees who, while evidently unhappy, are still productive.

The costs involved in replacing employees, the possibility of wrongful termination and discrimination suits, and the fear of stoking further dissent in the teams discourages them from ending the relationship.

The impact of this dynamic on the organization is considerable. When disgruntled employees stay for want of other viable options, they are often unable or unwilling to pull their weight. This behavior in turn diminishes organizational morale, because others become resentful at having to pick up the slack. Communication is affected across the board as unhappy employees become sullen and uncooperative. Teamwork suffers because of the forming of cliques and the creating of “in” and “out” groups. If management doesn’t address the problem, dissatisfaction can spread to other employees, productivity and performance may soon be compromised, and, in extreme cases, the company’s survival could be at stake (see “Growing Worker Dissatisfaction”). Again, even as these employees hang in during the tough economic times, as soon as the economy and the job market improve, they are generally out the door like a shot.

From Collaborator to Contrarian

Take the case of Nancy Miller*. When she took the position of vice president of marketing at New England Computers Inc. (NECI) in March 2001, she was confident that her career was on the upswing. For the first year or so, the challenges of the new job and the prospects of making her mark in the company brought out the best in her. By the middle of 2002, however, things had changed. NECI merged with a larger company operating out of Texas, becoming Nexus Telecom Inc. A new president replaced the one who had hired her, bringing a completely different style to the organization. Then the economic downturn and the bankruptcies of two of the company’s best customers put immense pressure on the marketing team.

While Nancy and Billy Wayne, the new president, shared a common interest in the profitability and growth of the company, their approaches to marketing seemed remarkably different. Also, whereas Nancy once had the president’s ear, she now had to go through Wayne’s executive assistant, Sandra, a brilliant young Ivy-league MBA who was evidently being groomed for bigger things. In the beginning, Nancy had tried to be friendly and welcoming to Sandra, but over time it became clear that they didn’t have much in common. The loss of access to the president, the frustration at not being able to guide the marketing direction of the company, and the increasing sense that she was being marginalized contributed to Nancy’s assessment that perhaps the time had come for her to change jobs.

Nevertheless, after a couple of months of casual networking and many discreet inquiries, Nancy found that there were few jobs on the market. At networking events, she kept running into former colleagues, now unemployed, who had been unable to find comparable positions for more than six months. Nancy’s husband and friends advised her to wait until the economy improved before making a change. Unable to move to a job that would better suit her needs, skills, and style, she remained frustrated.

Thus Nancy, who prided herself on being collaborative and a “people” person and who prized a positive attitude above all else, found herself increasingly unhappy and dreading the thought of going into work each day. Being a consummate professional, she tried to hide her feelings and function in a reasonably civil manner with her colleagues. However, her heart was not in the job anymore, and her frustrations came out in small ways. Her relations with the president’s assistant became cold and veered toward hostility. With the president, whom she had difficulty trusting, she became even more detached.

Even with her own colleagues in marketing, Nancy was unable to summon the kind of passion and humor that she brought to all her previous positions. She became less forgiving of minor administrative infractions, easily upset when things didn’t go according to plan, nervous about closing deals, and paranoid about losing her remaining accounts. She took to speaking disparagingly to her friends outside the company about the “boys from Texas.” Soon her negativity and frustration found expression with some of her staff and especially her friends in human resources, some of whom, like her, were less than enamored about the changes that came with the merger.

GROWING WORKER DISSATISFACTION

When disgruntled employees stay for want of other viable options, they often set off a vicious cycle of growing discontent in the organization. If management doesn’t address the problem, dissatisfaction can spread to other employees, productivity and performance may soon be compromised, and, in extreme cases, the company’s survival could be at stake.

In a matter of a couple of short months, the atmosphere in the organization, especially on the fifth floor where the marketing department shared space with the president’s staff and human resources, had become unbearably toxic. Cliques formed where there once had been a general sense of camaraderie; morale plummeted in the face of gossip; and productivity slipped as working groups and individuals became less forthcoming with information and pursued different and often competing agendas.

What can the company do at this point? Firing Nancy would be difficult, because she continues to be productive and meet her targets. Also, this kind of staff change would likely increase workers’ feelings of insecurity and contribute to distrust of the new leadership. In any case, although Nancy is near the eye of the conflict, she probably is not the problem herself. The issue of employee dissatisfaction and breakdown of communication is widespread and systemic within the merged organization.

Creating Trust and Open Communication

To begin to address this kind of growing crisis, top managers must first try to understand where some of the conflicts are coming from and to reestablish healthy and useful communication horizontally and vertically within the organization. By doing so, the organization can work toward a common vision with a sense of purpose, building trust and team spirit between the staff and management and across divisions and departments.

This can seem like a chicken-and-egg situation, since honest and open communication requires an environment of trust, while some will have difficulty trusting until the other party has demonstrated their ability to communicate honestly and openly. The manager, under these circumstances, needs to put in place confidence-building measures to improve communication, review existing mechanisms for dealing with grievances, and make whatever changes are necessary to create a better climate within the organization.

Regardless of whether this process is done internally or through the services of an external consultant, the inquiry needs to focus on the reasons for the disaffection and the possible differences in goals that may have evolved between employer and employee. Once both parties recognize where the disagreements are, if any, they need to be able to navigate and negotiate through them, bearing in mind the larger goals and mission of the organization. During this process, the facilitator can help participants find ways to hear and meet the legitimate needs of the other party, while ensuring that their own needs and those of the organizations are honored.

After the initial anxieties that are brought to the fore by the shock of honest expression are resolved, this process can create a powerful and open climate where people are listened to and feel understood, and can strive to achieve common goals. Another important benefit of this approach is the creation of a more relaxed and trusting work atmosphere and the building of stronger organizational loyalties. In some situations in which the divide between individual and organizational goals proves insurmountable, management will have to move that person to a more appropriate job within the organization or assist him or her in transitioning out.

When an organization invests in this process, it demonstrates its responsible, caring, and humane side. Employees reciprocate by feeling happier, more secure, and more cooperative than before.

It is useful to think of conflict as an early warning sign that tells of an impending disconnect between the systems that we have in place and the changing circumstances.

Listed below are some specific steps that managers can take to address the issue either through marshaling its own internal resources or by calling in an outside consultant. These can be divided into “Problem Specific” actions, which address immediate needs and concerns, and “Systemic” actions, which focus on developing long-term solutions.

Problem-Specific Approaches

1. Communicating: The first thing a manager can do is to initiate a private conversation with the employee with a view to listening carefully, without judgment, to his or her complaints.

2. Understanding the Other’s Interests: The manager needs to understand the employee’s basic interests (needs, desires, and concerns), differentiating these from positions he or she may be taking from a place of fear or frustration.

3. Articulating One’s Own Interests: After having clearly understood where the employee is coming from, the manager can try to make clear his or her own basic interests and those of the organization.

4. Appreciating Similarities and Differences: Once both parties understand each other’s interests, they have a better handle on where the differences exist and on the true nature of the conflict.

5. Negotiating: The manager can now try to meet some of the employee’s genuine needs. This might require some creative problem solving (increasing the size of the pie!) as well as negotiation.

6. Agreeing: This conversation might result in agreements that include accommodations and compromises that both parties can live with.

7. Maintaining the Relationship: Once the negotiation is complete and agreements have been made, periodic check-ins are necessary to ensure that the agreements are working and the lines of communication remain open.

Systemic Approaches

1. Assessing the Conflict: Management (either internally or by bringing in a consultant) needs to assess the organizational climate and study the nature and source of the conflicts within the organization.

2. Designing an Intervention: Based on the findings in the assessment phase, a team makes recommendations for strategies or interventions to be implemented.

3. Training and Education: It is possible that the first intervention may be to offer a communication and conflict-resolution training program for all employees to help develop some organization-wide capacity in this arena.

4. Mediating: Managers who have significant interpersonal issues to deal with could be offered an opportunity to meet with a mediator.

5. Revisiting the Mission and Vision: In some cases, it might be necessary to reexamine the corporate vision and mission in light of the changed internal and external circumstances, the needs and goals of the larger organization, and those of the individual employees.

6. Designing Procedures and Protocols: Organizations need to design and put in place a conflict-response and management system, such as sophisticated grievance procedures and reporting protocols, that gives the organization the tools and mechanisms to deal with disputes and conflicts when they arise.

7. Institutionalizing an Ombudsman: The organization may find it useful to appoint from within or hire an ombudsman who can objectively weigh in on contentious issues.

8. Coaching: The organization can also ensure that all senior managers, especially those in leadership positions, have access to individualized executive coaching services to enable them to function at optimum levels.

Organizations may, depending on the context and their specific needs, build into their system some or all of these mechanisms and procedures. Beyond the challenges of dealing with unhappy employees who won’t leave and whom you cannot or choose not to terminate, this approach also has broad applicability in most any interpersonal conflict that occurs in the workplace.

Creative Opportunities in Limited Choice

Immigrants whose right to live in this country is tied to their job have long experienced the challenges of not being able to leave a difficult work situation. Because of the many restrictions inherent in the employment visa, newcomers who come to the United States on an employer-sponsored work permit (such as the H1B visa) often have less flexibility than their colleagues who are citizens or permanent residents. Changing jobs for them entails not just getting a job offer, but the legal hassles and the expense of switching sponsorship from one employee to another.

Some of the frustrations that these workers experience are similar to Nancy’s; however, they are exacerbated by the additional insecurity of being at risk of having to leave the country should they lose their job. Sometimes, though, such situations can present creative opportunities that, strangely enough, come from having limited choice.

In one case, a new immigrant, Rathin, had major conflicts with his supervisor, John. He was so miserable that he considered quitting his job. However he knew that were he to leave the job, he would most likely have to leave the country too, having been sponsored for employment by his company. Not willing to completely disrupt his life, Rathin was forced to adopt innovative ways in which to rebuild his relationship with John, something he might not have tried were he able to easily move on to another job. He decided to ask for an opportunity to go in for mediation with John.

The company agreed to the expense, and both John and Rathin met with a mediator for a couple of sessions. As a result, both employee and manager gained a better understanding of where each of them was coming from, each other’s needs, and the possible causes for frustration.

They were able to communicate better with each other, and they became more sophisticated in dealing with difficult and potentially contentious matters. They were also able to resolve many of the tensions that had prevented them from working well together. Rathin and John now have worked their way to a good professional relationship, and Rathin enjoys his job tremendously.

In this context, conflict is not something to be avoided; it is simply a sign of problems within the organization. In our increasingly complex and ever-shifting world, it is useful to think of conflict as an early warning sign that tells of an impending disconnect between the systems that we have in place and the changing circumstances. It can also tell us of the possible need to reexamine our own philosophies, assumptions, and biases, however well they may have served us in the past.

While conflicts often cause discomfort, are unpleasant, and illuminate the cracks in the system, they also present opportunities for deeper learning, growth, and meaningful change, if we address them creatively and with skill. Today these skills are available to organizations in the shape of a wealth of research, knowledge, and literature on the subject and through access to professionals who have been trained to help individuals and organizations deal with conflict.

Ashok Panikkar (apanikkar@vantagepartners.com) is a communication and conflict-resolution professional. He is presently employed at Vantage Partners, a management consulting firm specializing in building both organizational and individual expertise in negotiations and managing critical relationships.

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Partially as a result of the different settings in which these activities take place, the VCR has remained an underused piece of electronics, while the automobile continues to play a central role in our culture. This example is just one of many that the authors cite in weaving a cautionary tale about relying exclusively on technology — especially information technology — to drive the future of our organizations, institutions, and societies. Instead, we must recognize how social needs — especially around learning — influence our acceptance and successful application of new technologies. If we fail to do so, we’ll continue to build products that people can’t use, design strategies that people won’t implement, and recommend changes that people fail to embrace — regardless of how elegant or sophisticated those solutions may be.

Broken Promises of the Information Age

To bolster their argument, Seely Brown, director of the famed Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, and Duguid, research specialist in social and cultural studies in education at the University of California at Berkeley, explore some of the broken promises of the Information Age. What ever happened to visions of the “paperless office”? Or predictions that the organizations of the 21st century would be flatter and less centralized than their 20th-century counterparts? Or the idea that most of us will soon be working for “virtual corporations,” dialing into the office every day from our homes? Despite now having the technical means to make such divinations realities, we have yet to do so. Are we merely creatures of habit, stubbornly standing in the way of progress? Or are there deeper reasons why the digital revolution hasn’t changed our world as quickly and as completely as some soothsayers had prophesized?

Seely Brown and Duguid believe that many of the predictions about the transforming impact of bits and bytes fail to take human needs and desires into account. They state, “The tight focus on information, with the implicit assumption that if we look after information everything else will fall into place, is ultimately a sort of social and moral blindness.” The authors argue that “rather than condemning humanity as foolish, primitive, or stubborn for sticking with the old and rejecting the new, it seems better to stop and ask why.”

Their probing questions produce interesting — and sometimes counterintuitive — results. For instance, why has the rise of digital communication corresponded with an unfortunate jump in paper consumption, when many predicted that computers would replace the need for printed documents? In exploring this query, Seely Brown and Duguid found that paper is more than just a carrier of information; it offers certain qualities that are challenging to duplicate in electronic form. Documents bear smells, textures, and smudges that convey meaning. For instance, think of the reactions that a letter on high-quality bond, a perfumed notecard, or a tearstained letter can provoke in the recipient — characteristics that are difficult to emulate by computer.

The authors sense that we have found cutting-edge technologies and old-fashioned pen and paper to be complementary rather than competitive. They cite the case of the fax machine, which has grown in popularity even as seemingly more efficient modes of communication have evolved. People still find it useful to be able to scrawl comments on a document and drop it in the fax for instant — and accurate — transmission.

Likewise, for years, pundits have predicted that the rise of e-mail, the Internet, and the World Wide Web would lead to flatter organizations, with information systems replacing middle managers. What these futurists failed to recognize is that managers add value to the flow of information; they aren’t simply conduits that can easily be replaced by machines. And technology can actually lead to greater centralization. With the compression of space and time made possible by digital communication, the main office can now maintain tighter control over branch offices than it could when information flowed more slowly. Thus, technology won’t automatically cause more egalitarian organizational structures; managers still must choose to share power and authority with others.

Knowledge and the Knower

Seely Brown and Duguid also address the topic of knowledge management. In an effort to leverage employees’ learnings and insights, numerous companies have invested fistfuls of money in knowledge databases. But many have found that, despite their best intentions, they have created only static repositories of information. True knowledge is notoriously difficult to “detach” from the knower. As a case in point, the authors cite several companies that have successfully identified best practices in one plant but have been unable to implement those practices in another factory just across town.

Why is transferring knowledge from one plant to another, or from one person to another, so difficult? This question brings us back to the example of the video-cassette recorder — and the social nature of learning. Seely Brown and Duguid refer to anthropologist Julian Orr’s study of the spread of knowledge among Xerox technical representatives — which occurred in spite of the company’s information systems. Orr found that the company-supplied documentation was inadequate for all but the most routine tasks that the reps faced. So the reps found ways to engage in collaborative problem-solving, knowledge sharing, and knowledge creation outside the organization’s formal processes — through telling stories over breakfast or while troubleshooting breakdowns together.

“Become a member of a community, engage in its practices, and you can acquire and make use of its knowledge and information. Remain an outsider, and these will remain indigestible.”

The reps formed a community that was linked by their common practice of servicing copiers. “The members of this community spent a lot of time both working and talking over work together. . . .The talk made the work intelligible, and the work made the talk intelligible. . . . Become a member of a community, engage in its practices, and you can acquire and make use of its knowledge and information. Remain an outsider, and these will remain indigestible.” The reps ultimately adopted a knowledge database that succeeded in becoming a valuable resource because they themselves determined what tips and insights to include. In this case, the technology supported — rather than sought to replace — the workers’ social network and processes.

Learning as a Social Process

Based on their findings, the authors have several recommendations for moving from an information-based to a knowledge-based model of learning. They highlight the power of collaboration, storytelling, and improvisation. They cite the example of a problem-solving session at Xerox that resembled “a series of alternating, improvisational jazz solos, as each [rep] took over the lead, ran with it for a little while, then handed it off to his partner, all against the bass-line continuo of the rumbling machine until finally all came together.” This kind of learning would be difficult to glean from a user’s manual or information database.

Seely Brown and Duguid also advocate balancing formal and informal processes, as well as structure and spontaneity. Too many constraints can limit creativity; too few can hinder productivity. They comment that “The use of deliberate structure to preserve the spontaneity of self-organization may be one of humanity’s most productive assets.”

The authors are careful to point out that knowledge creation and sharing mustn’t remain the purview of the folks in product development. “Businesses have to create new business models, new financial strategies, new organizational structures, and even new institutional frameworks to deal in these new markets.” Companies must look beyond their own walls to view their formal and informal connections with other businesses — especially those located close by. Seely Brown and Duguid point out the synergies present in “clusters” of companies in similar industries, such as the high-tech cluster in Silicon Valley, the Formula 1 cluster of race-car designers outside of London, and the golf-club cluster outside of Los Angeles. Such hotbeds of knowledge on a particular subject can offer economies of scale and broad-reaching networks of practice for all players.

Far from being a pessimistic diatribe about the limits of technology, The Social Life of Information highlights the potential that exists in the human mind and spirit. Time and again, though, the authors remind us that machines, software, and datalines must serve human needs — and that humans don’t exist merely to fulfill a destiny predetermined by our tools. In order to make the most of the incredible technical resources that we’ve created, we need to tailor them to help bring us together rather than allow them to push us farther apart. By remembering that learning and knowledge creation are social processes, we can ultimately leverage the promise of technology to build a better future for all.

Janice Molloy is content director at Pegasus Communications and serves as managing editor of THE SYSTEMS THINKER.

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In the face of day-to-day pressures, groups often leap to solutions after only a modest amount of brainstorming. A systemic approach, however, provides a structured problem-solving process for digging deeper into our most vexing problems.

To get a sense for how systems thinking can be used for problem identification, problem solving, and solution testing, we have outlined a six-step process. To use this process on a problem in your workplace, try the worksheet on page 9.

1. Tell the Story

The starting point for a systems thinking analysis is to get your head above water enough to start thinking about the problem instead of just acting on it. An effective way to do this is to gather together all of the important players in the situation and have each one describe the problem from his or her point of view.

At Bijou Bottling Company, the problem was usually a customer complaint: “Where were the 40 cases of 2-litre Baseball tie-in product that were ordered last week?!” Somehow Bijou would get the goods there on time, whatever it took—including air shipping heavy soda in glass bottles at enormous costs. But this crisis management led to a culture where people built their careers on coming in at the 11th hour and turning around a customer complaint.

2. Draw “Behavior Over Time” Graphs

In the storytelling stage, most of the energy is focused on the pressures of the current moment. When we move to “Behavior Over Time” (BOT) graphs, however, we begin to connect the present to the past and move from seeing events to recognizing patterns over time.

Draw only one variable per graph on a Post-it note so it can be easily moved around in the steps that follow. The time frame should span from past up to the present—but it can also include future projections (see “Bijou Over Time”).

3. Create a Focusing Statement

At this point, you want to create a statement that will help channel energy during the rest of the process. This statement may involve a picture of what people want, or a question about why certain problems are occurring. At Bijou, for example, the focusing statement was: “We’re pretty good at solving each problem as it arises. But why are these problems recurring with greater frequency and intensity? What is causing them?”

BIJOU OVER TIME

At Bijou, crisis management efforts had increased over time, while the effectiveness of the production/distribution system had decreased.

4. Identify the Structure

You now want to describe the systemic structures that are creating the behavior patterns you identified. The systems archetypes are an easy way to begin building a theory of why and how things are happening (see “Systems Archetypes at a Glance,” V22N6, August 2011).

Begin by reviewing the story, graphs, and focusing statement to see if they follow the storyline of an archetype. If so, draw the loop diagram for that archetype, place the Post-its of the variables in the diagram, and move them around on a flip chart until you have a diagram that seems to capture what is going on.

The group at Bijou decided that their problem matched the “Shifting the Burden” storyline, in which a problem is “solved” by applying a short-term solution that takes attention away from more fundamental improvements. They identified a balancing loop that described how customer problems were solved with heroic “11th-Hour” efforts (the symptomatic solution) at the expense of improvement and redesign of the production/distribution system (the fundamental solution). As people “learned” over time that heroism is rewarded, their willingness and ability to address system-wide problems decreased (see “Shifting the Burden to Heroism”).

SHIFTING THE BURDEN TO HEROISM

At Bijou, customer problems were solved with heroic “11th-Hour” efforts (B1) rather than with improvements in the production/distribution system (B2). Over time, people at Bijou “learned” that heroism is rewarded, which reduced their willingness and ability to address system-wide problems and increased the company’s dependence on heroic efforts (R3). One negative side-effect of Bijou’s “heroism” attitude was that customers were taking problem situations and escalating them to crises in order to get the company’s attention (B4).

5. Going Deeper into the Issues

Once you have a reasonably good theory of what is happening, it is time to take a deeper look at the underlying issues in order to move from understanding to action. There are four areas you should clarify:

• Purpose of the System. Ask yourself, “In the larger context, what do we really want here?”
• Mental Models. Begin the exploration of mental models by adding “thought bubbles” to those links in the diagram that represent choices being made (see “Mental Models and Systems Thinking: Going Deeper into Systemic Issues,” V23N5, June/July 2012).
• The Larger System. Add links and loops to enrich the story and connect the relationships to the larger system.
• Personal Role. Acknowledge and clarify your own role in the situation.

For example, when the people at Bijou looked at the larger system, they wondered what role their customers played in the system. They theorized that customers were taking problem situations and escalating them into crises in order to get the company’s attention (B4).

6. Plan an Intervention

When planning an intervention, use your knowledge of the system to design a solution that will structurally change it to produce the results you want. This might take the form of adding a new link or loop that will produce desirable behavior, breaking a link or loop that produces undesirable behavior, or a combination of the two. The most powerful interventions often involve changing the thinking of the people involved in the system.

At Bijou, the key to change was realizing that the problems were largely self-inflicted. They realized that they had to make progress on production/distribution system improvements while still doing enough fire-fighting to keep things afloat. In the longer term, they would need to change the reward systems that promoted heroic behavior. They also recognized the need to sustain the improvement efforts even when the pressure came off—otherwise the problems would be back again soon.

Part of a Cycle

Even as systems thinkers, it is easy to fall back into a linear process. But learning is a cycle—not a once-through process with a beginning and an end. Once you have designed and tested an intervention, it is time to shift into the active side of the learning cycle. This process includes taking action, seeing the results, and then coming back to examine the outcomes from a systemic perspective.

Michael Goodman is an internationally recognized speaker, author, and practitioner in the fields of systems thinking, organizational learning and change, and leadership.

Richard Karash is a founding trustee of the Society for Organizational Learning, a founding member of the SoL Coaching Community of Practice, and a co-creator of “Coaching from a Systems Perspective.”

Editorial support for this article was provided by Colleen Lannon.

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