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)

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According to the dictionary, trust has essentially two meanings:

• To have confidence in someone, or
• To expect/hope/suppose that someone will act or something will happen.

In the workplace, we need to consider this distinction. For me, real trust is about the first definition — the belief in a person’s ability to perform a specific task under specific circumstances. It is a positive statement about the relationship between two people:, “I believe you are capable of [taking some action].” This form of trust implies interdependence and is crucial to the development of a healthy relationship.

The second meaning connotes obligation:, “I expect that you will [take some action].” As such, it implies dependence in the relationship. This attitude blocks the development of an equal partnership, where both parties can feel fully valued. Unfortunately, this latter definition of trust is all too prevalent in many organizations.

We Are in This Together

Why is real trust so important? Studies have shown that it improves task effectiveness, because it reduces the need for people to check up on each other. Great teamwork requires real trust because members need to feel confident that their coworkers are fulfilling their commitments as they work interdependently toward the same aim. In relationships based on the first definition of trust, people feel relaxed and can communicate openly; these factors boost individual and group enthusiasm for joint undertakings. Lack of real trust increases anxiety, diverts attention from the task, stifles innovation, and drains energy.

But real trust can be difficult to achieve. All too often, we see people as assets or things that are ultimately replaceable. We forget that others have aspirations and needs, and, given the opportunity, want to do their best at work. We fail to acknowledge that the individuals who design, operate, and manage our organizations are key to our mutual success.

Dynamics of Trust and Control

When an organization fails to achieve the desired performance, managers have a choice (see “Trust and Control”). They can set in place mechanisms designed to reduce the performance gap — procedures, scripts, checks, and measures that assess and constrain performance. Or they can trust their staff and colleagues and support them by having a clear common purpose, coaching and encouraging them, and engendering a collaborative learning culture.

Command Loop. One option for addressing the performance gap is to introduce control, setting in motion the Command loop. At first, the control may take a supportive form. Common, standardized practices can help everyone behave consistently and successfully. Managers usually introduce control with this positive intent, believing that if the implementation is well managed and aligned to a common purpose, then everything should be okay.

The problem occurs when managers see control mechanisms as the means to minimize performance gaps and use them more and more frequently. They rely less on coaching and open discussion for learning and fine-tuning performance, falling back instead on policing mechanisms designed to ensure compliance with rules.

TRUST AND CONTROL

In the Command loops, managers address a performance gap by instilling control mechanisms and standardized practices. This approach works in the short term, but over time, workers’ level of commitment falls and further undermines performance. In the Nurturing loops, real trust builds on itself, leading to improved performance.

Inherent within the Command loop is the second definition of trust — “I trust that you will…,” meaning “I expect you to adhere to these rules/standards.” These requirements do not constitute real trust in someone; they are about compliance with a directive.

Yet people are not machines. As Maslow documented more than a half century ago, we all have a basic need for fulfillment and involvement. To command performance in a work environment may have been successful when commanders held the lives of workers or slaves in their hands. Today, workers have a totally different set of rights and expectations. People typically respond to being told what to do by digging in their heels or complying with reduced self-motivation. Both responses are saying, “If you don’t trust me, then why should I bother?”

If you’ve never experienced this dynamic, believe me, you don’t want to. It can be debilitating for any team or organization. Compliance costs people and companies money, mental energy, and time. When the use of control mechanisms escalates, it undermines individual and team performance and leads to a pervasive lack of trust.

When this happens, the challenge becomes more than just addressing the performance gap; it involves addressing increasing numbers of employee issues. Employees behave in ways that may not conform with their supervisors’ wishes as they seek to rationalize the rules with their own needs and understanding of what will work. They may lack motivation or commitment, as demonstrated by increased absenteeism; they may become obsessive and emotionally volatile, rejecting all outside input; or they may become politicized, seeking allegiances and undermining perceived threats to their survival.

Suppliers, customers, and other third parties readily pick up on the lack of trust. The organization probably uses the command loop with them, too. No doubt it seemed like a good, or at least an expeditious, idea at the time!

Once lost, real trust can be hard to rekindle. In a control culture, if people’s performance isn’t what managers want it to be, then managers ironically put additional controls in place. But, as Evert Gummesson states in Total Relationship Marketing (Butterworth-Heinemann, 1999), “Trust cannot be assured through contracts.”

Nurturing Loop. The other option is to address the performance gap through the Nurturing loop. Here, real trust allows for open communication when a problem occurs. Healthy relationships and open communication enable people to work together to proactively learn how to address the gap efficiently and effectively. Basic guidelines and protocols provide consistency and help people avoid illegalities. However, any control mechanisms should be minimal, designed with the involvement of the relevant operational teams.

For the Nurturing loop to succeed, the organization must have a clear, explicit common purpose to which all goals and decisions are aligned. This provides a coherent message and environment with which people can engage and to which they can contribute positively. Everyone is explicitly going in the same direction. Trusting appropriately recruited people to meet the agreed performance goals breeds a positive, supportive team environment and serves as a basis for success.

People may lack a common purpose because none exists in the organization, or because it’s not clearly communicated. Humans are goal-oriented beings. We need something to justify our actions and from which to derive self-worth and a sense of identity. Without a common purpose to work toward, we create our own goals or ask colleagues and friends until we find one that makes sense for us.

As a result, most people in the organization have different goals and act in disparate ways. When different parts of the organization try to achieve different things, tension builds. Managers then put more controls in place. In these circumstances, it can be hard to establish a common purpose, as people may have been working to their own strongly defined goals for some time and will be wary of the new initiative.

Solutions

If you find yourself in a control culture, take heart; there are things that you can do.

1. Understand why the situation is as it is, identify the difference that will make a difference, and leverage change for the better. Finding out about the situation helps to inform you of the underlying dynamics:
   • What and who is sustaining, or benefiting from, the distrust?
   • Who is predisposed and motivated to address it?
   • What sense of “we’re in this together” exists?
   • Where is the leadership?
   • What do people feel they need to move forward?

   Once you’ve identified the dynamics; the players and their goals, motivators, and beliefs; and people’s openness to change and desire to get involved, then you can start to plan your approach to reinstate real trust. The aim is to decide on the most efficacious route to break the patterns in a sustainable way. This can be difficult; organizations driven by red-tape, procedures, and protocols are usually plagued by inertia, providing an extra challenge to change.

2. Stop the cycle of distrust and find ways as a group to rebuild positive relationships.
3. Get a commitment from top leaders to follow through on a program of re-engagement and realignment in the organization.
4. As an individual, define your own overarching goal. Work to nurture and protect your team as you build support for your approach with colleagues and senior managers. All the time, you must align your actions and decisions to your goal, even if you don’t explicitly refer to it. If people are used to following controls, you may even have to create new, aligned procedures and processes until you are able to dismantle the old ones.

Some organizations are so deeply entrenched in the cycle of distrust that one person alone won’t be able to make much of a difference. In that case, you have two choices. First, you can accept the ways things are, do your 9 to 5, and enjoy life. If you work in a large organization full of inertia, you’ll be okay for a while. At some point, you’re likely to become deadwood in the eyes of colleagues. At that point, you either should move on or take another stab at implementing change.

The second choice is to find somewhere else to work. You’ll feel good and will leave on a positive note, looking forward to the next part of your life.

Conclusion

Tom Peters speaks of trust as being the “single most important contributor to the maintenance of human relationships. And for business, it can, quite simply, mean the difference between success and failure.” Relationships are about achieving more together than we could on our own. If problems occur, the most fruitful approach is to work with people to resolve them, based on trust, open communication, and proactive learning. For once you start putting in systems of control that force or constrain behaviors, you will be on the slippery slope toward lower performance and a dysfunctional organization.

David Newport (david@effectivevision.co.uk) is an NLP Practitioner and ergonomist, with a background in qualitative research and operations direction. He works with people and organizations to help them understand the behavioral traits and dynamics that impact both their customer experience and bottom line.

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From the Bedroom . . .

How might two people who view themselves as “playing for the same team” find themselves acting as adversaries? Consider an example from the homefront. Maria and John have been married for five years. As their relationship matured, their levels of intimacy and trust blossomed (see Trajectory A in “The Ups and Downs”). More recently, however, they havebeen riding an emotional roller coaster ride, as indicated by Trajectory B. What is going on?

As shown in “The Accidental Adversaries Trap” on p. 7, this rollercoaster behavior is caused by shifts in the dominance of two reinforcing processes. During the good times, the “Healthy Relationship” loop (R1) is dominant. John and Maria’s quality of life is high, and each acts in ways that contribute to his or her partner’s well-being. When R1 is in full flight, the quality of the relationship heads upward.

THE UPS AND DOWNS

As a relationship matures, the partners’ levels of intimacy blossom (Trajectory A). However, it is easy to slip into an adversarial relationship leading either to an exhausting roller-coaster ride (Trajectory B) or to a break-up (Trajectory C). Trajectory D represents the wobbly—yet continuous—improvement in the relationship that can result from managing the “Accidental Adversaries” dynamic

From time to time, however, Maria or John takes actions that unintentionally disturb the other party. For instance, when faced with stress at home or in the office, John withdraws because it makes him feel better (B2). Maria then becomes irritated by John’s unwillingness to talk through what is on his mind. She copes with the situation by venting her frustration with periodic bursts of anger or tears (B3). However, her outbursts disturb and confuse John, leaving him to wonder what he did wrong. The couple falls into a vicious cycle that undermines the quality of their relationship—the “Dysfunctional Relationship” loop (R4).

If asked to account for the ups and downs of their relationship, John and Maria are likely to give an eventlevel explanation that focuses on specific incidents. The “Accidental Adversaries” structure highlights what is counter-intuitive to them: that their actions contribute to the behavior that they so dislike in their partner. Although they ultimately work things out, the result of this see-saw pattern of behavior is that John and Maria aren’t as close as they would like to be.

The “Healthy Relationship” loop operates while the pair’s behavior is team-centered. As the “Dysfunctional Relationship” loop takes hold, Maria and John both focus more and more on their own quality of life, becoming increasingly self-centered. If R4 were to remain dominant, the quality of the relationship would be thoroughly undermined (Trajectory C in “The Ups and Downs”): Maria and John would have inadvertently become adversaries. If this situation were to persist, they might eventually split up. But because they value their relationship, they have a pattern of regular “clearing the air” spats. These discussions help them to recognize their own contribution to the miserable situation, and lead them to resolve to act differently in the future. Dominance shifts from R4 back to R1, at least for a time.

. . . to the Boardroom

Chances are that you have seen the same dynamics occurring between groups within organizations. For instance, have you noticed how the human resources function in many companies often finds itself in an adversarial role with the groups that it is attempting to support? This service role should be the basis for strong, trusting relationships—so what goes wrong? To map the structure, you might want to redraw “The Accidental Adversaries Trap” with HR in place of John and your own function in place of Maria (you can compare your diagram to the authors’ version at www.pegasuscom.com/hrloop.html).

In the “Healthy Relationship” loop (R1), HR offers high-quality services that contribute to your group’s success. In response, your group relies more heavily on HR, bringing them success and allowing them to extend the range of services they provide. These new offerings help to boost your department’s productivity.

Too often, though, the internal loops of the “Accidental Adversaries” structure (B2, B3, and R4) shape the relationship. HR responds to breaches of regulations that put the company at risk—and threaten their success— by instituting a policy that restricts your group’s autonomy. Your group may believe that this policy interferes with its ability to conduct business— HR should be supporting your initiatives instead of hampering them! The group might side-step the constraints and continue to do what it wants to do. HR then feels even more threatened by your policy breaches, leading them to step up their restrictions. Soon, your departments are trapped in an ongoing power struggle—to the detriment of the organization as a whole.

Out of Adversity

What lessons does the “Accidental Adversaries” structure hold for those wanting to build strong partnerships? Clearly, it is easy to slip into an adversarial relationship leading to either an exhausting roller-coaster ride (Trajectory B) or a break-up (Trajectory C). The challenge is to strengthen the “Healthy Relationship” loop, allowing it to remain dominant

One way to do so is for the parties in a relationship to avoid acting solely in their own interests, instead doing things that contribute to the other person’s success. This selfless approach would mean that John would learn how to talk openly rather than withdraw, and Maria would learn how to handle her frustrations in new ways.

The risk involved is that one party might take advantage of the other. And in many situations, people or departments cannot give up actions that may bring them into conflict with others. For instance, HR cannot ignore regulatory breaches—it must find ways of maintaining constructive relationships with other groups while protecting the interests of the entire company.

More enduring results can come from both encouraging selflessness in the relationship and weakening key links in the “Dysfunctional Relationship” loop (see the dotted arrows in “The Accidental Adversaries Trap”). Managing the relationship involves each party (1) recognizing that the other is going to do things for themselves from time to time, and (2) learning to observe the consequences without assuming bad intent by their partner. This approach allows for some wobble in the relationship without allowing the “Dysfunctional Relationship” loop to become dominant. Trajectory D in “The Ups and Downs” represents the wobbly—yet continuous—improvement in relationships that can result when partners act with insight into this systemic structure.

Strong partnerships are essential for learning. The “Accidental Adversaries” structure illustrates the need to work at building relationships, rather than letting them fall into adversarial conflict by default

THE ACCIDENTAL ADVERSARIES TRAP

During the good times, John and Maria’s quality of life is high, and each acts in ways that contribute to his or her partner’s well-being (R1). However, when faced with stress, John withdraws because it makes him feel better (B2). Maria becomes irritated and copes with the situation by venting her frustration (B3). The couple falls into a vicious cycle that undermines the quality of their relationship (R4).

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We spoke with the manager of a billing department at one hospital who makes it a point to know the workloads and the personal circumstances of each member of her unit; that way she can cut people slack when they need extra support. For example, when one employee’s husband suffered kidney failure and was awaiting a transplant, the billing manager gave the woman a pager and organized a team of people who could step in and pick up the woman’s work on a moment’s notice. That way, the employee would be able to take her husband to the hospital without delay if a kidney became available.

Is the leadership in your organization as empathetic and flexible as that hospital’s billing department manager? Stress is on the rise in all organizations. The pressure on earnings at publicly traded companies has created a demand for “doing more with less.” At the same time, consumer expectations for uniquely tailored products and services have led to customer dissatisfaction. That there seems to be no relief to the stress makes the workplace even more stressful.

Empathy and Flexibility

Managers trying to alleviate the stress felt by colleagues have two strategies available: empathy and flexibility. Empathy is nothing more complicated than caring about someone, but authentic caring begins with knowledge. That billing department manager had to know a lot about the circumstances of her colleague’s family. What’s more, she had to care enough to feel responsible for a solution. Most managers think they know a lot about people they work with; countless studies show they don’t. Most managers say they care a lot about the people they work with; experience casts doubt on that as well.

Here’s a simple test. Think of someone who works with you. Write down their three most important values. Then write a short sentence describing their primary career goal. Finally, write down two of their fears. To get an “A” in this test, check out your answers with the person you selected. Let them confirm what you do or do not know about them. I’ve done this countless times in organizations. The pattern is always the same: Few workers know much about their colleagues’ values, goals, and fears.

As the stress increases in organizations, managers’ success will be based on how well they help others deal with it.

Flexibility is equally important to stress management. Here’s another story, this one from Barbara Ehrenreich in The New York Times (, “Two-Tiered Morality” by Barbara Ehrenreich, June 30, 2002):

When I applied for a job at Wal-Mart in the spring of 2000, I was reprimanded for getting something “wrong” on this (job applicant’s) test: I had agreed only “strongly” to the proposition, “All rules have to be followed to the letter at all times.” The correct answer was “totally agree.”

That kind of inflexible adherence to rules, regulations, and dogma prevents smart managers from putting empathy into action. I’m sure the billing manager’s hospital had some regulation on the books that might have prevented her flexible response, but wisely, she found a way around it. How flexible is your organization in allowing you some wiggle room to take care of people?

Reciprocal Trust

Often, the issue is trust. Do companies trust their managers? Do managers trust the people they supervise? Trust is reciprocal. If you trust others, they are more likely to trust you. Here’s a story from Peter Scholtes, author of The Leader’s Handbook: A Guide to Inspiring Your People and Managing the Daily Workflow (McGraw-Hill, 1998): The Falk Corporation of Milwaukee found its restrictive funeral-leave policy was creating widespread dissatisfaction among employees and resulting in a lot of time off for funerals. Managers at Falk realized that although they believed more than 95 percent of their employees were “trustworthy,” company policies were designed to keep the 5 percent in line. To align company policies with employee trustworthiness, Falk changed its rigid, seven-graph policy on bereavement leave to read: “If you require time off due to the death of a friend or family member, make arrangements with your supervisor.” The result surprised everyone: In the next year, the number of days off for bereavement declined more than 50 percent.

As the stress increases in organizations, managers’ success will be based on how well they help others deal with it. If you don’t know much about your people, and care even less, you won’t be very effective. If you don’t find ways to work the system to help them get what they need to cope, you will fall short of your own potential as a leader.

Edward Miller, (miller@newsroomleadership.com) is a personal and professional coach to journalists and news executives., “Reflections on Leadership,” his weekly e-mail essay on newsroom management and leadership, is read by more than 10,000 journalists around the world. A consultant to media companies in the U. S., Finland and Sweden, Edward is the former editor and publisher of The Morning Call in Allentown, PA.

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