Defensive Force

Watching Seinfeld tonight Elaine was bemoaning the fact that she wasn’t seen as responsible enough to babysit a friend’s child. “Who wants to be responsible” responded Jerry Seinfeld “Whenever anything goes wrong the first thing they ask is who is responsible”.

It’s a question that has exercised the mind of the auditor general:  why did four Defence Force officers falsely claim allowances while on secondment to the UN. Listening to interviews on the radio on the way to my run this evening I heard “they’ve been disciplined”, “won’t happen again” and “they only claimed what they were entitled to remember” several times. What I didn’t hear was mention of culture and values that the auditor general had identified as underlying causes of the falsities.

At times of crisis, the leaders of any organisation will need to adopt a command and control leadership style, where directions are given and acted upon without question. The Defence business while on operations surely fits into this camp. But what about the rest of the time? Can the culture switch as required or is there just one culture?

We get glimpses of  an organisation’s culture through stuff that pops out externally – staff retention, how problems are dealt with, choices people make about where to work and statements from leaders are the sorts of things where we can pick up clues. So when its said that the culture and values caused the environment that gave rise to the false claims what culture are we talking about? Is this the culture that requires obedience to superior officers in all circumstances, even when illegal?

On the one hand you need to have officers able to unquestioningly respond to orders. But outside of operations you need to have a culture that allows questioning, coaching and responsibility for ones own actions. Sounds like a big challenge.

So when I listened to the radio tonight I heard all the things that one might expect with the organisation top-down rule book approach to “make things happen”.  “I will ensure that it doesn’t happen again”. That’s a fine aim, but you won’t if you don’t change the culture. And you won’t change the culture by doing treating the problem with the same culture that caused it. That dreadful defensiveness that uses rules and structures to avoid the potential embarrassment of having to explore the root causes that the auditor general identified.

So who is responsible? Is that even the right question? I believe that in leadership discovery we need to start with self. You won’t be acting without integrity and blind unquestioning if you’re authentic. But if your leadership paridigm is about finding new ways to control and strategise then you’re not even scratching the surface – you’re still on the command and control, but with fancy words.

Leadership discovery of authenticity. It’s the best defence against a culture that is not right, and the most sustainable way to embed real change.

That’s got a lot of force to it I reckon.

Stephen

Have the cops been raiding the bank?

It’s almost a year since  I first wrote on this blog. My second blog was about our trust bank which got me thinking yesterday about my home town.  There’s been a lot of trouble down there in Christchurch lately. Boy Racers are winding everyone up, there’s been quite a few hold-ups and yesterday two police officers were shot.  Fortunately they survived, but not so the police dog Gage. There’s an increasing awareness that quite a lot of crime is directed at police.

The police commissioner Howard Broad has now said that he’s going to make guns more accessible to the police. There’s new laws being introduced to make it a more serious offence to assault a police officer. They have stun guns. We’re building lots of prison cells to keep people temporarily away from us (99% are coming out one day to a neighbourhood near you). We’re told by the police union that the police will need to get tougher as society is not showing the respect that is due.

When I put this all together I’m disturbed. I’m mostly disturbed by the proposition that a lack of respect is a problem that is only has one side to it. In coaching, I often say to my coachees that there is only one person you can truly change and the best place to start is with that person.

Over Queen’s Birthday weekend we were told that the police were going all out to slow us down and that patrols were going to be out in force, which in fact, they appeared to be. Only one person died on the roads that weekend. Subsequent (shorter weekends) have not been so flash. It turned out that many of the police cars parked up apparently to get the speeding public were empty. It was a con.

The tone and content of police communication to those it serves has become increasingly lecturing and telling. Anyone with a modicum of leadership understanding will know the impact of such behaviour on a team. And importantly, what deposits are being made in the trust bank with the public by the police from its minister down, to us public? The solutions appear reminiscent of bronze-age “eye for an eye” thinking, rather than addressing underlying issues.

I am certain and know that individual police officer’s efforts are in many respects outstanding. Ask any country cop about his or her relationship with the community and you will soon find that trust, goodwill and working together are ingredients that are not just advantageous, but essential, for getting the job done with the community. The trust bank has healthy deposits.

Should we expect our police and our government to look inside and explore their behaviour? Would some deep reflection about trust benefit? What about other stuff outside the realm of policing that actually causes crime? I reckon it would. I’m realistic of course and know that the man who shot the cops yesterday will and should get what he deserves (including a shave!). But if personal leadership requires trust, then so does organisational leadership and if it’s not led by the police, we won’t be solving anything.

Should the police and its masters do more about making some deposits into the trust bank with us? It’s easy and simple to think that the police aren’t responsible for crime, they’re only responsible for picking up the mess that criminals create. Even if that’s the case, I think we can fairly and squarely say that what we’re doing with tougher, bronze-age solutions, just ain’t working.

I reckon as well as being tough, we need to see some deposits in the trust bank. Empty police cars, crooked cops and lecturing to us has raided the bank. Before we need shotguns in the front of patrol cars, let’s see some real leadership. Some self reflection and building of trust with the community. Afterall, we’re all one. The police are ours, for us.

Does your organisation have a trust bank with its community?

Refresh

I hope that the people who interacted with us during Leadership Week both at our workshops or the many that I am grateful passed by this blog and the Centre’s site took something away.  If they did, I hope that something grows. Discovering my leadership happens at many levels as I was reminded again today by my friend Dr Vikram Murthy.  We can now see on MRI examinations much of what we previously estimated through observations and testing. It’s a bit like knowing the world is round by looking at it from space. Not that long ago we humans thought it was flat, but slowly the thinking developed and we established that it was, well you know the rest! These developments in Neuroscience are  incredibly exciting. The neuroscientist Sam Harris has put forward the proposition that the determination of our values can also be from a scientific basis. More on all this another day.

Last week was both exhilarating and tiring. Exhilarating as I watched eyes opened to values, authenticity and leadership discovery. These were eyes that might not ordinarily get to go on a course. Tiring because, I’m proud to say, I gave it all at our workshops. To do less would have just been work. Add shop to work and I’m away!

I see my diary has another authenticity workshop this week at the ATEM Aotearoa Conference. Fortunately for me I was playing around with the AUT HR system and got myself some leave yesterday (strange but true) and I spent time refreshing.  We all need to refresh and now I’m ready for more.

That we can continually discover things about ourselves and our leadership is the most exciting part of it all. When we think it’s done and dusted, then I reckon that’s when we’re done and dusted. But today I feel like it’s just starting again.

Bring it on!

A week of it

Tomorrow morning I’m going to run a workshop about authentic leadership. I’m pretty certain that Mother Teresa, described as Mother of Mercy will get another airing – my mother, in an act of mercy to someone she never knew,  suggested to me “leave the poor woman alone – she can’t defend herself”. Mum’s right (though if Mother Teresa is where she thought she was going then I guess she can!). We’re also going to talk about personal branding and see if we can discover what if anything, the relationship is between that and authenticity.

Two surveys came out today – one was about who the most trusted New Zealander is and the other was about the most trusted brand. Notice that we weren’t asked to decide who the best branded person was? Not that surprising really for me – if you’ve read any of my blogs you’ll know that I go on a bit about trust and its relationship with leadership and authenticity.

So, authenticity and leadership week. This week came about to celebrate Sir Peter Blake. He struck me at times as a bit gruff and someone who didn’t take any nonsense. If you’re big into emotional intelligence you might say there’s some work to be done if you’re gruff.  But then again, you might think it’s authentic to be who you are. The author Christopher Hitchens who got me thinking about Mother Teresa declares in his book Love, Poverty and War (after describing how, objectively, his life is good and satisfying) that “I wake up ever day to a sensation of pervading disgust and annoyance”. The book explains much of this annoyance.

So I ask myself, if I have a sense of irritation or gruffness, should I exhibit my maximum emotional intelligence and restrain myself? Or are there times to let rip at the ignoramus who texts in the movies, or the paper-pushing bureaucratic that spends our taxes justifying a decision?!! My coach says that I need to get mad sometimes. I’m not sure that this is the week to start. After all, I’m putting myself and others I work with out there to be involved in Leadership Week and people might expect…expect what? Caught myself.

Sorry Mother Teresa (and my Mum). If you are just a brand, expect no mercy!

Stephen