Creative Leadership Coaching

Carman, Thank you, as always, for your post. Your contributions really enrich this forum. The dynamics you describe resonate with what Riane Eisler would call Dominator dynamics, which describe theory x organizations. In a Dominator culture, one is either one up or one down from others. It also invokes the dual-nature you describe (”Who is addressing me?”)

I am also reminded of the psychological dynamics in which people who are abused in some way, often abuse certain others, as a way of regaining their sense of personal power. You shared Freire’s quote, “Any situation in which some individuals prevent others from engaging in the process of inquiry is one of violence.” I think we are so accustomed to these more subtle forms of violence (as compared to physical violence) that they tend to be relatively invisible to us. I think it’s helpful for us to broaden our understanding of violence and coercion.

Eisler identifies the fundamental model of human relationships as the family, and that resonates with me. From that perspective, our organizations are, in a sense, the family or community model writ large.

I enjoy hearing about your walks and life. Have a terrific week!

Lisa

“We shape our dwellings, and afterwards our dwellings shape us.”

Hello Lisa,

Thank you for your discussion of consciousness in the context of organizational transformation. The sunshine of such examination shining through the tears of my lived experience has generated a rainbow of emotions and ideas. I will attempt to integrate some of these from your spectrum.

I especially enjoy the reference to Socrates who seemed to equate quality of life with self-examination. Freire put it this way, “Any situation in which some individuals prevent others from engaging in the process of inquiry is one of violence” (Pedagogy of the Oppressed, p.66).

Your post includes references to “supports,” “connections,” and “foundations.” The image of the house or “dwelling that shapes us” comes to mind. Freire likewise speaks about “the structure of thought” in the context of oppression. Speaking about the oppressed, Freire says, “their ideal is to be men; but for them, to be men is to be oppressors” (p.27). He suggests that employees actually “house” the boss and that this habitation both determines their identity as men and women, and dictates their actions towards one another. Freire describes this process as “hosting” the oppressor (p.30).

Elsewhere he says that the “boss” is “inside them” (p. 46). The consequence is “adhesion” to the employer (p.27) within a colonized consciousness which renders us dual beings, “they are at one and the same time themselves and the oppressor whose consciousness they have internalized” (p30). In this state we might ‘strike out at our comrades [or loved ones] for the pettiest reasons’ (p.44).

“It is a rare peasant who, once “promoted” to overseer, does not become more of a tyrant towards his former comrades than the owner himself” (p.28) “Their ideal is to be men [sic]; but for them, to be men is to be oppressors. This is their model of humanity” (p.27). According to this logic, we invariably take our work home with us because we house the “boss” within us. We are dual beings.

While I do concede that Freire is speaking about “peasants,” I also believe that the principles are applicable across a range of organizational experience. I am not suggesting that all employers are “oppressors.” Freire is primarily thinking about those who dehumanize others by treating them as “objects,” “things,” “inferiors,” “possessions.” Periodically, when a ‘comrade’ speaks about the work they are doing, or what “needs to be done” I want to ask, “Who is addressing me?” “Who is speaking to me?” because I sense that I am addressing a dual being. I confess that it’s difficult at times to know whose “voice” I am hearing—or what voice I am using. Many of us will, in fact, say “we” when speaking about our organization and its policies.

At times when I witness emotional fissures and interpersonal frictions I wonder to what extent we are expressing the duality dynamic Freire addresses. I also wonder to what extent sickness and stress are expressions of a conscious or subconscious inner battle between the individual and the employer?

Freire says, “The task of the humanists is to see that the oppressed become aware of the fact that as dual beings, “housing” the oppressors within themselves, they cannot be truly human” (p.70). He says that “liberation” is a childbirth, and a painful one (p.31). I am grateful to have a “midwife” like you Lisa to assist with such delivery.

Bye for now!

p.s. “we” are going for a seawall walk now.

Carman

Freire, Paulo. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: Continuum, 2007.

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Readers and writers who visit this blog are engaging with facinating and powerful questions and ideas.

One recent search term that brought someone to this blog was, “the role of the unconscious in organizational transformation.” It raises the topic of the unconscious in both personal, organizational and cultural dynamics and transformation.

What do we mean by unconscious? We’ve learned that unconscious patients perceive and process information — they hear what is said and what they hear can positively or negatively affect their recovery. So the unconscious is part of our experience, but it is unexamined experience. The unconscious also contains the connections between experiences. If you touch a hot surface and are burned, that information is there; and such connections are the raw components of belief. We also develop attitudes and orientations towards our experience: life is an adventure; life is an ordeal; people will help you or hurt you, etc. The connections we make are influenced by the events themselves, our orientation/attitudes — or interpretative lenses, pre-existing clusters of associations, and our received cultural beliefs — both explicit and implied. We look for evidence to support our existing beliefs; and receive biological rewards when we find them.

However, like the proverbial iceburg, most of our beliefs, including our interpretative lenses, are below our conscious awareness. And many of the foundations for these beliefs were set at in our earliest experiences, a time when we lacked our present insight and experience. Yet it’s these beliefs, orientations, lenses that are the locomotives of our lives. Hence, Carl G. Jung’s assertion that until we make the unconscious conscious, it will rule our lives and we will call it fate. This also resonates with Socrates’ “the unexamined life is not worth living.” Although I think Socrates overstates his case a bit, as a coach, I can testify that the examined life can become a great adventure, because when we examine many of our limiting beiefs, we find that they are actually not true.

The same principles apply with respect to organizations. It’s interesting to think in terms of a personal unconscious and a collective unconscious, the interaction amongst our unconscious beliefs, shaped by our personal and organizational histories. This is potentially a very fruitful area for organizational transformation. Thank you to our visitor for raising the topic.

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Hi Carman,
I apologize that it has been taking me so long to respond to your thoughtful and insightful posts. I appreciate your ongoing contributions to this endeavor!

Thank you (first) for your discussion of cultures of silence. The quote you chose from Charles Davis was a very apt illustration of how we internalize the power structures in which we participate:

“Exterior un-freedom causes interior un-freedom. A child first learns to talk or think aloud, then afterwards to think without voicing its thought.”

Deconstructive postmodernists (with whom I share both agreement and disagreement) have observed that assertions of truth are acts of power. This is very evident in a court of law, where attorneys put forth a view of reality which serves them and their clients. This is also true in dominator organizations, where authority and power are often perceived to arise (in part) from being “right” and where, in a circular way, might makes right. Certain views and positions become “legitimate” and others, which question or challenge these perspectives may be viewed as heritical or a power play. (1)

In the same way that in a dominator family, a child is shusshed for “talking back” or challenging parental authority, in dominator organizations, members may be admonished for raising perspectives and positions that challenge organizational orthodoxy. (This seems to come back to your post on orgaizations as theocracies…). And what is true of families and organizations is also true with respect to our larger institutions and culture.

So, in dominator organizations, organizational members learn to silence themselves, effectively internalizing the outer controls, so as to avoid “punishment.” This self-silencing can become so automatic, that we are barely consciously aware of it.

Further, it is also taboo to discuss the silencing itself. Because it pulls back the covers on power relationships, challenges the legitimacy and absoluteness of existing truth claims, and because there is the sensibility that “that war” was already fought and won,” raising the existance of the taboo tends to both threaten and irritate people. A very successful control structure maintains both the silence and suppression of awareness or discussion of the silence itself.

Conversely, speaking in our own voice is a form of self-assertion, of “power-from-within.” And, when we share our truths an perspectives as part of a mutually-respectful dialogue or larger conversation, this sharing can become the co-creative “power-with” in which the flow of energy and ideas in the group gives rise to broader insights and more powerful ideas than would be the case of a person acting singly. Master coach Karen Capello calls this the power of authenticity: http://www.creativeleadercoach.com/2009/01/03/power-of-authenticity/

It is the empowering, creative energy that organizations want and need. The challenge, as I see it, is that to be truly creative, many organizations need to rethink their assumptions about power and knowledge, and the role of leadership.

(1) This is not always true, of course. Alternative ideas may be considered within certain bounds, depending on both the idea and the speaker. (This speaks to the concept of rhetorical communities).

http://www.creativeleadercoach.com/2008/04/09/suppression-of-upwards-communication-in-traditional-organizations/

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Hi Lisa,

Thank you for the opportunity to engage in creative communion–and to make the “unconscious conscious.” I believe it was systems scholar Bela Banathy who said, “the beginning of wisdom is to call things by their right names.”

I have begun to question the traditional labor market [employer-employee] nomenclature as an example of such mislabeling. When we strip away the legal lacquer and peel back the political politeness a master-slave paradigm appears to be the underlying animus.

Freire calls “domination” a “fundamental” phenomenon:

“I consider the fundamental theme of our epoch to be that of domination—which implies its opposite, the theme of liberation, as the objective to be achieved. In order to achieve humanization, which presupposes the elimination of de-humanizing oppression, it is absolutely necessary to surmount the limit-situations in which people are reduced to things.” Pedagogy of the Oppressed, p.84.

I contest the confining of domination to “our epoch.” The myth of Erysichthon and Ceres suggests that slavery is more ubiquitous and persistent than many may want to concede:

Erysichthon [Earth-tearer] was a rich and impious man who cut down a tree from the sacred grove of Ceres [mother earth] for his banqueting hall. By cutting down the tree, he had killed a dryad nymph [oak tree productive force]. The other dryads called upon Ceres [mother earth] to avenge their sister.

Ceres inflicted Erysichthon with insatiable hunger. No matter what Erysichthon ate, he could quell his hunger for more food. Erysichthon sold everything he had, for food, until he had nothing left but his daughter, Mestra [teacher]. He sold her too!

While on the seashore awaiting possession by her owner, Mestra prayed to Poseidon [the sea] to save her from slavery. She was then given the ability to shift-change—first a fisherman, then a mare, an ox, a bird, and so on.

Mestra escaped from her master and returned to her father who saw endless opportunity to make money by her. Driven by hunger, Erysichthon sold his daughter off, like livestock, into slavery, for a great deal of money to buy more food. But all the money she earned was not enough. Finally, driven to despair, he consumed himself.

Some observations and questions:

1. Is “domination” the exception or the rule? I suspect scholars have been tip-toeing around this issue.

2. The Oxford Dictionary of Current English (1996) defines slave thus: 1) captive 2) person owned by and has to serve another, 3) machine or part of one, directly controlled by another—Morgan’s Machine Metaphor immediately comes to mind.

3) Erysichthon sold his daughter off, like livestock. Our word chattel [movable “property”] originally meant livestock.

4) Moderns recoil at the suggestion of slavery as an organizational norm. “You are always free to leave,” they say. But if the assumptions underlying the master-slave, owner-owned, subject-object relationship greet the “runaway,” then how is that liberating?

Your thoughts Lisa?

Reference

Freire, Paulo. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: Continuum, 2007.

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Another beautifully insightful post from Carman.  :-)

Hi Lisa,

Thank you for discussing Dominator Cultures. As I write, the morning sun is penetrating my living room window both to dominate the day and to challenge me to respond to Emerson’s question, ‘What are you going to do with it?’ (the day)

My mind has been awash all week with your observations and questions. Your discussion of the Dominator Culture helps me to contrast it with the Partnership Perspective.

Your statement, “A Dominator culture shapes psychologies and social structures in ways that are dysfunctional in that they limit potential and cause unnecessary suffering,” acutely reflects my own experience. Regrettably, Dominator Cultures are all I have ever known.

Returning to the example of the child, not as a repository of wisdom but, rather as an embodiment of certain ideals, I recall a comment by Charles Davis (A Question of Conscience) who said,

“Exterior un-freedom causes interior un-freedom. A child first learns to talk or think aloud, then afterwards to think without voicing its thought.”

In an organization (Dominator Culture) with which I am familiar an enforced infantilizing silence characterizes each weekly meeting. Questions are forbidden and discussion is discouraged. Employees are thus banished to conversational catacombs to express their ideas and concerns.

Canadian historian Michael Welton (one of my professors at Athabasca University) has examined such systemic silence. He concludes that organizational silence is produced in four ways:

1) Managers’ fear of negative feedback and their belief systems. You and I have discussed Theory X assumptions wherein workers are believed to be untrustworthy and self-interested and responsive only to incentive or sanction. Managers, he holds, will implicitly or explicitly discourage “upward” communication.

2) An ideology that managers must lead, direct and control.

3) An unstated belief that unity and consensus are signs of organizational health, whereas disagreement and dissent should be avoided.

4) The distance between leaders and the led once they ascend the hierarchy. Welton suggests that “top” managers who have been together for a long time tend to blend their assumptions into a shared world-view. Senge terms this pathology (learning disability) “The Myth of the Management Team.”

Senge and Argyris, like Deming, lay the blame at the school which “trains us never to admit that we do not know the answer” (The Fifth Discipline p.25)

Welton says that workers “without a voice” will seek control through other means that may be destructive to the organization, such as stress, sickness, and little motivation.

Managers, in turn, may interpret the pathologies as evidence of hostility and willingness to contribute just to get by. Managers’ beliefs turn into self-fulfilling prophecies.

Someone once described “play” as the very essence of thought. I’m grateful for both the free and creative communion of your site and for the “creative play” it affords. I enjoy the opportunity to “voice” my thought—to hear and be heard and to sense in your comments the message “I see you” (The Fifth Discipline Field Book).

Bye for now,

Carman

Reference

Welton, M. Designing the Just Learning Society: A Critical Inquiry. Leicester: NIACE, 2005.

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Hi Carman,
Yes, I think your discussion of children’s openness to learning is an excellent reminder that some of personal and organizational capacities that we wish to develop are natural endowments that have either been substantially suppressed or remained undeveloped due to the particularities of our culture.

Personally, I find this reassuring that this capacities are natural in that it points us not to new and alien place, but an original place from which we are able to see with fresh and creative eyes.

It’s not that children have all of the insights and abilities to which we aspire, but they don’t have as much to unlearn

I very much appreciated your quote from W. Edwards Deming: “People are born with intrinsic motivation, self-esteem, dignity, curiosity to learn, joy in learning. The forces of destruction begin with the toddlers—a prize for the best Halloween costume, grades in school, gold stars—and on up through the university.”

It’s interesting how Deming refers to external rewards as undermining a natural, intrinsic love of learning for the pleasure it gives.  It seems that there is a shift from a substantial internal orientation to our own experience to a primarily external orientation toward outside standards and the approval or disapproval of others.

A Partnership perspective agrees that we are substantially (but not exclusively) shaped by our social situation. Riane Eisler also observes how the structure of social relationships in the immediate family/community very powerfully communicate our most fundamental assumptions about the world, relationships, and the nature of power.

Is the world safe? Can we trust that our physical, emotional and spiritual needs will be met? Do we have power, if so, what is its nature — how does it “work”? Is there a “right” way and a “wrong” way to be, to think? And if so, Who is “right”? Are we OK or not OK?

In a Dominator culture, these questions tend to be answered in a particular way (so that they form a pattern or paradigm) that shape psychologies and social structures etc. that are dysfunctional in that they limit potential and cause unncessary suffering.

Towards a solution, I think Dominator culture can be unlearned, and that the language and concepts of recovery are useful in this regard…

Hope you are having a great week.

Bye for now, 

Lisa

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Here is another terrific post from Carman. Carman’s discussion of a child’s natural propensity to learn and grow is a good reminder that we are all naturally creative and open learners.  Sometimes to move forward, we need to unlearn some of the things we learned in the past…

Hi Lisa,

Your previous posting “We never know the impact we have on the lives of others” started me thinking about the child—as person, symbol and ideal. While walking Robson Street yesterday I noticed a little girl holding her mother’s hand and singing as she walked. So beautiful! I thereupon wondered at what point adults cease to sing.

The references to the child in academic and sacred writings are astounding aren’t they? Only today I watched a co-worker’s PowerPoint presentation containing the expression, “If my heart can become pure and simple like that of a child, I think there can probably be no greater happiness than this.”

That aphorism reminded me of an example in the Christian Scriptures:

Matthew 18:1 At that time the disciples came to Jesus, saying, “Who then is greatest in the kingdom of heaven?”   2 Then Jesus called a little child to Him, set him in the midst of them,   3 and said, “Assuredly, I say to you, unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.   4 “Therefore whoever humbles himself as this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. (NKJV)

It’s interesting that grown men (teachers in training) were told that passing their final examination would hinge upon their becoming like “little children.” I suspect their Rabbi meant that they should be humble, modest and emphasize equality rather than “greatness” or superiority. But the example may also suggest eagerness to learn and receptivity to new ideas.

I believe young children may be the ideal of a better workplace and world in general. Page 3 of the Fifth Discipline says, “From a very early age, we are taught to break apart problems, to fragment the world…We can no longer see the consequences of our actions; we lose our intrinsic sense of connection to a larger whole.”

The next page says: “Learning organizations are possible because deep down, we are all learners. No one has to teach an infant to learn. In fact, no one has to teach infants anything. They are intrinsically inquisitive, masterful learners who learn to walk, speak, and pretty much run their households all on their own.”

In terms of Personal Mastery, I believe children are naturally creative (versus competitive and dominant). They have no mental models (“deeply held internal images of how the world works”). And who are more “dialogic” than children? (Team Learning)

I love the way W. Edwards Deming says, “People are born with intrinsic motivation, self-esteem, dignity, curiosity to learn, joy in learning. The forces of destruction begin with the toddlers—a prize for the best Halloween costume, grades in school, gold stars—and on up through the university.”

Lisa, I am wondering how “Participation” views the child?

Bye for now!

Carman

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Carman De Voer Mais has developed a fresh and insightful PowerPoint presentation on learning organizations. He makes the important point that becoming a learning organization isn’t something that “patched on” to the existing organizational paradigm, but rather a transformation of both the paradigm and the players.  I’m going to try to share that presentation with you here.  This is my first attempt to provide a file link in Wordpress, so it may take a few tries …

Carman, I hope your cold has lifted!

Lisa

Thinking Creatively, Building Effectively by Carman De Voer Mais

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Partnership includes the values of care and compassion. It supports financial abundance but also recognizes that there are ends that are far more important and intrinsically valuable than economic ends alone.  Sometimes when we follow our hearts, we make a profound difference in the lives of others. 

One such extraordinary woman is Gina Gippner-Woods of Just Mom, Inc., a non-profit organization that provides comfort toys to seriously and terminally ill children at Childrens Hospital in Los Angeles.  Gina taught me that we never know the impact we have on the lives of others.

This is the story of how and why Gina founded, Just Mom, Inc.

“Once upon a time a woman named Gina Gippner-Woods was admitted into the hospital. There was no room for her in the adult ward, so she was placed in a room with a child. A little girl.

This young girl was recovering from surgery which removed a tumor from her brain. She had no family and her nurse developed a friendship with her and would bring her in gifts daily.  One morning the nurse brought this young girl a stuffed, plush puppy. The little girl took one look at the plush pup and threw it across the room. Gina, not understanding why she would throw it, got out of her bed and recovered the toy.

Taking it back to the little girl she asked, “Honey, what’s wrong? Why did you throw your puppy?”

“It’s not mine. It’s broken!” The young girl replied.

At that moment Gina looked at the plush puppy and realized that its ear was ripped. She looked at the young girl and then looked at the loose gauze which was lying on the table next to her bed. Immediately she grabbed the gauze and began bandaging the head of the broken puppy to match the little girl’s bandage. When she was done bandaging the plush puppy she looked at the young girl and said, “It’s not broken. It’s got an “owie” like you. It’s your ‘OwieBowWowie.’”  The little girl then took the dog in her arms and comforted it, and it became her friend, accompanying her through all of her challenges…

I was surprised and saddened to hear that there are many seriously and terminally ill children who don’t have any family or visitors.  So, Gina founded Just Mom, Inc., to provide comfort toys for these children so they don’t need to go through their ordeals alone.

Gina’s effort to get the word out is heroic.  For example, she is donating her time for projects, with the funds going towards the purchase of a comfort toy for a hospitalized child.  And this is a micro-charity, so it’s easy for any of us to make a difference.  You can see a heartfelt mission in action on her site: http://www.owiebowwowie.net/_mgxroot/page_10723.html

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Hi Carman, I am glad to hear that you are feeling restored to health! It’s a pleasure to read your posts again.

Yes, I agree – Alfred North Whitehead once said that whatever constitutes a world view can be understood to constitute a religion. And, process theologian, David Ray Griffin, who interpreted and extended Whitehead’s work, observed that two key world views dominate the modern West: fundamentalist Christian theology (in which God created the world but is separate from it) and materialism — the latter deriving from the former. Ecofeminist philosopher, Charlene Spretnak, observes that these two worldviews share in common the assumption that notion that we are all separate. 

However, this notion of separation is not fundamental to either science or spirituality. My hypothesis is that the perspective that we are all separate is born of pain and fear, and engenders the same.  And when we are separate and afraid, we seek power *over* our situation and others. Because money is a form of power that gives us some measure of control, it’s unsurprising that we would turn wealth itself into a god.

New science, on the other hand, points to a more holistic, intelligent Cosmos. In my personal understanding, it points to a world in which we are all deeply interconnected and in which there are multiple levels of intelligence — from cells, to organisms, to ecosystems – including the intelligence of the larger whole, in which we all participate. 

However, because our worldviews are self-reinforcing, our culture reinforces ways of perceiving and interpreting the world that emphasize separation, which one prominent physicist called a kind of optical illusion of consciousness. However, different aspects of human experience can and do, point to a more holistic and interconnected world, and that leads us into the life world that you describe so well.

Your question on how the two employers defended the life world sounds well worth exploring. I notice that Fezziwig takes joy in the happiness of others. We are social animals, and it seems that meaning and happiness ulitmately has this relational context. Conversely, I also notice that Scrooge is not a happy person. He may take pleasure in comforts, but in serving the god of wealth, he oppresses himself as well as others. 

To this point, I recently read a quote by Booker T. Washington, which read, “You can’t hold a man [or woman] down without staying down with him [her].”  This is true at many levels, from the psychological, to the sociological, to a more holistic understanding of what some call “the inter-subjective space.” (Robert Kenny has done some fascinating, ground-breaking work on how this space applies to creative teams (http://www.ciis.edu/faculty/kenny.html).  Transformational leadership thus has the potential to liberate and free the creative potentials of both the leader and the organization.

The role of the Spirits could be metaphorical or it could relate to the larger spirit or intelligence of the whole, for which people have used a variety of terms, depending on their spiritual or secular orientation.  (I think you previously raised the question of the relationship between spiritual transformation and tranformative leadership…)    

Speaking of valuing the subjective dimension of life, several colleagues and clients that I am working with in my coaching and training practice, hold the intention that their work should also be fulfilling and fun.  It’s an enriching practice to work with, as I’m sure you know! 

Have a great weekend!

Lisa

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