Unleashing The Power Of Rubber Bands (11 page)

Scot McKnight also says that people are open to change when they are in a crisis. For a team this could be a personal crisis or an organizational one. The bottom line is this: Often during a crisis, people are most open to new information and the possibility of change.

Leaders need to respond to both. A personal crisis in the life of one of your team members is an opportunity for you to move toward him or her. (Occasionally you might have a team member who is perpetually in crisis; that is not what I am talking about here. That is a huge issue that needs to be dealt with directly.)

I know of leaders who have helped a team member ob tain a vehicle, find a counselor, and pay bills. The accessibility of a leader in times of personal crisis is a reflection of authenticity and care. By listening and asking questions, you can help the person in crisis to not be paralyzed or feel like a victim. It will also convey that you are not merely interested in the person for what he or she contributes at a work level, but as a person with a life—a person who from time to time has a crisis.

An organizational crisis becomes an opportunity for a team to rally together and debate and make decisions around the appropriate response and direction in the face of the problem. Crisis becomes the impetus for open and honest discussions on a team.

A quest, a crisis—seeds . . . buried, cultivated. A few questions, a little crisis—a lot of growth.

what you may not know about
Mongooses
*

“IT IS THE HARDEST
thing in the world to frighten a mongoose,because he is eaten up from nose to tail with curiosity.” That’s from
Rikki-Tikki-Tavi
in case you need to credit the source the next time you use that quote.

The best leaders I know display an uncommon confidence that reassures people. They are comfortable in their own skin and exude an indomitable spirit that inspires others. Interestingly, one of the things this confidence has at its core is an unceasing curiosity.

Deeply curious people put themselves in the posture of a learner almost all of the time. They are full of questions, always wanting to know more and constantly expanding their understanding of all kinds of subjects. They listen and absorb information, thoughts, and perspectives different from their own.

* Apparently the plural of mongoose is not mongeese.

We often coach two very different kinds of leaders. The first is not curious and, I would say, is often driven by fear. Whenever observations and feedback are given, the uncurious leader responds with defensiveness and rationalizations. With these leaders there are no questions, only hurt silence, quiet passivity, or statements designed to protect themselves.

The second type of leader is curious. These leaders respond from a position of wanting to gather information and trying to understand. Whether it is negative feedback, a missed opportunity, or the future direction of the organization, this leader is interested and inquisitive, wondering not
if
this will be solved, but
how
.

So what is the connection between curiosity and fear? It seems that when one increases, the other decreases. Perhaps it is not a lack of curiosity that makes us fearful, but fear that prevents us from being curious. Or maybe it’s the other way around. The good news is that without solving the riddle of the chicken and the egg, I think we can tackle it from either end.

Fear produces poor leadership and poor leadership pro duces bad organizations. You can smell fear when you walk into a building; it permeates the meeting rooms and the break areas. You can see it in the eyes and hear it in thevoices. Fear makes us tentative; it causes us to hesitate and posture. Fear is exhausting, but those who are living in it feel as if it is their only choice.

So what is the connection
between curiosity and
fear? It seems that when
one increases,

the other
decreases.

The politics of fear consume vast amounts of timethat ought to be spent focusing on vision and strategy. Instead, we waste our most precious resources of time and talent on diffused energy and spinning wheels.

Fear causes us to make poor decisions and then to second-guess those decisions. It forces us to retreat into business-as-usual mode, keeping our heads down and choosing our battles. It makes us small and weary and on edge, with the crunching sound of eggshells always in our ears.

That’s the bad news.

The good news is that leaders can do a lot to abolish a culture of fear within their organizations. Since many culture-shaping behaviors begin with the leader, good leaders always need to ask themselves what role they are playing in creating a climate of fear in their organizations.

It’s often difficult and painful to trace fear back to its roots; fear has
a lot
of sources. But at the risk of soundingtherapeutic, let me just say this: Unless you are willing to go to the place where fear began, you won’t have a lot of luck changing it.

And just to add to the complexity, a lot of leadership behavior that looks “non-fearful” is actually teeming with fear. Stuff like command and control, because-I-said-so, and rigid thinking. These things look different than slumped shoulders and averted eyes, but they are not.

Often the top leaders of an organization are the source of much of the fear. And sometimes it is their fault. Sometimes it is not. We worked with one organization where everyone on the leadership team seemed to be afraid of giving open, honest feedback to the leader. You know, the kind of feedback that can derail people and companies if it’s not given.

Anyway, at every break—yes, every one—during the two-day off-site seminar, a different member of the team, or sometimes a small group of them banded together for support, would corner my partner or me and implore us to tell the leader some of the truth, even just a piece of it, that they were holding.

They had wild eyes that darted furtively back over their shoulders, scanning to make sure the leader didn’t see them engaged in this stealth activity. They spoke in hushed tones and told us with assuredness that they were “not the only ones who feel this way.”

“Everyone is afraid of him. No one can tell the truth; we get punished if we do.” We heard it again and again.

And then, a funny thing happened. With some gentle coaching and setup from us, one person ventured out into the truth. Hesitatingly at first, but then emboldened by the sound of his own words, he continued.

Interestingly and surprisingly, the leader responded, “I was afraid that’s what people might be thinking. I am so glad you said something. What can we do about that?”

He was afraid too. And glad that someone had the courage to speak the truth. And wondering if they could come up with a collaborative and right solution.

Now I’m not writing fairy-tale endings, but this really did happen. And because it did, the courage of one person to challenge the faulty mind-set of that team started ever so slowly to shift the culture of that company.

They had been so afraid, and so sure that their boss would react angrily to their speaking up, that they kept quiet. But here’s the deal: Sometimes we are afraid of things that aren’t scary. Sometimes it is
our
problem rather than the other person’s. Sometimes we create a culture of fear all by ourselves.

Sometimes we project all of our own fears onto the leader, and then criticize that leader for being scary. Kind of put that person between the rock and the hard place, don’t we?

Strong leaders become Rorschach blots for our own fears. So although it may feel counterintuitive, sometimes the place to begin unraveling a culture of fear is with ourselves.

Perhaps the best question to help us do that is this: What am
I
afraid of? The answer to this will help create clarity, both about the worst thing that could happen and where our fears are rooted, internal or external. What personal issues of feeling abandoned, needing to please people, or lacking self-esteem might we be ignoring by claiming that someone else is causing the fear? And just by asking these questions rather than reacting defensively, we put ourselves in the curious world, where fear is diminished.

It’s so much easier to blame our fear on someone else, especially our leader. She’s getting paid more anyway, we tell ourselves. Might as well blame her. It is so much easier when the fault lies with another person, because then we don’t have to do all that hard soul excavation, that heavy lifting.

Recently our firm worked with a very impressive organization. It was probably number two or three in a field that is technical enough that I’m not sure I completely understand what the company does—but I know they do it really well.

The teams were made up of an interesting mix of globalyoung adults. As they went around the table introducing themselves, it went something like this:

“I’m twenty-six, was born in the Azores, and lived between there and Portugal as a child. Since then, I have worked in India and the U.K., and now I run the Sydney office.”

It didn’t seem like it was a good time to let them know I grew up in the same house in Whittier, California, that my mother just moved out of a few years ago. Yup, the world is flat.

Anyway, we spent two days with this dynamic group, and the one thing we never heard was fear. This fast growing company (which is a bit of an understatement), with offices in six different countries and linking global communication, was made up of the most curious lot I’ve ever worked with—and I don’t mean to imply that they were odd, but rather full of curiosity.

The questions they asked, both about organizational direction and personal leadership behaviors, were not tinged with protectiveness, hesitancy, or apprehension. With an abandon we rarely see, they threw themselves into the offsite work we gave them.

Midmorning of our second day, the company’s CEO stood up and gave a quick update on an acquisition that had the potential to ignite an already catalytic company. He spoke for only seven or eight minutes, but I could see where the team got their confidence. Or at least why, as confident people, they were attracted to this organization and this leader.

In just a short time, he reminded the group of the courage that had gotten them to this point, the opportunity that this acquisition provided, and his confidence in this direction for the company. His demeanor and tone were kind and poised. He had an air of curiosity that demonstrated itself in the wonder he communicated about the future.

There it was again, that inverse relationship between curiosity and fear. This was a culture of curiosity. There was little fear.

Sometimes it
is
the leader who incites the fear. And not always in fire-breathing, angry, or obvious ways. We are currently working with a team that is at a critical juncture. If they cannot stand up to their leader, I am not convinced they will make it. They are afraid of him. At meetings they shut down, nod their heads even when they don’t agree, and in general, have given up.

Their very strong sense is that the leader weighs every decision they make against what
he
would have decided. And to the degree that their decisions and opinions don’t line up with his, he says they are wrong and that he can’t trust them. The team members are tired and worn out.

The leader is charming and charismatic, and perhaps that is why it has taken them so long to figure out they’re afraidof him. But the entire team is almost completely disengaged at this point, always trying to second-guess whatthe leader would choose rather than using that energy to research and debate fresh, new directions.

Fear deteriorates our high-level

thinking capacities.

Fear, even just biologically, causes a fight-or-flight response from us. When we sense or anticipate the presence of danger, our adrenal glands and autonomic nervous systems respond in unconscious ways that propel us to either engage in a power struggle of attacking and blaming or to avoid and withdraw into resulting apathy.

Fear deteriorates our high-level thinking capacities lodged in our cerebral cortex (where logic and collaboration reside) and forces our reactions to emerge from our lower-level midbrain. Our cerebral cortex is our Ph.D. uncle, the one who is wise, reasonable, and dresses smartly. Our midbrain is our second cousin once removed who is missing two of his front teeth and drinks heavily.

Fear guarantees that second cousin Jethro will determine the culture of your organization.

Whatever you can do to recognize the level of fear that permeates your organization is a good thing. Moving from fear to curiosity has the potential to unlock all kinds of good things.

When people are released from anxiety and dread, they are freed up to create, innovate, and learn. Rather thanbeing guarded, they openly consider what mistakes they may have made, how they can grow and be different, and what new ideas may emerge over time as their teams becomefertile ground for new levels of creativity.

Moving from fear to
curiosity has

the potential
to unlock all

kinds of
good things.

Curiosity diminishes apprehension and trepidation. It fuels connections and understanding. It asks questions before it makes statements. It carries with it a sense of wonder and possibility and power that is deeply motivating and attractive. People like to be around genuinely curious people. There is a sense that although these people don’t yet have the final answer, they would love it if you joined them in the journey of discovery. Who wouldn’t want to work with someone like that?

Curiosity allows us to autopsy results that were less than we anticipated. Defensiveness and rationalization give way to learning and truth and growth. Risk taking is encouraged in curious climates, as is imagining and celebrating successes. Curiosity makes way for collabora- tion and anticipation of remarkable outcomes that we have only dreamed of before.

Perhaps the invitation to collaborate is one of the most powerful things that emerges from curiosity. Wondering what others would think, how they would solve this problem, what their contribution might be, and how that might add to a better outcome.

This is a very simple example. One of many. Early on at our time at Willow Creek, our senior pastor designed a ten-week series called “Yeah, God! Thanks for being ________.” For ten weeks Bill wanted to unpack some of the key attributes of God in this creative format. But rather than sit in his office determining by himself what those ten attributes would be, he asked a bunch of us for ideas.

Instead of worrying he might not get the answers he wanted, he just invited people to respond to the title statement.

Curiosity diminishes
apprehension

and
trepidation.

One of my suggestions—“Yeah, God! Thanks for being an equal opportunity employer”—was selected for the series. Each week, a banner was hung on the stage listing a different attribute of God. By the end of the series, ten different banners, all declaring the goodness of God, hung from the auditorium ceiling.

Here’s why this is a very simple example. This was not a huge deal. No one knew that was my contribution. I wasn’t asked to preach that sermon. As I recall, they asked some guy named John Ortberg to do that. I didn’t tell anyone it had been my idea.

But I’ll tell you what did happen. Every week after that sermon, when I looked up and saw that banner hanging there, I welled up a bit inside. I was so proud and happy that I was able to contribute. I got to help. I got to be a part of creating and designing something that had an impact on people and showed them God more clearly. I know, it was just a title.