A while back an emergency medicine doctor friend of mine asked what our company does.
I first asked him how many different hospitals his practice provides services for. Nine.
“Ok, is there one hospital that is the worst one to work with?”
“Definitely…” and he named it.
“Does everyone in your practice know it has problems?” “Absolutely.”
“What about the hospital’s own employees — do they know?” “Yes, they complain about it all the time.”
“So why doesn’t anyone do anything about it?”
Silence. Thinking. Hesitating.
“That’s what we do. We help organizations create the right conditions where people can take initiative and act to make things around them better. We call that process leadership.”
A Problem Everyone Sees and Nobody Fixes
A CEO we worked with told us about a visit to one of his company’s distribution centers. He noticed workers wrapping and preparing products for shipment in a way that seemed far less efficient than it needed to be. He knew there was a common and well-known tool that could greatly increase productivity.
He pulled someone aside and curiously asked about the inefficiency. The answer: lack of capex budget and the realization that several people could lose their jobs with the gain in productivity.
The CEO didn’t hesitate. “We’ll get you the budget, it’ll pay for itself. And we’ll invest in sales to grow the volume moving through this center, so nobody loses their job.”
The change was made.
But why did it take so long to fix the problem? Why did the CEO need to be the one to enact the change?
Some common answers to this question are:
- “This is the way it has always been done.”
- “I’m comfortable, the way we do things works already.”
- “It bothered me for about 6 months when I first started, but now I don’t notice or even think about it.”
- “It’s not really in my lane, and I don’t want to step on any toes.”
- “I don’t want to rock the boat. People who point out problems become the problem to be solved. I don’t want to be solved.”
I have been on both sides of this. I have walked into a room and asked why something inefficient is done the way it is. I have also been stumped when someone asks me why something obviously ineffective is our common practice (like writing a blog instead of making a video…).
A Pattern That Research Can Explain
There are several researched theories that give shape to what is happening in these complex situations. This list is not exhaustive. The explanations are terse. If any of the above sounds familiar, that’s the point, and there’s a lot more worth exploring beneath the surface.
Bystander Effect: Darley and Latané’s work states that the more people (quantity) who see a problem, the less likely any individual is to act. Everyone assumes someone else will handle it.
Diffusion of Responsibility: Related to the Bystander Effect. When responsibility isn’t clearly assigned, it gets distributed across the group until no one feels accountable. (I happen to be that guy who speaks up in a crowd when collective action will benefit everyone- like shifting a long line to make more room).
Learned Helplessness: Martin Seligman’s research. People who have been punished for speaking up or taking initiative learn that it is best to stay quiet. If we believe actions will not impact outcomes, we become passive. When we believe action will be punished, we retreat even more.
Role Morality: “That’s not my job” thinking. People define their moral obligations narrowly around their formal role, not the broader organizational good. They might jettison their personal beliefs because the duties of the job seem to require them to ignore their sensibilities. This exposes the dangers of situational ethics. Think about the Milgram Experiment– “The experiment requires that you continue”.
Pluralistic Ignorance: Everyone privately thinks the problem needs fixing, but nobody speaks up because they assume others don’t see it as urgent. This is a Collective Illusion, often used as dramatic irony in Seinfeld episodes; the characters all agree with something because they think that is what everyone thinks too. We as the audience are going crazy because the problem can be solved with a simple conversation and some honesty.
Organizational Silence: Morrison and Milliken’s work centers on a collective phenomenon where employees systematically withhold information, opinions, or concerns about organizational problems. The causes: managers fear negative feedback; managers believe employees don’t care or are untrust orthy. Structural problems such as centralized decision making and communications gaps.
Status Quo Bias: Samuelson and Zeckhauser’s research looks at the tendency to stick with the way things are, even when better options exist. It is a loss of aversion response- I know what will happen if I keep doing the same thing. I am not 100% sure what will happen if I change.
Psychological Safety: Amy Edmondson’s research that if people don’t feel safe, they won’t take the interpersonal risk of identifying problems or proposing solutions.
The combination of these fallacies, delusions, and common states is the cause of much suffering in the world.
A Process That Creates Lasting Change
Yep, you guessed it, we have the answer. However, it requires significant work.
Let’s reference back to our definition of leadership as:
The work of mobilizing people in a process of action, learning, and change to improve the long-term viability and vitality of organizations in three ways: people experience increased meaning and growth, organizational purpose is more fully realized, and productivity is strengthened.
The fix is to implement leadership as the operating system. Create a place where everyone feels they can lead change and make the work around them better by taking the initiative to solve problems, any problems.
To do this, you have to create the right environment, common language, processes, information flow, and power dynamics.
This is the purpose of the Leading Through paradigm.
(Note: we often talk about creating the right environment for people to thrive. We also need to talk about building people in the right way. We are focused on helping people learn and become something much better. What makes great results: People or the Place? Yes!)
A key tool in building the right environment and people is The Leadership Process as taught in the Mind of Leadership.
The process unfolds in three phases:
Initiate: Identify the problem/opportunity, then connect it with people and context. In the process of discovery and partnership, you dig deep to discover the complexities around the issue and the people who have power, influence, and a shared interest in solving the problem. You keep reaching out to learn more and evolve a shared vision with a broad group of stakeholders.
Mobilize: You build the team that will do the work of change and develop partnerships with those who will support the work. This team has a shared vision and purpose and a spirit of collaboration. They work together on a solution based on a hypothesis, building on the work done in the initiate phase.
Empower: Engage people in the work, then help them focus by providing resources, energy, direction, accountability, and encouragement.
So if you were my doctor friend, you might start by asking the people at that beleaguered hospital what needs to change, dig deep, build consensus, and engage with stakeholders in a way that invites energy. As a vision of a new, better future unfolds, build the team that will do the work of change, secure the needed resources, and make things better.
What happens when you ignore problems and don’t fix the root cause? Trips to the emergency room for a temporary fix while the underlying issues persist.
What areas of your life need the leadership process? Are there overlooked problems that your leadership could be a key catalyst to making the world better?
