| Leadership Facts or Myths -- Testing Our Conclusions by Rayona Sharpnack
Originally published in the November 2002 Issue of Link & Learn.
Each
of us is made up of a web of conclusions. All of what
you and I call "reality" is a set of tentative conclusions!
What does this mean? Simply stated it means that you,
me and every other person operate from an inherited
collection of conclusions. In the 18th century, the
sun revolved around the earth. This was not a tentative
conclusion-this was FACT. It was observable by every
person from anyplace in the world. Scientist and mathematicians
went to great lengths to draw and compute the necessary
models to support this fact. As history later revealed,
Galileo and Copernicus revealed a different conclusion
that became our next factual reality. Does this leave
you wondering which one of today's "factual realities"
will be viewed as a tentative conclusion 100 years from
now?
On a more personal level, have you ever operated from a factual reality that you aren't competent at something? ("I'm just not good with finances," or "I could never work in a fast-paced business that changes its strategy every year.") Have you ever operated from a belief system that is derived from circumstances? ("I'll never get a promotion into senior management as long as the current CEO is in office." Or "There is no way to take costs out of the supply chain as long as we keep all of our manufacturing plants open.") We say these things as if we're operating from the truth.
One example of this is a colleague named Oceana Lott who discovered the extent to which her prevailing web of conclusions had limited her career. When Oceana came to our Women Leading Change program in Spring of 1999, she told the group that she had just transferred to a department in her Fortune 500 high-tech company that, she concluded, has a "glass ceiling." Oceana soon realized that her conclusion could indeed by a just a tentative conclusion. "I had to ask myself, to what extent is this glass ceiling true solely because I think it is? Are there times when I don't take risks or when I approach someone suspiciously? How did Oceana's belief in the "glass ceiling" lead to behavior that proves the conclusion?"
- What conclusions have you drawn about YOU?
- What conclusions have I made about my life?
- What conclusions have I made about my destiny?
- What conclusions am I operating from regarding my team?
- What conclusions am I imposing on others?
- What conclusions do I believe to be true about my customers?
- What conclusions do I have about my skills? My manager's skills?
Suspending Conclusions
Let's
consider that conclusions are neither good nor bad,
right nor wrong, but simply. conclusions! They are made
up of words, beliefs, history, experiences, stories,
feelings, education, and statistics. Imagine that together
you and I engage in a certain curiosity around what
it takes to be a great leader, given that each of us
and the people we lead operate from both common and
uncommon conclusions. Common conclusions are those that
are handed down from generation to generation and virtually
everywhere you go people believe them to be true and
factual. In large organizations, these tend to form
the basis of culture. Uncommon conclusions are those
that we uniquely construct based on our own experiences,
thoughts, and feelings. We need to practice suspending
what we already know to be "true" for the possibility
of discovering whole new dimensions of freedom and power.
Take any one of the conclusions that you discovered
about yourself in the questions above and put it through
this series of questions:
- If it were possible to fundamentally change that conclusion, what would become possible in your life as a leader?
- What results could your team produce that they aren't producing now?
- What new ways could you and your organization serve customers?
- What new opportunities for learning and leading could emerge?
Years ago, I derived value by shifting conclusions in my job as a junior high teacher. It was my first year out of college, and the number of questions the kids asked me after I gave an assignment was driving me nuts! I made it a personal goal to explain things so clearly and concisely that no one would have questions. I honed my sentences. I included every detail. I spoke slowly and made eye contact. Still the hands shot up. I drew a conclusion: that I was inept as an educator and kids didn't really listen anyway. One day, while I was in the faculty room bemoaning my failure, another teacher looked at me and said, "Rayona, they don't ask questions to get information. They do it to connect with you." Here was a brand new conclusion and a revelation to me! I stopped getting irritated and frustrated and began to smile when the waggling arms went up. Another ulcer averted!
Inventing Conclusions
Uncovering and examining conclusions produces freedom and choice. Where freedom, and ultimately leadership begins is when we stop to examine our conclusions and determine those that we are committed to and those that are barriers to our progress. As leaders, our job is to illuminate the unconscious beliefs, myths, assumptions, and preconceptions that form our conclusions. To lead well, we must begin this process within ourselves. From there, we want to reveal how those conclusions limit our team's freedom, their career accomplishments, and even their satisfaction at work.
Here's an example of how to jettison a tentative conclusion to create a new one that allows for growth and productivity. Between 1997 and 2000, nearly 40 women from Oral-B Laboratories, a Gillette subsidiary, worked with me in a three-day development journey focused on revealing conclusions. At that time, Oral-B was experimenting with rapid new product development processes and dedicated project teams. A simple conclusion that toothbrush bristles had to go straight up and down to remove plaque had until that time kept every company in the industry producing toothbrushes with only incremental improvement decade after decade. The team worked to deconstruct their conclusions and revealed to themselves a new concept that ultimately led to the Cross Action toothbrush, an outstanding example of breakthrough in product design, development and manufacturing, clinical methods development, claim support results, consumer evaluation methods, and common effort in cross-functional teaming.
To be effective leaders, we must constantly be on the lookout for tentative conclusions masquerading as facts. Once we are able to see through life's conclusions, we have a leadership advantage. We can relax the grip on conclusions that we have steadfastly held onto. We can invite others to do the same. We can ask questions that reveal that a given conclusion is made of Swiss cheese. We can poke holes in long-held theories and taboos that limit our team's creativity and flexibility. Just think about it. a competitor's ability to undercut your pricing structure doesn't have to result in eroded market share. Ask yourself and your team, what other conclusion could be derived from the same set of facts?
Practicing the art of inventing conclusions is something you can do anywhere, anytime, independent of circumstances. The ability of a leader to see and invent conclusions that empower her team determines what kind of future the organization or community will experience. If her ability is limited, it will limit the scope of her people's dreams and achievements. It will put a lid on creativity, energy, enthusiasm - the fire - of her team. If her ability is greater, she can inspire herself and her team to stretch their thinking to create something new and groundbreaking.
The key to expanding our ability to invent conclusions is the choice to do so. When we suddenly see the default conclusions that rush to fill the space between our ears, we can choose to feel like victims of cultural conditioning, or we can brush those thoughts away like cobwebs and step to invent a different reality.
I invite you to take a moment to reflect on these words. Jot down notes about what's stirring inside of you? What is your "a-ha" as I call it? What conclusions could you invent to create more opportunity for you and your team, organization, or community?
Rayona Sharpnack is Founder and President of the Institute for Women's Leadership. Over the last 12 years, she and her Institute colleagues have worked globally to empower 25,000 women leaders in industry, government, nonprofits, and education by giving them the specialized communication and thinking tools they need to produce groundbreaking results in their organizations. Her work has been featured in Fast Company, The Silicon Valley Business Journal, The San Francisco Chronicle and several international publications. Companies as diverse as Hewlett-Packard, PriceWaterhouse Coopers, Charles Schwab, and other Fortune 500 companies have used Rayona's ground-breaking approach to achieve dramatic business results.
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