Podcast

Episode 49: Ed Schein On Humble Consulting [The Amiel Show]

by amiel · Jun 13, 2016

How do you help employees become more engaged? How do you retain your best people? How, on any organizational challenge, do you provide real help faster?

Ed Schein answers this question in his brand new book, Humble Consulting.

One thing you don’t do, he says, is conduct six-month assessments of an organization’s problems or culture. That takes too long. Instead, have a real conversation with the person you’re trying to help. Don’t just give them what they ask for. Find out what really matters to them. Sometimes it’s simpler than you think.

And Ed Schein has a pretty cool resume. An Emeritus Professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management, he invented the notion of organizational culture. Yeah, that was him! He also was the first person to describe what process consultation looks like. That was him, too!

So if you work in and around organizations, you’ve been influenced by his work–whether you know it or not.

To understand what he means by “humble consulting” and how it can add value to your work, listen in to this week’s episode.

It was an honor to talk with Dr. Schein. I hope you enjoy it!

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Highlights

6:30 Why do we need humble consulting?
12:00 In a professional relationship, the client often mistrusts you initially
15:00 Evolution from process consultation to humble consulting
21:00 The most extraordinary gift a consultant could be given
27:00 Trying to fix an unruly group at Digital Equipment Corporation
33:00 Staying overnight with the Ciba-Geigy CEO and his family
41:30 Are you a track team or a soccer team?
46:00 A company dies but its culture survives–is that success?
50:00 Ed is described as a “terrible failure” for overpersonalizing a committee
54:30 Ed’s new partnership with his son

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Doing an organizational diagnosis & making recommendations is much too slow

–Ed Schein Tweet this quote

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Episode 48: Ba Luvmour On Parenting Teens [The Amiel Show]

by amiel · Jun 6, 2016

[Update: in July 2017, Ba’s school, Summa Academy, suddenly closed. It was a shock to our family and others. The way Ba and the other administrators handled the ending fell short of what we wanted and expected given the closeness of our relationship the prior four years. It hurt. Still—and this is the main point I want to make—our family continues using the parenting practices we learned at Summa and continue to see positive results from them. There’s good stuff in here!]

Parents of teenagers, this episode is for you.

Ba Luvmour, pioneering educator and Headmaster of Summa Academy in Portland, is back.

A year ago, Ba and I talked about the unique challenges of parenting kids between 8 and 12 years of age.

This week, he describes how around age 13, the rug gets pulled out from under kids. Everything they understood to be true about themselves and the world suddenly changes. The new way that they make meaning of their experience is utterly foreign to them–and their families.

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You probably already understand this.

But do you know how to adapt your parenting to this new stage of development–and the dislocating transition that precedes it? What big mistakes might you be making by not doing so?

If you don’t have good answers to these questions, join the club. Nobody teachers this stuff. If our son wasn’t a student at Ba’s school–and if we hadn’t gone through an intensive parenting curriculum there–we would be clueless.

For example, are you aware of the ways that you may be pushing your teen away under the false assumption that they want to be left alone? And do you realize that by shifting your approach–like engaging them in inquiry when your instinct is to judge–you can create more loyalty to you?

Yes, I said loyalty.

Ba guides us through these questions with a wise and loving hand. And he is the real deal–street smart in the best sense of the phrase. I know this because our older son has spent three years at the school he cofounded and has been nurtured daily by the teachers that Ba trained.

Enjoy and share widely.

Highlights

5:00 Nature rips the rug out from teens
9:00 The giant mistake parents make with teens
12:00 Playing with identity – sports, zombie movies, academics
14:00 “My child is in my face or in my lap” and taking it personally
19:00 When Ba’s daughter dyed her hair
22:30 Buddies vs friends vs peers
26:00 Helping kids through loss of friendships
35:00 If we didn’t get it, it’s hard to give it
36:15 Boys versus girls
39:45 Teen romance and sexuality
47:45 Alcohol and other drugs
49:30 “Going to the edge” through rites of passage
54:30 When teen identities are no longer sufficient

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“Your teenager isn’t rejecting you. She’s rejecting the former way of relating.”

–Ba Luvmour Tweet this quote

“See through the child’s eyes. Feel through the child’s heart.”

–Ba Luvmour Tweet this quote

Explore Additional Resources

Summa Academy—an independent school in downtown Portland, OR for children ages 5-14 and their families

Optimal Parenting by Ba Luvmour

Stages of children’s development—the Natural Learning Relationships approach

Body Being 0-7 years
Feeling Being 8-12 years
Ideal Being 13-18 years **focus of this interview
Reasonable Being 18-23 years

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Episode 47: Alan Sieler On The 6 Moods Leaders Create [The Amiel Show]

by amiel · May 23, 2016

Powerful leaders know how to shift the moods of teams, organizations, and countries.

But first, they need to observe their own moods.

But what exactly is a mood? And why is it so central to action?

To explore these questions, I spoke recently with Alan Sieler, founder of the Newfield Institute and author of the brilliant three-part book series, Coaching to the Human Soul.

Our conversation was both serious and lighthearted–often at the same time. By the end, I felt so in synch with Alan and his message that I was ready to get named an honorary Aussie.

Check it out–and share with your friends.

Highlights

11:00 Why leaders’ moods matter for taking action
16:30 Alan’s “six pack” of moods
22:00 The moods of resentment and peace
25:30 Why a mood of acceptance can help change agents
30:30 The sneaky mood of resignation
38:00 Ambition, the go-for-it mood
44:00 The physical postures of acceptance and ambition
49:00 The mood of anxiety
54:00 The mood of wonder
58:30 Alan reveals his personal experience with moods

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“What makes resignation sneaky is it dresses itself up in disguise as stories & justifications.”

–Alan Sieler Tweet this quote

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Episode 46: Barrett C. Brown On Leadership For Conscious Capitalism [The Amiel Show]

by amiel · May 17, 2016

This week, Barrett C. Brown joins me to talk about the connection between two topics near to my heart: leadership and conscious capitalism.

I invited Barrett for this conversation because he has been working in the field of sustainability for two decades and is an international expert on leadership development and vertical learning.

He brings a calm wisdom and peaceful passion to a topic of epic proportions.

Listen in and share with your friends.

Highlights

7:00 Developing inner capacities is the leading edge for sustainability
13:00 Whispers from the future
20:00 The power of vertical learning
33:00 Highly conscious leaders are different from Level 5 leaders
43:30 Later stage leaders who eject themselves from organizations–or reengage in new ways
49:00 What kind of narrative are you choosing to create?
51:30 Barrett’s practices: meditation, action inquiry and Bulletproof Coffee!

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“Leaders who are calm amidst change & ambiguity end up being more effective”

–Barrett C. Brown Tweet this quote

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Episode 45: Deborah Helsing on Deliberately Developmental Organizations [The Amiel Show]

by amiel · May 10, 2016

Let’s talk about how a DDO is different from CYA.

Most of us in the West know the term CYA. It means cover your, ahem, behind. As in: don’t give others any openings to attack you. Doing this is important to individual success in most organizations. So we watch what we say, hide our mistakes, and do whatever it takes to look good to the boss.

A DDO is different. DDO stands for deliberately developmental organization. It’s a place where you are expected to reveal your weaknesses and vulnerability rather than hide them. Really? Are you kidding me? Where giving and receiving feedback is part of everyday work and a path to personal growth and organizational success, rather than a dangerous landmine. Seriously? In a DDO, growing people is central rather than peripheral to the company’s strategy. Baloney. Your accountants must be high on something.

DDOs are different!

If you’re skeptical that it’s possible to work in a DDO, join the club.

If you’re curious what life is like in such a place, set aside an hour this week to listen to my conversation with Deborah Helsing.

Deborah is coauthor with Robert Kegan, Lisa Lahey, Matthew Miller, and Andy Fleming of the brand-new book, An Everyone Culture: Becoming a Deliberately Developmental Organization. She also heads up Coach Learning Programs at Minds at Work, teaches at Harvard, and is a researcher at Way to Grow.

I’d never met Deb before this interview, yet we hit it off right away. Our conversation covered unusually powerful–and unusual–collective practices in three very different DDOs–and how these places contain relatively little CYA behavior. (By the way, the term “CYA organization” doesn’t appear in the book, and I’m not sure it even exists).

Enjoy this provocative conversation!

Highlights

9:30The second job nobody pays you for
24:00 Getting feedback on your “backhand” at Boot Camp
31:00 Talking Partners “meet, vent, and work” first thing every morning
41:30 Using the Issues Log to express dissatisfaction—and respond
45:15 The Dot Collector, a way to give real-time feedback to the person running a meeting
51:00 DDOs feel really strange at first
1:01:00 When employees aren’t a fit in a DDO
1:03:30 A job for high school students unlike any other
1:06:30 The pure business value of running a DDO

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In a typical organization, my second job is expending a lot of energy to look good.

–Deborah Helsing Tweet this quote

Giving & receiving feedback is woven into the life of deliberately developmental organizations

–Deborah Helsing Tweet this quote

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Episode 44: Carolyn Coughlin on Growing, Getting “Grabbed”, And Women’s Leadership [The Amiel Show]

by amiel · Apr 25, 2016

The era of the one-trick pony in leadership development has ended.

Excellence takes many forms and comes through a myriad of paths. That’s because leaders are human beings, and humans are complex.

Really complex.

That’s why conversations about leadership are more practical when they cover more territory.

Let me be clear. This is an argument not for eclecticism but for integration.

Not mismash, but mesh. For example:

What happens when we look at adult development through the particular experiences of women (or men)?
How do we think differently about women’s leadership when we consider the power and challenge of self-authorship?
How do we answer both of these questions differently when we look at the human body and how it can get “grabbed” or triggered?

To explore these questions, I had a great conversation recently with Carolyn Coughlin, cofounder of Cultivating Leadership, teacher of Growth Edge Coaching, and business partner with my guest in episodes 3 and 14, Jennifer Garvey-Berger.

Take a listen and enjoy!

Highlights

9:30 Making the body “object”
13:00 Carolyn dodges requests with her body
20:30 Getting confronted with a very different way to coach
23:00 Reducing stress using a centering exercise
25:30 Practicing getting “grabbed”
28:30 A leader who gets grabbed, then anxious, then crazy with her team
35:30 Women’s leadership through the lens of adult development
37:00 Where everybody speaks male
51:30 Carolyn’s biggest growth arena: her three teenagers

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Women growing into self-authorship is a way to grow out of the pain they feel

–Carolyn Coughlin Tweet this quote

Explore Additional Resources

Cultivating Leadership

Growth Edge

Carolyn’s articles on developmental coaching and leading in complexity

Robert Kegan

Rondori—an Aikido practice

Changing on the Job by Jennifer Garvey Berger

Strozzi Institute

Marcia Baxter Magolda

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Episode 43: Steve Drotter On Managing Managers & The Leadership Pipeline [The Amiel Show]

by amiel · Apr 18, 2016

We talk a lot on the podcast about stages of development within adults–why they matter and what you find while transitioning to a new stage.

But what about levels within organizations? What new capacities does each call for? What happens when you’re not doing the work of that level–or haven’t developed the inner and outer capacities to do it well?

To explore these questions, I turned to one of the world’s top experts on succession planning: Steve Drotter. When I say “top,” I mean it. Steve has advised half of the Fortune 10 on CEO succession and decades ago helped build GE’s famous succession planning machine.

And then he wrote a book with Ram Charan.

In 2001, Steve partnered with Charan and Jim Noel on The Leadership Pipeline. It filled a massive void in succession planning by defining six key leadership passages in organizations. And it sold hundreds of thousands of copies.

But that’s not all. In 2011, Steve wrote The Performance Pipeline, which identifies the work to be done at each level of leadership.

Recently, Steve and I chatted for an hour about these two books and how they are reshaping our view of leadership and organizational success. We explore:

How is managing managers dramatically different from managing individual contributors?
Why do function managers often feel like they aren’t accomplishing much?
What makes it important for business managers to bring together multifunctional teams?
Why is being a group manager less fun than you might think?
What are CEOs truly responsible for?

Highlights

8:00 Steve’s work with John Reed at Citibank on succession planning
12:30 Your first job out of school—learning time discipline and adopting company values
15:30 #1: First line manager = 100% change in the work requirements
18:00 #2: Manager of managers, another major transition
32:00 The first question to ask when work isn’t getting done (as manager of managers)
33:00 #3: Function manager—the first strategic layer
42:15 #4: Business manager—ask how the business makes money
43:45 #5: Group manager—connect all the businesses to the enterprise
47:00 #6: CEO—setting enterprise direction, attending to culture
54:30 The sweet spot with the pipeline model: $100M-$5B companies
57:00 Coaching leaders using the pipeline framework
1:04:00 Steve’s transition from top HR executive to external consultant