Speed. Change. Time. LO10282

Mark L. Peal (mpeal@mms.org)
Tue, 01 Oct 1996 11:04:29 -0400

Replying to LO10263 and LO10271 -

Benjamin Compton writes that he was told:
> "Ben, your constantly challenging traditional business wisdom; you
> always want to examine assumptions, and point out blind spots; your so
> esoteric and eccentric that nobody knows how to relate to you. Dumb it
> down a bit, and things will work out."

Reply from Colston Sanger:
> - even in the fast-paced industry that you work in,
> you're going too fast for them
> - that they can't at the moment connect the words you use to their
> understanding of their world
> - but that they'd like to.

Reply from Dale Emery:
>Your reaction to the manager was, "In other words, stop thinking and act
>like everyone else and things will be OK. . .they may have a point about
>relatability and eccentricity, but that's where it stops. . ."
>I wonder if you already held this view of the manager, and his words were
>nothing more for you than a profound validation of that view. I also
>wonder whether you inquired into his reasoning.

I'm curious about the manager's reasoning, too. My bet is that "dumbing
down" was an unfortunate choice of words for something bigger. Ronald
Heifetz ("Leadership Without Easy Answers") says that people's defenses
deserve respect. In the leadership role you've undertaken, your task is to
raise the group's adaptive capacity. Making progress is going to require
changes in values, attitudes, or behavioral habits. This takes time. Use
your familiarity with the group's work, and their trust in you, as a
containing vessel for the learning process. Then you can gradually raise
their capacity to do their own adapting to face their own challenges.
Eventually, you're not the heretic with exotic answers, but someone who
can help the group find their own solutions.

Mark Peal
Massachusetts Medical Society, Waltham, MA, USA
mpeal@mms.org
"We're all chunks in the same chowder."

-- 

"Mark L. Peal" <mpeal@mms.org>

Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>