The Hidden Organization LO12711

Scott Simmerman (SquareWheels@compuserve.com)
Wed, 26 Feb 1997 20:53:22 -0500

Antony asked in LO12694 about issues of leading groups and asking for
assistance. He asked:

>1. Is it fear of demonstrating lack of competence?
>2. Is it ego (either party)?
>3. Is it lack of a shared vision of the world, where asking is OK?
>How many ELs really believe that they are welcoming when someone says "Can
>you help me?"? Have they tested their culture/environment?

>When did the EL last ask for help from their team, and mean it?

[Host's Note: "EL" = Expedition Leader, a role in Scott's "Dutchman"
simulation. ...Rick]

This is something I have questioned for a number of years and still am not
close to answering. My best guess is that it is a combination of the
above. I do note a significant "cultural" differenbce when teams play.
In some organizations, they do collaborate. Fluor Daniel and Perception
are two examples of groups where the collaboration is good for whatever
reason.

But on Monday, I did a sales organization and -this actually happened- two
different people came to me and asked if it would be okay if they stole
resources from other teams. They ASKED me for permission for this. Yet
no team asked for any help. The play was REAL aggressive, too. In fact
one team was in my face demanding that another team not be allowed to move
because of that team's interpretation of the rules.

It didn't matter that I invented the game and should know the rules.
Three team members were in my fact arguing. Even invoking Rule Number One
(The Expedition Leader is always right!") didn't help immediately.

None of the players were shy. Yet none asked for help.

And it was interesting when I awarded the Sales Manager a cowboy hat like
mine, announced that the REAL Expedition Leader would ask and manage
responses to the next question, "What does Mining More Gold mean in our
organization?" Got some great reactions about what was wrong (systems,
processes, perceived support) and what might be done differently to make
improvements.

THEN, we got some of the teams discussing and asking for assistance in
implementing some new approaches. So maybe the game worked well to smoke
out some reality that was not perceived to be discussable.

The Learning Organization link is that we used an experience to get at
some systems of working and managing that were obviously "norms" but that
no one had ever considered. Once we made the suboptimizing behaviors and
approaches obvious, the group was quite ready to analyze and suggest
options for improvement. And their buy-in seemed quite high (the
Expedition Leader was quite optimistic about what he could implement and
improve).

So, coming back to the questions, I think that it is some combination of
the factors mentioned, in addition to a personal history of being punished
and losing face as well as critical issues of personal leadership behavior
that either induces or maintains these suboptimizing behaviors. Maybe.

So, Don't just do something, stand there,

---------------------

Hey! In a meeting today, we were discussing icons and someone asked if
there was a symbol for "will be" in mathmatics. We could think of equals,
exactly wquals, approximates, greater / less than, etc. but no "will
be's."

So I suggested the change symbol, a triangle, over two tildes (~). Since
we've got such a learned group in here, whatcha' think?

---------------------

-- 
For the FUN of It!

Scott Simmerman Performance Management Company 3 Old Oak Drive, Taylors, SC 29687 (USA) 864-292-8700 fax 292-6222 SquareWheels@compuserve.com

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