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Article for ASQ, Human Development & Leadership
Division
“Communication is but One Brick on the Path
to Greatness”
by
Cyndi Crother-Laurin, Ph.D.,
Organizations
are one of many types of complex systems whose very existence is
dependent upon the effectiveness of the interaction of its elements.
While most systems in nature are always seeking balance, such as
lightning rebalancing energy in the atmosphere, organizations in
balance would be considered stagnant. As much as theorists and practitioners
try to understand the complexities of organizations and aim to alter
behaviors within them, many characteristics of the organization simply
cannot be evidenced when broken down into individual parts.
After working
with a plethora of types of organizations, including spending a year working
with the fishmongers at the World Famous Pike Place Fish Market in Seattle,
I have come to believe that organizational greatness does exist. There are
relatively few renegade companies creating their own path to greatness; however,
most organizations fall prey to the lure of trying to emulate the success of
another. Organizations cannot emulate success experienced by another company
by simply doing what they are doing. Greatness requires delving into deeper
waters to discover guiding principles that drive the behaviors resulting in
extraordinary outcomes.
Greatness
requires new thinking that eventually becomes the basis of the habits we tend
to deploy automatically. It is generated by every individual every day in every
transaction between people and the processes they manage. Thinking about thinking
results in results! I have grown to become passionate about provoking
thought in individuals and organizations. I believe a collective awareness
of our thoughts and the language we use is the proverbial silver bullet…performance
excellence is within our reach, just not in the way organizations currently
seek it.
Because
language is pivotal to these concepts, it might be helpful to know how greatness
is defined for the purposes of this article. I believe there are three basic
elements to greatness which reveal that the organization has the appropriate
infrastructure and progressive thinking to allow them to occur as natural outcomes.
First, the organization must have an extraordinary product and/or service.
Second, the people must be treated impeccably well. Potential capacity and
profits are hindered if the people are miserable, turnover is high, and morale
is low. The third and last element is that the organization must have a vision
that goes far beyond the boundaries of the organization. The vision of the
World Famous Pike Place Fish Market is “Improving the Quality of Life
for All People.” Their vision goes way beyond the boundaries
of a fish stand.
In working
with the fishmongers to create “Catch!”, I found that they operate
their business much like I live my life. They are very intention-driven, and
each makes a concerted effort every day to manifest those intentions to life.
One of the fishmongers sits on the edge of his bed every morning before he
gets up and thinks about creating relationships with all who come in contact
with him that day. Within their intentions, they also have a unique awareness
of the language they use when thinking and speaking. The language reflects
a distinct commitment to each other’s success and reveals a collective
responsibility to use language appropriately to make the team great.
One of the
catch-phrases the fishmongers use to demonstrate their commitment to each other
is, “It’s all over here.” It means that I am responsible
for all of my thoughts, my attitudes, my values, and what I believe to be true
about the world. More powerfully, it means I have a choice in the language
I use. At any given time, I can say, “This is going to be a great learning
program,” or “it won’t work.” How I call it is my choice,
and collectively, those choices create what I call my reality.
An awareness
of language is essential to organizational life because we are always bringing
a variety of “realities” to the table. We call them perceptions
when they belong to someone else, but they are no less powerful than our own
reality is to us. When faced with a new learning program, quality initiative,
or performance management strategy, we see change through our own personal
lenses and often times have difficulty seeing other possibilities. Our lenses
encompass our history, the context in which we see the proposed change, and
our intentions for not only ourselves, but for the organization (and sometimes
beyond). It is truly amazing that we can get anything done, let alone move
forward and generate greatness, when we recognize that the organization’s
survival is based on the effectiveness of the interaction of its varying elements.
Communication
is but one brick on the path to greatness, and what an important brick it is.
If language could be likened to a spider, communication is the web that integrates
people and processes to achieve desired outcomes. While we often focus on communication
between people from a performance management standpoint, organizational greatness
requires effective communication between people as well as between people and
processes, and between processes. Recognizing this concept shifts one’s
focus from optimizing the parts of the organization (i.e., optimizing individual
performance and individual processes) to optimizing the relationships between
the parts (i.e. optimizing the relationships noted above). Communication is
the linkage – the web – holding it all together.
Keeping
with the spider theme, communication is also critical in conflict resolution – oh,
what webs we weave! Even the best companies have conflict, tension, and disagreements.
However, what keeps them in the realm of greatness is how they think about
and define conflict as well as the processes they use to manage it. Great organizations
believe problems are opportunities for growth, implying change or the possibility
of transformation. So the very nature of seeing or walking into a “conflict” is
quite different when coming from the mindset that the conflict will lead to
an opportunity, rather than something to be resolved.
Based
on a foundation where people are committed to the success of one another,
conflict and tension are managed to bring out the best in people and processes.
The resolution occurs naturally out of the collective commitment and responsibility
that compels people to fulfill the vision of their organization. Life within
the walls of great organizations requires one to be open to opportunities – thus,
be open to problems, conflict, tension, and disagreements – as they are
part of the same web.
In looking
at communication more closely, any opportunity to interchange means both parties
must accept full responsibility for the outcome of the conversation. The speaker
must first become aware of how he filters his language and recognize that what
he thinks or feels matches what he says. We all have a private (thinking) and
public (speaking) dialogue. Filtering out important information/feelings/thoughts/etc.
compromises everyone’s ability to learn, make good decisions, and achieve
greatness. Recognizing how we (as speakers) are thinking and feeling is the
first step in moving forward or managing conflict or tension.
The listener
has a responsibility as well. In this case, he must also take responsibility
for his thoughts while listening to what is being said, knowing that it is
coming from the speaker’s commitment to their success. Allowing communication
to occur, without drowning it with his thoughts of how he will respond, is
critical to a successful interchange.
On a larger scale, leaders of organizations must foster environments
where managing tension and conflict can occur freely and regularly.
The culture of the organization is the result of every exchange of
information and interchange between people. At the World Famous Pike
Place Fish Market, the fishmongers communicate problems freely, and
the leadership works with them to maintain a culture where having
the opportunities to work through tension and conflict makes the
team strong. In this case, it is one of the critical elements that
make them world famous. Along with tension management, the fishmongers
have a rigorous coaching process, which is another way to demonstrate
one’s commitment to the success of each other and the organization
as a whole.
More now than in any other point in history, leaders of organizations
must produce sustained results. Communication, without an appreciation
for systems or an awareness of thinking and language, is no longer
adequate or relevant to those who must guide their constituents into
an unknown future.
Even decades ago, Albert Einstein advocated a
shift of priorities from the accumulation of bits of information
and data points to capacity building and a clear recognition of the
significance of the relationships in the data. It is the responsibility
of the leader to create an environment where constituents can align
themselves to the organizational vision and make a meaningful difference.
Organizational greatness in today’s complex, global market
requires that workers have specific competencies including technical,
strategic, and interpersonal skills across traditional organizational
boundaries. In turn, today’s leaders face extraordinary challenges
to effectively navigate through a diverse array of internal and external
demands that require the capacity to identify and respond to uncertainty.
For example, leaders in manufacturing environments are not only required
to have the skills necessary to effectively manage integrated product
teams whose members work together to evaluate existing practices,
recommend both small-level and organization-wide improvements, and
implement changes throughout the production process—they are
also expected to inspire and motivate constituents.
Organizational language of the last seventy years has revolved around
the quality movement.Common terms and goals including efficiency,
total quality, continuous improvement, process control, and variation
reduction have become as common to the service industries as to the
manufacturing environments where much of the language was created.
Theories and new approaches to organizational effectiveness were
developed and gobbled up by organizational executives as quickly
as they were introduced. As language is reflective of one’s
thinking, the language of organizational effectiveness also reflects
the executive leadership skills and competencies necessary to survive,
and for distinct companies, to thrive. Unfortunately, most workplaces
have witnessed and/or experienced executive interest in this movement
with little to no notable results. This is due in part to leaders’ lack
of understanding of the integrated and holistic dynamic of organizations.
We are currently in the midst of a paradigm shift that is beginning
to embrace and encompass—to a greater extent than ever—the
recognition that organizational greatness goes beyond effectiveness.
Evolving out of the quality movement, the language of today is more
reflective of the “systemsmovement” with more
prevalent terms including relationships, networks, interdependency,
teams, integration, holistic approach, synergy, connections—all
supporting the recognition that the relationship among people
and processes is more valuable than traditional, fragmented, parts
optimization. This newer systems-based language carries broad implications,
among them the new leadership skills and competencies that are necessary
to sustain long-term results.
Once a leader has acquired an awareness and understanding of how
communication is the web that binds all elements of the organization,
he or she begins to see the connections everywhere. He or she begins
to realize that many of organizational issues commonly addressed
as leadership, learning, or organizational development challenges
are really an inevitable part of the flux, size, and scope of the
organization. Without the courage to open one’s mind to the
notion of the relationship of the parts being more important than
maximizing the efficiency of each part, organizational greatness
will remain but a vision.
Ordinary happens, and greatness is generated. Organizational greatness
begins with individual greatness. Recognize the power of your thoughts
and language and that transformation begins exactly where you are
right now – between your own two ears.
May you cast your net upon life’s opportunities that await
you,
- Cyndi Laurin
Bio information:
Cyndi Crother-Laurin, Ph.D. is an author, professional speaker,
and business consultant. Her book titled, “Catch! A Fishmonger’s
Guide to Greatness,” profiling the World Famous Pike Place
Fish Market, was released in January 2004. “Catch!” has
been translated into eleven languages and was awarded the Independent
Publisher’s Book of the Year for 2004 in the Business category.
She taught for ten years in the College of Business at Cal Poly State
University, San Luis Obispo and more recently with the National Graduate
School’s Master’s Degree Program in Quality Systems Management.
Her insights and expertise in process improvement as well as performance
management are transforming both domestic and international organizations.
Cyndi is a popular international speaker, presenting to Amazon.com
Corporate, ASQ World Conference, The Boeing Company, California Council
for Excellence, Center for Collaborative Organizations – University
of North Texas, General Motors de Mexico, Mexico’s International
Total Quality Congress, National Energy and Environmental Conference,
Women in Business Seminar – Utah State University, and W. Edwards
Deming Annual Research Seminar – Fordham University, among
others.
Cyndi is the founder of Guide to Greatness Consulting and is currently
working on more business books. She resides in Arizona and can be
reached at Cyndi@guidetogreatness.com or
805-550-5266 (mobile).
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