- If you think you’re already doing a pretty good job of making use of the critical knowledge in your organization;
- If you find yourself thinking about ways to fix the problems that hierarchy causes in organizations; or
- If you are still hoping management will be re-invented;
- then you should read An Everyone Culture: Becoming a Deliberately Developmental Organization by Kegan and Lahey. A remarkable book!
Kegan and Lahey are adult development professionals at Harvard. Kegan’s theory of adult development identifies three stages of adult development:
- Socialized-mind
- Self-authoring mind
- Self-transforming mind
The authors explain that in the past organizations functioned very effectively if they had employees who were at the stage of the socialized minded. They were “good team players, pulled their weight, were loyal to the organization and could be counted on to follow conscientiously the directions and signals of their boss.” However, in the knowledge economy to be effective employees need a greater capacity for innovation, self-management, personal responsibility and self-direction.” In other words, to be self-authoring, which means understanding themselves and their world at a qualitative higher level of mental complexity.” And managers of self-authoring employees, must necessarily be self-transforming, that is, be able to step outside their own ideology or framework, to observe the framework’s limitations or defects, and author a more comprehensive view. In short, today’s organizations need a quantum shift in individual mental complexity across the board.
If you want to know more about the three stages of adult development read Immunity to Change, where Kegan and Lahey provide detailed explanations and tools to help readers understand the different stages. But in An Everyone Culture, they are focused on how the stages of adult development play out in the workplace.
The authors find that the norms of most organizations as well as the hierarchy, are designed to support the socialized-mind. People cannot continue to develop past this initial stage of adult development while working in an organization that is trying to keep any threats to certainty, predictability, routine, control, and connection to a minimum. Noting that we spend most of our waking hours at work, they say that if employees are to continue to develop, they need to do it at work in what they call a Deliberately Developmental Organization.
And as farfetched as it sounds, they have found three organizations, Next Jump, Decurion and Bridgewater that are as focused on the development of their members as they are on making a profit. Indeed, they say the two are intertwined, that is, that they are profitable because they are focused on development. And what is most remarkable is that these are not organizations coached by the authors, rather each organization has independently come to the idea of the need to continuously develop their people.
But this is not your father’s kind of development! It is not a workshop or a training course - this development is on-the-job. It is about all employees, including the CEO, management, and frontline employees, daily working on overcoming their own internal barriers to change and using their errors and vulnerabilities as prime opportunities for personal and company growth. Each of the three companies showcased in this book have deliberate practices in place that are focused on development, and in each, those practices are quite different – clearly growing out of the context of the organization, not out of academic theory. Let me introduce you to just a few of the developmental practices at each of the companies discussed in the book.
A lot of organizations talk about the need to learn from failure, but at Bridgewater learning from one’s mistakes is a job requirement. “The company’s culture supports treating errors as opportunities for growth through a variety of tools and practices.” One such practice is the Issues Log. “Every employee is required to record problems and failures in a companywide “issues log,” one that requires detailing one’s own and others’ contributions to business mistakes. The logging of errors and problems is applauded and rewarded, but failure to record a mistake in the issues log is viewed as a serious breach of duty.” The data collected in these Issues Logs is treated as a resource for collective diagnosis of root causes of failure – both individual and organizational. The Issues Log is open to everyone in the company and, in fact, everyone is expected to review it and to be aware of problems that might be systemic. One employee noted that, the Issues Log “is like our evolution machine” for “watching the progress on any problem that’s ever been raised in the company.” “People’s limitations are seen as their growing edge—a company resource, an asset—that should be continuously and publicly engaged.”
Here is an example of an issue that Rohit, a junior staffer in the research department, entered in the Issues Log. In his entry he is questioning how
Alex, his department head, is overseeing work. He writes, “We’ve been struggling to keep up with all of our needs, and it’s gotten to the point where Alex now has consultants managing consultants. For a place so synced in its culture, how could this be? How could we have all these outside people managing these other people without having gone through all the necessary things to become a Bridgewater citizen? . . . How is Alex ensuring the consultants acting as managers are managing in a principled fashion and holding the bar high enough?” In the days following Rohit’s entry there are responses both by Alex and others, exploring this issue in an extended online conversation.
At Bridgewater every employee, including senior leaders, has a Baseball card, which is electronically accessible to everyone else. The Baseball Card integrates all kinds of data about what a person is like, for example, testimonials, personality inventories, “relys-on” (what the employee is reliably good at doing) and “watch-out-for” (areas of weakness).
The Daily Case is a multimedia case study of a teachable moment that every employee reviews for fifteen minutes each day and then responds to a series of questions about what they would do in that situation. Another daily practice at Bridgewater is the Daily Update, a way to stay in sync with each employee’s manager. Updates are a way to give employees an opportunity to reflect on what they are learning about themselves, any pain they’re experiencing, and ways they’re grappling to improve their application of the principles. And Updates are, again, public.
As these practices illustrate, one of the central principles of Bridgewater is Pain + Reflection = Progress.
Next Jump also has a formula for its principle, “Better Me + Better You = Better Us”. Everyone in the organization, from the CEO to new hires, has a Talking Partner that they meet with every day. Each person takes a turn, and a turn begins with venting – no topic is out of bounds. Then the talk turns to the day ahead. “What will be most challenging, rewarding, significant or meaningful?” What opportunities will there be to practice my Backhand (practice overcoming a habit that typically gets me into trouble)? An example of practicing a Backhand is, if I typically tend to dominate conversations, then waiting until two others have spoken before I speak again is practicing my Backhand.
Everyone participates in a Personal Leadership Boot Camp where they learn to identify their character weakness (backhands). They leave Boot Camp with a practice plan for working on their Backhand. Everyone is given a Peer Mentor who coaches them, holds them accountable and helps them stick to the practice plan. Again, everyone, including top management, participates in Boot Camps and has a Peer Mentor.
At Next Jump, people bring challenging situations into a Weekly Situational Workshop, a one hour meeting of five people who talk in two different pairs of talking partners, along with a more experienced colleague acting as a mentor and coach. Partners talk about situations encountered in the work life of an individual. But rather than spending a long time on any one situation, the focus in on becoming aware of patterns they would not otherwise see.
Employees devote two Saturdays per year for Super Saturday where they interview, test, and choose new employees for Next Jump. They are looking at the potential employees for, Are they takers? Are they in it only for themselves, or do they have the ability to be givers (helping others grow)?
In the Salary Review Process at Next Jump, contributions to revenue are weighed at 50 percent and contributions to culture at 50 percent. You can be a revenue hero and still be penalized in compensation if you’re not working on personal growth. The highest bonus and salary increases go to those who improve the culture. And at Next Jump there is a No Fire policy, an explicit commitment to stand by employees through thick and thin.
Decurion’s principles are that 1) work is meaningful; 2) that people are not only means but also ends in themselves; 3) that individuals and communities naturally develop; and 4) that pursuing human development and pursuing profitability are one thing. The developmental practices at Decurion include a Check-In at the start of every meeting – a deep form of Check-In that openly welcomes the whole person into work every day. There is a Check-Out as well. Check-Ins and Check-Outs are a part of creating and maintaining a sense of strong community. Working life at Decurion is organized around this idea of community. Decurion believes that when authentic community forms in groups, learning happens: a collective intelligence.
One segment of Decurion’s business is managing theatres that primarily employ young people who are often in their first job, to do tasks like taking tickets or working the concession stand. In the theaters, Pulse-Check Huddles occur throughout the evening, where groups of crew members and managers give and receive feedback on how the floor operations are going and how they can be improved.
Every job at Decurion has a list of competencies and every person has a Competency Board listing the competencies he or she is working on and that is publically displayed. When the employee has achieved a competency, a blue pin is placed by that competency. As with the two other companies, such information is publically displayed and the practice is engaged in at all levels of the organization.
Once every three to four months, depending on the need, the entire business leadership—every manager—attends a daylong Decurion business leadership meeting (DBL). The DBL is a slower, more deeply reflective version of a huddle. A DBL usually begins with individuals Checking In, sharing the worries and excitement that have a hold on their attention, so that they can acknowledge these concerns and ideas and allow others to better understand what’s going on interiorly.
When problems occur at Decurion, rather than jump into solving the problem, group members will try to let the problem solve them, exposing issues and patterns of thinking that go much deeper than the immediate circumstances. To do this they use a Fishbowl, another developmental practice, that puts those who are involved in the issues in a tight circle within a circle, to talk through the issues. Those in the outside circle listen to the conversation. Two of the ground rules for the Fishbowl include 1) speaking from your own experience and 2) not leaping to inferences about what others believe.
Looking across all three organizations, Kegan and Lahey identify five qualities of the practices in the DDOs:
- Practices help externalize struggles that are interior
- Practices connect the work of the business to working on ourselves
- Practices move us from focusing on outcomes to the processes that generate outcomes
- Language is a practice and it creates new tools for a new paradigm
- Systemic stretch involves everyone, every day, across the organization
My big take away from reading the book is that the employees at the three organizations really want to be learning and growing. But for that to happen requires being able to make mistakes and learn from them, which is only possible if you don’t have to hide those mistakes, and when people at all levels are open and supportive. The employaees at these organization are willing to undergo the pain involved in both uncovering and in acknowledging mistakes, because they value the personal growth they achieve. Having experienced both the discomfort and the benefit, they agree with Bridgewater’s claim Pain + Reflection = Progress.