Holding Back
February 24, 2015
I wrote last week in this space about the positive place for disagreement in organizations; and I held back on pushing the topic a bit further.
Sometimes an organization leader has to hold back. Sometimes the leader needs to recognize that the organization has more disagreement than it can handle and that taking on another topic for which much disagreement is likely would be like drinking from a fire hose.
In Leadership on the Line (HBS, 2002), authors Ronald Heifetz and Marty Linsky write that “leadership requires disturbing people – but at a rate they can absorb.”
Heifetz and Linsky describe the need to “orchestrate the conflict” in four steps:
- “Create a holding environment” – a safe place to interact.
- “Control the temperature” – turn the heat up to get people’s attention, and turn it down for them to cool off or to catch up.
- “Set the pace” – not too fast that we leave too many people behind; not too slow that we lose the vision and momentum.
- “Show the future” – remind people of the “orienting value” – that is, the positive reason to go through all the negative rancor.
Yogi
October 27, 2015
We lost a treasure when Yogi Berra died last month at the age of 90.
I hope a lot of people attended his funeral. After all, it was Yogi who said, “Always go to other peoples’ funerals, otherwise they won’t come to yours.”
Yogi had an intriguing mind for math. It was he who told us to “Pair up in threes.” He informed us that “A nickel ain’t worth a dime anymore.” He said, “Baseball is 90 percent mental and the other half is physical.” And, “You better cut the pizza in four pieces because I’m not hungry enough to eat six.”
Yogi was a sage observer of everyday life. In fact, he told us “You can observe a lot just by watching.” He observed that “No one goes there nowadays, it’s too crowded.” And, “It gets late early.”
Of course, Yogi ought to have known a lot about baseball, a sport in which he excelled and enjoyed unprecedented and unduplicated success as catcher for 10 World Series championship teams. He was an 18-time All-Star; but with characteristic humility, Yogi confessed, “In baseball, you don’t know nothing.”
While wise about many things, Yogi wasn’t correct about everything. When he said, “It ain’t over til it’s over,” he was wrong. It ain’t ever going to be over for Yogi.
And yet, without Yogi, “The future ain’t what it used to be.”