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.
Inside Information
September 25, 2015
The source you choose selects your news.
If your source is Fox News, you will get different stories than from ABC, CBS and NBC, and different slants on the same stories.
If your source is publicly supported radio, the news stories will be different than on commercial radio stations; and if you choose Public Radio International, you will hear some topics that are much more frequently and deeply covered than by National Public Radio.
PRI is, for example, where I was following the crisis of refugees fleeing from Northern Africa to Europe long before that story became headlines for other news sources. Did you know, for example, that there are more displaced people in the world today than at any time except World War II?
Similarly, if I were to listen only to coaches of one sport or another, I’m likely to learn about issues that affect that sport, but not much about issues that affect other sports, or affect schools as a whole. Our sources must include input from all sports.
Our sources must also include the perspective of principals who deal with academics more than athletics and who are as attentive to the essential needs of harassed, homeless, displaced and disabled students as they are to the athletic desires of gifted and talented students.
And our sources must include the even broader perspective of superintendents who are fighting for the financial life of their districts. Sometimes that means they are throwing open the doors of their schools and recruiting students from far and wide to replace the dwindling school age children of their local population.
Ours is an association of schools. Not an association of football coaches, or of all coaches. Ours is an association of schools whose directions are determined by blending top-down with in-the-trenches views.
From our vantage point at the Michigan High School Athletic Association we do not learn about everything happening in our state’s secondary schools. But from the myriad calls, emails and letters we receive and the many meetings we have with administrators, coaches, officials and students, we know much more than those who are on the outside looking in.