Before you call him a man...

My son (the same guy who featured in posts like 'Research and a three-year-old', "The leadership sandwich" and 'A mathematical approach to HR?') turned 18 (and hence a 'legal adult' in India) recently. While it was an important moment for both of us, somehow it seemed a bit less 'psychologically significant' to him as compared to what happened a year ago when he became taller than me. Turning 18 did lead to some discussions on whether he has lost the privilege to act like a child (especially with us, his parents) when he wants to do so. Can a boy, all of a sudden, magically transform into a man? 

Even if we look at the situation purely from a legal point of view, there are complications. In India, while an 18-year old boy can vote and enter into a legal contract as an adult, he can't get married until he is 21 and he can't be an MLA (Member of the Legislative Assembly)/MP (Member of Parliament) till he is 25. So, is he a 'full adult member' or the society? By the way, does it make sense that at 18, he can choose the government (as he can legally vote) but he can't choose his wife (as he can't legally marry)? 

All this also made me think about another aspect - why there is so much more talk about 'becoming a man' as compared to 'becoming a woman'. You might remember Rudyard Kipling's famous poem 'IF' that ends with " And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!" or the Bob Dylan's song Blowin' in the Wind that starts with "How many roads must a man walk down Before you call him a man?" Also, "Be a man" or "Act like a man" are very commonly used phrases in day to day life. You might also hear questions like "Where have all the real men gone?" Again, in many tribal societies, there are very demanding initiation rites, before a boy is accepted as an adult. 

Of course, some of this is just gender bias that makes 'becoming a man' something 'bigger' than 'becoming a woman'. Also, there are initiation rites for both boys and girls. 

I was wondering if there is anything more to it. May be, it is because there are no clear biological markers (like starting of menstruation in females) for males. So, becoming a man needs psychological markers. May be, it can even be said that a psychological transition needs to happen for a boy to become a man. If that is true, then the very demanding (even 'brutal') initiation rites in tribal societies can be viewed as an effort to 'engineer' this transition. In a way, the initiation rites can also be viewed as an effort to pass on the values and 'worldview' of the society including those related to what a man is supposed to do (and also to communicate the profoundness of the transition from a boy to a man). By the way, even in a modern society, we often hear people saying that having to cope with a stressful (even traumatic) event made them (forced them to!) transition from a boy to a man. 

Another perspective is to relate this (emphasizing the significance of becoming a man) to the transition from  'being a dependent' to  'being a provider'. A child is dependent on the family/tribe/society for nourishment and protection whereas an adult provides food and protection to the dependents. The fact that many of the tribal initiation rites involves demonstrating the mastery of skill that is very useful to the tribe (e.g. hunting a big animal, being able to function even under pain etc.)  could support this perspective. Yes, here also gender stereotypes, that are no longer valid, could be in operation (e.g. viewing men as providers and viewing women and children as dependents). 

It is interesting to note that in India, a girl can legally get married at 18 years of age whereas a boy needs to wait till 21 years of age. Whether this is based just on gender stereotypes or not, is a discussion that merits a separate post! It does raise philosophical questions like 'If one is not old enough to choose his wife, shouldn't he be considered as a boy and not as a man?'

Now, let's come back to the core issue of what exactly does 'becoming a man' mean? One way to figure out 'what makes a man' is to 'reverse-engineer' it from what a man is allowed to (and expected to do) that a boy is not. For example, being able to vote, to enter into a legal contract or to start working etc. might suggest that the person has developed the ability to make an informed choice, to live up to commitments, be a productive member of the society, to fend for himself, to know and live according to the laws of the land etc. 

Of course, there are also social stereotypes about what is 'accepted male behavior' (e.g. independence, dominance, control over emotions, pain tolerance, risk-taking etc.). We must remember that 'what it means to be a man' varies across time and societies.  For example, these days, the image of 'the ideal man who does't have any vulnerability' is being replaced by that of 'the ideal man who can make a vulnerable connection and manage his vulnerabilities well enough to be effective'. 

This brings us to an important point. The reality of 'becoming a man' is as much 'socially constructed' as it is 'psychologically constructed' and 'biologically constructed'. So, in a way, a boy becomes an adult when he is accepted as an adult by the society! It can also be argued that, to be effective, the initiation to adulthood and welcoming of the boy to the adult society has to be done by adults and not by other boys (and that this has become a problem in modern societies)!

There are deeper questions that we can consider. Is 'becoming a man' a  'one-time event'? Isn't it more of a 'state of the soul' than a one-time achievement (certification)? Isn't it more of case of being and not becoming? Can the transition from a boy to a man happen without some sort of acknowledgement from the women in the society?  

The last question can lead us to another intriguing (and more pragmatic) question - Why do so many wives think that their husbands haven't grown up (i.e. that they are just boys masquerading as men)? 

Now, let's come back to the aspect of initiation rituals (and that of rituals in general). We must be careful not to 'throw the baby out with the bathwater'. Yes, we must remove rituals that reinforce gender stereotypes. Yes, we should stop (initiation) rituals that can cause physical or mental harm. But we must not 'de-ritualize' our society. Rituals can bring in a 'sense of the sacred' and that of profoundness to our lives, apart from facilitating psychological transitions. Rituals can even be useful in business organizations (see 'Accelerated learning and Rites of Passage' for an example). 'De-ritualization' is a move towards 'de-spiritualization' and hence towards alienation (from life and work)!  

Postscript: When I shared this post with my son, his first reaction was "How did you manage to think so much about this?  I didn't think so much when I turned 18!". This highlights another important possibility. May be, the transition from being a boy to being a man, is as significant (or perhaps more significant) for the parents of the boy as it is to the boy himself. When a boy becomes a man, the role of the parents (and part of the 'self image' of the parents) changes. So, making the transition is critical for both the boy and his parents! Some degree of 'letting go' by the parents and establishing a new 'relationship equilibrium' between the parents and the boy are essential for a boy to become a man! Unlike what used to happen in ancient societies, no one 'takes away the child from his parents' for initiation now.  Hence, this 'letting go' is even more important in a modern society.

What do you think? 

Of Leadership training and Corporate Rain dance

A couple of weeks ago, I came across a report which said that in the current difficult economic scenario, Indian companies are investing more in leadership training programs for their senior managers. The ‘espoused interpretation’ for this was that it will help the senior managers to be better leaders, enabling them to respond more effectively to the challenging scenario. While this was certainly a possibility, it did make me wonder if there are other interpretations possible. That is where rain dance comes in.

Let us begin by taking a closer look at the terms.

Rain dance is a ritual that is intended to invoke rain. The rain dance was common among tribes who lived in regions that received very little rain. Since the little rain they did receive was essential for their survival, they felt compelled to something to invoke rain (to influence their destiny). The result was rain dances. Over a period of time, intricate rain dance rituals were developed (that were supposed to do a better job when it comes to rainmaking). While there is no empirical evidence that rain dances caused rain, they did serve other useful purposes like giving them hope, enabling them to feel that they have some degree of control over their destiny/environment, deepening relationships among the members of the tribe etc.  

Leadership training involves all the training programs (Instructor-Led-Training programs) that employees are sent to with the purpose of making them ‘better leaders’ (whatever that might mean). These can be internal or external training programs (often designed/delivered by consultants/business schools). They are usually conducted off site (away from the pressures and distractions of regular work) and are often very expensive.

Corporate rain dance would mean rituals (events/ceremonies/programs) in corporate life that are designed to achieve an essential business objective (better business results/business survival in difficult times etc.) without sufficient empirical evidence that the ritual actually leads to the intended outcome. Going back to the report on the increased investment in leadership development programs, it made me wonder if they (at least to some extent) constitute some sort of corporate rain dance. Of course, there are other examples of corporate rain dance, including many types of ‘strategic business planning meetings’!

I have nothing against rituals in corporate life. Businesses are run by human beings and rituals have always played an important role in human societies. Please see ‘Accelerated learning and Rites of passage’ for an example of how to leverage the power of rituals in business organizations. It is just that we should be aware of what they can and cannot do when we are investing in them.

Leadership training is a Multi-Billion-Dollar industry. There is also a huge amount of literature on ‘leadership’. I have no intention to get into a detailed discussion on ‘leadership’ here. (Please see ‘Of leaders and battle-scars’, ‘The leadership sandwich’ & ‘Reasons, Rationalizations Collective Delusions’ for some of my thoughts). For the purpose of this post, I will just raise the top five questions that have been bothering me("The best fool can ask more than the wisest man can tell" J).

1. If ‘learning’ is defined as ‘sustained change in behavior’ how much empirical evidence exists that ‘learning’ results from leadership training programs?
2. There are many people in top management positions who speak eloquently about the great leadership training programs their companies have. However, I have rarely heard anyone of them talking about a particular leadership training program they have attended that made them (or played a big part in making them) who they are now.
3.  If ‘leadership development’ goes much beyond ‘leadership training’ (and if leadership is supposed to be learned ‘on the job’ supported by coaching) then why is most of the money/effort is concentrated on ‘offsite’ leadership training? 
4. To what extent are the designs of leadership training programs based on a deep understanding of the concept of leadership? If the design is based on a particular leadership model/theory, has enough effort been made to check the empirical validity of the theory/model?
5. If the underlying model of leadership goes beyond the traits and leadership style of the leader, to focus on the relationship between the leader and the followers, then why emphasis is only on training the leaders? Can any form of leadership (including thought leadership) exist without followers? 

Now, let us look at another type of ‘corporate rain dance’ that happens frequently in the domain of leadership development : redesigning leadership competency frameworks & then redesigning all the leadership training programs based  on the new competency framework. Here also the underlying belief (that leads to the rain dance) is that by changing the leadership competency framework we can build better leaders and thereby improve business performance. Sometimes, this can also be a case of 'Training the Victim'. A few years ago, I heard (from reliable sources) about a global company, that changed its leadership competency framework because the new CEO said something like ‘Leaders should Lead’ in a meeting with the HR Leadership team. In response to that statement from the CEO, the HR Head ordered redesign of the leadership competency framework & all the leadership training programs based on the same, spending Millions of Dollars. It also ensured that HR people at the global corporate office (who were under the threat of losing their jobs) kept their jobs and (as the company was a global giant) it contributed to the GDP of many countries in terms of spend on downstream work like ‘Train the Trainer programs’, reprinting of program material & of course putting the leaders through the newly developed training programs.

I am not saying that one should not redesign leadership competency frameworks. It is very easy to find fault with any leadership competency framework and hence no one can argue against the need to redesign the same. The trouble is just that the new framework might also have an equal number of (but possibly different) problems. Hence, unless there is a very clear difference between the new and the old leadership competency framework (that too very clearly aligned to a key strategic priority), the Return On Investment is unlikely to be positive. I also think that ‘competency frameworks are only an intermediate stage’ and that one needs to go beyond them..

Now, let us come back to leadership training programs. What exactly am I trying to say?

One does pick up useful insights, ideas and concepts from these programs. They provide a welcome break from the unpleasant realities of work. They can also act as some kind of signalling mechanism - to communicate (to the participants & to the significant others around them) that some people have been identified as leaders.

Like rain dance, they provide an opportunity connect more deeply with colleagues, provide new hope to the participants & provide satisfaction to the business head that something is being done to improve the business situation. The participants might also see them as recognition/reward– especially if the program is offered only to a select few/if the program is considered to be a prestigious one/if the program is an expensive one (remember, it is tax efficient also - for both the employer and the employee!) . The program might even have some placebo effect on leadership behaviors!J 

Going back to another beneficial dimension of rituals, leadership training programs can also act as 'rites of passage'/'initiation rites' to leadership-  especially if they (like initiation rites in tribal societies) involve doing 'dangerous things'; this danger can be either psychological (like doing something silly in front of a group) or physical (like what happens in some of the outbound training programs) - as they help in transitioning to a new self!! Hence, just as rain dance served a useful purpose in tribal societies for many centuries, leadership training programs can also serve a useful purpose in business organizations – even if that purpose is not the same as the espoused purpose!

If, the rain dance (leadership training program) is not leading to rain (developing better leaders), the organization should seriously consider whether to invest more in 'making the dance better' (e.g. by adding more modules to the leadership training program) or to explore other ways for rainmaking. Improving the dance can add to its value as a ritual up to a point (but not beyond that). Of course, it is possible that some of the other popular ways of rainmaking (e.g. 360 degree feedback) might also turn out to be 'rain dances'! But some of them (e.g. putting people through roles designed to provide a higher learning potential & helping them to derive meaning from their experience in those roles through coaching) might actually work!!!   

Any comments/ideas?  

Accelerated learning and Rites of passage

The words 'Accelerated Learning' appear in my current business title. This gives me an 'excuse' ('obligation' !) to think about the methods that can be used to accelerate the learning process in organizations - at individual and group levels. I must also mention that I have dabbled in the field of Anthropology and one of things that struck me (in Anthropology; see here and here for other examples) is the very useful role that 'rituals'/'ceremonies' and ‘rites of passage’ play in tribal societies. Somehow, these themes ‘fused’ in my mind and this post is the result of that fusion.

To ensure that all of us are on the same plane of understanding, let us begin by defining the two key terms - ‘learning’ and ‘rites of passage’. Of course, these are just 'working definitions' - for the limited purpose of our discussion here.

Learning: Learning is said to occur when there is a relatively permanent change in a person’s behavior. So we are using a ‘behavioral’ definition for learning, as opposed to a definition that talks merely about ‘gaining knowledge’. We will focus mainly on learning at an individual level that happens through experience.

Rites of passage: A rite of passage is a ‘ritual’ that facilitates and marks a change in a person’s status. Hence we are using a broad definition for ‘rite of passage’ that includes ‘facilitating the change’ in addition to ‘marking the change’ in a person’s status. Also, the word ‘status’ that we are using here covers not only the ‘social status’ but also the ‘psychological status’ (or state of mind or mindset).

This post explores two main themes - the importance/value of rituals in accelerating the learning process in organizations and usefulness of the 'rites of passage concept' in facilitating & accelerating role transitions in organizations.

Now, let us come back to our definition of learning. If learning happens through experience, then some of the ways to to accelerate learning should be

(a) to provide a larger amount of experience and/or

(b) to provide experiences with a larger learning potential and/or

(c) to help the person to derive more learning from the experience

Another important aspect here is to 'make the learning stick' - that is to facilitate transfer of learning/application of the learning in the workplace. I feel that 'rituals' can be very useful - for helping a person to derive meaning from experience and for making the learning stick.

Rituals can increase the mindfulness of the learner. Rituals can also increase importance/value of the learning experiences in the mind of the learner. Rituals are especially important when the learning/new behavior requires a significantly different way of functioning. Rituals can signify a break from the old way of functioning and the beginning of the new way of functioning. So in our efforts to be rational and lean, if we remove rituals from learning initiatives, we might be adversely impacting their learning potential!

Now let us come back to 'rites of passage'. A rite of passage marks and enables a leap forward in maturity. They can also indicate initiations into specialized groups. Most of the cultures in the world have rituals associated with the passage from childhood to adulthood. Growing physically into adulthood happens naturally. But the psychological transition to adulthood does not always take place automatically along with the physical transition. The objective of the rites of passage is to enable the psychological transition. The rite of passage also serves as a clear signal/statement - to the people in transition and also to the community/group they belong to - that the transition has taken place. Again, it serves as an acknowledgement from the group regarding the new status of the individual. Rites of passage are not restricted to the transition to adulthood. They are also applicable in the case of other major changes/transitions in life - like marriage, divorce, death/loss of a loved one and retirement.

It has been observed that many of the tribal societies use rites of passage to accelerate key transitions in life (e.g. the transition from childhood to adulthood). Tribal societies that have very limited resources (and hence require everyone to contribute for the survival of the tribe) can't afford a situation where many of its members are stuck in a transition state for an extended period of time where they (the members in transition) don't contribute much to the tribe. Thus, these societies have a critical need to accelerate the life transitions. There is an obvious parallel between this situation and that in many business organizations today, where it is critical for the organizations to ensure that employees making role transitions become fully productive in their new roles as early as possible (e.g. they can't afford to have a situation where a new manager takes a couple of years to discover the manager in him/her !).

Thus, I feel that rites of passage are relevant in the case of transitions in organizational life including career/role transitions. As mentioned above, an excellent candidate here is the transition from an individual contributor role to a people manager role. I think that this transition is not just a matter of developing some additional skills/capabilities. It also requires a change in the state of mind/mindset - a psychological transition. I am not saying that managers are a 'higher form of evolution' (or are 'superior') as compared to individual contributors. My point is just that the manager role requires a different state of mind/mindset.

In most of the organizations we are likely to find examples of managers who have 'become managers' without having made made the psychological transition to 'being a manager' - making life difficult - for themselves and the people around them - especially the people they manage. I feel that designing suitable rites of passage that are appropriate in the particular organization context & culture(in addition to the necessary skill building initiatives) can help the managers in making this psychological transition faster and more effectively and hence in bridging the gap between 'becoming' and 'being' that we have seen above.

Now that we have seen the 'business case' for using rituals to increase the effectiveness of learning initiatives and for using the 'rites of passage' framework to facilitate career and role transitions, let us look at more pragmatic issues. What kind of rituals can be used to increase the effectiveness of learning programs? How exactly should one go about designing rites of passage to facilitate role transitions? After all, we are talking about implementing these in 21st century business organizations where esoteric rituals and rituals might not be appropriate. Complete treatment of these issues will require a much longer discussion than what is possible within the scope of this post. So let me provide some pointers - for the time being.

If we look closely, we are likely to find that rites and rituals are very much present in 21st century business organizations. It is just that these rites and rituals look very different from their counterparts in tribal contexts.

Let us begin by looking at some of the rituals that can increase the effectiveness of learning initiatives/accelerate the learning process. As we have seen earlier, to make this work the rituals should - increase the perceived value/importance of the learning initiative, make the learners more mindful and help them to derive more learning from the experience faster. So any ritual that meets the above requirements (and that is appropriate in the particular organization/ program context) should be useful.

Hence these can include 'nominating rituals' (e.g. in terms of an in-depth interaction between the employee and his/her manager before the program that will help the employee to better appreciate the value of the program to her/him and the investment the organization is making for her/him and to be more mindful of what can be learned from the program and how it can be applied on the job), 'opening rituals' (e.g. a senior leader doing the program launch to signify the importance that the organization is placing on the program and the participants) , 'experience assimilation rituals' (structuring the learning experience and reflection on the learning experience to increase mindfulness, learning and assimilation of experience), 'action planning rituals' and 'program closing rituals'. In a way, there is nothing really new/esoteric about these activities (they are part of most of the well-designed learning initiatives). The idea is just to put ceremony/rituals (back) into these activities to enhance their learning potential.

Now, let us examine how the elements of rites of passage can be used to facilitate the psychological transition associated with role changes. If we analyze the rites of passage, we will see that there are some common elements/phases (even though the rites might look very different from one another) - separation, transition and and re-incorporation.

The key requirement for the first phase is to detach/separate from the current status/position in the social structure and from the current identity/self. The transition phase is the in-between state where one has separated from the previous state but hasn't yet 'reached' the desired new state. The key requirement here is to remain in this state of uncertainty (without regressing into the previous state) so that the self has an opportunity to reconfigure itself in a manner that is appropriate for the desired new state. The objective of the re-incorporation phase is to re-enter the group/society with the new status/identity. Let us examine how these elements can be built into a new manager orientation program.

Conducting the manager orientation program at a site away from the office has a lot of value. The physical separation from the previous state (previous role in the office) can help in the psychological separation also. Having the space and time where one can reconfigure the mindset (not being burdened by the demands/activities of the previous state) - in the company of people who are undergoing a similar transition - that too under expert facilitation/help - can be very useful in psychologically tuning into the new role. Performing 'difficult' tasks - tasks that can't be accomplished with the previous mindset/task that require the new mindset can also be of immense value here (as they drive home the point that the previous mindset is not effective in the new role and as they help the participant to discover the mindset that is required to be effective in the new role). The key is to create an environment in which deep learning can occur and in which shared experience contributes to the creation of a new identity. Ceremonies to mark the successful completion of the program ('graduation rituals'), especially if they are witnessed by the senior leaders (and hence signifying their acknowledgement/recognition of the new status/state of the individual) can help in re-incorporation to the organization - in the new role. By the way, new manager orientation sessions (like rites of transition) also provide an opportunity for cultural indoctrination, where company values/leadership traits/ perspective/ 'world view' can be made very explicit ('Who we are and what do we stand for as an organization', 'How do we do things around here', 'What does it mean to be a manager in this company etc.).

It is important to get the 'positioning' of these programs exactly correct. There requirement is to help the participants separate from their previous role (and mindset) and tune into their new role (develop the new mindset) without making them feel that they are an 'elite class'/'superior to the people who are doing roles that they were doing previously'. So while branding this program is very useful, the essential signal/message to the participants should be that "You have made a very significant and valuable transition and have become more suitable for your new role; but this does not necessarily mean that you are superior to the people you manage" !

Any comments/suggestions/ideas?

Links : Carnival of HR - March 3, 2010, Career Development & Sublimation, Career Planning & the Myth of Sisyphus