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?  

Of Organization Development Managers and Court Jesters

“Can I request you to give me an additional role?”, the Organization Development Manager asked the CEO. Noticing that the CEO was looking a bit confused and apprehensive, the Organization Development (OD) Manager continued;  “No, I am not asking you to add me to the senior leadership team. I am also not asking for any role that someone else is doing in our company. The additional role that I am asking for is that of a court jester – in the business context”!

Prima facie, roles of OD Managers and Court Jesters appear to be ‘strange bedfellows’. However, based on my 15 years of experience in OD (10 years of which in internal HR), I am increasingly realizing that one of the roles that an internal OD consultant (OD Manager in a business organization) needs to play is that of a ‘court jester’. 

Though the word 'jester' is often (incorrectly) interpreted to mean 'a fool', a jester (like Tenali Rama in the court of King Krishnadevaraya of the Vijayanagara empire in India or William Sommers in the court of King Henry VIII in England) is a much more profound creature than a fool. At a superficial level, both a fool and a jester might appear quite similar. When we look at them more deeply, these similarities vanish.

While a fool entertains others by 'making a fool of himself', a jester enables others to laugh at themselves. While the techniques of a fool focuses mainly on the physical plane (doing funny things, acting in a funny manner etc.), jester operates mainly in the mental and/or spiritual plane (generating insights). We can also say that fools represent ‘simplicity on this side of complexity' (or simplicity that ignores the complexity) while jesters represent ‘simplicity on the other side of complexity’ (simplicity after working through the complexity). In terms of impact, a fool leaves his audience 'entertained' while the jester leaves his audience 'enlightened'. In terms of their influence, fools are quite 'peripheral' while jesters are quite 'central'. Jesters had the right (or even the 'duty') to criticize the king and get away with that (or even get rewarded for that!). Often, Jesters possess 'shibumi' (great refinement underlying commonplace appearances).

An OD professional is supposed to facilitate change. This change also involves ‘mindset change’ and ‘questioning deeply-held assumptions’. Again (with due respect to the ‘good press’ that ‘bottom up culture change’ enjoys), change often needs to begin 'at the top of the pyramid’ in business organizations because the role modeling behavior of the leaders is the most important factor that drives and sustains behavioral/culture change. So, one of the key requirements for OD professionals is to enable very senior people to change their mindsets and deeply held assumptions.

Sometimes, these mindsets and assumptions are very change resistant – even to the extent of being funny. For example, once I was invited by a business leader to transform the mindsets of the leaders in his organization. During the diagnosis when it was becoming increasingly clear that he was a major contributor to the problem and that he would need to make significant changes to his pattern of behavior, he made himself unavailable for the intervention saying that he was very busy and that it was his team members who needs to change. In another context, the HR head came to me and suggested that as the business leader can’t change his behavior (and as he won’t move out of the organization for the next few years), we need to train his team to enable them to work with him better. While it is an interesting idea ( to train the team to be better followers if the leader is immune to any leadership development efforts) it highlights two problems that are important for us here – the difficulty in getting the senior leaders to change and the high degree of fear that many of the HR leaders have when it comes to attempting any ‘change interventions on the business leaders’. Hence, OD professionals need to find ways to encourage business leaders to examine their decisions and their behavior/mindsets/deeply-held assumptions without offending them and without making the HR leaders too jittery.

This becomes even more important for an internal OD consultant (OD Manager in a business organization), as these senior people he needs to influence are higher up in the reporting chain (food chain!) of the organization. Often, there is an organization layer between the OD Manager and the business leaders (i.e. the OD Manager reports to the HR Head who in turn reports into the CEO). This makes influencing the business leaders on their mindsets and deeply held assumptions  very difficult (if not impossible) for the OD Manager, as it would require a lot of deep interactions with the business leaders that too over a long period of time. The OD managers might not get such an opportunity because of the way of functioning of the organization (‘organization culture’)  and as the HR Head might get threatened by such direct connection efforts!  Again, one of the de facto expectations from the layer below the CEO (e.g. in HR Head in this case) might be to protect the CEO from unpleasant information/interactions and even to maintain convenient collective delusions . If this is the case, it becomes very difficult for the HR Head to allow this kind of interactions between the OD Manager and the CEO as the HR Head (and may be the entire HR function) might have to suffer the possible ripple effects of such interactions!  

This is where the role of the jester comes in.  Jesters can draw attention to the blinds pots without making people defensive. Humor can go through the emotional defenses more easily as compared logic. Jesters can help the leaders to laugh at themselves. Jesters are less threatening because what the they say can be taken as a joke if the leader is not yet ready to accept the truth (and hence the jesters' 'intervention’ is an 'invitation to change' that does not ‘put the leader in a spot’).

Now, let us explore how we can make the role of the jester work in the context of business organizations. The way of the jester requires a high level of wisdom and refinement as the jesters need to walk a very thin line between causing enlightenment and causing offense. Also, this line is a dynamic one and walking it requires a very high degree of situational and interpersonal awareness. To avoid becoming a threat to other functionaries in the court (read the direct reports of the CEO -including the HR Head) the jester should always remain as some sort of an underdog or a wild card and should also remain detached from the office politics. Some of the concepts outlined in ‘Wisdom-level consulting' and ‘A political paradox for OD and HR' might be useful in this endeavor.

From a sustainability point of view, it would be best to create some sort of a formal mandate for the role  of the jester and provide it some sort of ‘diplomatic immunity’(so that the messenger does not get shot). Unless the OD Manager is mandated to be a ‘full-time jester’ (which might not be feasible as there are many other roles that the OD Managers play), we would also need some sort of  a signaling mechanism (corporate equivalent to the costume of the medieval jester) to indicate when the OD Manager is in the jester role.  Since elaborate costumes are not easy to put on and take off, maybe we can settle for a simple cap! If the organization is not willing to let the jester intervene whenever he wants to do so, there can be a designated 15 minutes ‘jester time’ in the middle of a business review meeting (where the jester gets to be an observer/'fly on the wall')!

If the business leader is not open to the interventions from the jester in the context of a meeting (where his direct reports are also present), this can be done on a one-to-one basis (at least to begin with). To be sustainable, the jester has to become a cherished rather than a tolerated presence. This can be accomplished by helping the business leaders to realize their mistakes by allowing them to see it for themselves. Rather than directly contradicting/confronting the business leader, the jester can encourage the business leader (by showing enthusiasm for the idea that the business leader has come up with) to think through the idea to its logical conclusion, so that the business leader herself/himself can realize its absurdity.  To make this happen, the jester should have high degree of business understanding (insight to the organizational truth) in addition to perceptiveness, wit and interpersonal sensitivity/awareness.

 It has to be noted that the jester is not just for the CEO. The jester is for the entire company. This role is relevant for facilitating change at all levels. Jesters can also facilitate creative problem solving – as creative problem solving requires questioning basic assumptions and exploring new (unusual) ways to look at old problems. Since these need to be facilitated across the organization, we might have to create 'jesters at all levels' or enable the employees to 'discover the jesters in themselves'!!   

So my fellow OD professionals, what do you think about this? Can the ‘jester role’ be made a part of the OD Manager’s job description?  Is it likely to work?  Do you want to explore the art of being a jester?

Thought leadership in HR in India

I have been doing some sort of an informal survey. It involved getting in touch with some people (most of them with more than 10 years of experience in HR) and asking them the following question: "In your opinion, who are the thought leaders in HR in India?".

Most of them came up with a list of 3 or 4 names. One interesting thing that came out of this was that there were not too many overlaps between these lists. Apparently, the people surveyed had very different opinions on who are the thought leaders in HR in India. This prompted me to prob a bit deeper by asking them "why did you name these particular individuals?", and that in turn led to discussions on "what is your definition of thought leadership in HR".

From these discussions it emerged that there is a wide variation in the definition of 'thought leadership in HR' among the people surveyed. Many of the names in the lists have contributed in more than one role in HR. Broadly speaking, their primary roles included those of consultants, management professors, OD professionals, senior managers etc. The underlying definitions of thought leadership that influenced the choice of HR thought leaders (depending on the primary roles of the individuals named as thought leaders - to some extent) included one or more of the the following aspects

• Creating and/or popularising new HR practices/interventions
• Understanding/predicting trends (sensing trends before they become common knowledge)
• Possessing insight and vision beyond knowledge/subject matter expertise
• Conducting research and publishing books/articles on a regular basis
• Converting insights to a solutions and getting them accepted/ implemented
• Receiving extensive media coverage (i.e. their comments are widely sought by the media on key HR related issues)
• Possessing great process facilitation and change management skills
• Having an extensive knowledge about the HR related research, HR practices and their applicability in particular organization/industry contexts
• Coming up with new/innovative solutions to key issues/complex problems
• Enjoying a great amount of influence in the HR community
• Encouraging others to think about/implement new ideas/solutions

Another interesting aspect here is the primary purpose for which one tries to develop 'thought leadership'. One purpose could be to make a significant contribution to enhancing organization effectiveness and employee engagement by designing and popularising/implementing new and innovative solutions to the key people related issues in organizations. Another could be to bring in new dimensions to the field of HR, enhancing/shaping the field. Depending on the current primary role of the 'thought leader' there could be other possibilities. For example, in the case of a consultant, 'thought leadership' is very useful for obtaining new assignments and for supporting higher charge out rates/fees. For a senior HR manager within an organization, a reputation for thought leadership could provide greater opportunities to try out new things and to take up initiatives that involve large amount of change/resource investment. Of course, for some people thought leadership could just be a spontaneous act of generosity - giving one's ideas, time/effort and wisdom to help fellow professionals.

Now let us come back to the definition of thought leadership in HR. As we have seen, there are a wide range of definitions of thought leadership. It seems that there is room for many types of 'thought leadership' and for may types of thought leaders in HR' ! This also gives many of us a chance to become some type/sort of 'thought leaders' (or at least to 'call ourselves thought leaders' !) in some HR related domain, in some industry, at some point in our careers. This in turn raises interesting philosophical questions like 'Can leadership (including thought leadership) exist without followers?'.

Any comments/thoughts?