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Can Resilience be Taught?
In these time of relentless technological and business change, resilience is starting to receive renewed attention/ is climbing higher on the leadership agenda. Resilience encompasses the ability to recover quickly from setbacks, to respond positively to change, to see the opportunities in work, in life, not just the challenges. Or as Alibaba’s Jack Ma put at Davos 2018 (World Economic Forum): “It is not about what you achieve. It is about what you do when things get tough.”
We can all see around us that people deal very differently with adversity and unexpected setbacks. In changing organizations you can see the difference between resilient and less resilient teams. The resilient ones are faster in finding their way forward. Lack of resilience quicker leads to uncertainty and doubt, to a tendency to revisit decisions already taken and to surrender to the status quo.
When resilient teams are having a rough day, they sometimes quote the super-resilient. Just two random examples:
“It’s a slip and not a fall”
This is what Abraham Lincoln said after countless hours of self-study, a law practice that barely earned him a living, the loss of his first child, two depressions, and his second failed attempt to enter politics and make it to the US Senate. Later, when he is elected president (almost to his own surprise), he has to lead his country through a brutal civil war. He suffers. He loses weight. But he never gives up. (read more here).
“Courage all the time”
American princess Allene Tew, beautifully portayed by Dutch writer Annejet van der Zijl (De Amerikaanse Prinses, 2015), after the sudden loss of GE’s Anson Wood Burchard, her third husband. Allene had already lost her first husband and her three children. She dyes her hair, takes a boat across the Atlantic, starts a second life in Europe, and never looks back.
And there are many more examples.
Have we, in our spoiled society, possibly become too soft?
Hanneke’s yoga teacher thinks we have, and makes his students train the warrior pose. He claims the pose will, over time, re-wire the nervous system. It is an interesting thought: training your resilience with specific physical exercises dating from a time when you defended your own family with your own power and hands.
Can resilience be taught?
Yes, says Psychology Professor Martin Seligman: there is substantial evidence from well controlled studies that skills which increase resilience, including positive emotion, engagement and meaning, can in fact be taught. You can read more here: Harvard Business Review – Building Resilience
Ancient Chinese sages sought to master the art of resilience by accepting, rather than fearing, change as the natural way of the world. 3000 years before the advent of modern quantum physics, they believed that energy or Qi 气 is the invisible master template behind all visible forms and functions of the human system and the world we live in. They claimed that everyone can learn, through regular Qi Gong (气功 or “energy work”) practice, to strengthen and refine his/her energetic reservoir and find a better balance when dealt a heavy blow, professional or personal.
Should we pay more attention to resilience, of ourselves and of our teams?
- How resilient am I?
- How resilient are we as a team?
- Did we become too soft?
- Do we talk about it?
- How can we become stronger in dealing with change, and with unexpected setbacks?
- How can we spend more time developing resilience?
Your experience? Your thoughts?
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Photo: Shutterstock.com
Aad Boot is a global business advisor, change leader/program manager, executive team facilitator, leadership coach, and frequently asked keynote speaker. He is founder and managing partner at HRS Business Transformation Services.
Hanneke Siebelink is research partner and writer at HRS Business Transformation Services, and author of several books and the Expert Series.
Find more about: Our Team, Services, and Keynotes
This Year’s 5 Most Read Articles on Leading Complex Change
Find here the top 5 most read articles on leading complex change and cross-cultural collaboration on LeadershipWatch in 2017. Enjoy!
1) Organizational Alignment: The Power of Cross-Organizational Networks
What will the organizations of tomorrow look like? Will they still hold on to hierarchy and functional departmental structures? Or will they use the power of cross-organizational networks to increase flexibility and adaptability?
2) Stop Believing These Persistent Myths About Leading Change
Leading change in today’s world requires a different approach to change. Some persistent myths about leading change are still alive. These myths hinder us instead of helping us. It is time we stop believing them.
3) 4 Tips to Make Your Team Embrace Accountability
Leading change has a lot to do with making people embrace accountability. It is a vital element for creating a collaboration culture that delivers results. How to do this?
4) Cross-Cultural Leadership: How to Avoid Making People Lose Face
The cross-cultural aspect of ‘losing face’ can play an important role when you are leading teams involving people from different cultures. It can cause misunderstandings and awkward situations between people. Some specific leadership tips can prevent this.
5) Skills for the Future: Break Patterns and Surprise Yourself, says Harvard’s Michael Puett
What are the key skills for the future? Harvard professor Michael Puett explains the skill of breaking patterns and its impact on your leadership, and on the people you interact with.
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Stop Believing These Persistent Myths About Leading Change
Let’s change the way we lead change!
In one of our most-read articles here on Leadershipwatch ‘What Does Change Mean to You?’ I describe how change always has been and always will be a natural part of our lives. We’ve dealt with change ever since we humans started to wander this globe. We have seen over and over again how it works, how we can turn it into a motivating, inspiring and successful experience instead of feeling burdened by it. But somehow some persistent myths about leading change are still alive. These myths hinder us instead of helping us. It is time we stop believing them.
Let me give you a quick overview, some food for thought, and then hand it back to you:
Myth #1: Change needs to be managed
“It is something you need to control and steer in the direction you want it to go. It requires a vast amount of analysis and planning upfront so that everybody can get clear objectives and tasks and everyone knows what to do. Change management is a set of skills you can learn by training. You need to learn the right tips & tricks and correct tools and models, and you will become successful in managing the change.”
You cannot manage change like you manage a production process in a factory.
I always use the following ground rule: the average ratio between the hard side of change (technical evolution, information – data – content, analysis – facts – figures, machines – robots, etc.) and the soft side (humans, ambitions – aspirations, habits, values, cultural alignment, shared vision – strategy, collaboration – teamwork, trust –confidence etc.) is 30/40% – 70/60%.
Leading change successfully is working 30/40% on the ‘hard’ side but 70/60% on the ‘soft’ side
Myth #2: People resist/don’t like change
“People are change-averse by nature. They like to keep the status quo. They are afraid of losing what they have. Don’t expect people to embrace change, you will have to convince and even force them otherwise they won’t move.”
Wrong! People are not afraid of change, but many of us don’t like to be changed. We like to be able to steer (or at least co-steer) when it comes to changing our situation. The more we feel a lack of control, the more our resistance will grow. The more we feel control over our own destiny and see for ourselves the opportunities for progress, growth and improvement the more we will jump forward.
Leading change means finding ways to create that climate of autonomy and ‘self steering’ in situations where whole groups of individuals, whole organizations are impacted, and where creating alignment between individual, cross-team and cross-unit differences therefore is a crucial challenge.
Successful organizations create environments where change is not perceived as a task but as an opportunity to grow as an individual in a more than strictly professional way
Myth #3: Changing other people’s mindsets is what counts
“Change means changing people’s mindset in such a way that the overall objectives can be reached. Technology, structure, processes and procedures will help, but in the end it is the mindset of the people that will make people change their behavior. Therefore a substantial amount of the energy needs to be assigned to changing the mindset of people.”
True, successful change very often implies a need for change in mindset. But can we actually change people’s mindsets? We can provide new thoughts, theories, models, or facts. We can try to explain how these have changed our own thinking. But even then, will it give us the power to change other people’s thinking? I don’t believe so. The only person you can change is yourself. When it comes to changing other people’s mindsets the best you can do is to offer alternative circumstances where people can experiment with new behavior and new patterns, and see what it brings. These new experiences will influence (and this sometimes takes a while) their thinking and eventually their mindset.
It’s easier to act your way into a new way of thinking, than to think your way into a new way of acting
Don’t let yourself be tricked by these myths!
Here are some practical pointers that might help you. I’ve seen these working successfully in many complex change situations:
- Embrace the fact that you are not able to control all elements of the change.
- What if you would shift your leadership style from controlling to facilitating/guiding?
- What if you would shift your mindset from trying to give all the answers to letting your teams come up with the answers? See what happens.
- What if your leadership style would focus more on creating team alignment about how we want to change rather than on convincing individuals to change?
- What if you would focus more on ‘helping people to steer’ rather than ‘trying to reduce resistance’?
- What if you would focus more on experimenting new behaviors than on teaching new thinking?
I’d like to know your experiences and thoughts. Feel free to share!
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Photo: AddelPic/Flickr (Creative Commons)
Aad is a global business advisor, change leader/program manager, executive team facilitator, leadership coach, and frequently asked keynote speaker. He is founder and managing partner at HRS Business Transformation Services where he works with senior executives and their organizations globally in three key domains: ‘leading complex change’, ‘cross-cultural leadership’, and ‘post-merger integration’. Find out more about Aad, our services, and keynotes.
Skills for the Future: Break Patterns and Surprise Yourself, says Harvard’s Michael Puett
What are the key skills for the future? In our special multi-part series, experts share valuable and surprising insights we can use to build tomorrow’s world. In this part Harvard professor Michael Puett explains the skill of breaking patterns and its impact on your life, your leadership, and on the people you interact with.
The best thing about listening to someone who challenges your day-to-day assumptions is that you learn something about yourself. Michael Puett, Harvard’s tall and boyish-looking expert on ancient China, certainly made me think when he explained how we are ruled by patterns, and how we can live better lives if we learn to break those patterns. I felt sorry when his talk at The School of Life (London, February 2017) came to an end after 2 hours. I would like to meet him again.
Here are the best insights Michael Puett shared with us in London (I leave his high-pitched voice and frequent smiles to your imagination):
The true self does not exist
Puett: “There are some old Chinese ideas that challenge common western assumptions. Ideas that I think we should truly be learning from. Let’s begin with visions of the self that arose in classical China. When we are trying to find answers to the big questions we face, we are encouraged to look within, to find ourselves, to embrace and love ourselves ‘just the way we are’ – and do the same for those around us. But this idea of a true self does not exist in the Chinese tradition. According to ancient Chinese thinking, we all complex and chaotic creatures, interacting with the emotions and energies of the people around us. There is no stable self. We are all equal messes of emotions, of dispositions, tendencies and patterns. Someone yells at me, and drags out of me an energy of anger.”
We all fall into patterns, even when we don’t realize it
Puett: “Also from a very young age, we fall into patterns, and ruts and habits of responding to the world around us. These patterns then begin to define how we experience the world. They become so ardent that they can be repeated for decades, they dominate our lives. And the danger is: this is what we become as human beings. We are like automatic machines, repeating the same patterns over and over again. The self that we think exists is really the result of the patterns we have fallen into. And by the way: a lot of companies are very successfully building their entire business models on this, taking our patterns for granted.”
Recommended reading:
How AI and big data feed on and reinforce our patterns, and problems this creates
Big data and algorithms need our moral compass, here’s why
Now: suppose the old Chinese philosophers are right about this. Suppose they are capturing something about what we are like as human beings. What would be the implications?
Puett: “If they are right, what I do when I look within and find myself, is I am in danger of simply finding a bunch of ruts and patters I have fallen into. And the last thing I want to do is embrace myself for who I am, because these are just patterns I have fallen into. Some of them may work out well by accident. Most of them, however, are disruptive because I am not really interacting with the people around me, without my even noticing. And so our mantra of self-acceptance is not only potentially wrong, because it is based on an incorrect and limited view of the self, it is potentially incredibly dangerous.”
“The last thing you want to do is love and embrace your patterns. The goal is to break them.” Michael Puett
How to break your patterns
A Confucian approach, Puett explains, would be to notice your patterns and then work actively to shift them. How? By using the power of rituals, or “anything that forces you to become a different person for a brief moment of time, that forces you to physically see the world from the perspectives of others, perspectives you would otherwise never taken on. By physically forcing you to do this, it creates a break. And that break, over time, opens up the possibility to begin breaking these patterns, and begin to really interact with the world around you, instead of interacting by rote.”
Here’s an example:
You have a difficult relationship with the person you share an office with. Her comments drive you nuts. When she voices her opinion on a subject you shake your head in disbelief, you tell her what you think is right, you hope she’ll learn something from you but all you really do is fight – and it’s just been like this for years. Stuck in a pattern, you think?
Puett: “The answer is yes! It’s not that you and her just cannot get along – there is a pattern at work, a pattern you can break. How? When another conversation sets in, and you know exactly how it is going to go: do slightly different things, bring up slightly different subject, slightly change your tone of voice, begin appealing to slightly different sides of her. Asking her advice on something, for instance, can bring out her more nurturing side. You can then be somebody who is really listening to her. Start playing with these different roles a little. Over time, if you keep practicing, the patterns that have been dominating your relationship for years will start to shift. You will start interacting differently. Each of you, as you begin to see different sides of the other, will begin to talk about tons of subjects you previously couldn’t talk about, or talk about the same subjects in different ways. Little changes, even if it’s just in tone of voice, can make unbelievable differences.”
Recommended reading: ‘The only person you can actually change is yourself’
Keep training and surprise yourself
Puett, now smiling through his glasses: “Think of this as a life-long training exercise. When you start creating these breaks, you begin interacting with people differently. Over time, and more importantly, you begin really sensing them. You begin sensing the people around you as the complex creatures they really are;
You get better and better at sensing people’s patterns, your own and those around you, and at sensing what you can do to bring different sides of people out and grow genuine relationships;
You begin to act in ways that help your family, your friends and colleagues to flourish;
You begin to realize you are multiple, not a single self, we all are multiple, we are relationships all the way down, and everything is changeable – even the huge and seemingly intractable societal problems of our time. We constructed the world. We can, by training and cultivating ourselves, change it for the better. We are capable of doing this.
Maybe, just maybe, these ideas from a distant Chinese past are powerful and if we take them seriously, we open up possibilities we cannot now even imagine.”
Michael Puett is Professor of Chinese History at Harvard University. His classes have been so successful that they have been moved to the largest lecture hall available at Harvard. I read his book The Path, which he wrote together with Christine Gross-Loh, and highly recommend it.
What do you think? 2 essential questions:
- If Puett and China’s old philosophers are right, and the true self does not exist, why do we keep labeling one other? Why do we keep labeling ourselves, sometimes literally with numbers, letters or colours (referring to HR tools that are used in many companies)? Are we not at risk of focusing on just a snapshot of who we are at a particular time and place, instead of on the person we can be?
- New technologies like machine learning, big data and robotics are exciting. But is allowing these technologies to play to and reinforce our patterns such a good idea? Shouldn’t we use the same technologies differently, in ways that help us break our patterns instead (search algorithms could point us to music, voices, points of view that we would normally never listen to, for instance)?
Shoot! And many thanks for thinking along.
Photo: David/Flickr (Creative Commons)
Hanneke Siebelink is Research Partner and Writer at HRS Business Transformation Services, and author of several books. Find out more about Hanneke and HRS services. If you would like to invite us to your organization, contact us here.
Find more Expert Series articles.
Leading Change: How Slowing Down Can Help You to Make Progress
Leading large and complex change initiatives is an intensive and demanding job for those leading it and for their teams. The need for change, the timelines, the urge to meet targets and deadlines, it can put substantial pressure on teams.
As change leader you obviously support your teams, you motivate them and coach them. You lead by example and stimulate them to learn and grow, to make progress, to aim for top quality, and to become a truly winning team. It is the feeling of moving forward, of climbing our ladder of success together, which truly motivates us as a team! Right? But be careful!
Teams that are ceaselessly expanding their limits and grow their success for a period of time can lose sight of the fact that they are making progress. Despite the fact that they are moving forward and becoming better at what they do, they can show signals of demotivation, even of a decreasing trust in the team’s success.
Teams that ceaselessly expand their limits can start showing signals of demotivation and decreasing trust in the team’s success if they do not take the time to consciously experience and embed the results achieved.
Pay attention to the signals! For instance:
- Are issues and risks brought forward at the last moment instead of addressing these pro-actively?
- Do team members only report to you and never ask your advice or coaching?
- Does the team only discuss operational topics? Never sensitive topics like doubts or uncertainties?
- Do people point at others when things don’t go as planned instead of taking responsibility themselves?
Although these examples are not by definition telling you something is wrong, it would be wise not to neglect them. If you start noticing signals like these it’s maybe time to change pace. Step into your helicopter! Lift up and observe the landscape from above, from a distance. Give yourself an overview of what is going on down there. On where we came from, and where we are going. Is the road travelled clearly visible? How have we changed during our journey so far? Can you see this? Can you see the road ahead? Good! Now bring your team onboard of your helicopter and invite them to also have a look. Take a step back together and take the time to see from above. Ask your team to reflect on what they see and to share this with each other. How do we see the road ahead? How can we use what we’ve learned so far in the rest of our journey? Take some time to slow down together! Your team needs it to let its success sink in. This will give your people the energy to continue to build results.
How do you notice the signals in your team? When did you last get into your helicopter? What did you see?
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Contact us here.
Photo: © HRS Business Transformation Services
Aad is a global business advisor, change leader/program manager, executive team facilitator, leadership coach, and frequently asked keynote speaker. He is founder and managing partner at HRS Business Transformation Services where he works with senior executives and their organizations globally in three key domains: ‘leading complex change’, ‘cross-cultural leadership’, and ‘post-merger integration’. Find out more about Aad, our services, and keynotes.
3 Tips for Executive Teams to Increase the Success of Corporate Change Programs
Many corporate change programs fail to deliver the expected results. Gary Hamel, John Kotter, and others claim the failure rate to be around a staggering 70%. What is the role of executive teams here? How can executive teams increase the success of corporate change programs?
The past 25 years I’ve been having the opportunity to experience and witness firsthand what increases the success of corporate change programs and what doesn’t. On the one hand as board room advisor facilitating executive teams in how to translate the corporate strategy into corporate change initiatives (from strategy to execution). On the other hand as program manager of large corporate change programs managing the actual rollout of these complex change initiatives (making the change happen). It has taught me a lot, especially also about the role of executive teams and its effect on the program’s success.
Of course there are many different elements that define the success of a change program, but the role of the executive team is a crucial element.
How often have you heard one of the following complaints?
- ‘This program is going nowhere. It will never materialize. There is no sponsorship from the top.’ (Lack of involvement and drive from the top)
- ‘They can do whatever they like. As long as they do not bother us. We have more important things to do.’ (Two different worlds, the ‘business as usual’ world and the ‘program’ world)
- ‘When will this program ever deliver!? It is taking way too much time. What has it actually achieved? I have no clue! And in the meantime they are spending a lot of money and taking all our resources.’ (Too slow, no results)
- ‘What do they expect from us? That we simply implement this into the organization? Why didn’t we know this earlier? I don’t see how we can do this!’ (Big bang, too little time for adaptation)
These are just a few examples. And these are complaints that are directly influenced by the role of the executive team.
How can executive teams prevent complaints like these, and how can they increase the success of corporate change programs?
Here are 3 vital tips:
1) Create a specific connection between the change program and your corporate strategy
- Do it yourself, do not delegate this to others!
- Take the organization along on a journey. Explain the corporate strategy and clarify how the change program contributes to achieving the strategic objectives.
- Look your managers and employees in the eyes and bring your message across with enthusiasm and conviction.
- Create frequent moments of communication to repeat and reaffirm the strategy and express your confidence in the change program. Be there especially when doubt and confusion emerge, which will happen at moments during corporate change programs.
2) Choose! Set priorities!
- Avoid ‘analysis paralysis’.Stimulate managers, architects, analysts, engineers, and others to reduce complexity where possible. (read more here about how to avoid ‘analysis paralysis’).
- Stimulate people to think and communicate in terms of impact. Ask for potential choices and scenarios, and the pros and cons of each scenario. Challenge people to explain how these scenarios contribute to the successful execution of our strategy (read more here about how to stimulate people to think impact).
- Be there when tough decisions are needed. Stand up to take these decisions yourself if you see others are reluctant or afraid. Show your determination and confidence in the change program. Don’t allow complacency to emerge.
3) Actively steer on results and learning experiences
- Show your involvement to the organization! Not just at the start of the change program, but throughout the whole program life cycle. Set up a steering and governance structure in which you as executive team play an active role. Make sure the mindset of people is milestone and result oriented, rather than activity oriented. Focus on the results.
- Listen to the program team. Make the time! They are at the forefront of the change curve and have first-hand information on what decisions are needed and how these potentially impact your business. They are your eyes and ears, and can provide you very insightful information about the state of the organization.
- Engage the organization. Expect from management and employees to make the change program an integrated part of their daily operations, to be a partner of the program team, and to take ownership of the defined program objectives. Ask them on a frequent basis how this partnership can be improved based on learning experiences.
- And last, but not least: Do not blindly stick to decisions if results and learning experiences show you otherwise! Leading complex change requires agility and adaptability. People are not always comfortable enough to leave the chosen path. You setting the example will be vital! Not by changing course every other day, but by focusing on what we learn during the change program, and by showing how we can use this to strengthen our strategy and grow our execution skills.
Feedback, Thoughts? Tell us!
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Photo: Shutterstock.com
Aad is a global business advisor, change leader/program manager, executive team facilitator, leadership coach, and frequently asked keynote speaker. He is founder and managing partner at HRS Business Transformation Services where he works with senior executives and their organizations globally in three key domains: ‘leading complex change’, ‘cross-cultural leadership’, and ‘post-merger integration’. Find out more about Aad, our services, and his keynotes. If you would like to invite Aad to your organization contact us.
Our Top 5 Leadership Articles of 2016
Find here the Top 5 leadership articles selected by our readers in 2016
In 2016 LeadershipWatch has again welcomed an amazing amount of readers, and we received lots of appreciation and nice reactions. Many thanks to you all! You are a great inspiration to us, and you stimulate us to keep on sharing real life business experiences and to explore more new topics that are important in today’s fast changing business environment.
We wish you a wonderful Holiday Season, and we’re looking forward to welcoming you back in 2017!
Below we listed the top 5 most popular articles over 2016. Enjoy!
1) 4 Tips to Make Your Team Embrace Accountability
For multinational (and other) enterprises, competitive advantage and successful strategy execution increasingly depend on getting cross-company collaboration right. Accountability is a vital element for creating a collaboration culture that delivers results. How to do this?
2) Leading Change: What Does Change Mean to You?
It is our mental model towards change that defines whether leading change turns out to be a painful burden or a stimulating learning experience. The more leaders support cultures in which change is approached as something continuous, the more their teams will be able to embrace and achieve successful change. It starts with the leaders’ mind set.
3) Leading Multinational Companies: Three Significant Changes in the Role of Senior Leaders
Today’s business environment is changing. It affects people and businesses worldwide, and surely also multinational companies. In working with multinational companies we see three specific changes that affect the role of senior leaders. Three changes that require special attention and sometimes even a fundamental mind shift.
4) Skills of the Future: The Best Expert Advice on Creativity
By 2020, creativity will be one of the top 3 skills anyone who wants to be successful in the economy of the future will need, according to the Future of Jobs report. We looked for the best expert advice on creativity – and found it.
5) When East Meets West: Peter Hessler Shares His 3 Best Tips for 2016
When the American journalist and writer Peter Hessler moved to China to teach and write, he discovered that things were almost diametrically opposed to what he had been used to in the U.S. In this article he shares his 3 best tips about dealing with the confusion (and sometimes frustration) when East meets West.
Use the subscription button (PC: see right-hand sidebar; Mobile: find button below this article) to stay up to date with LeadershipWatch articles and news. Your personal information will be kept strictly confidential.
Big Data and Algorithms Need Our Moral Compass. Here’s Why.
Big data and complex algorithms are all around us. Machines are getting smarter by the day. They can help us make better decisions. Make our lives easier. But is machine intelligence always right?
Big data and computer algorithms are all around us
The big data era, where large amounts of data are used to analyze, understand, and predict developments in real time, has clearly begun. Business leaders increasingly turn to computation to get faster and more accurate answers to questions like:
‘Which news item or which movie should we recommend to people?’;
‘What product is this person most likely to buy?’; or even
‘Who should the company hire?’
Big data and algorithms have become the new gold of the information age.
Machines are getting smarter by the day
“Recently”, explains technosociologist Zeynep Tufekci (@Zeynep) in a brilliant TED-talk (you can watch her talk below) “complex algorithms have made great strides. They can recognize human faces. They can decipher handwriting. They can detect credit card fraud and translate between languages. They can detect tumors in medical imaging. They can beat humans in chess and Go.
Much of this progress comes from a method called “machine learning.” Machine learning is different than traditional programming/coding, where you give the computer detailed, exact, painstaking instructions. It’s more like you take the system and you feed it lots of data, including unstructured data, like the kind we generate in our digital lives. And the system learns by churning through this data.”
But is machine intelligence always right?
“Consider a hiring algorithm”, Zeynep Tufekci goes on to explain, “a system used to hire people, using machine-learning systems. Such a system would have been trained on previous employees’ data and instructed to find and hire people like the existing high performers in the company. Sounds good. I once attended a conference that brought together human resources managers and executives, high-level people, using such systems in hiring. They were super excited. They thought that this would make hiring more objective, less biased, and give women and minorities a better shot against biased human managers (..)
Now, I have a friend who developed computational systems to predict the likelihood of clinical or postpartum depression from social media data. The results are impressive. Her system can predict the likelihood of depression months before the onset of any symptoms – months before. No symptoms, there’s prediction. She hopes it will be used for early intervention. Great! But now put this in the context of hiring.
So at this human resources conference, I approached a high-level manager in a very large company, and I said to her: “Look, what if, unbeknownst to you, your system is weeding out people with high future likelihood of depression? They’re not depressed now, just maybe in the future. What if it’s weeding out women more likely to be pregnant in the next year or two but aren’t pregnant now? What if it’s hiring aggressive people because that’s your workplace culture?” You can’t tell this by looking at gender breakdowns. Those may be balanced. And since this is machine learning, not traditional coding, there is no variable there labeled “higher risk of depression,” “higher risk of pregnancy,” “aggressive guy scale.” Not only do you not know what your system is selecting on, you don’t even know where to begin to look. It’s a black box. It has predictive power, but you don’t understand it. “What safeguards,” I asked, “do you have to make sure that your black box isn’t doing something shady?”
She stared at me and said: I don’t want to hear another word about this.” And she turned around and walked away. Mind you – she wasn’t rude. It was clearly: what I don’t know is not my problem, go away, death stare.
Is this the kind of society we want to build, without even knowing we’ve done this, because we turned decision-making to machines we don’t totally understand?”
Big data and machine learning technologies will soon make their presence felt in the financial services, insurance, and healthcare industries (to name just a few),
The effects on all of us will be profound. This piece by Bernard Marr (@BernardMarr) will make you quickly grasp what lies ahead: 3 Industries that will be Transformed by AI, Machine-Learning, and Big Data in the Next Decade
Yes, computation and big data can help us make faster and better decisions.
But can we really afford to step away from difficult questions and dilemmas, which will inevitably arise?
“We cannot outsource our responsibilities to machines. We must hold on ever tighter to human values and human ethics.” – Zeynep Tufekci
Or should we rather do the opposite and step in?
By educating ourselves on how these technologies work, and what they can and cannot offer.
By demanding and giving meaningful transparency (read more here: Leading Change – We Need More Transparency).
By cultivating and using our moral compass.
Aad and I agree with Zeynep Tufekci: “Machine intelligence make human morals more important.” How about you?
Zeynep Tufekci (@zeynep) is an expert on the social impacts of technology. She is an assistant professor in the School of Information and Library Science at the University of North Carolina, a faculty associate at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard, and a former fellow at the Center for Internet Technology Policy at Princeton. Her research revolves around politics, civics, movements, privacy and surveillance, as well as data and algorithms.
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Photo: Tao Tsai/Flickr (Creative Commons)
This article is part of our ‘Skills for the future’ Expert Series in which we share valuable insights, pointers and lessons from a list of business leaders, experts and role models selected by Hanneke Siebelink. Find Expert Series articles here.
Hanneke Siebelink is Research Partner and Writer at HRS Business Transformation Services, and author of several books. Find out more about Hanneke and HRS services. If you would like to invite us to your organization, contact us here.
7 Top Insights for Leading East-West Business Teams
As business leader you are increasingly dealing with global business teams. For instance East-West business teams in which people from cultures you know rather well need to collaborate with people from cultures you are less familiar with. This is a new reality in today’s business world that has a great impact on the success of companies. And you don’t need to be in Asia to recognize this. Globalization, technology and growing FDI of Asian companies in the West increase the need for cross-cultural skills on both sides.
“To be successful in the current and future business world, cross-cultural skills are increasingly important.”
And mind you: just learning the unfamiliar Asian business etiquette is not enough.
Effectively assessing cross-cultural context and its impact on team performance is not always easy. Even after 25 years I still can find myself in situations where I think I recognize and understand the cultural differences, but nevertheless am surprised by the unexpected behavior of team members.
For instance, just a few weeks back I had a meeting with Indian team leads. It was about setting up a good planning for the coming 6 months. Not the first time in my life I had this type of discussion with Indians, and yet I tricked myself by not paying enough attention to the Indian appreciation of hierarchy versus my Dutch interpretation. By letting them decide on their own as a team they felt confused because they expected me to set a clear direction, and therefore they didn’t know how to meet my expectations. I needed to remind myself that empowering people works differently in the Indian culture versus the Anglo-Saxon cultures.
Over the years I have lead and facilitated many East-West business teams in complex transformations, learned a lot and repeatedly wrote about it.
Here are our top 7 articles, most popular with LeadershipWatch readers determined to improve their multicultural leadership skills.
We hope you find them useful too (you will find lots of practical tips!)
How to increase your understanding of the cultural differences in your team
1. Leading cross-cultural teams: do you understand the cultural differences in your team?
How to improve team communication
2. How to avoid making people lose face
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3. How to create openness despite cultural differences
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How to interpret and deal with authority across cultures
5. East and West perceive authority differently and it affects your team
How to plan and schedule better
6. Leading Indian – Dutch business teams: 3 insights that help create results
How to build mutual trust across cultures
Thoughts?
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Photo: © HRS Business Transformation Services
Aad is a global business advisor, change leader/program manager, executive team facilitator, leadership coach, and frequently asked keynote speaker. He is founder and managing partner at HRS Business Transformation Services where he works with senior executives and their organizations globally in three key domains: ‘leading complex change’, ‘cross-cultural leadership’, and ‘post-merger integration’. Find out more about Aad, our services, and his keynotes. If you would like to invite Aad to your organization contact us.
Why Curiosity is a Key Business Attitude for the Future
Curiosity is more than just a nice to have in today’s business context. It is essential to successfully navigate the rapid technological changes coming our way.
For instance for my current client, a large retail company, which is facing significant changes that require an important digital transformation with significant impact on the organization and employees. As program manager supporting this strategic corporate transformation process I witness daily how stimulating people to adopt a curious attitude makes a big difference and has a positive impact. Highly complex transformations like this one often bring people and teams in situations where there are no clear predefined answers and solutions; where people need to explore, need to get outside the ordinary routine, and learn new ways of looking at things to find new ways of working.
It comes down to this: How do we fundamentally react to change?
1) We close off? Try to restore the as-is? See the unknown as a potential threat?
Or,
2) We open up? We feel intrigued by it because it’s new and we don’t know it? We open up to it, we want investigate it, understand it, even if it puts us outside our comfort zone?
Reaction 2 has serious advantages! Why?
a) You train yourself in finding patterns, connections, dependencies, mutual impact, which you didn’t see at first. It will help you to find new solutions in a changing business environment, rather than to sticking to traditional ‘right or wrong’ reasoning. It will lead to better decisions.
b) It will make you see the opportunities first and quite possibly give you the skills and relationships to take advantage of these opportunities.
“We keep moving forward, opening new doors and doing things because we’re curious, and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.” – Walt Disney
That’s why curiosity is a key trait for anyone aspiring to compete and succeed in tomorrow’s economy.
Curiosity is a key attitude for the future
Don’t just take my word for it:
World Economic Forum: Why you should never lose your curiosity
Additional reading suggestions:
Keep an open mind: Why the open mind always outperforms the closed one
Listen to learn, not to react. Ask questions, not only when you do not understand something, but certainly also in global business teams working with people born and raised in different cultures (India, Japan, China, ..): How to create openness
Learn about new technological evolutions, things you don’t know, learn a new language – the possibilities are endless (I love MIT’s open courseware).
Deliberately sideline fear in decision-making. No mercy.
Stimulate members of your business team to do the same.
Feedback, Thoughts? Tell us!
Liked this article? Use the subscription button (PC: right-hand sidebar; Mobile: button below this article) to stay up to date with LeadershipWatch articles and news. Your personal information will be kept strictly confidential.
Photo: © HRS Business Transformation Services
Aad is a global business advisor, change leader/program manager, executive team facilitator, leadership coach, and frequently asked keynote speaker. He is founder and managing partner at HRS Business Transformation Services where he works with senior executives and their organizations globally in three key domains: ‘leading complex change’, ‘cross-cultural leadership’, and ‘post-merger integration’. Find out more about Aad, our services, and his keynotes. If you would like to invite Aad to your organization contact us.
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