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You might have heard about constellations.
You might have watched them in the sky or on the Great Seal of the United States.
You might have read about them in Bert Hellinger’s psychology books or in Matthew Barzun’s recent book The Power Of Giving Away Power.
But have you experienced being part of a constellation and playing an active role in it? I have. A magical learning experience that has transformed the way I see my own power.
In his book, Matthew Barzun uses two metaphors to talk about the way power is structured in organisations: the traditional, stable, hierarchical pyramid, and the more open-ended, interdependent, empowering constellation.
If a pyramid is the default way organisations are structured, Barzun defines a constellation as “Independent bodies freely choosing to behave in concert to accomplish something bigger than each could alone. One could stand out on one’s own – a star – but at the same time be part of a larger unit – a constellation.” He brings the constellation model to life with many stories, from Wikipedia to Visa, not to mention the “Yes we can” fundraising campaign Barack Obama and Matthew Barzun orchestrated as a constellation in 2008.
If you think this summary is shallow, you’re right. Now, please, read the book. My purpose here is to share how I and a few others were enabled to experience these principles.
As I wrote in a recent article, ELBC is group of independent leaders, who gather every other Friday to discuss about a book. This book circle, created and hosted by Theresa Destrebecq is organised as a constellation. I’m borrowing the three following headings to Matthew Barzun’s tribute to Mary Parker Follett, the unfairly forgotten theoretician of the constellation organisation.
I joined because I wanted to start reading again; some others joined because they wanted to discuss their readings; some because they didn’t know what leadership books to read. We all need the group to meet these expectations.
A former teacher, Theresa creates and facilitates conversations that help us make links between our reading and our leadership life. Neither of us would ever have that depth of insight without those conversations.
The books we read are chosen by a vote. Every other month, Theresa asks the circle’s members to recommend a few titles and submits a shortlist to our vote. I would never have read The Power Of Giving Away Power if it weren’t for the group.
I need the others to stimulate me to read, make me read deeper than I would myself by sharing their insights, inspire me to read books I wouldn’t read by myself.
As we started reading, one of the first questions Theresa asked us was “who are the constellation makers? Can you research companies who embody the constellation mindset?” I remember getting stuck in a laborious conversation with a lovely woman, whose environment was, just like mine, entirely dominated by pyramidal organisations. At some point though, I remembered C’est Qui le Patron ?! this consumer-owned fair-trade milk brand that has conquered the French market over the last 4 years. I started throwing things I remembered from a podcast I’d heard into the conversation, visiting their website to respond to my buddy’s questions, and going back triumphantly to the main room with at least one constellation I could talk about. My success was all the greater that I was almost the only French person in the group and no one there had ever heard of C’est Qui le Patron ?!
Theresa was so enthusiastic about my story that she asked me to reach out to C’est Qui le Patron ?! and see if the founder, Nicolas Chabanne, could come and talk to us. As I had heard him in a recent podcast suggest that he didn’t see himself as a boss and would like other members of his organization to speak on behalf of C’est Qui le Patron ?! I suggested to follow his suggestion and invite anonymous stars of the constellation.
Long story short, we ended up having, in the same meeting, Matthew Barzun, author of The Power Of Giving Away Power and former advisor of Barack Obama, and 2 consumer-shareholders from C’est Qui le Patron ?!
Theresa and I put all our design skills in building a half-hour that could be interesting for all, guests and participants alike. And as usual, she reached out to the constellation to create a list of questions to ask our guests.
Theresa had cleverly asked Matthew Barzun if he agreed to share his speaking time with other guests, which was a rather direct way to ask him if he was ready to walk his talk. Whoever reads his book would say that it was a bold move, though not a risky one. As President Obama’s ambassador to the UK, Matthew had spent thousands of hours visiting schools to listen to what British teenagers had to say about the US. We took a bet that he wouldn’t mind listening to French people claiming they belong to a constellation just like those he describes in his book. He accepted with grace.
On the French side, two C’est Qui le Patron ?! “actioneers” showed up : Clémentine Périer, who had kindly reached out to the consumer community she leads to find English-speaking volunteers to come and speak to our book circle, and Sandrine Galtier de Saint Christophe, a historical consumer-shareholder. Both of them interrupted their workday at short notice to come and talk to us.
They did not only discuss “hiding self-view”, “generating power together” or “seeing everyone as a masterpiece”, “bringing your naïvety into the discussion”or “not knowing and asking someone to make something together”. They did it. Live.
The power of giving away power : a live conversation with Matthew Barzun, by Simon Sinek https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FT57EQsuFo4
NICOLAS CHABANNE C’est qui le Patron ?! Changer le monde avec 4€ par an, Génération Do It Yourself https://www.gdiy.fr/podcast/nicolas-chabanne/
When did you last give you permission for a break? What impact did it have on your productivity?
Everything has been written about productivity, and about leaders burning themselves out videoconferencing 12 hours a day. Yet, I meet more and more of those leaders, desperate to make more time to care for their teams, anxious to keep the business going, who cannot find the time for a break anymore.
Instead of writing an umpteenth list of smart productivity tips to lead in Covid times, I’d like to share a story that has moved me. Because “Joe” is a real person, and because his suffering resonates with the suffering of many leaders I have met lately. Thank you Joe for allowing me to share your story, and thank you Sophie and Katja for training me into becoming a better story teller.
Joe is a leader you can count on. Not only you, but his teammates, his clients, his bosses, his colleagues all across the organisation. Oh, and his family, his band, his friends, his neighbours, not mentioning the beneficiaries of the charity he volunteers for. Joe cares, Joe is present, Joe is helpful. Nobody can ever get enough of him.
Covid and full-time homeworking have made Joe even more aware that he needs to reach out, listen to weak signals, take care of the people he works and lives with. That makes a lot of calls to make to keep in touch with everyone. Covid and full-time homeworking have also made business more difficult and his bosses manage their anxiety by organising always more video conferences. Joe’s boss needs him to spend more time strategising.
Always eager to improve, Joe makes a list of all the things he can do to set aside more time for strategic thinking. He invests in his team to increase their level of autonomy. He makes sure that the time he spends with them is uplifting and rewarding, before jumping on the next business review where he will sit still for 2 hours and 45 minutes and speak for 15 minutes, or 10, or 5. His weeks are packed with back-to-back video calls from 8 am to 8 pm.
Just like all of us, Joe misses his team, his gang, the afterwork drinks and the Sunday barbecues. But above all, he misses the plane trips during which he had no choice but to disconnect for a few hours. He misses his weekends, which have become the only moment when he can prepare the next PowerPoint presentations, answer his emails, do his admin. He hardly sees his family although they now live 24 / 7 under the same roof.
Ring any bells?
Friday, 2 pm. Coaching time. Joe’s sharp on time, delighted to make two hours for this conversation, he says with a worn-out smile. As we check in, I start feeling dosy. Why on earth is it so difficult to keep my eyes open? I struggle and wrestle against that sneaky sleepiness: I try to sit straighter, to open my eyes wider. I even try to stretch discreetly, in vain. No other way out than to be honest about it.
– Sorry Joe, I’m feeling really sleepy. I don’t mean to be rude or anything…
– I can see that, he smiles exhaustingly.
– I’m wondering, is it just me or are you feeling something similar?
– Gosh no, it’s not just you! I am knacked too!
– Tell me Joe, when did you last take a break?
– …
– …
– I’m in back-to-back meetings since 8:30 this morning. And I have 3 more after we’re done.
– Have you had any lunch?
– Kinda, but no break. I have just grabbed some bread and cheese in the fridge a few minutes before signing in for our session. It’s been like that for almost a year now, you know…
– How about we both take 15 minutes now?
– Seriously?
– Your brain is not functioning anymore. If you agree that this coaching is about helping you strategise more, I seriously suggest you give your brain some air NOW. Leave your phone on your desk, grab your coat and go out. See you in 15.
When we resume, Joe looks in much better shape. He’s feeling a lot better too. “Incredible how these 15 minutes have reenergised me, he says. Thank you for giving me that permission”.
– What would it take to give yourself permission?
– Oh well you know how corporate life’s like…
– What could happen if you gave yourself permission?
– My boss would go bonkers. And he would probably take revenge by making me stay later, or giving me more work. Forget it.
– OK, how about your other meetings?
– … With my peers, it would be really awkward. None of them does this. Everybody’s in a productivity contest these days.
– Up to a point when overused productivity kills actual productivity…
– With my team though, it could work well. Actually, they’d love it and I’m sure we would achieve more in 45 energised minutes than in 60 exhausted ones.
– …
– And when I think of it, I could introduce an hourly break with the cross functional meetings I’m running bimonthly. I’m the project lead, after all. The way these calls are run is down to me as long as the goals are met. And I can see value in offering tactical breaks to shorten unnecessary discussions.
– Now that’s strategizing! What else?
– You know what, I have noticed that more and more of my colleagues turn their video off when attending the business reviews. That’s a way to give oneself a break, isn’t it?
– Do you feel like doing it?
– … To be honest, I don’t… Here’s a better idea. This week, we had a meeting that was much more efficient than usual because my boss had a short deadline. I feel OK to draw inspiration from that meeting to suggest an alternative agenda for the next one. There might be no breaks, but I think I can get buy-in for shorter waiting lines.
– Anything else?
– No, that was a productive session, thanks!
When I started working for international partners 4 years ago, I became brutally aware of a few yawning cultural gaps. To name but a few, my partners at the time were used to remote working, I wasn’t; they seemed to work in large teams without any kind of relationships between team members, I was totally lost; and they acted as if lunch time were a regular working hour, oh my goodness!
At the time, I’d read an insightful book, La prouesse française, Le management du CAC 40 vu d’ailleurs, which described in detail, through the experience of non-French executives, what was uniquely French about large French groups operating at global level. This outside-in look into French organisational cultures proved hugely helpful to help me understand how French professionals were seen in international organisations.
Although La prouesse française was documented 5 years ago, I still use it as a guidebook to help my colleagues from all over the world find their way through the up and downsides of “Ze management à la Française”. And, as a brilliant leader recently told me: “Before you judge our culture and try to change it, bear in mind that it delivers world-class performance”.
At the turn of the century, French management was perceived as centralised, formal, French speaking only and with a rupture-based change culture. In 2016, foreign managers working in 20 global French groups acknowledge three main qualities to their French colleagues:
1. They have a strong sense of achievement. This seems to have improved over the last decades;
2. They are diplomats and show great care about their team’s well-being in a humanist management style;
3. They encourage creativity, innovation and are open to personal initiatives.
Although day to day relationships are informal, French managers are still keen on power symbols such as office surface, rank or protocol.
If private communication is informal especially with one’s direct report, public and written communication with the same person becomes surprisingly formal.
It seems to foreign managers that the French operate in very selective networks dating from the « grandes écoles » they graduated from.
French managers make creative and pragmatic decisions, by:
• Listening to different ideas as long as they are not confronted in public by their team,
• Mobilising their personal network when it is more efficient than following the official process.
Integration in a French group takes time. Up to 1,5 year for British, German, American or Polish managers; between 6 and 8 months for Spanish, Indian or Chinese managers whose culture is more sensitive to relationships than Anglo-Saxon cultures. The main obstacles to integration are: multiple bosses in matrix organisations, no clear information on how to do things, and the difficulty for French managers to trust their foreign colleagues.
French managers love to intervene as experts in the process, decisions are made informally apart from formal meetings and in the end, the boss at the top makes the call. After a meeting held in English, the French gather around the coffee machine, switch back to French and make decisions that were not made during the meeting.
What is decided matters less than who makes the decision: all levels in the hierarchy are involved in the decision process, which explains its length. But once the decision is made, the people in charge of its implementation are quite free to refine and adjust it to their needs.
Day-to-day communication is mostly implicit. Most meetings contain a lot of implicit and coded information, which some foreign managers – mostly from low context cultures which require explicit communication – find hard to grasp. On the other hand, communication becomes much more explicit when it comes to defending an idea or assessing a team member. Performance reviews are very critical, judgemental and hardly mention any positive point. These reviews are often painful for foreign managers used to softer and more encouraging communication. Meetings can become rhetorical battle fields, where the main point seems to display one’s ego rather that decision making skills.
If foreigners find it hard to become part of the team because they don’t belong to the French educational and social networks, it is generally acknowledged that the French have difficulties giving trust to anyone. In any organisation, French managers tend to work in silos for their own objectives, even when it’s obvious than collaborating across the organisation would be more efficient and beneficial for the organisation.
I’m moving away from la Prouesse Française now, to share a few observations I’ve made with international colleagues, working globally for large French groups. I include myself in the shortcomings listed below. Being aware of them helps me do my part in bridging the cultural gap when working in international teams. And I reckon I still have a long way to go!
French professionals are often considered cynical by their international counterparts. Whatever the topic, the typical French attitude will be critical. Appreciation, if any, comes last. What’s more, optimism is often labelled as “naive”.
Even at senior level, French execs tend to behave, in our foreign colleagues’ eyes, like good pupils. Instead of shutting up and doing their own thing, which any Brit would do, they tend to groan… and comply.
In the French management culture, feedback is widely considered a bitter pill to ask one’s subordinate to swallow. Despite research and empirical evidence, it is still widely believed that praise leads to laziness. Therefore, the very best feedback many teachers, parents and later, managers can give is “Peut Mieux Faire”: Can Do Better. And of course, feedback is mostly a top-down process, very rarely a bottom-up or a peer-to-peer one. This is a particularly tough change barrier when it comes to developing a feedback culture or adopting new performance management practices.
Thanks to the Covid pandemic, remote working has made tremendous progress in France, even in organisations that were already operating globally and partly remotely. Yet, the vast majority of large French companies are going back to a pedantic control of time at the office. There are two sides to this, I believe. On the one hand, as mentioned by Suleiman & al, a lot happens in the corridors and informal moments that full-time remote work had rendered inaccessible. On the other, many leaders still believe -against 15 months’ evidence – that controlling people’s time is an effective way to control their performance at work.
Although the above can be nuanced according to national culture, gender and age, foreign managers express the urgent need for a more genuine and efficient communication, as well as more trust and collaboration from and between their French colleagues.
How does the sight of this man, napping in the sun, make you feel?
After having procrastinated for a week at the sight of a mountain of work in which she felt she was going to drown, this brilliant consultant was too short of time to go the old way. She had to create a shortcut to complete her project, which, in hindsight, led her to a better result.
Wow, I thought. That’s amazing how time pressure can make you creative.
A friend of mine procrastinated sending me something through her phone because she had forgotten how to do it. When I showed her, she admitted shamefully that her son had already shown her twice, with sarcastic comments about her computer illiteracy.
Oh, I thought. Anticipated shame must be a good reason to procrastinate.
Another complained that his daughter procrastinated doing her homework until he would stick his nose into her folders.
– How do you see her behave in other circumstances?” I asked.
– To be honest, I don’t see much of her in other circumstances, he replied. I travel a lot for work, you see?
Clever girl, I thought. She has found a great way to get her Dad’s attention!
I remember coaching a student some years ago, who couldn’t start revising for his exams.
– How do you see your life when you’ve passed your final exam? I asked.
– Well, 45 years working with the same stupid daddy’s boys I’m studying with. That’s what graduates from my University do.
– And how does that feel?
– Dreadful…
Oh dear, I thought. Spending an entire career with stupid people is a frightening prospect. I’d rather fail before success takes me on the wrong track forever!
In all of the cases above, procrastination is used to avoid facing a greater problem. I’m not saying the solution is always a good one, but in all four cases, the greater problem – fastidious work, shame, parental abandon, a boring career- is avoided or about to be.
Avoiding is not solving, except in the first case where I gather the consultant is more than happy to reuse her new method.
How about solving the bigger problem, instead of trying to stop procrastinating?
Whenever I am OK with the consequences, procrastinating is a valuable option.
Talking from personal experience, procrastination might be the signal that I need to take a rest, instead of exhausting myself doing things that can be done tomorrow without major harm. “I’m tired, can I afford to slow down?”. When I can, I do. What if it just transfers the workload to the next day? Well, it does! But I’m in better shape to face the load.
I belong to those who work better under time pressure. So what, as long as I’m not putting myself or others in jeopardy? Taking care of the laundry, my tax return and other chores at the last minute makes me do them fast. So much precious time saved for all the more interesting things I want to do. Letting a report “macerate” in some remote corner of my mind helps me process, filter, settle my ideas… and the final text comes out all at once, just before the deadline. It might cost me a couple of sleepless nights, but I’m fine with the final cost / benefit ratio.
I’m not saying assumed procrastination is the universal panacea. I’m saying it works for me in certain circumstances.
What makes you procrastinate?
When could procrastination be a good option for you?
Do you allow yourself to procrastinate when you could?
When procrastinating is not an option, I have found a personal way to kick myself in the back.
Some obligations never go away, no matter how fastidious, tiring or frightful. One of my friends told me that she could rely on her love for closure: handing in a great report, smelling the perfume of clean laundry… I love these moments too, but I need something stronger to get tedious or challenging things done on time.
My thing is having to do it for someone. Knowing that my client is expecting a deliverable or my cleaning lady needs some clean clothes to iron is just what I need to get things done.
In other words, my fear of disappointing others is greater than my tendency to procrastinate. Am I proud of it? That’s not the point, it works for me, as long as I don’t overuse it.
Have you discovered something in you that is stronger than your urge to procrastinate?
My grateful thanks to : Sandrine Donzel, Natalia Kavourinou, Penina Wieder.
To read further : Sandrine Donzel, De l’utilité de la procrastination … Blog S comm C (in french)
My most transformative learning journey was the Advanced Practitioner Diploma at the Academy of Executive Coaching. Understanding why and how this experience impacted me so much more than all the others felt like a sensible step to take to create effective learning journeys for my clients.
When I applied for the Advanced Practitioner Diploma, I was an experienced coach, with over 600 hours training in various leadership, coaching and therapeutic approaches and 15 years of individual and team coaching experience. The only thing I missed was a proper coaching diploma and accreditation, which was becoming critical on an increasingly saturated coaching market. I was advised to “buy a coaching diploma”, which would have been easy on an equally competitive coach training market.
Instead, I chose the AoEC, and I did it for 3 reasons:
The first thing I noticed from the start, and that made a significant difference with my learning experiences in France, Belgium, Switzerland and Italy, was the time and energy invested in creating a group dynamic. On approximately 400 hours work I invested in my learning journey over 13 months, approximately 45% were spent in collaborative group or subgroup activities, half of which at our initiative, without any intervention from the faculty.
Assessing a significant part of our own learning needs, identifying resources within the group and managing our own learning agenda bonded our cohort as I had never experienced before.
This program was nothing like “pay your fees and you will get a certificate” as I have experienced in most training environments. The admission process to the APD was long and challenging. At the end of the program, a “Pass” was required on each of the 4 final exams we had to take (a theoretical essay, a presentation of our coaching model, a coaching demonstration and a learning essay) to graduate. It was definitely hard work and I admire the full-time workers, especially the working mothers, who were brave enough to make 400 hours in a year’s calendar to do it.
What made it manageable was the way the AoEC faculty designed, organised and followed up our learning process with a list of course requirements, assessment-oriented training, individual tutorials and thoughtful reminders. The path to success was well paved, but it was down to each learner to cross the finish line.
I don’t only feel a sense of personal achievement and pride. I also feel I was supported to make the right effort to get maximum results. “Winning with” feels much more rewarding than “winning against”.
- An international network of trusted professionals and friends,
- An integrated, academically approved coaching model,
- A strengthened code of ethics,
- 50% business growth v/s 2019 despite the Covid crisis.
- Engage with the learner before the journey starts, to assess and arouse their motivation,
- Create a learning process the learners will fill with their own content,
- Invest time and energy in creating a strong group dynamic,
- Make it clear what success looks like and structure the path forward,
- Don’t say or do anything the learners can say or do themselves,
- Always be there to help and encourage.
Sophie Hanrot and Pauline Kiejman for helping me find my motivation, Jan Liska and all my fellow learners from the APD 2020 cohort for great memories and pictures, Melanie Martinelli and Shilpa Subramaniam from The Learning Gym for introducing me to the “High Performance Learning Journey” model.
Accelerated Learning: a journey you won’t regret
Development programmes: keeping the best from both worlds
A few amazingly creative bridges: what does your most creative bridge look like?
A virtual innovation team leader for a few years now, Julie Payet had to learn how to run online brainstorming workshops on–the-go. She has been kind enough to share some her learnings with me, now that virtual meetings are likely to become the new normal, even after the COVID 19 lockdown is lifted.
Julie : Brainstorming or creative meetings by videoconference was, I thought at the beginning, the one impossible thing. How do you create stimulation and emulation between participants? What can replace post-its, white boards, physical moves?
How did your first experiments go?
They were tedious, exactly at the opposite of what you expect of a creative meeting. I tried the whiteboard to replace the post-its and start getting what people have on their minds. Reading it out, classifying the inputs is, on-line, totally boring and you need a lot of resilience from the participants. Then when there is a debate, interruption is very difficult, so people really have to wait their turn to talk, they get easily demotivated. You become more directive, and you do have a result in the end, but with very little guarantee that people are engaged behind it.
What mistakes did you do? What did they teach you?
The biggest one was lack of preparation. I’m a very good improviser in real situations, so I tend to underprepare. This doesn’t work online.
With a few years experience now, what do you reckon are the main differences to physical brainstorming?
1. The people who easily express themselves can be different on-line and off-line.
2. The group energy goes down more quickly.
3. A visual transcription of what is said is more critical, it doesn’t stay “in the air”.
What are your practitioner tips for successful virtual creative meetings?
Given these differences, preparation is even more critical for a virtual than for a physical meeting. Here are 6 areas on which I focus my preparation.
1.Keep the group small.
4 participants is a good number, up to 6 can work well. You’ll be better off running 2 sessions if you want to work with more than 6 people. Include some expert profiles, not only creatives. They will fuel the group with knowledge when the energy goes down and add stimulation. I encountered a lot of introvert experts who interact better in video conferences, contrarily to some extravert managers who need the physical vibration of the group to have more idea.
When teams work virtually all year long, I have experienced that groups who make the time for informal news and jokes create more cohesion and maintain more efficiency in the long run. This is true as well in a single session. Also, if not everybody knows each other, participants need to introduce themselves. Beyond practical reasons, it is a way for everyone to feel they’re being taken into consideration, and assert how they will contribute to the call. A nice introduction gives a good atmosphere to free speech and idea generation. During the session, leaving the chat box open to all lets emotions be expressed. It replaces one –to-one live chatting in a room, and I feel it is necessary for people to feel relaxed.
A section should be no longer than 10 minutes; the deliverable can be a template to fill: a simple ppt presentation with a template per page works well. This will renew the energy level every 10 mn and avoid “drop-outs” (doing something else on their computers). You can have a full efficient hour like this. Don’t try to make your meetings longer, you will only waste time and engagement for future meeting.
This means that you need to anticipate the directions of the brainstorming with the sections, which feeds one another. For this you can have preparatory sessions with some stakeholders. It feels more directive, but you can prepare a lot of themes, and the group may cover only some of them. Reversely, ideally you will also improvise some during the discussion, inserting new slides to fill together. The last deliverable must appear as a conclusion and give a sense of achievement and group satisfaction.
In physical creative meetings, you can renew the interest and the energy level by simple tricks such as making people change places, go around the room to read paperboards, change the color of post-its, ask them to draw instead of writing… It allows to rest some parts of the brains and stimulate new ones. In a virtual meeting you have to find other ways to do this, and the variety of stimuli can help. Texts, pictures, videos, various deliverable templates in totally different formats.
The whiteboard where everyone can first reflect and then write a few words can be used (as post-its in a meeting), but it’s very slow to go through all the contributions. Can be used once or twice in the session. Writing live (screen shared) all the discussion is powerful, reorganizing the information along the way.
My key takeaways
The key to successful virtual meetings is to maintain the dynamics and the energy.
Work with a small group, and don’t be afraid to structure ahead to make sure you keep your participants engaged.
To read more : Peut-on transformer durablement toutes nos rencontres professionnelles en réunions à distance ?
Last week, Fabrice Rosenstiehl took us through an overall comparison between a Go player’s and a Chess player’s mindset. This week, we explore four major differences between both games, that lead to radically different decision-making and leadership styles.
At the end of a Chess game, the defeated king is overthrown on the board or gives up the fight when death becomes inevitable. In a game of Go, ½ point of territory is enough to win, which means the loser doesn’t lose face: most of the time, s.he ends up with almost 50% of the final benefit.
In a political power game, a Go player will try to distribute the power to their advantage, whereas a Chess player will aim at eliminating their opponent. In a merger at the beginning of my career, I remember trying to share the power of my position with my counterpart in the organisation my company had just acquired. I started sharing information and responsibilities with him. To my surprise, none of these opening moves were ever returned. Eventually, I realised I had no choice but to make it a “him or me” fight. Too late though… I learnt the hard way that I can’t share power or anything else with someone whose only goal is to kill me, even if I start stronger.
Players of different levels can play a game of Go with equal chances to win; that can’t happen at Chess.
The handicap system gives the weaker player a starting advantage in the form of strategically placed stones or extra points. It allows players of different levels to play with equal chances to win. It is a powerful way to learn with stronger players, without being trashed every time. I remember losing by only a few points to professional Go players, which would never have been possible at Chess. The point of the stronger player is to educate, not to demonstrate their strength.
In a business environment, I give more time, guidance, patience to junior professionals than I give to seniors, which brings us back to Situational Leadership. In a wider perspective, I like this principle of Japanese business that adapts payment terms to the size of the supplier: the smaller the supplier, the shorter the payment terms and vice versa.
In Chess, a low-rank piece can be sacrificed for the sake of a high-rank piece. In Go, the stones don’t have an individual value: their value lies in the efficiency of their mutual connections. If a Chess and a Go player share the same commitment to win, the Chess player wins alone, whereas the Go player wins collectively. As a leader, I need everybody in my team to have that same winning spirit and to contribute to success. I believe that in the end, my clients’ experience relies as much on the Unique Selling Proposition of my company’s products as on the way they are treated by my field salespeople or remote customer service. One missing link and I may lose my business to a more diligent competitor or miss the profitability targets my shareholders are expecting my business to reach.
I have noticed that this mindset sits better with Japanese or American corporate cultures: I have often felt that a leader’s attention to humble contributions was considered irrelevant in European corporations, where managing up largely prevails over managing down and across.
In a Chess game, a tactical error is fatal. Therefore, a Chess player will invest all their resources to anticipate and counter their opponents’ moves. The timescale of a Go game is so long, that making mistakes is inevitable. “Aji” is a wonderful concept of Go: seemingly lost stones on the board keep an “aftertaste” that can become instrumental again as the situation moves forward.
In business, a bad move can be a poor investment, a dropped innovation, a failed deal. A short-term player will kill them fast, for the sake of highly visible quick wins. A Go player will be patient and see how the situation evolves before making a final decision. Therefore, reacting to the competitor’s last move is not necessarily the best thing to do. Sometimes, the best move is to not react locally and play elsewhere. Unfortunately, the current fashion for quick wins does not advocate for this kind of patience.
I have experienced that to be true in the short term. When facing a Chess player, one can only freeze, flight or fight. But more and more corporations strive for sustainable profit: to that end, they know that they need engaged and aligned teams, long-term thinking, sharp execution and rigorous continuous improvement. Sharp execution is not good enough anymore. Business will always need Chess players, and more and more Go players.
Management d’entreprise et stratégie du Go, F. Touazi, C. Gevrey, Nathan, 1994.
Ce que le jeu de Go apporte (vraiment) au management
Go players, Chess players and power games (1/2)
Fabrice Rosenstiehl is one of a kind: whilst pursuing his career as a business leader, he’s a Go player at top European level, and a former Chess player. Although he readily reckons that he is biased towards Go, he uses his understanding of both games to decipher and play the power games he is faced with in business contexts. Let’s discover how.
Fabrice: There is nothing like a Go player’s mindset to lead a team in which each contribution is valued in the construction of a long-term achievement. But I’ve learnt at my expense that there is nothing like a Chess player’s mind to play short-term, winner-takes-all games. Business requires both, in different circumstances.
Roughly speaking, a game of Chess is similar to the middlegame of Go: it is about winning a competition by anticipating the competitor’s moves, negotiating, trading. It requires sharp focus and tactical skills, for the outcome of the whole game can depend on winning one crucial battle. Reading sequences several moves in advance and visualizing patterns is a skill both players share.
A game go is divided in 3 phases, that require different thinking and decision-making skills:
The opening is about creating a vision, making it clear for all stakeholders, aligning goals and resources, and observing what the competition is aiming for.
The middlegame is the most competitive phase: it’s time to execute the strategy, negotiate deals, make difficult decisions, take risks, fight foot to foot.
The endgame is a quieter, more analytical phase: it’s a time for tight accounting, optimisation, closure. It sounds less exciting than the previous phases, but beware! Neglecting the endgame can jeopardise a whole game’s efforts.
According to Hersey & Blanchard’s Situational Leadership Theory, a leader is a different leader depending on the skills and mindset of their stakeholders. Similarly, a Go player is a different player in each phase of the game, whereas a Chess player’s skills are focused on the competing phase.
I see four major differences that result in radically different leadership styles.
To read further:
Go players, Chess players, and power games Part 2
Management d’entreprise et stratégie du Go, F. Touazi, C. Gevrey, Nathan, 1994.
Ce que le jeu de Go apporte (vraiment) au management
Throughout twenty-five years in the field of leadership development and change management, I have built my executive coaching model on several theoretical layers, including leadership models, organisational sociology concepts, self-development tools and psychotherapeutic theories.
Studying at advanced level at the Academy of Executive Coaching has given me the opportunity to shape these learnings into a robust executive coaching model.
The approach that most inspires me and sits at the core of my coaching practice is the Brief Therapy Model (a.k.a. Systemic and Strategic Approach) developed by Paul Watzlawick and others at the Palo Alto Mental Research Institute, following the fundamental research initiated by Gregory Bateson. Client-centered approaches have helped me emphasise and improve the quality of the relationships I build with my clients. Last but not least, Gestalt has opened the world of somatic awareness, which I am gradually integrating into my practice.
This mix of influences might seem odd to a reader familiar with the psychoanalytic / humanistic / cognitive-behavioural divide of therapeutic models. Throughout my practice and learning journey, I have built four bridges that help me integrate them in a way I believe helps my clients reach their goals. I hold these four bridges as my core executive coaching principles.
I shall feed this blog with blog articles that will delve into more details about these four principles. In the meantime, don’t hesitate to reach out, executive coaching is first and foremost a relationship!
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