W W C

This last election has exposed another deprived or challenged population within the American socio-economic fabric.  That is the white working class (WWC).  It is this class that much attention has been given to of late; it is being given credit or blame for the success Donald Trump experienced last Tuesday.

Certain attributes are being attached to those who make up this class.  A civics teacher who wants to explain or have his/her student inquire into this past election should present and define who these people are and what role they played in putting Trump over the 270 Electoral votes needed for victory.

          It seems that there were enough of these people in key, usually Democratic states to give Trump and his party the edge.  Again, the margin was large enough in too many states to throw the election in the direction of the Republicans not only for the presidency, but for the House of Representatives and the Senate.

Nationally, more people voted Democratic for each of these bodies than voted Republican, yet the Grand Old Party won all three.  As the students of one of the high schools where this writer taught would say to the female teachers, “That ain’t right, Miss.”

          So, what are these attributes that characterize the WWC?  It seems to be a group of people who have been hit with one or more of the following developments:

·        they are generally people without a college level education;

·        they can be former small business owners that, due to the Great Recession, have lost their businesses and the capital that set up those businesses;

·        they have lost their jobs due to work being exported to a lower-wage foreign country or to sections of the nation that have “right to work” laws (often being southern states such as South Carolina) or to automation.

          Many of them are products of families that can vividly remember better days.  Those days saw people similar to them, perhaps their parents or grandparents, being union workers who worked in busy factories or foundries.  Oh yes, those grandparents, by the way, represented the generation that won World War II – the “Greatest Generation.”

They also remember a social setting populated by people mostly like themselves – white and of Anglo-Saxon or Germanic stock or perhaps Scandinavian.  Now what they see is increasing numbers of people whom they perceive as not being similar to them.

          These others – intruders – can be blacks or Latinos, Asians, and/or Muslims from the Middle East.  The smells are different or the accents are un-understandable.  Among “these real Americans” are older ones who have seen their children move to where the work is only to be probably struggling far from home.

They also see themselves aging too quickly, perhaps with health problems, and with financial challenges that deprive them of planning a better future.  And then along comes the Donald with his travelling show promising greatness again.

          Yes, the Clinton refrain that America is still great and getting better might be true, but it is not true for these people.  And this is not the first time this dynamic reared up and showed itself.  Ronald Reagan, with another quip of a saying – morning in America – promised a better future, only to see an acceleration of the disparity in income and wealth.

Many mark Reagan’s terms as the time when that disparity became serious.  That’s when the one percenters began to seriously gobble up just about all new income and own too much of the nation’s capital.  The plunge for the WWC in economic and social standing did not start eight years ago – although the Great Recession augmented the problems – but can be traced to the early 1970s.

          And one more thing can be said about them:  they are not the only ones hurting.  There are also the usual suspects:  inner city blacks and other minorities.  So, a civics teacher or curriculum that is guided by federation theory would find such conditions ripe for study.  That theory finds such conditions as immoral.  Why?  Because they are reflective of an inequality caused not by acts of those affected, but by structural factors beyond the victims’ control.

          From the above description, one can detect a host of more specific issues.  There is the plight of unions and the whole justification for their existence.  There is racism: the conditions that create it and encourage it to grow.  There is globalization:  its pluses and minuses.  There is the democratic quality of our electoral process including the justification for the Electoral College.  There is automation and the threat it poses to jobs. 

More generally, there is the nature of Americanism:  what is it, what is its justification, what is its promise?  And there is nationalism:  what is it, what are its dangers, and how nationalistic is the incoming president?

          This writer recently attended his fiftieth high school reunion.  One question he asked at the get-together was:  given that this election cycle had an avowed socialist and not so subtle nationalist running for president and receiving a lot of votes (this was before the two major candidates were determined), are the elites of the nation taking note and willing to change course?  At the time, he believed that neither Trump nor Sanders had a chance.  He was fifty percent correct.

          And that brings up another issue:  how powerful are the elites?  How much can one see the elites as a singular force?  How much is the system rigged against the interests of the clear majority of the nation?  Are the critical theorists right?  Do we need a revolution or, in more acceptable language, a transformation?

This writer still holds the belief that we need serious tweaking including some transformations, but that overall, the system works.  After all, most voters did not vote for a revolution; they voted for the establishment candidate.

WHY?

While this blog has been mostly dedicated to the scope – the content – of an ideal civics curriculum, the writer wants to begin a series of postings about this last election.  Through most of this campaign cycle, he has not bolstered the positions of one side over the other; he might have used perceived shortcomings of one candidate to exemplify a point, but he avoided suggesting for whom the reader should vote.

Now that this long and tiring campaign season is over, the reader might be left with the question:  why did the election turn out as it did?  In any event, the next series of postings will look at this question.  It will rely on an article published in the journal, The New Yorker,[1] for the facts on which these postings will be based.  So, on this Veterans Day, a look at what happened might be a good way to begin what some are anticipating as being “interesting times.”

Many are familiar with the Chinese (apocryphal) saying that it is a curse to live in interesting times.  The nation might be on the verge of finding out.  The pundits on TV have mentioned a host of factors stretching from bigotry to emails.  As with any event of consequence, chances are there are a multitude of reasons.  This is particularly true if the event in question is about an election in a nation of over 300 million people.

Some parameters should be stated up front:  Donald J. Trump was elected by a quarter of all eligible voters.  He received less than fifty percent of the vote, came in second in the popular vote, and there were significant third and fourth party candidates (taking about 5% of the votes cast).

          Another point should be made, one concerning why this blog is looking at this question.  The reasons for the results of this election are a rundown of those conditions that reflect two central claims this blog has made over the years:

·        One, the nation has, since World War I, adopted a natural rights construct as the prominent view of governance and politics.

·        Two, the problems that will be reviewed will illustrate how much the nation has turned away from the construct that was in place prior to World War II.

          For returning readers, the refrain that describes the older construct will sound very familiar, but for new readers, a quick word on the central concepts of the older construct would be helpful.  The older construct was labeled as traditional federalism and it holds that a polity of choice – one that is not the product of force or accident – is formulated by its participants coming together and forming the polity through the instrument of a covenant or compact.

The US is the product of a compact, the US Constitution.  Part of that compact is the belief that those who comprise the “citizenry” of the compact are equal and viable partners in the provisions of the compact.

In short, many of the reasons that will be described in the upcoming postings have undermined and are undermining the very quality of that equality.  It is the opinion of this writer that a review of these reasons can be the basis for a civics course, one based on federalist ideas and ideals.

He will write about these reasons in terms of how they affect the underlying qualities of a federalist union.  The claim is that such effects are placing the system in danger.  For example, the very fact that Trump did not receive most of the popular vote is placing, again, the very prudence of an Electoral College in question. 

The Electoral College is a product of our federalist foundation.  If the results of elections were to be determined from a purely popular vote basis, the resulting politics would tilt to an extremely urban bias, relegating the interests of the rural regions far behind.  This is counter to the congregational quality of a federal union.

That is, central to a federal system is the notion of an equality among its citizens and its states – those are who formulated the compact in the first place.  A resulting tilt, as just described, would be un-federalist in nature.  Perhaps our nation has grown beyond a federalist union; this writer does not agree.

And the construct that should be used in any civics course that looks at the current challenges would be better served with what this blog has offered: a revised version of federalism, liberated federalism.  The newer version places even more concern on these reported incidents of inequality.

A focused question, then, is:  why did Trump capture the vote of the downwardly mobile white voter?  He won both the male and female white vote despite all the controversy over his reported incidents of abusing women.  The writer of the cited article, Packer, asked the candidate Hillary Clinton about the support the Republican candidate was receiving weeks before the election.

Here is what she had to say:

It’s “Pox on both your houses,” … It was certainly a rejection of every other Republican running [for president].  So pick the guy who’s the outsider, pick the guy who’s giving you an explanation – in my view, a trumped-up one, not convincing – but, nevertheless, people are hungry for that … Donald Trump came up with a fairly simple, easily understood, and to some extent satisfying story.  And I think we Democrats have not provided as clear a message about how we see the economy as we need to.[2]

And yet, she emphasized, as her ads kept repeating, how untemperamental her opponent was to be president with little highlighting of how she was going to right the economic disparity of the last thirty of so years.  She might have had the policy proposals written out, but she did not communicate them to those who needed to know and feel them.  This election has rendered an interesting story; hopefully, the upcoming postings will capture its intrigue.

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[1] George Packer, “The Unconnected,” The New Yorker 92, no. 35 (2016):  48-61.

[2] Ibid., 48.

THE WORKPLACE

In the last few postings, this writer has been reviewing a set of qualities that characterizes a leader who seeks to establish an inclusive and collaborative environment in his/her organization.  As pointed out in the last posting, those qualities are ones that should exist between a singular participant – a member or employee – and the organization.

The participant, among his/her personality and other traits, has a status designation, conscience, set of practical skills, and a claim of rights that defines that person’s integrity within the organization.  These qualities were described and explained in the last posting.

Reflecting these qualities, the participant in a healthy relationship owes the organization conscientious rendering of his/her loyalty, trust, skill, and knowledge.  In return, the organization provides equal standing (all subject to the same rules) and special allowances when times turn negative.  But these relationships do not exist in a vacuum.

Leadership needs to back these relationships with a conducive atmosphere in the organization.  There are four general qualities that should exist there.  These are:  a functioning community with a sense of a “group as a whole,” a cultural commitment toward members or employees feeling a sense of partnership or a federation, institutionalized processes of interaction that facilitate these qualities, and a community that holds a moral primacy.[1]

Of course, how exactly these qualities are instituted and maintained in a given organization depends on a host of factors:  the nature of the organization, the outer cultural environment in which the organization exists, the cultural makeup of the members or employees, local obstacles, local economic conditions, and the like.

Given that, though, these four qualities pretty much speak for themselves and are mostly intuitive.  While they are easy to understand, they are difficult to establish.  The status quo, no matter how dysfunctional it might be, has reasons for its existence.  In most collectives, to establish or enhance these collaborative qualities usually calls for a transformation.  This is especially true in an age of extreme individualism.

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[1] Phillip Selznick, The Moral Commonwealth:  Social Theory and the Promise of Community, (Berkeley, CA:  University of California Press, 1992).

A HEALTHY GIVE AND TAKE

In the last posting, this writer reviewed four motivating forces that would encourage individuals to involve themselves in the decision-making processes in any collective to which they belong.  This can be collectives ranging from the family to the nation.  Often, the setting for such concerns would be the place of work in which individual are employed.

          The four forces are:  inconsequential costs, inordinate rewarding results, interpersonal recognition, and emotional reward.  The reader is invited to click on the last archived posting if he/she has not read it.  The more general concern was what type of leadership should an organization seek – lone worrier or inclusive collaboration?  This blog has favored the inclusive type, but has admitted that each mode of leadership might be called upon to meet varying challenges at different times.  Having recognized that, though, the inclusive type is preferred.

          In this posting, to advance an inclusive form of leadership, the writer would like to comment on various strategy types that can bolster inclusivity on a day to day basis.  That is, what can a leader and his/her immediate staff promote that can further an inclusive culture within the organization?  The ideas presented here are highly reliant on the ideas of Philip Selznick.[1]

          To begin, the leader and his/her leadership team need to buy into certain ideals.  As has been pointed out in this blog, while ideals do not guarantee certain behaviors, they do encourage dispositions and, in turn, desired behaviors.  So, the prudent strategy is to encourage those ideals that dispose the members of an organization to behave in those ways that are congruent with the ideals being promoted.  It is in this overall sense that ideals are offered.

          One set of ideals is concerned with how the individual member of the organization should be viewed.  If the entities making up an organization are individual people – as opposed to subgroupings[2] – this set of ideals is about how the organization, its leadership, defines those individuals from an organizational perspective.  As such, the concern here is not about how the individuals are viewed interpersonally – although emotional attachments can further these dispositions – but on “professional” views extended them.

          The first designation is that everyone should enjoy his/her constitutional integrity.  That is, a sense of liberty should exist within the organization allowing the individual to behave within a range of behavior parameters which are, in turn, established by necessities logically derived from the organization’s purpose – its role and functions.  What should be further encouraged is to convince everyone that he/she should wish to behave in ways that are congruent with the common interests of the organization.  This is not always what the leadership desires.

          Each organization needs those who express positions counter to policy.  Of course, there can be too much of this, but a certain level of criticism is healthy if what is truly motivating it is the common interest of the organization.  Criticism advanced to purely further personal ambitions or other counterproductive aims is unhealthy.  A trait of good leadership is to be able to distinguish productive from unproductive critiques.

          The second designation is status.  While an organization strives to instill among its members or employees a sense of equality – all are treated by an established set of rules and customs equally – various members will enjoy different levels of status.  This is inevitable – it’s a human trait to bestow higher or lower status to individuals based on desired contributions of those members. 

Good leadership recognizes this and does two things.  One, it clearly identifies and justifies the criteria by which status is bestowed and, two, it seriously regulates the rewards attached to higher status avoiding excessive rewards and privileges.  And surely, status should be bestowed on those who live out the inclusive values that leadership is trying to pursue, regardless of how high or low an individual is situated within the organization.

The next area that should be addressed has already been alluded to; that is, conscience.  A healthy organization has a membership or workforce that buys into its organizational ethos.  An ethos reflects a cultural reality within a collective – what its members truly believe and feel.  It is their individual conscience and it determines what they espouse to be the good, both morally and practically.

These beliefs might be challenged at times and not all of its values – making up the ethos – are congruent with each other.  A value might have to be sacrificed in a given situation.  But openness can ameliorate the consequences of having to compromise a value.  Here, the organization should promote a sense of morality – ethics – that is hierarchical; some values are more important than others.  A good bit of thought should be given to this task not only initially, but on an ongoing basis.

Evaluation of performance, especially during trying times, should add this concern to any review.  The organization’s staff should ask:  is our value orientation what we want it to be?  Do we need to revise it?  All of this should be done as openly as possible.

Two sub-qualities should characterize this concern for conscience:  transparency and equanimity.  The goal is to avoid any whiff of favoritism in making and implementing decisions, especially during and after trying situations in which pain will be felt one way or another.  Overall, conscience is encouraged (not guaranteed) where a “we’re all in this together” sense is felt and believed.

The last area that should be addressed in terms dealing with individuals is practical skills.  Of course, this varies according to the nature of the organization.  But whatever those skills are, be it manual skills, intellectual skills, personal skills, athleticism or dexterity skills, and/or creativity, it is in the interests of the organization to keep abreast of newer developments regarding those skills.  Of course, in-service training is usually part of any large business’s efforts.

Modern economic realities can challenge this quality.  What if a business is offered opportunities that align it in opposition to the interests of a segment of its employees?  Are there cheaper labor costs elsewhere or is there a new technology that will perform functions that were done by workers?  What is the responsibility of the employer to protect or otherwise assist affected workers?  This writer struggles with this question.

A central point should be made.  Unless a business is going to get rid of all its employees, how it treats those affected workers will communicate volumes to those who remain.  If only immediate profits are accounted for, that business has no expectation of enjoying employee loyalty and if that is the case, what has been suggested above is of no consequence.  There remains only the concern to take care of number one.  It debases the collective part of being a collective.

What remains in this description is the back and forth between the individual and the organization.  This relationship is logically defined by the qualities identified above.  That is, the organization provides equal standing to everyone (again, that means all are subject to the same rules and regulations) and provides potential allowances.

These allowances, within reason, will assist those within the organization who are encountering some misfortunes.  The aim is to provide solutions or an amelioration of the problems being experienced.  Again, this is not a trump value, but it should be held highly and meaningfully.

These qualities should encourage an individual to provide loyalty, trust, skills, and knowledge as best as he/she can provide.  In any organization, these other qualities should be expected, but if the organization is characterized by what is described in this posting, then it is further encouraging its people to deliver loyalty, trust, skills, and knowledge.  And further, if this relation is ongoing, it will engender a supportive culture of these qualities.

A telling characteristic which will reflect a healthy, inclusive atmosphere in an organization is whether one can detect a broad-based sense of pride among the membership or workforce.  Pride is engendered by a feeling of belonging and having an active say in what the organization is.  Its members are federated and, as such, the organization can be considered an association, not just in name, but in reality as well.

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[1] Phillip Selznick, The Moral Commonwealth:  Social Theory and the Promise of Community, (Berkeley, CA:  University of California Press, 1992).

[2] For example, the United Nations is an organization made up of subgroups.  This is meant solely as an organizational designation whereas nations, being sovereigns, would rebel against any notion of being "subs.”

LEADERS HERE, THERE, AND EVERYWHERE

Over the last few postings, this writer has commented on the bifurcated view concerning leadership.  He has suggested that a bifurcated view is probably misplaced in that one does not necessarily have to see leadership with a “lone warrior” view or an inclusive view.

The first sees the almost romantic notion of a leader as an individual who takes the “bull by the horns” and rights what’s wrong with an organization.  The inclusive type seeks input and collaboration from as many people within and even without the organization as possible in making and implementing decisions.

          He has tried to point out that an organization probably will need one type in some situations and the other in other situations, and that some conditions demand immediate reaction and sole leadership is usually quicker and can be more decisive.

But he also made the argument that the more inclusive model should be the fallback option and be compromised only in extreme conditions.  The payoffs for inclusion are significant and should be abandoned only out of necessity.  Perhaps such a condition might be one in which negative consequences cannot be undone.

          This posting is concerned more with follow-ship than leadership.  Whatever mode the leader exerts, he/she is dependent on those who follow to act in those ways the mode demands.  That is true irrespective of any reward or punishment policy the organization has in place.

Overall, the lone warrior, at best, sees underlings as agents who can work out the details of any plan but generally are there to follow orders.  The inclusive model sees collaborators as taking on responsibilities and being able and willing to be creative in contributing ideas.

          What follows, more specifically, is concerned with what motivates this second expectation.  Why should a member of the “team” want to add “extra” effort to problem-solving when the easier route is to just listen to what is wanted and do it as best as one can (or as well as avoidance of punishment demands)?

To view this latter perspective, a contextual device might be helpful.  Not looking at an organization, but at a community or the nation:  why should the average citizen want to participate in the collective efforts of that more general social setting?

          A political scientist, in the natural rights mode of thinking, Paul Burstein,[1] points out that it is irrational for an individual citizen to become involved in participating in the political struggles of the day.  Why should the individual become involved when he/she will share in the benefits with all other citizens irrespective of his/her involvement?

It is what students of this sort of thing call the “free rider” problem; that is, those who do not share in any burden (costs) in acquiring the benefit will enjoy the benefit just as much.  Therefore, the analysis is a cost-benefit calculation.  But obviously, people do get involved and so the question remains:  what calculations do those people make to convince them to participate?

Burstein offers four reasons.  One, the cost in getting involved over some policy question is inconsequential and, it could be an added, a small expense to something the person must do anyway.  Sometimes such eventualities are built into an operating budget –perhaps a miscellaneous cost.  It could even be that the person doesn’t pay or accrue an added cost but instead, gets paid as in writing a solicited article for a magazine or newspaper.

          Two, the intended advocacy promises, with high probability, that it will be successful.  This might give the advocate recognition for supporting a sought after result or perhaps the desired outcome has significant payoffs which are especially dear to the advocate.

Three, the population of beneficiaries is small, as in an organization, and visibility regarding action or inaction is high.  This adds to the costs of inaction in a very personal way; others will see the non-participant as shirking his/her responsibility.

And four, participation, in and of itself, provides for an advocate some emotional satisfaction.  The belief expressed in much of this blog is that civics education can and should promote those messages that speak to the “rightness” of participating in the political process.  If such an educational effort is successful, participation would engender the emotional rewards that would convince citizens to get involved.   

          If one then scales down these overall motivating forces to the level of an organization such as a business, certain very tangible forces operate.  This is particularly true for motivators three and four.  In the social confines of an organization, one can readily see and understand how that organization’s culture can develop to foster these reasons.

The inclusive leader does not wait for a specific problem situation to promote such forces, but makes it part and parcel of his/her everyday strategy.  That leader might institute processes that reward, on an ongoing basis, collaborative modes of behaviors on the part of followers.  That is, followers who exert leadership behaviors can be recognized and “patted on the back” for exhibiting efforts in this direction. 

Structures can be put in place that facilitate such acts.  Communication can issue the message that loyalty to the organization can be demonstrated by such behaviors.  The different ways of getting this idea out there can rely on very creative ways of saying, “we’re that sort of place.”  In the next posting, more specific ideas will further develop this general message.

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[1] Paul Bustein, American Public Opinion, Advocacy, and Policy in Congress:  What the Public Wants and What It Gets, (New York, NY:  Cambridge University Press, 2014).

QUESTIONS SURROUNDING LEADERSHIP

In the last two postings, this writer addressed the issue of how collaborative an atmosphere should a leader pursue in the running of an organization or any collective arrangement – such as a social group or family.  When high school students were asked, this writer found that they were strongly disposed to more federated options of decision-making as opposed to the rule of the one, the rule of the few, or individualistic options.[1] 

But is this the case among members of such arrangements as businesses, schools, church communities, or the like?  By federated, the cited article refers to collaborative or shared decision-making.  This is accomplished by bringing more people into the process of deciding what should be done, especially those who are affected by whatever decisions are made.

There seem to be two social reasons offered to counter such an approach.  One, the option is seen by some as a sign of weakness in the form of a leader being indecisive.  Two, such an approach burdens those underlings who just want to be told what to do.

          Individualism, as expressed by the construct natural rights, tends to support the lone actor who knows what he/she wants and goes about achieving it.  Of course, and this brings up another argument against shared decision-making, accountability is more directed when it is applied to a sole actor.  And there seems to be, in the age of natural rights, the romantic image of the brave individual against the forces of “evil” in the form of inefficiency and incompetence.

          But an assumption is being made; that is, an organization is either one that promotes and practices shared decision-making or it isn’t.  A couple of postings ago, the lecturer, Michael A. Roberto,[2] was cited.  His reference to the leadership of Rudy Giuliani was described.

The record of this former New York mayor indicated that his take-charge approach seemed to be successful under conditions of extreme challenge, but not so much under conditions that were more stable.  This seems to indicate that the nature of the challenges an organization is confronting seems to be a factor.  When conditions demand quick responses, then take-charge might be favorable, but counterproductive in times when the collective is not facing extreme problems.

So, this tends to beg the question:  can leadership be adjustable?  Can it take on a “take-charge” approach when quick decisions are demanded and be more collaborative during more normal times?  Can the same leader adjust to these different demands or is leadership so reliant on personality traits and dispositions that the same person cannot be both, changing as the situations at hand changes?

A further angle to these questions is:  do situations that approach or are extreme necessarily preclude any shared decision-making strategies?  The position here is that the more federated posture is preferred for a host of reasons – many described and explained in this blog.

As such, the answer to this last question is that yes, one can be reluctant to give up on collaborative modes of operation.  But one should understand that the needs individual conditions might present to the leader or leadership might call for the leader to be more assertive.

Early on in this blog, this writer, in his promotion of federation theory, pointed out that he was not proposing a pie in the sky nirvana.  He has tried to make the distinction between theories-in-use and espoused theories;[3] that ideals, while needing to be compromised at times, still function to guide leaders and followers.  And, finally, federation theory provides a set of ideals that in the long run provides beneficial consequences for all involved.

The next posting will look more specifically at what collaborative leadership means as leadership interacts with those who follow.  In addition, followers can and should take on more leadership qualities under the auspices of federated relationships.

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[1] Robert Gutierrez, “The Predisposition of High School Students to Engage in Collective Strategies of Problem-Solving,” Theory and Research in Social Education 33, no. 3 (2005):  404-428. 

[2] Michael A. Roberto, Transformational Leadership:  How Leaders Change Teams, Companies, and Organizations, (Chantilly, VA:  The Great Courses/The Teaching Company, 2011).

[3] Chris Argyris and Donald A. Shon, “Evaluating Theories in Action,” in The Planning of Change, Fourth Edition, eds. Warren G. Bennis, Kenneth D. Benne, and Robert Chin (New York, NY: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1985), 108-117.

STEPS OF ADAPTIVE CHANGE

In my last posting, I wrote about the contributions of Jim Collins and Tom Peters to the literature of organizational leadership and change.  In this posting, I want to comment on the work of Ronald Heifetz.[1]  Along with Collins, he downplays the centrality that people tend to bestow on leaders and likes to point out that organizations are collectives and hopefully communities that are dedicated to perform and accomplish certain goals and aims.

          The immediate question many ask is whether or not businesses can afford democracy – collective decision-making – when the chips are down; when the organization is facing an important challenge.  Can a CEO take the time to solicit from those down the ranks what they think should be done?  Well, several things can be said about this. 

First, crises are usually – not always – the product of poor decisions in the past.  The reason matters get so bad as to demand quick action is that some or many adverse conditions were not taken care of in the past.  Smart thinking is geared toward, as much as possible, taking care of those conditions needing care in a timely manner.

          And that calls for many actions to occur.  Adding to the challenge of this process is that reality is becoming more and more complex.  So, gathering good information is essential.  And where does that information lie?  Well, when it comes to large organizations or communities or a society, that information is often in lower ranks or on the streets or in households.

To get at that information, those who have it need to feel trust in the system and in the leadership before they divulge it.  Trust emerges, in part, from feelings of ownership or partnership in what is going on.  This takes time and experiences that reasonably justify trust, especially if one is considering important elements of one’s life and, in turn, one’s livelihood.

          This view is counter to the one that leaders fulfill a paternalistic role; that they are there to satisfy needs and demands that people generally want someone to fix.  On the other hand, Heifetz calls for a rank and file that is disposed to wanting to tackle the problems and take a legitimate role in addressing what is confronting the collective.

And the leader?  He or she creates the environment within the collective that gets people – employees or citizens – to think and feel in those ways that encourage confidence in themselves and others.  In turn, that calls, at a minimum, for leadership to establish an environment of trust.

          Of course, nothing brings these issues to the fore more than change, especially profound change.  Heifetz makes a distinction between technical change and adaptive change.  Technical changes are those tweaks to the organization’s processes or structures that meet some shortcoming(s).  This type of change is ongoing and normal. 

What he is more interested in is adaptive change which some might call transformative change.  This type is more fundamental to how the organization sees itself and how it performs.  It generally calls for the participants to redefine themselves within the organization or how they see it.  This is difficult and time-consuming.

          Heifetz suggests a series of steps by which adaptive change occurs.  These steps have a dual purpose:  fix the problem(s) and get a workforce or citizenry to mobilize in having the changes devised and implemented.  This approach goes beyond influential leadership to a higher level of commitment on the part of leadership and follow-ship.

          The first step is identifying the challenge or problem.  Heifetz uses the term diagnosis which communicates a more thorough analysis of the component parts of the problem(s).  This calls for that in-depth search that depends on good information channels across the system.  It calls for truth-telling which can be painful, fearful, and threatening.  This occurs when the environment of trust can be indispensable.

          The second step recognizes that no matter how trustful an environment is, if the challenge calls for adaptive change, there will be stress.  This second step calls for stress management, which turns out to be a balancing act when leadership informs participants of the profundity of change, but paces it so that the system has the time and space to adjust to the changes.  In this way, those who are affected can control the stress levels that would otherwise negatively affect performance and be counterproductive.

          Third, in addition to stress – or because of it – people tend to be distracted.  Therefore, the third calls for leaders to direct participants to remain or establish a focused attention on what the change is demanding.  If workers or citizens are being asked to act differently, to acquire the new understandings and skills the changes demand, leaders will probably call for participants to be focused and to avoid distractions.

          The fourth step is for participants, in a timely way, to take on more ownership over what is being instituted.  This calls for them, in a reasonable fashion, to take on more responsibility in working out the details that the change is demanding.  This occurs when the creativity of the participants can be very important and should be encouraged.

          And to understand the fifth step, Heifetz points out a distinction; that is, in any organized arrangement, there are those who have authoritative leadership status and those who have unauthoritative leadership status.  Those with authority should protect the voices of leaders who do not have authoritative positions.  They might be the critics or supporters of what is going on, but in either case, they can provide useful input as to what is happening and what they see will be the consequences.

          Throughout this, one can detect that the leader’s main function is to create the correct environment so that the organization can get through the change successfully and be healthier at the end of the process.  As indicated, much of it entails either creating an arena or a square.

An arena – as is the case in boxing – is antagonistic and takes on the air of a zero-sum game.  One participant wins and another loses.  A square – as in a town square – promotes the image of win-win results; decisions are made in the spirit that everyone will advance his/her ultimate interests by implementing those decisions.

          Arenas encourage distrust and squares encourage trust.  One can readily see that emotions are just as or more important than any detached results analysis might discover.  These changes reflect human endeavors and human ambitions and welfare.  They are serious turns in people’s lives.

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[1] Ronald Heifetz, Leadership without Easy Answers, (Cambridge, MA:  Harvard University Press, 1998).