PART TWO: Probing Leadership
In 2019, I remember my grandson leaning over the table one dinner time, looking me square in the eye while stubbing his finger at me through the air saying, “It’s all your generation’s fault.”
Now, studying philosophy and politics for his first degree, he wasn’t to know about the vast array of advances in complexity sciences developed in my lifetime, and ongoing. Enough for me to say to him, we know much of what we need to know to fix the global challenges we face today. We have the technology we need.
So what is stopping us?
A mix of things:
1. Politics, writ large in governments, board rooms and executive suites.
Competitive forces within and between enterprises leaves executives tussling with tensions between profit vs investment, short-term vs long-term and optimising the parts vs collaboratively leading the whole enterprise.
2. Fear, of doing what’s right ahead of maximising profit (and power).
Fear of breaking the dominant economic paradigm and being penalised for doing so. The search for technology solutions serves a useful foil to hide the poison that is the fear of doing what’s right for long-term sustainability. Your people know this only defers decisions on what’s right, allowing the poison to seep through.
I recall one of the founding fathers of the agile enterprise, Rick Dove , saying, “advanced technology serves only to take us closer to the edge of the cliff we’re facing.” [Australian Systems Engineering Workshop, Melbourne, October 2019]
3. Leadership, gone missing in action. Or should that be inaction?
This article focusses on this issue.
Reprise of Part One: Probing Complexity
In Part One, I wondered whether the tension between growth and degrowth is a challenge that defeats an idea there’s no problem is too big to act and leave the world better for what we’ve done. I wondered if degrowth is a shift too radical for businesses and governments, which still prioritise economic growth, quarter on quarter.
We explored briefly the growth of the complexity sciences over the last 80 years, noting Checkland’s advice, “it matters less where you start. It matters more that you start.”
In Tack 1, we had a quick look at Dave Snowden ’s Cynefin framework and its decision model for navigating complex systems by using the “probe-sense-respond” approach in “safe to fail” experiments. I chose not to proceed with his ideas on ‘estuarine mapping’ in an article which is at most a thought experiment, and its contributors dispersed.
In Tack 2, we probed with insight from Professor Kathryn Cormican of growth being achieved by “getting rid of stupid stuff”, eliminating unnecessary complexities to create more meaningful experiences as the drivers for product and technology development. Her insights around Industry 5.0 movement towards mass personalisation, seem to align concepts for growth with the general sustainability aims of the degrowth movement – no more ‘stupid stuff’.
It's too early to sense and respond. So, let’s head back to the question of leadership action / inaction for our next tacking probe.
Tack 3: What of Leadership? An Exploratory Probe of the Field.
Leadership globally is in a mess. Not your leadership, of course… but more globally.
Leadership researcher and educator, Professor Barbara Kellerman (Harvard Kennedy School of Government) is highly critical of the industry, which she argues has failed to produce better leaders despite the industry’s extraordinary growth. Anyone can enter it, delivering leadership development programs, books, and seminars, which she argues often oversimplify leadership and focus too much on ‘feel-good’ principles rather than the complexities and challenges of actual leadership. [1]
More recently, in her book Leadership from Bad to Worse, she establishes how …
“leadership that is bad, invariably, inexorably, gets worse—unless it is somehow, by someone or something, stopped or slowed. The process of going from bad to worse tends to be steady, as opposed to hasty. But once bad burrows in, it digs in. It digs in deeper and then deeper, making it difficult finally to extract or excise without getting rid of whoever and whatever is involved.” [2]
It's kind of like the poison we spoke of earlier, seeping steadily through an enterprise.
What is it then that destroys collaboration among teams, especially those who present as ‘leadership teams’?
Recent research from Harvard Business School suggests “dysfunction is quite common. Instead of working together to advance their company’s interests, many teams procrastinate, engage in political infighting, get mired in unproductive debates, let themselves be overtaken by complacency, and more. The companies they’re supposed to be leading suffer as a result.” [3]
Sadly, that same research suggests practices that have not evolved to match the complexity of today’s environment. I’m sure you’ve heard these things before:
“Develop a clear vision and purpose. Articulate a compelling vision for your tenure …a road map for decision-making … a sense of shared purpose. Focus on alignment.
Populate your team with people …[with] backgrounds, experiences, and strengths that will contribute to the team’s collective success. Outline responsibilities. Clearly define goals, roles, and decision-making authority in order to avoid confusion and wasted effort... Establish behavioral norms. Make clear what norms you expect your team to observe, and encourage members to do so through coaching, role modeling, and giving individual and team feedback..” [3]
So, there’s nothing new here. Nothing even suggestive of shifting ways of knowing, thinking deciding and learning. It’s a lot of words to invoke leaders to pretty much keep doing what they’ve always done. Easy.
Kellerman argues strongly the need to avoid easy solutions to difficult problems when addressing leadership. [2] As she noted earlier, easy solutions are all too common in the leadership industry.
I can imagine Professor Kellerman agreeing with Professor Cormican (see Part 1 of this essay) that the world needs more leaders aware of, and practising, systems approaches to get rid of the “stupid stuff” and create better, meaningful experiences for their people and those they serve.
Is there hope, when our 'growth vs degrowth' issue is complex and difficult, and leadership behaviour largely misdirected by a singular pursuit of high economic performance? And leadership education seems fraught with mechanical solutions?
Leadership as a system is something Kellerman spoke about at the INCOSE International Symposium #INCOSEIS in Washington, in July 2018, and is a feature in her book Professionalizing Leadership [1]. But where are the examples of it working?
I find hope in one example** in leading and executing big problems, and I learned about it from a systems engineer, educator and mentor of systems engineers: Emeritus Professor Patrick Godfrey of the University of Bristol.
**There are others, however, I'm keeping this close to the #INCOSEIS pathway I've been walking this last month for the purposes of recording the value I gained along the way.
Tack 4: Leadership as a System Gets Big Things Done
Two years ago at the #INCOSEIS in Detroit (July 2022), I first met Professor Godfrey and explored his experience in the success of the construction of Terminal 5 (T5) at London Heathrow, which John Milford (T5 Buildings Manager) described as follows:
‘Whichever way you view it, BAA’s Terminal 5 project is mind bogglingly big’ (Milford 2006) [4]
Photo of T5 Departure Hall by Belinda Fewings on Unsplash
In a nutshell, the leaders at British Airports Authority (BAA) who established the T5 project were intent on a truly collaborative arrangement amongst its suppliers and contractors. Everyone involved assumed an identity with the T5 Project, using T5 job titles and roles, email addresses, and a T5 code of behaviour that was written into the contract.
I was fascinated then, and remain so, by the innovation in contracting to establish a code of behaviour – a leadership covenant if you like – for getting the relationships right in the customer’s terms, as illustrated in the following extract from the T5 Agreement:
“Thinking of others as well as oneself, so that we [British Airports Authority and suppliers] all win together, is a must. Being able to see the wider benefits will entail a change of mindset, possibly changing out people; there will be little room for those who are not committed, who want to spend all their time saying ‘why it can’t be done’.
(T5 Agreement)
Best practice was the contractors’ price of entry to the T5 project. And BAA wanted better practice again.
So, when I met Professor Godfrey again this year at #INCOSEIS 2024 in Dublin, I asked him to explain what he saw as the key behaviours of the top leadership team that made the T5 project a success. He spoke of three things in this order. The leaders were all:
Great listeners
Constantly eager to learn
Deeply curious to explore better ways together.
I’ll bet a pound to a penny you’ve heard each of these before. These are familiar themes of leadership, yet in my experience, so rarely practised because there’s a psychological barrier.
Professor Gerald Midgley wrote of this in his book Systemic Intervention: Philosophy, Methodology and Practice [5]. Namely, “the [cognitive] demands of moving between fundamentally different set of assumptions” is too high for people to shift from one paradigm of thinking to another.
Fundamentally then (swerving back to the growth - degrowth issue) ideas of constant economic growth appear to face similar psychological / cognitive barriers when challenged with degrowth.
Yet, Midgley offers a way out of the paradigm problem:
“…there is no need to claim we are operating across paradigms – we just have to acknowledge we are setting up a new position which encourages learning about ideas from other paradigms but re-interpreted in our own terms.” [5, p. 248]
And, the BAA and T5 leaders seem to have taken this on board.
So, when we hear of the BAA and T5 leaders being great listeners, constantly eager to learn and deeply curious of exploring new ways together, AND we put that in the context of systemic intervention, leadership takes on a new look.
Everything is open to being contested and the best of ideas from whichever paradigm are drawn into their frame to create something new and better than 'best practice'.
The BAA leadership even challenged the stuff we take as a given in legal and finance. Professor Godfrey reminded me of the design of the T5 agreement, which “…discarded confrontational clauses seeking to pass the blame and recover money from suppliers if things went wrong.” [4]
“We cannot load suppliers with risk, drive prices down, and complain this is costing us more than we thought. It’s fundamentally dishonest and economically illiterate. Our approach is: we can drive prices down by removing inherent waste and allowing suppliers to have a decent return just like us. We’re trying to align interests (...) There’s no point trying to think that the traditional contract ─ lots of indemnities, liquidated damages, penalties ─ protects the client.” (Fiona Hammond, T5 Project lawyer)
I love the idea that the normal fare of contract law, indemnities, liquidated damages, and penalties, were in this case “the stupid stuff” that would get in the way of achieving the integrated diversity necessary to deliver a successful mega project.
So financially, the T5 project covered the costs of contribution and provided a “decent return” albeit not as high as competitive forces might have driven, they all benefitted from success in a delivering such a complex undertaking.
Tack 5: Sensing – Some Insights from T5
Don’t wait for your problem to be “mind bogglingly big” before you think of what you really need to make it a success.
The T5 project was B. I. G. (huuge), yet it seems all of us might still sense opportunities to learn from it. For example:
Spend at least as much time spent thinking about the project before executing it
Set behaviour norms as a covenant in an Agreement, and not tolerate any behaviour that broke the covenant.
Challenge conventional thinking constantly to create something better.
Make best practice the price of contractor entry not the goal.
Retain only those leaders who focus on listening, learning and curiosity in a continual process of changing the collective cognition to fit with the complexity of your constantly changing world.
It seemed T5 practised from the outset what Professor Cormican recently called, “getting rid of the stupid stuff” beyond the physical features to shape their thinking, knowing, deciding and learning.
Leadership of systemic interventions is constantly considering consequences. Allowing “stupid stuff” to exist (for whatever reason – complacency, procrastination, or failure to cross a psychological barrier etc), it’ll seep like a poison into the enterprise and be extraordinarily difficult to remove.
Transitioning to Part 3:
Every issue is systemic.
Every response will have systemic impact.
Leadership is systemic: good or bad.
So, in the third part of this 'growth vs. degrowth' conversation (issued next week), let’s explore a few clues towards better practice where we’ll take:
Tack 6: Response – Enable Better Decision Making
Reprising Professor Peter Checkland's mentoring on decision criteria - his 5 E’s – and its implications for the growth-degrowth conversation.
Tack 7: Response – Anchor on Value and Share It Widely
The value of a Leadership Covenant to anchor direction and behaviour and guide decision making across an enterprise.
Tack 8: Response – Leadership Insights from Systems Practitioners
Further insights from the #INCOSEIS conference that helps us think more about increasing leadership awareness and practice in systems approaches in exploring 'growth vs. degrowth', particularly from: Brian Collins CB, FREng Emeritus Professor of Engineering Policy at University College London, who gave the opening keynote on ‘Systemic Leadership in a TUNA World’; and, Dr Mike C Jackson OBE Emeritus Professor, Centre for Systems Studies, University of Hull, who invited us to explore 5 different methodological approaches to systems engineering when engaging in complexity.
Till then, have a great week.
I welcome your response, comments and additions.
(All errors are mine.)
Cheers, Richard
References for Part 2:
[1] Barbara Kellerman, Professionalizing Leadership, Oxford University Press, 29 March 2018.
[2] Barbara Kellerman, Leadership from Bad to Worse - What Happens When Bad Festers, Oxford University Press, 2023
[3] Thomas Keil & Marianna Zangrillo, “Why Leadership Teams Fail and what to do about it.” Harvard Business Review, September-October 2024.
[4] N. Gil and D. Ward Leadership in Mega Projects and Production Management: Lessons from the T5 Project, Centre for Infrastructure Development, Manchester Business School, May 2011.
[5] Gerald Midgley, Systemic Intervention: Philosophy, Methodology, and Practice. Contemporary Systems Thinking. Kluwer Academic Plenum Publishers, New York, 2000