Should Conflict Be An Organizational Value?

Use the word “conflict” in a workplace context and the first images that spring into mind are generally not that nice. What does the word conjure up for you? Perhaps a co-worker who refuses to meet deadlines, the shudder you experience when you see that client name on call display, or a boss who plays favourites. The unfortunate reality is that these conflicts can exist; when they do, they are disruptive and potentially harmful to both individuals and the organization.

However, conflict should not be avoided at all cost. A world without conflict, a world in which we never enter into opposition with anyone, would be boring. Competition in sports or games would be gone. The drive to build a better mouse trap, gone. Rewards for excellence, gone. No need for personal goal setting. Rethinking assumptions would never be considered. Humanity thrives on competition, challenge and opposition.

Healthy conflict stimulates creativity. It generates an exciting environment. Competition can be motivating, driving us to rethink previous business practices and encourage excellence. Healthy conflict can lead to personal growth. Because we don’t always articulate our deepest held values and convictions, conflict can make us aware of what’s important to others and to ourselves.

Even in instances where the conflict may not be healthy, it can be beneficial. Conflict within an organization can act as a bellwether of a much deeper, more fundamental or systematic issue. It may reflect a dissonance between personal and team or personal and corporate values. Good leaders will use conflict as a diagnostic tool to assess the health of the organization, the effectiveness of their leadership, and to foster internal innovation.

Next time you see conflict brewing on the horizon, take the time to consider its function within the organization. Is it a warning signal or an opportunity? Should you fan the flames of competition or harness the wisdom from frank and honest conversation? Do you need to clarify values, expectations and needs? Is it time to examine old assumptions? Conflict calls for transformation. Answer the call.

This blog post was written by Wendy Milne, Vice President, Operations. 

So What Were You Doing in Cambodia?

Since returning from Cambodia, we have been asked this question frequently. Putting our experience into a short response – or a blog post – is challenging! We spent two weeks in Cambodia, with the focus of our first international FIELD expedition being a three day retreat in the beach town of Kep. The 13 women participants had been selected by an advisory committee comprised of four Cambodian women leaders (our original goal was 15 but 2 had to drop out at the last minute). This group of women met the set requirements that included they are working in NGO’s, and all have demonstrated leadership abilities within their organizations. The majority of these women are at the early stages of their careers and under the age of thirty-five.

Our goals going into this leadership dialogue workshop were to not only give these women tools that would help them understand their unique leadership strengths, but to also facilitate the development of a community of women leaders in Phnom Penh. We will be going back 3 times over the next 2 years to work with this same group, with a focus on different aspects of what it means to be a woman in leadership.

A group of women in Canada donated money so we could treat these women to dinner.

We were so privileged to listen as they shared with us and each other through an exercise where they drew a map of their leadership experiences. Other explorations included taking them through a process of discovering their temperament based on the MBTI; an experiential activity using local fruit to discover individual values; and a coaching activity done on the beautiful beach in Kep.

Going into a cross-cultural situation is humbling. Our personal discovery – and we are all learners on this expedition – was the power of Dialogue Education. At the core of any dialogue is active listening. We listened and learned from one another. We put our confidence in the wisdom in the room.

So where do we go from here?  In the next six months before we return we will be focused on building Communities of Practice. We have formed an online private discussion group for these women, scheduled regular monthly Skype calls, created peer accountability groups and other tasks to keep this community learning and growing together until we return in August. We will be hosting a couple of information evenings to talk about how you can get involved in supporting the leadership development of women in Cambodia. If you are interested please send an email to kpetersen@thefieldcollaborative.com

This post was written collaboratively by Sandy Reynolds and Karen Petersen. Any grammatical errors should be attributed to Karen. 

Who Decides Who Needs to Know What?

While most organizations recognize and support leadership development, it can be challenging to find agreement on the key areas of focus. Deciding what to teach in any program can be both political and arrogant. In many corporate training initiatives leadership competencies are decided in the political arena. Often the senior executive team will look at their strategy for the upcoming year and decide what type of training would best support reaching their business goals. Or perhaps ‘leadership development’ is part of the strategy. Or increasingly the employee engagement survey is driving a need for training around a certain area like succession planning or performance management. That explains the political side of things but what do we mean by arrogant? It might sound harsh but there can be an element of arrogance when I decide someone else needs to learn something.

At The FIELD Collaborative we want to approach our clients with humility. We don’t have a ‘program’ to deliver. We want to work together to discover what the clients needs and wants. Sure, we have a lot of tools and experience to bring to the table but which ones we unpack will be decided together. So, how do we decide? Right now we are working in Cambodia with a client. Preparations for this 3 day leadership program began months ago with a focus group of the major stakeholders in the program. In addition to the insight we learned from this group we also did research into Cambodian culture and the organizations that we will be working with. And finally, we will begin our session by spending time listening to the participants tell their own leadership stories and then having a dialogue focused on the areas that they want to focus on. Together we will create an agenda. It takes confidence to walk into a three day session sans polished PowerPoint and a sexy binder of information. But we are putting our confidence in the wisdom of the women in the room.

Post by Sandy Reynolds, President, The FIELD Collaborative.  

First FIELD Expedition Underway!

This week, Sandy and I (Karen) are taking the FIELD Collaborative to Cambodia! Ancient, exotic, youthful, welcoming – this is a nation full of promise. There are many NGO and UN agencies working here, and several have come together to collaborate under the umbrella of Chab Dai, Cambodia (http://chabdai.org/cambodiaprojects.html). Chab Dai means joining hands in Khmer, and in the 10 years since its inception, has grown to 53 organizations focused on a common goal: end human trafficking and exploitation. Each organization is focused on a different but complementary aspect of helping girls, boys and women who have been caught in this web of injustice and evil.

A mix of men and women are providing leadership to these organizations. Traditionally, Cambodian women were not encouraged to work outside the home. This has been changing over the past few decades, but women still struggle against the bias of ingrained cultural norms that favor male leadership styles. In the bustling, often chaotic capital of Phnom Penh, we are visiting several NGO’s to gain insight into the work they are doing and meet with those who are bringing change to the gender imbalance here. We have met wonderful, courageous women leaders who work in project management, operations, finance, education, legal advocacy, social work and research. Some have even started their own agencies to fill in gaps that existed in reaching and helping women and children in Cambodia.

Based on our previous interactions with a small core of women from various agencies and our Learning Needs Resource Assessment (based on Jane Vella’s excellent process ), we have designed a unique, interactive leadership development workshop exclusively for women. From February 9-11, we will gather with 15 women leaders to explore what it looks like to be a woman in a position of leadership in Cambodia today. Stay tuned for our update and report-back in the next blog post!

Note: The post was written by Karen Petersen, Vice President – Global Learning and posted from Cambodia.  A link to the Jane Vella process is available if you are interested request it in the comment section.  Thanks!

Are You Having Fun With Your Business Model Yet?

Is it possible to develop a business model and have fun at the same time? My FIELD Collaborative colleagues and I discovered it was – a good thing, since we list “fun” as one of our core values!

As noted in last week’s blog post, we identified what makes us special as The FIELD Collaborative (no egos involved, of course!) when working with the “business model canvas.” (The book detailing this brilliant tool, Business Model Generation, is well worth the purchase, or look up “business model canvas” in your favourite search engine to find many links to informative sites that explain it in some detail. For you convenience we have a link to one we recommend at the end of this post.)

The canvas pulls the various parts of a business model into a coherent picture. The relationship between value proposition and customer segments is at the core; key resources, key activities and key partners back that up; cost structure and revenue streams provide fiscal grounding.

The business model canvas provides a framework that brings clarity in understanding how a business or organization can best operate for sustainability and success…”aha” moments abound. We’re looking forward to implementing what we’ve learned in the process for ourselves – and with a little more practice will add it to the processes that we can facilitate for others.

Who would have thought that business model thinking could be this much fun?

Contributed by Aileen Van Ginkel, Vice President, Partnering.

For more information about Business Model Generation visit Strategyzer.com

What Makes You Special?

Why is it that we often have a hard time defining what value we bring to others? The short answer might be that we are focussed on ourselves and not those we aim to serve.

As my colleagues and I discovered during a recent planning retreat for The FIELD Collaborative, starting with an attempt to profile our potential clients helped enormously in articulating our potential value to them.

We were aided by the work of Alex Osterwalder et al in Business Model Generation and Value Proposition Design. The latter set the stage for us by asking us to consider the jobs that our clients need to get done, the pains they’re trying to avoid and the gains they’re trying to create. (The former gave us context for this work – more on that to come.)

Our value propositions were then designed to help them get jobs done, avoid pains and create gains – all in relation to our capacities in team development, change management, leadership development for women and developing partnering platforms.

The customer profiling exercise enabled us not only to articulate the value that clients might want to pay for but also to realize that we could create it together, rather than as individuals in serial fashion. Imagine the excitement when collaborating on value proposition design resulted in understanding better The FIELD Collaborative’s collaborative core!

This blog post was contributed by Aileen Van Ginkel, Vice President, Partnering.

Missing: Women in Leadership

The world needs more women in formal leadership positions, to correct the imbalance that currently exists in sectors such as government, law, religion, education, and business. The imbalance between male and female leadership is particularly stark in the two thirds or developing world. At The Field Collaborative we have recognized this discrepancy, we have determined to prioritize women in the leadership training we do in other cultures, particularly in the sector of non-governmental, or charitable organizations.

Women learn and lead differently than men, as myriads of studies have determined. Most leadership development programs have been written by men. In the developing world, this situation is complicated by the fact that most of the men writing the curriculum are immersed in a Western (largely North American) cultural context. Women in non-western cultures such as Cambodia, Colombia, Cuba, China, or Croatia often are not given the same opportunities as men to receive leadership training. When they do have the chance, they find themselves in a very foreign context trying to relate their work to a Western man’s concept of what leadership looks like.

How do we bridge that gap? How do we help the women who are doing amazing work as front-line workers or mid-level managers advance to where they have a say at the policy-making, strategic planning, executive leadership level?

The leadership training methodology we at The FIELD Collaborative have found to be most effective is Dialogue Education (as developed by Dr. Jane Vella). This approach to leadership training has been proven to work well in cross-cultural situations. The concept is simple: Help the workshop participants identify the core issues related to women in leadership in their own culture. Then, lead them through a process whereby they recognize that they themselves hold the key to resolve the problem. So rather than a Western-trained ‘expert’ coming to download information mired in a North American cultural perspective, we acknowledge that these women have the wisdom, experience and cultural ability to change the position of women in their organizations and societies.

Post contributed by Karen Petersen, Vice President, Global Learning. Karen has worked with women globally. If you would like to contact Karen to discuss how your organization can support women in leadership email her at: kpetersen@thefieldcollaborative.com

Culture

Every person on earth is formed by the culture he or she has been raised in. Culture is not easily defined but it includes things such as our stories (think of nursery rhymes), our music, our art, our approach to religion, our history, our links to other cultures, our beliefs (about individual rights and responsibilities, about family, about ownership, about gift giving, about work ethic, about leisure, about food and weather… about basically everything!). Culture is explored and expressed through the arts – literature, music, movies, sculpture, painting and more. Such things go beyond the external, scientifically defined aspects of life to touch the soul.

Which culture are these nursery rhymes based in? What ones did you learn as a child? How do they reflect your culture?

• London Bridge is Falling Down
  • Ring Around the Rosie
    • Rock-a-Bye-Baby
      • The Farmer in the Dell
        • Hickory Dickory Dock
          • Humpty Dumpty

Leadership is also culturally influenced. And culture is influenced by leaders. The GLOBE study of leadership and culture explains this dynamic. It is a fascinating interplay. We who are fortunate enough to come into contact with people from other cultures are changed by those interactions. Although we often find other people’s customs or thought processes confusing, we grow as world citizens when we take the time to understand the “why” behind their actions. Cross-cultural teams are often normative in Canadian culture, and learning to lead in that environment is a challenge we embrace and support.

The FIELD Collaborative is excited to facilitate inter-cultural encounters, both in Canada and abroad. A future blog post will explain why one of our areas of focus is on women leaders in the developing world and what our approach to cross-cultural leadership development looks like. We will provide opportunities for leaders to travel to other countries and participate in leadership training workshops. This is an aspect of our business that we are all passionate about, as we seek to facilitate positive change in our culturally complex world.

Post contributed by Karen Petersen, Vice President, Global Learning

Collaboration

The FIELD Collaborative’s commitment to a dialogue approach to dealing with difference leads naturally to our strong emphasis on collaboration.

Though we’re often slow to admit it, most times we can’t do what needs to be done all by ourselves, because we simply don’t have everything it takes to get it done. Even with unlimited (theoretically) financial and human resources, we come from certain vantage points, each with their own advantages and disadvantages, which makes it possible for us to do some things really well, but not all things needed equally well.

So we look to others for not only shared resources – ours are never unlimited – but also for different vantage points, different ways of seeing what’s happening and where we could go together as a result. Collaboration thus depends highly and firstly on building relationship – without relational dialogue as its starting point and continuing thread, collaboration will definitely fail.

Networking is a form of collaboration in its minimal form. At its most basic level, however, it’s about finding out what other people have so that we can have that too. Still, collaboration emerges naturally out of networking when people in relationship recognize that there may be things they can do together better than they can do alone.

Whatever its precedent, collaboration can’t be rushed. It takes time to hear where others are coming from and to tell properly one’s own story (dialogue again!), it takes time to craft a shared vision, and most importantly it takes time to build trust.

Without common understanding, shared vision and mutual trust, those involved in collaborative efforts may just as well pick up their marbles and go home. With those elements in place, however, the possibilities are real and exciting – and always fun as well!

This blog post was contributed by Aileen Van Ginkel, our VP, Partnering

Community

Not long ago I was traveling through a hamlet in Northern Ontario when I noticed a sign at the local community centre: Congratulations Lisa and Robert. No other information provided or needed. Everyone in the community knew either Lisa or Robert, knew the reason for the congratulations or could easily find the answers to those questions and their connection to the lucky couple. Living in Southern Ontario’s GTA, I would be hard-pressed to understand a similar sign in what would be considered my community. I simply don’t know enough of the people who live around me.

So what exactly is a “community?” It’s a word we hear bandied about quite often in reference to urban neighbourhoods, political associations, cultural groups, and so on. However, these are not really communities but neighbourhoods, associations and groups of people who gather together, live in the same geographic area or identify with others with similar traits, characteristics, hobbies, etc. Sometimes, when we’re lucky or work hard at it, neighbourhhoods, associations and groups develop into communities.

To be part of a community is not just about identifying with a group of people who share a common goal or interests and spending time with them, it’s all about the relationships people have with one another in the group. Relationships create and define a community.

Within a community we have the opportunity to give account of our actions, thoughts and feelings. We share our lives. We are heard, and we listen, when others give account of their lives. We learn from each other and with one another. We form relationships to one another. Within a healthy community we can be transparent and vulnerable, admitting our weaknesses and sharing our strengths. We support one another. We have the opportunity to be whole and integrated people.

At The FIELD Collaborative our goal is to provide our clients with more than seminar presentations or classroom time. We strive to create opportunities to turn them into learning communities.

This post was contributed by Wendy Milne, our VP, Operations.