September 2010
When Business is Incontinent
by Charles H. Green on Friday, July 27, 2007 (post #148)
No, not that kind of incontinence.
The term is also used in philosophy to describe a certain situation (I’m reaching back a few decades on this one, so someone check me) roughly like this:
He knows what the good is; he knows that he ought to do the good; there is nothing standing in the way of his doing the good; and he wants to do the good. Yet he does that which is wrong.
As I recall, Aristotle’s explanation was, roughly:
That’s silly. If he didn’t do it, then it’s just because either he didn’t really want to do it or something prevented him from doing it.
Plato’s—which I greatly prefer—was:
That’s life. That’s the beauty and the idiocy and the pain of being human.
David Maister’s recent post What Gets Fat Smokers on the Diet? reminded me of this issue. David’s topic had to do with what prevents organizational change.
My take on the subject is that both personal and corporate change are similar to dealing with addictions: it takes repeated attempts, which in aggregate show improvement, but which in particular instances are weak. And there are no guarantees.
Best practices, in personal as well as organizational life, probably include:
> envisioning—constantly keeping in mind goals, outcomes, tangible pictures of the desired to-be state of affairs
> specific next steps—tactics, mantras, tips and tricks that move the ball in the generally right direction
> no-no's—things that are warning signs of "bad" behavior, a la if you don't want to get hit by trains, don't play on the tracks
> values—a clear set of guiding principles, enunciated frequently by people who understand them and practice them
> a medium-to-long-term view of the world that infects all behaviors—negotiating, pricing, relationship management, compensation, investment evaluations
> a strong preference for intrinsic motivational approaches over extrinsic approaches. Getting people to behave in ways that support others by giving them money (in effect, paying them to be unselfish) is as close to oxymoronic as you can get.
> at the suggestion of Stuart Cross I’d add one more: A sudden shock - for an organization this may be a decline in profits, the loss of a customer, the entrance of a serious new competitor, a price war, or a rise in costs. In addiction, it's a divorce, a disinheritance, a DWI, a death in the family (ever notice how many disasters being with the letter D?).
For change in corporate life, the challenge is to generate the powerful motivational effects of, say, a tragic car accident—but through genteel, socially acceptable means like corporate training programs.
The mother of the new boy in kindergarten says to the teacher, "Johnny is very sensitive. If he does something wrong, just slap the child next to him—he'll get the message."
But Johnny Adult isn't quite so sensitive. And the Adult Next to Him tends to hit back. It's hard to change habits; it's hard to change thinking; it's hard to change incontinence.
It's almost enough to believe Aristotle.
But not quite.
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Charles H. Green is founder and CEO of Trusted Advisor Associates LLC; read more about Charlie at http://trustedadvisor.com/cgreen/
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posted in Trust in Leadership Development and Strategy, Building Trusted Advisors
peter vajda said
Hi Charlie,
It's interesting you allude to addictions vis-a-vis change. I've been writing elsewhere on the notion of "collusion" that supports addictions and other inappropriate behaviors.
One of the most insidious and destructive workplace (and life, in general) behaviors impacting life at work,and auguring against change is collusion. Collusion, as I and my coaching clients work with it, is defined as two people each co-opting their true and real self in order to support their own and the other's falseness, fakeness and phoniness, or in this case, one's inability to change or consider change.
One result of colluding is that neither person "shows up" in integrity or authentically when it come to change, or changing (short of, as you say, a Universal slap across the face, wake-up call, that "now you have no choice but to change", e.g., accident, death, bankruptcy...)
Johnny Adult as you call him, when it comes to change, is frequently Johnny Child (3-4-5, emotionally), albeit in an adult body wearing adult clothes. So, little Johnny becomes reactive to change as his fears take over and resistance sets in in the form of fear (the body) and doubt (the mind). Fight, flight or freeze reactivity prevents change.
For me, no amount of visioning, training, or other efforts will produce real change (willing change, not "kicking and screaming compliance"), until, on the individual level, one consciously takes a look at one's resistance (read: fear on many levels) to change. The collusion is that two folks on either end of change will "play at" change perhaps in a "safe" way, a minor effort here, a band-aid there, while denying and resisting what really needs to happen, because it's too scary.
OK, so only drink on the weekends, only hit her with an open hand, don't smoke in bed, and I'll cave and look the other way and we can both live with one another as phonies and fakes and live the appearance of friendship, change, etc. Collusion.
Many change efforts are just this...make-believe, symptomatic solutions, while folks collude to look the other way and resist taking a hard and conscious look at the serious root cause issues that call for change. When folks stop colluding, then maybe true and real change efforts can take precedence.
posted on Friday, July 27, 2007