Hotter Than July: Introduction

 

Stevie Wonder’s “Master Blaster,” contains a lyric

“Everyone’s feeling pretty,
It’s hotter than July
Though the world’s full of problems
They couldn’t touch us even if they tried”

 For all sorts of reasons, July 2021 was so hot that I couldn’t remember too much about it. I’d reached an improbable sixty-eighth birthday that year and, as it turned out, I was less, rather than more, likely to make it to sixty-nine, (the age, not the position!): more to follow; well, on the age bit anyway!

Stevie was right and wrong at the same time: July is, in lots of places, hot and so therefore correct! The world’s full of problems, again correct! And now things get a bit flakey “They couldn’t touch us even if they tried.”  Yes, they could and yes, they had.

Covid 19, from its early emergence in China had, and, I feel, continues, to have changed us, at individual, familial and societal levels. In July 2021 Indonesia launched a Covid led lockdown and at this point, the Covid death toll in India was a reported 400,00, with some suggestions inferring that a more realistic figure was “nearer 1,000,000”

The “Hotter than July” theme was repeated with devastating results in Cyprus, when the worst wildfires in the island’s history broke out in Limassol, killing at least four people. Death Valley, California, saw temperatures of 130 degrees F (54.4 C), one of the highest temperatures ever recorded on earth and June 2021 was declared US's hottest ever recorded in 127 years, average temperature 72.6 degrees F (4.2 degrees above average). On the other side of planet, in Japan, and following torrential rain, mudslides crashed through town of Atami, Japan, killing 27, with many others sustaining multiple injuries. [i]

Perhaps understandably under-reported, it was announced that Leonardo Da Vinci has fourteen living descendants and on the 5^th of July, and almost certainly not one of them, Boris Johnson announced the end of the tattered remnants of Covid 19 restrictions in England, making it the least restricted country in the Europe it had left. I wonder if at around that time, Prime Minister Johnson and his acolytes had a sense of “Thank God that’s over!” If they did, it was premature.

In his book “Beautiful Losers,” Leonard Cohen wrote “..turds float where diamonds sink.” In July 2021, The Trump Organisation and its Finance Officer were charged by the State of New York, with Tax Fraud and Grand Larceny[ii] and as I write, the grand accuser himself is now President of the U.S.A: it is Pinocchio that has outgrown the nose!

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[i] https://www.onthisday.com/events/date/2021/july

[ii] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/01/nyregion/allen-weisselberg-charged-trump-organization.html

Tuckman, Silos, Kaleidoscopes and Travelling to Dublin

 Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing...…..Adjournment and Grieving

There's a line from where I'm from-it goes this way;

Q: "What's the best way to get to Dublin?"

A: "Well, I wouldn't start from here!"

But the essence of the one (alright, two!), liner is that we almost never have a choice regarding our starting point on our travel journeys, and the same is true for organisational change: this is something I feel we have lost sight of. 

So, what happens is, that instead of uniformly starting with "Forming", team members (existing and re-assigned), are likely to originate from different place on the "Tuckman Wheel", ones within which they might have felt comfortable, and were performing. However, organisational requirements (The Business Case) have changed and people are required to change with them.

Realignment, redirection, re-evaluation, repositioning, rethinking, reskilling: it goes on. But, there's a lot of "re" going on there and it can be painful. For example

A highly skilled and popular Team Leader is required to join a newly formed Team. Although their salary has been guaranteed, their authority (both structural and acquiescent) has been damaged. This is a good person who has been "bounced" from a place where they were performing, to one where they have neither adjourned or effectively "said goodbye" to their previous role. In their new role, they are expected to make a swift transition, one that may avoid Forming and Storming and move straight into Norming with high expectations that Performing will soon follow. 

So, with a twist of the organisational kaleidoscope, someone's working landscape has changed and their patterns have been (sometimes dramatically), adjusted. It feels necessary to ask about the approaches taken that allow our person an opportunity to reflect on and retell their strengths, reaching a place where they can see their past as an asset that has brought them growth and experience and therefore better equips them for the future. I'm suggesting that this would and should be an essential feature of the Adjourning Stage of the Tuckman Model when applied to organisational changes and restructuring,

Ignore at Your Peril!

Context is everything, and often the context within which the metaphorical kaleidoscope turns is a challenging one that requires high paced change. Daniel Goleman makes some interesting observations regarding the relationship between changes, leadership styles and emotional intelligence. (Primal Leadership. Goleman, Boyatzis & McKee)-this table sets out the relationships between styles and contexts. Interestingly, Goleman comments that the best leaders operate within a situationally appropriate blend of four of the styles shown below.

Leadership Styles	E.I. Competences	Impact on Climate	Objective	When Appropriate
Visionary	Self Confidence, Empathy, Change, Catalyst, Visionary, Leadership	Most strongly positive	Mobilise others to follow vision	When change requires a new vision or clear direction is needed
Affiliative	Empathy, Building Bonds, Conflict Management	Highly positive	Create harmony	To heal rifts in a team or to motivate during stressful times
Democratic	Teamwork and Collaboration, Communication	Highly positive	Build commitment through participation	To build buy-in or consensus or to get valuable input from employees
Coaching	Developing Others, Empathy, Emotional, Self-Awareness	Highly positive	Build strengths for the future	To help employees improve performance or develop long-term strengths
Coercive	Achievement Drive, Initiative, Emotional Self Control	Strongly negative	Immediate compliance	In a crisis. To kick-start a turnaround or with problem employees
Pacesetting	Conscientious, Achievement, Drive, Initiative	Highly negative	Perform tasks to a high standard	To get quick results from a highly motivated and competent team.

The last two: I hold the view that whereas they may be necessary, they also contribute to uncertainty, doubt and devaluation at individual, group and organisational levels, perhaps driving people into unhelpful, self affirming, informal silos as they attempt to reaffirm their perceptions of self-worth and value. There will be occasions when formerly good people, might take one or more of the following choices:

1. They underperform
2. They sabotage progress
3. They become a focus of discontent
4. They leave

…and whereas in some cases, choice 4 will be nest for everyone, this isn't always the case.

Leaders within organisations have a responsibility to look after people, especially one whose skills, knowledge and experience might well contribute to future growth and success. 

The Kaleidoscope Metaphor

Twist it and it changes: patterns and structures shift and we no longer see what we thought we saw, although we're holding on to and looking into the same structure. Organisations twist and change within their structures and their people, their partners, stakeholders and supply chains are required to do the same, and pretty quickly.  Sometimes there is no choice regarding whether or not we change. We have to. But, it's not the "why and what" of change that concerns me: it is the how.

We need maps, and with them we need to know "which way is North," otherwise we're holding an expensive piece of tech or an elaborately designed piece of paper with little chance of it helping us and the potential to reaffirm what we thought we knew, "We're lost, and it was better when we weren't!"

Closing Comments

Accepting and delivering change is a tough business and overdependence on pace-setting and coercive leadership styles and activities come at a cost. Perhaps the Tuckman Model helps us to better understand the lived experience of our colleagues, especially when they might feel de-skilled, diminished and devalued. If leaders, managers and change agents could bear in mind the importance of collaborative approaches that consider the wealth  of knowledge, experience and understanding individuals have accrued over their careers, they may find themselves better placed to meet the challenges of change and to attract, recruit and retain a "Performing Workforce"