Marc Chmielewski
Overview
With the aim of effectively linking a range of leadership development activities and align them with common organizational goals, Movendo has created leadership development maps for different companies. This has involved analyzing the daily and future challenges faced by leaders at the different levels in their organizations.
Although these maps and development approaches are very specific to the challenges our clients’ organizations face, a fundamental distinction can be made between leading teams and leading leaders, who in turn lead other leaders or teams.
Topic
To address this very distinction, Movendo has developed a “Leading Leaders” Foundation Program. This Leading Leaders module focuses on the following topics:
• Recognizing and systematically influencing pattern formation in the organization.
• Intentionally facilitating leadership development of the next leadership level on a day-to-day basis.
• Actively shaping leadership culture.
• Ensuring transparent alignment of decisions.
• Creating the conditions for successful leadership at all levels of the organization.
The module raises the participants’ awareness of the need to consciously decide which specific leadership behavior they can use to achieve the greatest personal benefit in any given situation. Even at senior management levels, there is a constant and very strong temptation to invest time and attention in tackling operational challenges. However, the return on investment is much greater when leaders focus on creating the conditions in which others can best solve operational problems themselves. For leaders of leaders, openly modeling the creation of such conditions is particularly crucial to enhancing the effectiveness of the subsequent leadership levels.
In order to make these different levels and their interdependencies in an organization tangible, Movendo has integrated the METALOG training tool Complexity into the staging phase of the “Leading Leaders” module. It has already successfully used this tool in numerous development programs for the managers, divisional, and departmental heads of companies across a range of industries.
The staging is usually used relatively early on in the “Leading Leaders” developmental journey because it represents a shared experience for the participants that is continuously drawn on as the course progresses, and the multifaceted topics of the debriefing are very actively embraced during the development journey.
Staging
a. Preparation
The participants are allowed to choose their role for the upcoming simulation. This requires:
• At least 2 – 4 members in the management teams;
• Two team leads for Team A;
• Two team leads for Team B; and
• At least three team members each in Team A and B.
If there are more than 14 participants, we either form larger teams or appoint participants as observers, who contribute highly valuable perspectives, particularly during the debriefing. For the staging, it is crucial that the leadership roles are each doubly-occupied, so that the communication between the respective leader-pairs can be observed. If only one leader were to be appointed, most of the communication about their role as a leader would take place in their own heads. By appointing two leaders the aim is to make this communication available to the outside world.
Depending on the role chosen, the groups meet at different locations. Two separate rooms are needed. While room one serves as an “internet café,” where Complexity is laid out on the floor and the room is then “sealed” with a line of adhesive tape, the second room serves as an “office” for the members of the management team. We usually choose the actual training room for this purpose. In any case, these two rooms should be close to each other in order to avoid long walking times between the rooms.
b. Performance
The first phase of the simulation is organized as follows:
• The management team goes to the management office and completes this sentence on a flip chart: “This is how we would like to lead in our role as the management team …”
• Team leads A and team leads B each write on a flip chart, “This is how we would like to lead and be led in our role …”
• The members of Team A collate their ideas on the following statement on a flip chart: “This is how we would like to be led …”
• And the members of Team B also add to the flip chart: “This is how we would like to be led …”
After 15 minutes, the management team receives the written instructions (see below), saying, “It is now … o’clock and the simulation is about to begin. In this document you will find all the instructions you need to successfully lead your organization through this simulation. Good luck!” From this point on, the simulation runs for 60 minutes.
Written instructions for the management team:
“Your company has launched a project to investigate the usability of your corporate website. As the management team, you are responsible for the project.
The management team is located in the management office and is not allowed to leave it. Out of sight is an internet café, and inside it is the internet.
The goal is to touch the internet pages from 1-30 in the correct order in as short a time as possible.
You are allowed to communicate with your team leads and they are each allowed to talk to their own teams. Due to travel budget constraints, it is not possible for employees to come and speak with you directly. You are allowed to make exactly three attempts of a maximum of 70 seconds each for the visits to the internet café. The last attempt must be successful and take as short a time as possible – in any case less than 60 seconds.
Only one employee may be on the internet at any one time. The stopwatch will start when one employee has crossed the line into the internet café. It will stop when all employees are back over the line.
The first attempt must be made after 30 minutes at the latest. The last attempt must be completed by 60 minutes at the latest. Your teams must both contribute to the solution at the same time. The goal is to do this in a given time while keeping the quality as high as possible (i.e., in compliance with the rules). The following conditions apply:
• The web pages are numbered and it is not allowed to change these numbers. They must be touched in ascending order.
• On the internet, each person may only click on his or her previously assigned pages (e.g., Employee 1 may click on pages 1-3, Employee 2 is allowed to click on pages 4-6, and so on, depending on the number of players).
• Only one player is allowed to be on the internet at any one time.
• Each player should be actively involved in finding the solution and clicking the web pages.
Good luck! The current best time is 26 seconds.”
The team-leads and the teams are not told that the simulation has already started but continue writing down their thoughts or go through a phase without leadership until the first contact with their respective leaders. The team leads and teams do not receive separate instructions. This means that they can only learn the rules of play by communicating with the management team. If, outside the management office, the groups ask whether the simulation has already started, this is confirmed by the trainers, but no further instructions are given.
Ideally, the simulation is carried out with two facilitators. While one facilitator stays with the management team and brings the team leads into the management office at the request of the management team, the second facilitator opens the internet café at the request of the team members and time-stops the performance.
When rules are broken in the internet café, the attempt is stopped simply with the words “a rule has been broken” and with no further explanation, and the participants are required to leave the internet café. When a rule is broken, the management team is also informed: “There was a rule violation during the execution and I expect that you will ensure that all the rules that we have agreed upon will be followed!”
Otherwise, the trainers keep a low profile. Questions about the content are answered with, “That’s a very good question and you have all the information in your organization that you need to answer this question yourself.”
c. Progression
If, after 28 minutes, the first attempt to click on the web pages in the internet café has not yet been made, the management team is informed that the first attempt should take place in 2 minutes as agreed. If the first attempt is not made, the management team will be informed after exactly 30 minutes that the first attempt is no longer valid and that there are only 2 attempts left. This also means that if the team members start the purported first attempt at the same time, this will already be counted as the second attempt.
At its core, the challenges of this staging lie in the fact that:
• Leaders who lead must support the next level in establishing the conditions for effective leadership, and must themselves resist the temptation to try to complete the task operationally.
• Team-leads create and sustain the conditions in which the teams can effectively complete the task; they also form the communicative bridge between the management team, which has the information about the rules of play, and the employees, who can actually see the internet café.
• Employees correlate their picture of the Internet café set-up with the described rules of play in order to complete the task according to the rules.
The task can only be completed through cooperation at all levels of the organization. To achieve this, communication must be organized in such a way that the different items of information about the rules of play and the goal are logically and purposefully combined with the image of the actual internet.
d. Finish
The simulation ends at 60 minutes. If an attempt to click on the 30 web pages in ascending order in less than 60 seconds has already been successful, the simulation is not ended immediately. The question of how success is handled in the organization is also an intriguing observation. Therefore, the 60 minutes are conducted in their entirety.
Transfer to the real World
| Elements in the learning project | Elements in the real world |
|---|---|
| Numbered tiles 1-30 | Web pages and operational problems |
| Area on the floor in the internet café where the numbers are arranged chaotically (marked by a rope) | Internet and operational problems |
| Internet café | Problem beyond the direct sphere of influence of managers and thus only completely understandable for employees |
| Document with instructions | Information, conditions and that are to be meaningfully developed and communicated by the managers |
| Management team | Leaders who lead leaders, and acts of leadership at the environmental level and at the meta-level |
| Team leads | Team leads and consistent acts of leadership at the environmental level |
| Team members | Team members and acts of leadership at the operational level |
| Different rooms | Work environments with no direct line of sight; various perspectives and contributions to an overall solution |
Reflection
The initial focus of the reflection is on the comparison between the expectations of leadership and the experience of the actual performance phase. Each group is asked to compare their experience of the simulation with the expectations of leadership and being led that each group collected prior to starting the simulation, and to report back to the whole group on their findings. The observers report back on their observations, especially on recurring leadership behavior, in order to highlight pattern formation in the organization.
It is precisely this perspective where the considerable added value of the staging lies, because the first and relatively stable patterns are formed within 60 minutes, such as comments about time pressure. Viewed from the outside, however, the simulation does not directly cause time pressure, but it is created by the way the management team itself uses the time available. The more time they need to activate the next level, the less time is left for completing the task, which, by its very nature, can only be completed when all of the participants work together. The management team possesses the information on the rules and conditions, whereas, once they enter the internet café for the first time, the team members have information on the operational setup, and the team leads ensure that the relevant information flows in both directions.
The following questions are helpful for reflecting on patterns and transferring them to personal leadership reality:
• What patterns do I observe in my field of responsibility?
• How helpful are these patterns for my role as a leader and for our organization?
• Which of these patterns do I consciously maintain and which patterns do I consciously interrupt?
The complexity created through this staging within a short period of time enables us to address a number of different aspects during the debriefing as well as illustrate the responsibilities involved in leading leaders later on in the “Leading Leaders” module. Some of the topics are:
• Sometimes, the teams “resolve” to carry out the attempts without further consulting the management team because, for example, they don’t immediately see the benefit of doing so, or this would appear to be a waste of time. Here, the following questions become relevant:
• How do I ensure that I am delivering the most value to the organization through my leadership?
• When can I play an active operational role? When do I focus on the creation of conditions or the helicopter level?
• How do I make this added value tangible for the next levels?
The management team invests a lot of time in thoroughly understanding both the task and the setup. They develop and discuss in depth a number of hypotheses about the other groups, the possible interventions by the trainers or how the simulation progressed. Here, the following questions become relevant:
• When leading leaders, how do I balance my own need to understand an issue with the rest of the organization’s need for decisive action?
• How do I become conscious of the fact that my own actions have direct consequences on the organization as a whole?
• How do I deal with uncertainty or with incomplete information?
If the management team spends the first 20 minutes without interacting with the other members of the organization or does not pass on the instructions, then, regardless of any positive intent, the following questions become relevant:
• How do we make handling information transparent?
• What do we use to decide who “needs” information, and what information they need?
• How do we make the best use of the resources, potential, and brains of the entire organization?
The staging of Complexity as an internet café offers a very memorable experience, which can also be actively and repeatedly drawn on during longer development processes to vividly intensify the aspects outlined here. It can also be used to transfer the insights the participants gained during the debriefing about themselves, their own teams, and their individual organizational cultures to their own realities.
Conclusion
Even after using Complexity well over 250 times in the “Leading Leaders” training program described in this case study, we are still constantly surprised by the way it works, and try to approach each new group of participants with an open mind and curiosity, so as not to miss out on this surprise.
The most impressive experiences come from the highly different constructions of reality within the simulation. For example, we witnessed team members enter the internet café in the first attempt with the task of exploring the setup, and then leaving the room after just over a minute stating that “there’s nothing there.” Because they were entering an “internet café,” they went solely in search of a computer. As a result, they did not even register the rope and the numbers on the floor.
The trainers’ attitude is key to the ensuing discussions about the purported subsequent change of the setup (“You only put the rope and the numbers there afterward”) as well as to the entire performance of the simulation. The intention is for the participants to gain their own learning experiences within the protected space of the training seminar while the trainer exerts as little influence as possible. When facilitating these experiences, trainers should adopt an open-ended attitude toward the results and, as a result, simulations always develop as multi-layered, solvable scenarios.