By Raj Chawla, based on information developed by Raj Chawla and Jolie Bain Pillsbury

The work of a leadership team is to produce measurable results for the populations they serve. However, producing results is a complex and difficult task and requires leaders to act in what we call “High Action and High Alignment.” Achieving this state of “High Action/High Alignment” takes a lot work and often requires leaders to adjust their personal approaches to a given problem. This article describes these approaches and how to shift toward “High Action/High Alignment.”

The first step towards “High Action/High Alignment” is for a group of leaders to collectively agree on the result they are working to achieve together. Then, each leader strives to make their contribution toward achieving that result. The best outcomes toward achieving the agreed-upon result come when leaders are in High Action and High Alignment in their work, but this is not always the case.

For example, a leader who is in “High Action/Low Alignment” works actively and independently toward the result, but is not interested in working collaboratively with others, sharing resources, or adapting strategies that others have found successful.

On the opposite side sits the “Low Action/High Alignment” leader. This leader is interested in building relationships and connections with peers and wants to support collaborative strategies, but often becomes so mired in collaboration or in building the “perfect plan” that he or she is slow to act or fails to act at all. This lack of action often alienates a high action individual who, in turn, may break away from the group to work alone.

A “Low Action/Low Alignment” leader observes what is going on without either acting or building relationships and is, in fact, a person who is not “leading” at all. This type of leader can come across as a “fence-sitter,” a behavior that often results in their exclusion from the process since it infuriates high action leaders and frustrates high alignment leaders.

What any work group or collaborative needs for optimal performance is high action and high alignment among all leaders on the team. These leaders can do both aspects of generating results: building strong relationships with others, including listening to their input, AND devising strong plans upon which they act.

If you find yourself in a group or on a leadership team that isn’t functioning well or achieving the results it has agreed to achieve, take an objective look at where you and other members fall in the “High Action/High Alignment” chart below. Your potential to achieve great things and the group’s desired results will increase to the extent that everyone moves toward higher action and higher alignment.

After an intense week of working with leaders in very complex situations, clear lessons for getting groups and enhancing leadership in groups to move to action have emerged for me. I invite you to add and challenge my insights.

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After complaining about traveling too much and wanting to be home and in a place of stillness, I’ve gotten my wish and more. The blizzard of 2010 here in Washington DC continues. Heavy snow that shuts everything down, that creates a blanket of quiet outside and a glow inside.

It is in this space that I ponder the world and my role in it. I notice some shoots of emerging ideas trying to break through. And, I wonder if others, those who find themselves stuck in a snow storm – induced by mother nature or not – can notice, cultivate, and let rise new shoots of ideas and thoughts.

I’m not talking about the same thoughts that occur over and over again, like summer reruns on TV or old thoughts masking as new ones. I’m talking about ideas and thoughts that you are almost afraid of letting take root and grow. It is these thoughts that can scare you because you might have to shift who you are or what you do.

It is precisely these thoughts that need to be nurtured and supported. These are the thoughts that will shape the new tomorrow. The world can no longer sustain the same thoughts that got us to this point in time.  New shoots...

• The game of power and control seems so old and tired, lets try something new.
• What will it take for me (for us) to work for results that matter instead of results that matter just to me?
• Leading without leading...
• Local, small, sustainable, long-term --- not growth at all cost
• Why focus on old economic indicators such as housing-starts and manufacturing.  Aren't there other things that require focus and are more realistic to today?
• Science vs. religion, modernity vs. traditional...where is the integration?

OK, lets see if any of these ideas can break through the snow.

 

As I am reading Raj’s reflections, I am just finishing Adam Kahane’s new book “Power and Love”. I was struck by how one of the most powerful sources of power is relational power. In a quote from Edward Chambers, he says: “People who can understand the concerns of others and mix those concerns with their own agenda have access to a power source dnied to those who can push only their own interests. In this fuller understanding “power” is a verb meaning “to give and take”, “ to be reciprocal”, “to be influenced as well as to influence”. To be affected in another in relationship is as true a sign of power as the capacity to affect others. Relational power is infinite and unifying, not limited and divisive. It’s additive and multiplicative, not subtractive and divisive. As you beomce more powerful, so do those in relationship with you. As they become more powerful, so do you. This is power understood as relational, as power with [or to achieve and realize], not power over.” P.95

Power and love are therefore two strands of a braid that need to be in balance, power to achieve a purpose and love to unite and align what has been separate. As leaders, this is our job. We will naturally stumble as we are ourselves more comfortable with power or love. Some situations will leave us fearful to step into either, they will challenge us to be moving from generative power or love to their shadow degenerative side. And to not give up but to keep stepping in and to unite with others who can provide the balance is our work.

So, the stillness that let’s us recognize where we are in this balancing act, that let’s us come to a pause that allows our energy to refocus for our work and the relationships we need to realize our own and our larger purpose with others really is the cycle we need to pay attention to.

 

I started 2010 the same way I spent most of 2009 – in a state of constant mental and physical motion. Right now I’m sitting in an airplane heading to San Francisco wondering why am I traveling again. I’m not ready for moving into action or leading, or results. I’m ready to hang out with my kids and my wife. I’m ready to get some extra sleep and not worry about the world.

Do we (those overextended, passionate, committed leaders – I think this is most of us!) who seem to carry the weight of responsibility and accountability ever stop and say no to more work? Do we ever say, “I need renewal, I need to think about me, I need to pay attention to what is going on inside me?” I know I have a hard time with all of that.

Time to try something different, something that I think about but don’t often do. So, I propose that creating results and moving into action starts with stillness and with breathing, gradually flows into relationships, and then creation.

I’ll let you know how my experiment with stillness and breathing goes.