Transformational Talk

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Transformational Talk
The purpose of this workshop is to help you learn
a transformational new way of thinking about
change, so you leave with an internalized ability
to successfully manage it. What well do today
is based on the first four (of seven) "languages
of transformation" explained in the book "How the
Way We Talk Can Change the Way We Work" by Robert
Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey.
Drake Martin drake.martin_at_uni.edu
319-273-6330
Annual Conference October 8-10, 2007 St.
Ambrose University Davenport, Iowa
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Primary Outcome for Today
You will begin to know how to use a new mental
process that will help manage change in your
professional and personal life.
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Premises for Managing Change

• Success in an organization results from its
  ability to create and respond to change.

• This ability is informed by members abilities to
  individually manage change in relationships,
  resources and structure.

• The leader in any organization sets the tone,
  pace and example when it comes to change and
  priorities.

• The leaders ability to set the tone, pace and
  example begins with how she/he talks to
  himself/herself about change.

• Today we will consider some mental languages
  that help us recognize and engage the truth in
  ourselves, so we can be effective instruments of
  organizational change.

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Leaders Set of Daunting Recognitions

• Leading means effecting significant changes.

• Hard to make significant changes without changes
  in individual behaviors.

• Hard to sustain significant changes in behavior
  without significant changes in the underlying
  meanings that give rise to behaviors.

• Hard to lead on behalf of other peoples changes
  in their underlying ways of making meaning
  without considering the possibility that we
  ourselves have to change.

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Whenever someone comes to me for help, he used
to say, I listen very hard and ask myself, What
does this person really wantand what will they
do to keep from getting it?-William Perry
We must pay closer attention to our own powerful
inclinations not to change.
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Distancing Ourselves from our own Immunity to
Change

• The struggle between the way we WANT TO BE and
  the way were USED TO BEING (a.k.a. inertia,
  stasis, fixity, lack of motion) creates dynamic
  equilibrium.

• Dynamic equilibrium generates an immunity to
  change.

• We are captive to our own immune systems. We
  live inside them. We dont have them. They have
  us.

• Its important to BEGIN to distance ourselves
  from our own immunity to change.

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The Seven Languagesof transformational change

• From the PERSONAL LANGUAGE of
• Complaint to Commitment (1st)
• Blame to Personal Responsibility (2nd)
• New Years Resolutions to Competing Commitments
  (3rd)
• Big Assumptions That Hold Us to Assumptions We
  Hold (4th)
• From the SOCIAL LANGUAGE of
• Prizes and Praising to On-going regard (5th)
• Rules and Policies to Public Agreement (6th)
• Constructive Criticism to Deconstructive
  Criticism (7th)

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Today

• From the PERSONAL LANGUAGE of
• Complaint to Commitment (1st)
• Blame to Personal Responsibility (2nd)
• New Years Resolutions to Competing Commitments
  (3rd)
• Big Assumptions That Hold Us to Assumptions We
  Hold (4th)
• From the SOCIAL LANGUAGE of
• Prizes and Praising to On-going regard (5th)
• Rules and Policies to Public Agreement (6th)
• Constructive Criticism to Deconstructive
  Criticism (7th)

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First

• From the PERSONAL LANGUAGE of
• Complaint to Commitment (1st)
• Blame to Personal Responsibility (2nd)
• New Years Resolutions to Competing Commitments
  (3rd)
• Big Assumptions That Hold Us to Assumptions We
  Hold (4th)

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First Language Complaint to Commitment

• Gloriously unproductive, well-practiced way of
  dealing with dissatisfaction at work we
  complain.
• The language of complaining, wishing and hoping
  is a weed that grows abundantly, everywhere.
• Problem it doesnt transform anything.
• Value of complaint insight about our hidden
  river of our caring
• Commitment defining what we most care about and
  doing what it takes to fully pursue it.

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Write on the Complaint page

• What sorts of thingsif they were to happen more
  frequently in my work settingwould I experience
  as being more supportive of my ongoing
  development?

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Before you write

• No particular definition of development here.
  Just what would be supportive of your ongoing
  growth, however you define it.

• Write whatever comes to mind, regardless of its
  seeming possibility.

• If it helps, consider what troubling, diminishing
  or constraining thingsif they were to happen
  lesswould be more supportive of your
  development.

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Now, write on the Complaint page

• What sorts of thingsif they were to happen more
  frequently in my work settingwould I experience
  as being more supportive of my ongoing
  development?

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First Language Complaint to Commitment

• Complaint
• Easily and reflexively produced, widespread
• Explicitly expresses what we cant stand
• Leaves the speaker feeling like a whiny or
  cynical person
• Generates frustration and impotence
• Sees complaint as a signal of whats wrong
• Non-transformational, rarely goes anywhere beyond
  letting off steam and winning allies to negative
  characterizations

• Commitment
• Relatively rare unless explicitly intended
• Explicitly expresses what we stand for
• Leaves the speaker feeling like a person filled
  with conviction and hope
• Generates vitalizing energy
• Sees complaint as a signal of what someone cares
  about
• Transformational anchors principle-oriented,
  purpose-directed work

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Working with a Partner or Two Ground Rules

• 1
• Try to choose a partner with whom you do not have
  a subordinate or reporting relationship.

2 As a speaker, how much or how little you want
to let your partner/s in on during these
reflections is up to you and you alone.
3 As a listener is not your job to point out to
someone something you think your partner/s may be
missing.
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Writein the first column

• What commitments or convictions that I hold are
  actually implied in my earlier response, written
  on the Complaint page?
• I am committed to the value or the importance of

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Next

• From the PERSONAL LANGUAGE of
• Complaint to Commitment (1st)
• Blame to Personal Responsibility (2nd)
• New Years Resolutions to Competing Commitments
  (3rd)
• Big Assumptions That Hold Us to Assumptions We
  Hold (4th)

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Second Language Blame to Personal Responsibility

• We dont control everything, but we usually have
  a significant hand in how things are in our lives
• We have internal battles, based on conflicts
  between competing commitments
• One commitment to our higher aspirations one to
  our fears. They create a dynamic equilibrium of
  inaction.
• Look hard at our undermining behaviors, taking
  responsibility for understanding and changing the
  assumptions upon which we base them.

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Second LanguageBlame to Personal Responsibility

• Blame
• Easily and reflexively produced and widespread
  comfortable to express
• Holds the other person responsible for gaps
  between committed intentions and reality
• Frequently generates frustration, alienation and
  impotence in speaker
• Frequently generates defensiveness in others
• Nontraditional rarely goes anywhere deflects
  our attention to places where we have little or
  no direct influence
• At best, raises questions only for others

• Self-responsibility
• Relatively rare, in an ongoing way, unless
  explicitly intended uncomfortable to express
• Expresses specific behaviors we personally engage
  in and fail to engage in that contributes to gaps
• Draws on the momentum of our commitments
• Frequently generates productive conversation
  about both parties contributions to gap
• Transformational directs our attention to places
  where we have maximum influence
• Raises questions for oneself

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Writein the second column

• What I am doing, or not doing, that prevents my
  commitments from being realized

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Next

• From the PERSONAL LANGUAGE of
• Complaint to Commitment (1st)
• Blame to Personal Responsibility (2nd)
• New Years Resolutions to Competing Commitments
  (3rd)
• Big Assumptions That Hold Us to Assumptions We
  Hold (4th)

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Third LanguageNew Years Resolutions to
Competing Commitments

• Competing Commitments
• Expresses genuinely held countervailing
  commitments
• Creates an inner contradiction or map of an
  immune system
• Contains enormous (locked up) power
• Intent is to identify the source of that behavior
• Identifies a commitment to self-protection on
  behalf of which the problematic behavior is
  effective, consistent, faithful, even brilliant
• Recognizes that merely trying to alter
  problematic behavior is unlikely to accomplish
  goals
• Recognizes the complex, contradictory nature of
  ones own intentions
• Transformational paradoxically increases the
  possibility of significant change by making clear
  the immune system that makes change so difficult.

• New Years Resolutions
• Expresses sincere and genuine intentions
• Creates wishes and hopes for the future
• But contains little power
• Intent is to eliminate or educe the hindering,
  problematic behavior
• The problematic behavior is frequently regarded
  as a sign of weakness, or shameful
  ineffectiveness
• Assumes that eliminating the problematic behavior
  will lead to the accomplishment of (first column)
  commitments or goals
• Frequently attributes less effective change to
  other people, unanticipated obstacles, or
  insufficient self-control
• Nontransformational, rarely leads to significant
  change, despite sincere intentions

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Third Language Language of Competing Commitments

• Frame fear as an active commitment to keep the
  thing you are afraid of from happening. That is

• Look at what you have in your second column.

• See if you can identify anything even vaguely
  like fear or discomfort associated with doing
  other than what you have written in column two.

• Enter this in your third column as a possible
  commitment you hold to prevent that thing which
  you are afraid of from happening.

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Writein the third column

• What is an active commitment of mine to keep the
  thing I am afraid of from happening?
• I may also be committed to

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And last

• From the PERSONAL LANGUAGE of
• Complaint to Commitment (1st)
• Blame to Personal Responsibility (2nd)
• New Years Resolutions to Competing Commitments
  (3rd)
• Big Assumptions That Hold Us to Assumptions We
  Hold (4th)

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Fourth LanguageBig Assumptions

• Assumptions we understand are assumptions are
  different than Big Assumptions, which we act upon
  as though they are truth.

• Big Assumptions are not so much assumptions we
  have as assumptions that have us.

• Six year-old birthday wish.
• Losing 12 days of our lives!
• Wait for old people to die.

• Go clockwise and see

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Fourth LanguageBig Assumptions That Hold Us to
Assumptions That We Hold

• Big Assumptions That Hold Us
• Automatically produced, without intention or
  awareness (the meanings to which we are subject)
• Assumptions inhabited as truth
• Creates a sense of certainty, that ones
  perspective is reality
• Anchors and sustains our immune system
• Names the terms by which we would understand our
  universe to be catastrophically disturbed or
  violated (our Temple of Doom)
• Nontransformational maintains the world as we
  have been constructing it

• Assumptions That We Hold
• Produced only with difficulty, creating space or
  distance between us and our meanings (the
  meanings we can relate to as object)
• Assumptions taken as assumptions
• Creates valuable doubt, the opportunity to
  question, explore, test, reconfirm or revise our
  assumption
• Creates a pivotal lever for disturbing our
  immunity to change
• Makes the catastrophic consequences a proposition
  available for testing
• Transformational changes the world as we
  understand it to be, and our sense of our
  possibilities within it

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Writein the fourth column

• Big Assumption

I assume that if
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The First Four Languages

• From the PERSONAL LANGUAGE of
• Complaint to Commitment (1st)
• Blame to Personal Responsibility (2nd)
• New Years Resolutions to Competing Commitments
  (3rd)
• Big Assumptions That Hold Us to Assumptions We
  Hold (4th)
• From the SOCIAL LANGUAGE of
• Prizes and Praising to On-going regard (5th)
• Rules and Policies to Public Agreement (6th)
• Constructive Criticism to Deconstructive
  Criticism (7th)

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Whenever someone comes to me for help, he used
to say, I listen very hard and ask myself, What
does this person really wantand what will they
do to keep from getting it?-William Perry
We must pay closer attention to our own powerful
inclinations not to change.
38
Review Premises for Managing Change

• Success in an organization results from its
  ability to create and respond to change.

• This ability is informed by members abilities to
  individually manage change in relationships,
  resources and structure.

• The leader in any organization sets the tone,
  pace and example when it comes to change and
  priorities.

• The leaders ability to set the tone, pace and
  example begins with how she/he talks to
  himself/herself about change.

• Today we will consider some mental languages
  that help us recognize and engage the truth in
  ourselves, so we can be effective instruments of
  organizational change.

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The Other Three Languages

• From the PERSONAL LANGUAGE of
• Complaint to Commitment (1st)
• Blame to Personal Responsibility (2nd)
• New Years Resolutions to Competing Commitments
  (3rd)
• Big Assumptions That Hold Us to Assumptions We
  Hold (4th)
• From the SOCIAL LANGUAGE of
• Prizes and Praising to On-going regard (5th)
• Rules and Policies to Public Agreement (6th)
• Constructive Criticism to Deconstructive
  Criticism (7th)

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Now What?!

• There will be no effect at all unless you take
  some kind of action to protect and preserve your
  relationship to these potentially transformative
  mental languages.

• Steps to incorporating this new mental habit
• Consciously observe yourself to see how powerful
  your Big Assumption is in your life.
• Look for experiences that cast doubt on your Big
  Assumption.
• Explore the history of your Big Assumption.
• Run modest tests of your Big Assumption.
• Build up space between you and your Big
  Assumption.

• To establish new habits of the mind, to break the
  grip of the dynamic equilibrium, we need a new
  language community.

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Achieved the Primary Outcome?
You will begin to know how to use a new mental
process that will help manage change in your
professional and personal life.

• Did this happen?
• If so, how and why?
• If not, why not?

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Thank You!!

• Thanks for this time together!
• Have a great conference!
• Drake