The Paradox of Paradigm

Paradox is a statement that seems self-contradictory but expresses possible truth. Also it can be something that is contrary to popular opinion.

Paradigm is something that serves as a model or a pattern. It can be a set of assumptions, concepts, values, and practices that constitutes a way of viewing reality for the community that shares them, especially in an intellectual discipline.

Thomas Kuhn (1922-1996),wrote a ground breaking book, “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions”, in which he describes a paradigm as a box in which normal science places all its beliefs, commitments, until a better paradigm emerges. A paradigm shift is when a new breed of extraordinary scientists choose to jump into that newer, better box.

Later, Stephen Covey (1990) wrote about the paradigm shift in the business context.

A paradigm is the conceptual framework upon which we build our world; it is built upon past experiences; if we are not willing to make shifts in our paradigms, we will remain stagnate in our growth; a paradigm shift is a change from one way of thinking to another; it is something that does not happen like self generation it is driven by change.

We could say it is another name for Change, but a paradigm shift goes much deeper, it is about combining change with the challenging of existing assumptions and innovation.

Leaders of cultures recognize that their traditional paradigm is out of date, and perhaps this leads them to assume that a 'paradigm-shift' program will provide the remedy. Culture change is not simply about how you see yourself and others. It is about how the system works, i.e. how we do the work together, rather than how we work together. The paradigm shift is to understand how to act on the organization as a system.

However, initiatives which threaten the current operating culture are typically resisted to extinction, and many initiatives simply bear no relation to the economic performance of the organization.

The most critical thing to understand about a paradigm is that, in a paradigm shift, everything goes back to zero. What does that mean? It means that whatever made you successful in the old paradigm may not even be necessary in the new paradigm.

And here comes the paradox: The paradox is that changing a culture starts with different thinking about the work.

There are two interesting paradoxes: the decision theory paradox and an Economics paradox:

Abilene paradox: People can make decisions based not on what they actually want to do, but on what they think that other people want to do, with the result that everybody decides to do something that nobody really want to do, but only what they thought that everybody else wanted to do.

Allais paradox: A change in a possible outcome, which is shared by different alternatives, affects people's choices among those alternatives; in contradiction with expected utility theory (utility is a measure of relative satisfaction).

Before shifting paradigms we should see that business in general is filled with instances of paradox.

If it would improve performance to do the work differently, how does it mean we should behave? Focusing on behavior without embedding it in a work context creates an entirely new pathology - people try to play a new game.

By contrast, focusing on how we work, anchors improvement in things that are real, and opens the door to working on culture, in a way which has relevance and, more importantly, is palpably relevant.

This new global world surrounds us with paradox. In order for companies to master paradox they must first identify the opportunity it contains.

Some major businesses are developing an e-commerce in order to sell direct, cut costs and eliminate the small businesses. Yet, small businesses represent a very lucrative, high profit margin market for those businesses.

Another paradox is the question “Should you hire the best people?” Sometimes hiring the best people could be your downfall (another paradox).

It all depends on the situation and how you define "best." Should you focus or diversify?” Both, actually (another paradox), diversification can lead to situations where managers ignore the other business lines and pursue their own goals at the expense of company growth as a whole.

Is paradox the new paradigm?

Will future business success depend on the ability of managers and leaders to embrace paradox? Will they succeed holding in their minds two contradictory ideas, each of which can be applied when necessary?

By embracing paradox, managers will lose the half-truth thinking that ignores the context so pertinent to business decisions. These seeming paradoxes often exist, in the first place, only because we try to apply business rules across all contexts.

It is natural that business bears the same tension that pervades everything else in our lives. Economies and ecosystems are filled with examples of competing goals and conflicting ideas that somehow work themselves out to create balance and, in many cases, an optimal situation.

Only when we have understood the paradoxes of business, can we propose a paradigm shift: changing focus could be the key to getting exactly what we were so focused on to begin with.

Cristina Falcão

What Makes Excellent Leaders?

What Makes Excellent Leaders?

A study by Caliper, the global psychometric profiling company identified the following seven key leadership traits:

 ASSERTIVE
 Best leaders are still the ones who know when-and how-to get tough. They know how to assert their authority.

 EGO DRIVEN
Ego drive is the desire to persuade. Moreover, if you did not like to persuade people-if you were not thrilled with getting the "yes"-you would not be in sales in the first place.  RESILIENCE
When a leader loses a battle, he has to have the ego strength that allows him to maintain his optimism and move on.

RISK-TAKER
In a competitive marketplace; the winners are often those leaders who are willing to try, dare, even make fools of themselves.

INNOVATIVE
Hand in hand with being a risk-taker is being innovative. Great leaders know that the "old ways" of doing things are not always the best ways-especially in a rapidly changing marketplace.

URGENT
In a customer-driven marketplace, the need to get things done now is critical to winning and keeping business.

EMPATHETIC
Leaders are tough, driven, daring. However, they also have a heart. They possess as much compassion as they do competitive fire.

What do we make of this? What are the characteristics of a Leader?

Insight on oneself

The first characteristic that leaders must possess is an innate sense of self-awareness. Without being aware of themselves and the way in which they interact with others, individuals will see their progress hampered. Individuals must first appreciate their position and recognize their own unique contribution in order that they might appreciate the value that others can add. There is no one right way and a good leader will let people follow their own path rather than dictating things to them, providing they achieve desired results and adhere to core values/principles.

This balance between adaptability and consistency is essential to get the respect of employees. People will respond much more positively to persons that engender respect and as such, it is essential that leaders know what they stand for and are prepared to do what is needed to make it happen.

Knowing how to influence others

Influencing skills are paramount for leaders and create an atmosphere in which people feel they are treated as peers rather than subordinates. The individual's ability to influence the behavior of others is closely linked to their ability to display the behavior that they demand from others. Someone that does not like challenge is unlikely to create an environment in which people are free to question one another.

This is particularly important because it can have a direct impact on morale.  
Leaders must learn to deal with potentially difficult conversations effectively to demonstrate that they are able to take leadership on issues in order to resolve them.

Focusing on results

The most important consideration for any business is the results that it is able to achieve.  In order to achieve  this potential, people must be prepared to meet challenges and opportunities head-on.

An employee that feels valued is an employee that will work harder. In order that staff feels valued, they must be aware that their strengths are acknowledged, valued and developed. They must also be aware that their weaknesses are addressed rather than being swept under the carpet.

The Three 'Cs' of Leadership Training

Communication:

It is so important to keep your team informed. Lack of or having no information or poor information has been cited as one on the biggest workplace de-motivators, with so-called ‘leaders’ thinking that their employees ‘can’t handle the truth’. The greatest leaders through history were great communicators.

Charisma:

All through history, the great leaders had a great deal of charisma. Their followers could relate to them on different levels. Their energy infected their followers. This is not to say that to be charismatic you have to bind about all day. It means that you must seek to inspire your team as much as possible. Keep your focus on the goals of the team and display endless amounts of energy.

Vision:

 A leader must have a vision to share with others and the conviction of character to drive it through to its conclusion. The world is full of strong starters.  The ones who see something through, to the end, are the ones that count.

When do you become a Leader?

You become a leader when you set a goal, make a plan, and then throw your whole heart into making it a reality. You become a leader when you develop an inspiring vision for yourself and others. You become a leader when you know exactly where you want to go, why you want to get there, and what you have to do to achieve your vision.

Cristina Falcão

Pulling a MacGyver

By Ricardo Andorinho

According to the website cracked.com, the Portuguese word ‘desenrascanço’ is one of the ten coolest foreign words the English language needs, and it means “pulling a MacGyver”.

If you have ever seen an episode of the 80s-TV adventure series named MacGyver, you already have a clear picture of what ‘desenrascanço’ is. In this American TV series, we have the opportunity to see how effortlessly MacGyver fishes car keys out of the toilet with a coat hanger, or how rapidly he takes down a helicopter with a fan, a dough-scraper, and some duct tape. In fact, this miracle man seems to be able to handle any kind of situation with just what he has around him and his Swiss army knife.

Generally speaking, ‘desenrascanço’ is the art or ability to, at the last possible minute, strike out a solution to an urgent problem with scarce, or no resources at all. Portuguese people are known to be able to find these kind of last-minute solutions.

So, what do you need to ‘pull a MacGyver’ or, to use the Portuguese term, what do you need to be known as “desenrascado”, someone who has the ability to find solutions to difficult problems at the last minute? In our opinion, you don’t need real weapons, but you certainly need to make use of your mind, your creative imagination and, perhaps… a Swiss army knife.

If ‘Swiss army knife’ plus ‘use of your mind’ plus ‘use of creative imagination’ equals ‘pulling a MacGyver’, and assuming that you have, or you know where to buy a Swiss army knife, and that you use your mind on a regular basis, creative imagination should work as the unknown factor of the equation.

How to be ‘desenrascado’?

Some might say that creativity or creative imagination is an inborn ability usually found in people that use the right side of their brain more.

It is a fact that right-brained people think and learn in visual terms and that they don't memorize well and need to visualize a picture so that they can recall facts. But we tend to disagree that creative ability is exclusive to right-brained individuals, or at least that it is an inborn ability.

Recent medical research proves that neurons can be created at any time and that the human brain can be reprogrammed at any age. Therefore, we believe that you can start to develop your mind and abilities, including your creative imagination, whenever you want to.

But how can we define this ability? Or, more importantly, how can we develop creative imagination?

Creative imagination is the power to envision a future result, to create something in your mind and to solve problems in a synergistic way. Creative imagination enables you to write your personal mission statements, goals, or simply plan a meeting without the conditionings that ground people to think small.

Consequently, this endowment empowers you to pursue your wildest dreams and goals and to fully realize your personal mission, even in the most challenging circumstances.

A word of advice

Since creativity is directly linked to positive thinking, psycho cybernetics, the magic of believing and neurolinguistic programming, we would like to challenge you to exercise your mind according to the so-called “Blue-Sky thinking”. The aim is to imagine that there are no obstacles, that there is nothing clouding your mind or conditioning you to follow a particular dream or goal.

So, visualize yourself as the master of your own destiny, or as someone that was born to be the happiest person on Earth. Then, just write down the things you envision.

As to enhancing creativity in your family or within your organization, here are some tips:

1) Think ahead;

2) Ask “why” and “what if” more often;

3) Value different views from others;

4) Disentangle yourself from your conditionings;

5) Motivate discussion;

6) Suspend judgment: sometimes the most absurd idea is the one that leads you to the most adequate solution or moves you beyond the attainable;

7) Be optimistic;

8) Laugh as it lifts enthusiasm and improves communication and openness;

9) Invest your time and energy until you reach your goal.

If you are a MacGyver enthusiast, or if you just admire the Portuguese people for their ability to be ‘desenrascados’, just follow our tips! With the formidable power of creative imagination and through visualization, you will start to conceive possibilities way beyond your direct experience that will help you reaffirm and realize your goals.

THINK INSIDE THE BOX!

THINK INSIDE THE BOX!

Clichés, slogans, and latitudes have infiltrated our culture to such an extent that we can no longer think straight.

"There is no expedient to which a man will not resort to avoid the real labor of thinking." -- Sir Joshua Reynolds.

We have not taught people to see the "box" in order to "think inside" of it. They are not taught to think at all. They are given steps to use, and then those steps are constantly supplied to them during testing and analysis, so they don't even have to remember them.

The ability to analyze a situation and apply pure logic and/or think through the issues relating to the situation and/or researching possible options based on historical information are all missing in the majority of the under-30 crowd.

"Leaders are readers" and that if you are not reading at least one book a month, you really are not a true leader.

We taught our kids to read. And they read a lot. Every one of them is significantly advanced in relation to their peer group. Their peers have become illiterate.

I recently returned to college. My peers were functionally illiterate in virtually every aspect of their college work.
The teachers who wanted to teach English or literature were incapable of writing a paragraph without multiple errors. We are (and have been) graduating prospective teachers who are functionally illiterate.

These teachers are being taught to teach using "new age" methodologies and "new age" philosophies. This "outside the box" thinking in education has caused us to abandon the teaching philosophies that gave direction to our teachers. The result is that the teachers, themselves, are no longer capable of the thought processes we were taught, so they cannot pass that along to their students.

"How did people think prior to the cliché being born?"

Walter Bagehot wrote: ' It is often said that men are ruled by their imagination, but it would be truer to say that they are governed by the weakness of their imagination”.

Long time ago, people had skills they learned the hard way by watching, processing and doing. These people were highly motivated since they produced products which were excellent and to the finest quality and so they developed a great pride in that which they were skillful at, and to the extent that, they never stopped thinking and pondering of ways to make the product better and more valuable.


Perhaps also along came things like the industrial revolution and such like, as man become lazy and started the road down to redundancy, as all the products were now automated and man a mere operator just to mind the machine .

It was no longer necessary for man to think or ponder and so that wonderful gift was lost to all but a few and today we have the illiterate, perhaps not just in the sense of reading, but in life in general.

While some sayings may have evolved into clichés however, this shouldn't detract from the essential truth of the sentiment they were originally intended to express.

Companies and communities need leaders with a right-brained biased to assist them to appreciate potential opportunities that may be over the horizon, but they also need leaders who are left-brained dominant to devise and implement the processes that are necessary to reach that destination.

There is no right or wrong in this and in order for any individual to be capable of thinking at all it is obviously better if both sides of his or her brain is fully developed, but then most of us aren't mentally ambidextrous and we naturally lean one way or the other.

Similarly with any organization, it is better if its leadership group contains people who both are creative enough to 'think outside the box,' and accountable enough to 'think inside the box'.

That is how we maintain sufficient balance to ensure we can take full advantage of the good times, while always being prepared for the bad. Successful companies need to be able to encourage the optimists without killing the pessimists and vice-versa.

The one thing that hasn't been considered is that "the box" is constantly moving around. If those who "think outside" of it become successful, they are soon emulated. (A process that becomes faster and faster thanks to technology)

The box represents structure that contains an input-output process. People who do not wish to be trapped by processes think outside their logic to find better and more effective structures that define better processes. A process pipeline focuses thinking on the task at hand, and often cannot see how its outputs affect other processes, to the extent that sometimes thinking is not required to make the process efficient. But being efficient can mean going in the wrong direction, and being not effective.

Leading change for improvement needs to rethink what's inside the box, by going outside to restructure the shape of ineffective methods.

Cristina Falcão

Leadership vs. Management?

Leadership vs. Management? Leadership or Management

Can you really separate and identify what is leadership and what is management objectively and empirically?

An overview of the subject:

Peter Scholtes did some research 15-20 years ago, and found that the first actual org chart in the literature came from the railroads in the 1840s. There had been a huge train wreck, and no one knew whom to blame. To make sure that would never happen again, the org chart was developed, so you would always have someone to blame. When Scholtes presented that paper, he pointed out that that particular document was also the first mention he had found in any literature that mentioned the word "manage”.

Peter Drucker summarized the distinction between management and leadership: "Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right thing".

And as Mr. Warren Bennis (1989) further explicated his twelve distinctions between the two groups are:

1. Managers administer; leaders innovate.
2. Managers ask how and when; leaders ask what and why.
3. Managers focus on systems; leaders focus on people.
4. Managers do things right; leaders do the right things.
5. Managers maintain; leaders develop.
6. Managers rely on control; leaders inspire trust.
7. Managers have short-term perspective; leaders have long-term perspective.
8. Managers accept the status-quo; leaders challenge the status-quo.
9. Managers have an eye on the bottom line; leaders have an eye on the horizon.
10. Managers imitate; leaders originate.
11. Managers emulate the classic good soldier; leaders are their own person.
12. Managers copy; leaders show originality.

Discussion:

Those who defend that leadership is much more than just management will say that a leader has qualities of vision and inspiration.Onecan absolutely manage people, projects, and processes,and exhibit poor Leadership qualities. People may follow instructions because their job is at stake,but not because a manager will inspire them,bring out their best,help them to grow,and accomplish high performance results.

Accomplished Leaders do much more than manage.They inspire and create followers who will follow them into fire and ice and back.

Hence, Management seems to be considered more about organization, administration and execution; the ability to build a functioning organization that can execute the tasks, projects and processes needed to achieve the aim of the system.

Another wayto look at the question is by regarding leadership as an art and management as a science.

Thus,a leader has different capabilities from a manager.A leader has qualitative capabilities, skills, experiences, a developed emotional intelligence and a strong character to lead to success, to motivate their teams, to deliver the mission of the organization and to create a collaborative culture and cohesive team.
A manager has quantitative capabilities to deliver timing metrics and KPI. His tools and only motivation is focused in actively deliver the mission and the strategy of the organization. Therefore:a leader hasqualitative capabilities to deliver vision and a manager has quantitative capabilities to deliver mission; Leader/Manager integrates the vision plus the mission of the organization to their teams and keep the culture within an organization functional and balanced.

Is leadership an art?

Some see leadershipas an art, but is that really so or we may well say that the leadership card in business is overstated and overplayed.

Overstated because business leadership definition tends to broad stroke a painting of employees portrayed as a collective of dysfunctional, disengaged, in desperate need of a messianic authority.

Overplayed because vision and goals are not based on the commons but more so on the imposition of a business cultural hegemony shift.

Transactional or transformational "leaders" in business are simply roles being played by people in authority, not to be confused with the fine art of leading people in a common pursuit. The executive team in place was not elected by the employees. Persuasive leadership is a just a coinage that implies accepted compliance or eventual termination.
Executives fulfilling the stockholder's desire to maximize profit are not true leaders “per se” but bosses who must exemplify great communication skills aside from administrative acumens to grow the businesses they manage. In today's business context, productivity is the singular mantra so what does this have to do with leadership?

Conclusion:

What if the real question is not so much leadership vs. management but”Can a manager be a leader and a leader be a manager"?

I posit that there are no leaders in individual businesses or organizations: there is a figurehead and perhaps a decision maker, but that is not necessarily a leader. And then there are lots of people who manage the various aspects of the business, both process and people.

In other words, an effective combination Leader/Manager knows when it's time to put their "management hat" on, as well as when it's time to put their "leadership hat" on. And when it's time to wear "both hats", which should be majority of the time.

Changing of / revision of which hat(s) to wear can happen within days, hours, minutes, seconds, etc... It depends on "who walks in the room next with what type of issue". Neither the leader nor his people know when the leader has revised current hat. A good leader never loses sight of their leader perspective while managing and vice-versa. Consistency! Whenever approached by any situation, whoever is involved knows what they are going to receive. The complete leadership package must include the characteristics of an effective leader who is only "influenced" to a certain degree by the manager perspective.

Cristina Falcão