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METAPHOR MAPS
 
 

THE SHIP

"Collaboration between Departments"

 Two groups, commanded to share resources, turned quickly into two groups rowing in opposite directions. A perplexed director observing the disaster of a ship ripping apart at the seams asks - "what is going on?" I'm sure he believes, all you need to do is start rowing in the same direction. If only it were that simple. Many organizations are trying to save money by encouraging departments to share resources such as support staff. Theoretically increasing access to resources, the real life story is very different. Mandated change without tending to the personal feelings around that change sets up internal struggles, increased opportunities to say "not my job" or "I've already got too much to do." In this case a government agency was headed by a director who implemented the new structure with a magic wand, "you shall now share resources." This picture tells the story of what happened. The two women in charge of the departments were already adversaries. Thus, a personality conflict was given the opportunity to flourish into full-blown warfare. The day of our dialogue session, both women suddenly had emergency meetings elsewhere in the country. God forbid they come sit together in the same room for a day. Both had given their staff subtle but unmistakable messages that cooperating with the "other department" was not only low on their list of priorities but might be considered treasonous. Never an overt message, the raising of an eyebrow and "you will just have to work on that later, we need this done today" let staff know that cooperation wouldn't win them any gold stars. Officially they talked the talk but "implementationally" they made it impossible. "Sharing resources" in this way creates false shortages. Both groups hoarded what(who) they had from each other and both "did without" in many situations. Only a deep dialogue revealed the hidden assumptions that kept them from collaborating. In the end it was good their managers boycotted the meeting. They decided to go "underground" and cooperate on the sly...whatever it takes.

The turning point in this meeting came after hours of griping and groaning about "you never do this," and "I can't take care of x, y AND z without help" and "why should we help them when they don't call until the day before" Tempers were high, frustration was high but one guy sat silently listening. He turned his face to pay attention to every one who spoke. Finally he indicated that he had something to say, and because he had listened so carefully to everyone else, they all turned respectfully to listen to him. "I don't want to be disrespectful. But you know I'm just out of the army and I spent quite some time in the Gulf War. Because of that I have a different perspective….see, as long as I'm not drinking powdered milk, I'm sleeping in my own bed, and I get to kiss my wife and my kids goodnight,…. this is not that bad." The silence that followed was the sound of an entire group of people having one big moment of enlightenment. A little perspective can go a long way.

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OLD GUARD VS ALIENS

"Aliens invade the corporate kingdom"

Fundamental issues separate the old guard and IT, the "aliens." The IT dept is depicted as a UFO behind barbed wire topped by a figure in relaxed pose. The IT guys laughed when they saw this map. These maps always invite humor, a powerful remedy for turf wars. They laughed... but they got the message. Not that they hadn't heard a thousand times that their technical jargon made them seem alien...but something about this picture got past their defensive reasoning that "this is jargon people have to learn" (or whatever they told themselves). They didn't drop to their knees and ask forgiveness, but they "got the message." They changed how they talked to others and how they treated others...months later the change is still there. The cultures of IT and more traditional business people are inherently different. Unfortunately the business user/IT conflicts are treated as if they actually pertained to the scheduling and implementation conflict that shows on the surface. If both groups would take the time to sit in dialogue they would find more sustaining "solutions" by understanding the less obvious, much deeper cultural conflicts beneath the superficial conflicts. A primary divide is created in many places, when standardization as a value of efficiency is applied. Standardization always creates winners and losers. In any new system that standardizes process, the psychological effects of one department's way of doing things over-riding another's can create a tidal wave of resentment that will not hit the shore until after implementation is under way. Invisible differences in assumptions about the world's predictability, the value of change (does it make you flexible or unreliable?), and the definition of "right" (do you want to be accurate or morally right?), can create havoc. When the morally right and the technically accurate begin to mistrust each other and label each other as "wrong" they can find disagreement opportunities in as innocuous a decision as what to have for lunch. This map shows other conflicts, too. Labor is in a turret without a door and only a tiny window to the big picture. The woman who drew this picture was the HR Manager. She drew herself precariously on stilts, reaching high enough to talk directly with the Director. However her HR character in the drawing is in great danger as Labor Relations and Personnel managers try to climb up the one pair of stilts to get to the Director instead of making their own stilts. The Director is a sun in the clouds. Administration is a medieval looking place with a figure, hands on hips delivering an imagined surly "what do YOU want?"

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P-BOAT

"I'm bailing as fast as I can"

"Our workplace is like a boat that has sprung a leak. We are going down and I'm bailing as fast as I can without much help." Curious, I asked, "Who is the guy on the left?" "That's my boss." Quite innocently I asked, "What is he doing?" Snickers turned to guffaws when he explained, "He's got his fly down, filling the boat up even more." Even the manager had to laugh. This was a tough crowd. There were formal grievances against the manager; union vs. management disputes had become a cultural norm. It was so bad that, for some, cooperating with the "other side" would feel like selling out . Bureaucratic environments where people lean too heavily on rules and policy dehumanize decision-making so much that compassion and tolerance are over-looked as resources for dealing with conflict. Instead of any attempt at understanding, people go straight for the rulebook, lodge formal grievances, and hire a mediator. The manager's map showed there are two sides to every story. His map had "the goal" in the middle with a road running in a circle around the goal. Four streets ran between the goal and the circle, but the were all one-way…the wrong way. He felt like he was running in circles with no opportunity to help. Who was telling the truth? They BOTH were! These sort of truths are perspective truths. How you feel is how you feel regardless of the evidence. Only by expressing these truths openly in a room with 30 other "truths" did they discover the arbitrary nature every single perspective. Their perspective was not invalidated, it was simply…put into a larger perspective. It became clear that many people liked their jobs but feared being labeled as disloyal it they admitted to that fact. The angry ones began to see that they were causing problems even for "their side." A week later I got an email from the manager. Apparently, after their dialogue the manager was standing in the elevator as the P-boat artist approached. Usually he would have slowed his step so that the doors would close and they would not be trapped together in such tight quarters. But THIS time he sped up, obviously trying to catch the same elevator with his manager. Once on, they both stood facing the door assuming the proper elevator etiquette (a wonderful way to avoid eye contact, too) and the man spoke, "Maybe we should work a bit on our relationship" The tension increased. The manager spoke, "I'd like that." "O.k." "O.k." Total silence ensued except for the ding, ding of each passing floor. Finally the doors opened and they both rushed purposefully away from this uncharacteristically intimate moment of truth. They certainly weren't going to hug and say "I love you, man!" This is what success looks like!!! That's it. And it's good enough. Celebrate your small wins - even tiny conversations - when they are authentic - can create powerful improvements in the work environment

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TORNADO

"The progression of a career in leadership"

I keep threatening to write a book titled "Leadershit." This drawing is a great representation of why! New hires are sucked into the vortex of organizational leadership theories about white water, chaos theory, flexibility, doing more with less, participative decision making, strategic thinking, reliability and clear focus without any regard to the massive internal conflicts these impossible-to-maintain and mutually exclusive values set up. Eventually being flexible can be interpreted as unreliable and white water is going to mess with people's expectations for clear direction and focus. Simply reading most organizations' list of leadership competencies is enough to make the most competent person feel incompetent OR to feel compelled to lie to himself or others (or both) about who she/he really is. Good intentions created these "reach for the stars" lists of leadership qualities, but they have encouraged systems designed without regard for the fallibility and flawed nature of human beings. This creates a situation where every honest human being (who says, "Oops, I screwed up" every now and then) can easily be rejected in favor of the more image conscious less-competent individual who blames someone else. I taught leadership for years, and yes, I know that we have a "new definition" of leadership. But the problem remains - even the leading leaders model is unrealistically positive. Facing the shadow side of human nature is scary, but incredibly valuable. The place where our common humanity can be revealed is the birthplace of compassion and tolerance. True cooperation does not occur between people who feel they must hide their flaws from each other. This hiding separates them so much that ideas don't flow freely, information is bottlenecked, and hesitation chokes their voices. Creative collaboration require strong connections between people that can only be born from a "warts and all" authenticity. "We give 100%" is less believable than, "We give 100%, except for when we don't." If a group wants to develop trust, a good place to start is for EVERYONE to be honest about who they are and who they aren't. In the best intentions to pursue high standards we have created a culture that doesn't tolerate human flaws very well. No wonder people are burning out and leaving their jobs… and it is the most creative, authentic and courageous ones that we lose as a result. Let's try to make our workplaces safe for human beings and maybe we'd have more around when we need them.

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THE VICE


"Feeling a little pressure, lately?"

vice"This is me...getting screwed." (long pause) " but it could be any of us really...because when we aren't getting screwed, we are screwing each other." No one listening to this woman describing her map, argued with her evaluation of their last six months in a high stress/high blame office situation. In real life, "doing more with less" often turns into a big bun fight over getting more of the "less" the group is supposed tobe doing "more" with! And whenever one group has a bit more...even if they don't need it right this minute, they are loathe to let anyone know, much less share, what they have. Hoarding resources and the human tendency to hoard what is valuable has been completely disregarded by many organizations. In an environment where people feel under threat or abused, relationships deteriorate and the abused become abusers. Resentment is a huge problem in organizations today. Without an opportunity to process their feelings, people who harbor a deep sense of injustice tend to drop the standards for their own behavior toward others. When this happens, groups use "accountability" to skewer co-workers for mistakes and nail peers to the wall when a project fails...never considering that a year later, when risk-taking disappears, and "need to know only" becomes the basis for sharing information the root cause is a nurtured sense of injustice born of the skewering and nailing days. Some people think we should remove the injustice from the system. Nice theory, but impossible in practice. Injustice is unavoidable in organizational life. Over time it evens out (ideally), but every efficiency measure, every reward system, every standardized process will inevitably be better from some and worse for others. The best we can do is deal with this reality of organizational life, honestly, in periodic dialogues that retrieve people from the paralyzing disease of resentment. Sometimes the only way we can deal with injustice is to discuss it in the open. Being listened to is a powerful cure for resentments. And if you are the one feeling resentful...remember: Resentment keeps the wrong person awake at night.

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