Expanding Our Mental Maps

We can begin to increase our awareness of the assumptions we carry in our own mental maps by understanding that organizations are not static. Human beings tend to use fixed, either/or categories. An organization is either positive or negative. Reality, however, is far more complex and more dynamic than that. Reality often runs across our logical categories. Although I have seen some organizational cultures that are quite negative or quite positive, I cannot imagine an organizational culture that is 100 percent negative or 100 percent positive. Nor can I imagine one that stays fixed in terms of negative and positive. What may be a weakness this month, may turn into a strength next month.

Hospital 1 appears to have a more positive culture than Hospital 2 but that doesn’t mean that Hospital 2 is a “bad” organization. Hundreds of people leave that hospital each day healed of their diseases and injuries. Researchers generate scientific breakthroughs that change medicine forever. Leaders at many levels initiate projects to make things better. We even find the very positive Unit 5. Likewise, it is possible that in Hospital 1 we might find one or more negative units.

Negative and positive indicators, or behaviors, tend to appear in an organization at the same time. The ratio of positive to negative behaviors we observe tends to shape our assessment of an organization. For instance, in Hospital 1 and Unit 5, we see many patterns that exceed our conventional expectations, and we conclude that the culture is positive.

In trying to create a more positive organization there are many characteristics we could focus on. Here we have created a list of 20. Look at the first set of 10 and think about what value is placed on them in your organization.

1．Growth Focus: Growth mentality, investing in the future, seeing possibility

2．Self-organization: Empowerment, spontaneity, self-organization

3．Creative Action: Responsive, up-to-date, a learning organization

4．Intrinsic Motivation: Meaningful, rewarding, fulfilling work

5．Positive Contagion: Positive emotions, optimism, enthusiasm

6．Full Engagement: Committed, engaged, fully involved people

7．Individual Accountability: Responsibility, accountability, excellence

8．Decisive Action: Speed, urgency, decisiveness

9．Achievement Focus: Achievement, accomplishment, success

10．Constructive Confrontation: Honesty, challenge, confrontation

An organization with these 10 characteristics is likely to be very visionary, very productive and filled with people who could delight in achievement and success. Yet the careful reader might have some misgivings. The reader might recognize that a focus on a value like achievement could be coupled with human exhaustion, and an emphasis on growth and change could lead to waste, chaos, and confusion. That is because every positive characteristic, without a competing positive value or characteristic, can become a negative. With that in mind, let’s look at 10 more characteristics.

11．Cost Control: Efficiency, conservation, preservation of assets

12．Organizational Predictability: Stability, order, predictability

13．Procedural Compliance: Sound routines, policies, procedures

14．Managerial Control: Consistent, dependable, reliable performance

15．Objective Analysis: Objectivity, measurement, sound analysis

16．Life Balance: Renewing, reenergizing, life balance

17．Cohesive Teamwork: Collaboration, belonging, positive peer pressure

18．Group Deliberation: Participation, involvement, consensus

19．Authentic Relationships: Caring, selfless service, genuine relationships

20．Appreciative Expression: Appreciation, praise, celebration for others

The second list is not an arbitrary set of items. Each characteristic balances the first list of 10. Please compare the first characteristic on the left with the first on the right, and so on, down the list.

Consider some of the contrasts. Growth focus is very different from cost control. People who believe in organizational predictability may not see how a characteristic like self-organization is possible. Creative action and procedural compliance are also conceptual tensions or oppositions.

We use words like tensions or oppositions and not opposites because the word opposite often implies that two words or phrases are mutually exclusive. In fact, many people will look at the above lists and think that the pairs are mutually exclusive.

Although these characteristics appear to be opposites, they can exist simultaneously (and successfully) in the real world. In fact, they must exist simultaneously. Change and stability are positive tensions. If there was zero stability the organization would cease to exist. If there was zero change the organization would become completely unaligned with the internal or external marketplace. Customers or clients would become dissatisfied, and they would make their displeasure known in one way or another. External resources like money and political support would cease to flow, and the organization would eventually die.

The fact is that organizational success is dependent upon the integration of contrasting or paradoxical tensions such as the ones illustrated in the above lists. F. Scott Fitzgerald once said, “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.”

One reason that we see so few positive organizations and so many conventional organizations is because of the tension between these necessary positive characteristics. Leadership requires the ability to hold opposed ideas at the same time. It requires us to think in more complex and adaptive ways.

Figure 1.1 is an unusual tool because it makes us conscious of something that is usually ignored: the tensions that exist in all organizations. Figure 1.1 can help us recognize where our organization is and where it is that we want it to go.

Holding two opposed ideas is challenging, but let’s go one step further. Figure 1.1 illustrates the 20 positive characteristics discussed above, along with the 20 negative characteristics that can develop when we give a positive characteristic too much attention. You will see that each positive is linked to a negative. Not only do we need the ability to accept two opposed ideas at the same time, but we must also give each of these competing values enough attention so that neither one crosses the line and becomes negative.

FIGURE 1.1 A Framework of Organizational Tensions

By way of example, we expand the notion of full engagement and exhaustion. Withdrawal, life balance, full engagement and exhaustion run in a line across Figure 1.1. Life balance and full engagement can be found on opposite sides of the inner circle. We call this area the positive zone. Life balance and full engagement are positive but opposing characteristics. Full engagement is positive because we want people to bring their full potential to work. Yet full engagement taken too far can lead to exhaustion and become negative (see the outside circle, next to full engagement). Now let’s look at the value of life balance found on the opposite side of the positive zone. If we put too much emphasis on life balance, people may withdraw from their work and give too little. Trying to create an organization where people are fully engaged and also have life balance is a complex aspiration but one without the other will likely lead us to a negative outcome.

Figure 1.1 is valuable because it shows that with the best intentions, we usually aspire to only one value in a set of opposing positive values. If we are even aware of two opposing, positive values, it is difficult to see how they can work together. Yet the ability to hold both positive notions at the same time is more likely to create a positive organization and keep us out of the negative zone. Holding two opposing ideas and creating the right balance of those ideas is a skill you can acquire. Doing so makes you more effective than the average person in your role.