THINKING ABOUT THINKING, THOUGHT PROVOKING! Dr. Peter Senge Graces Karachi Courtesy Octara

Report filed by Adil Ahmad, Correspondent, The Octara Magazine

Dr. Peter Senge is the Senior Lecturer at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and has been named “Strategist of the Century” by the Journal of Business Strategy, and rated amongst World’s Most Influential Business Thinkers by The Financial Times, Business Week & The Wall Street Journal. He was ranked in “Thinkers 50” in 2007, and developed the concept of “The Learning Organization.” Dr. Peter Senge is the Founding Chair of the Society of Organizational Learning.

PULL QUOTE 1: “The important thing is to do what is really important to you, and that is often going to be not what goes on in the classroom.”

PULL QUOTE 2: “What does it take to lead in an interdependent global environment and foster innovation in times of unprecedented change?”

PULL QUOTE 3: “True leadership is about cultivating the collective capacity for people to shape futures they truly desire.”

PULL QUOTE 4: “True leadership requires cultivating a culture of openness, trust, challenging our past assumptions and willingness to experiment throughout the organization.”

PULL QUOTE 5: “While executive leadership is crucial, so too is the leadership contributed by many people at many levels and positions in the organization.”

PULL QUOTE 6: “Creating new sources of value is not possible in today’s world without first cultivating resilient and generative leadership ecologies and ongoing innovation.”

PULL QUOTE 7: “Succession planning is not about finding the next hero. It’s about setting up an effective organization.”

PULL QUOTE 8: “There are only two fundamental motivations for change – aspiration and desperation.”

PULL QUOTE 9: “The toughest issues are undiscussable, and their undiscussability is undisdiscussable!”

PULL QUOTE 10: “Flexibility is the hallmark of innovative organizations.”

PULL QUOTE 11: “Every situation is unique and it’s your ability to recognize this and act accordingly that makes for effective managers.”

PULL QUOTE 12: “We are tied in a single fabric of destiny on planet earth. Policies and actions that attempt to tear a nation from this cloth will inevitably fail.”

Octara brought to Karachi a living legend, the Author of The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of The Learning Organization, identified by Harvard Business Review as one of the seminal Management Books. 

Dr. Peter Senge’s ‘The Fifth Discipline’ has more than 2 million copies sold worldwide, and comes accompanied by ‘The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook’ that Dr. Peter Senge has co-authored with Richard Ross, Bryan Smith, Charlotte Roberts, and Art Kleiner. The ’Fieldbook’ contains stories that show how communities in various endeavors can undo their ‘learning disabilities’ and achieve superior performance. Dr. Peter Senge encourages first reading the ‘Fieldbook’ before proceeding to ‘The Fifth Discipline’. His concept of “The Learning Organization” is taught and practiced throughout the global business world today. Dr. Peter Senge works with top multinational organizations around the world which include IBM, Unilever, Boeing, Xerox, Nike, Schlumberger, World Bank Group, Shell, Bayer and many more.

LEADERSHIP IN AN INTERDEPENDENT WORLD

What does it take to lead in an interdependent global environment and foster innovation in times of unprecedented change, is the question that Dr. Peter Senge takes upon himself to answer.

In his estimation, true leadership is about cultivating the collective capacity for people to shape futures they truly desire. It requires cultivating a culture of openness, trust, challenging our past assumptions and willingness to experiment throughout the organization.

Rather than being defined by position or formal lines of authority, the leaders are those who contribute to shaping this capacity. While executive leadership is crucial, so too is the leadership contributed by many people at many levels and positions in the organization.

Creating new sources of value is not possible in today’s world without first cultivating resilient and generative leadership ecologies and ongoing innovation.

Amongst the over 200 attendees that Octara and Dr. Senge attracted were Chief Executive Officers, Chief Operating Officers, Chief Financial Officers, Managing Directors, Human Resource Directors and Managers, Organizational Development Directors and Managers, Marketing Directors and Managers, Emerging Business Leaders, Strategic Planning Executives, Public Sector Managers, General Managers, and Business School Faculty.

VALIDATING KNOWN TRUTHS

Dr. Peter Senge is a very soft-spoken man who speaks slowly and with a great deal of deliberateness, weighing each word and making it convey the profoundness of the subject matter.

None of what he articulates is rocket science, or even new, for that matter. Most, if not every individual at the seminar knew and understood that which was being said. It is the stuff that flighty conversations are made of, and we Pakistanis are world champions when it comes to flighty conversations. But here was a man seriously intent on delivering at the practical plane, through reflection and the art of thinking about thinking, a workable route to good governance that could save Planet Earth and its many corporate entities from chaos and ultimate destruction, Allah be praised. 

Amongst the select collection of slides that Dr. Perter Senge used that day to convey his meaning a few that carried his quotes stood out. ‘Courage is simply doing whatever is needed in pursuit of the vision’; ‘The world is made of circles and we think in straight lines’; ‘People don’t resist change, they resist being changed’; ‘The only sustainable competitive advantage is an organization’s ability to learn faster than the competition’; ‘You cannot force commitment, what you can do is you nudge a little here, inspire a little there, and provide a role model. Your primary influence is the environment you create’.

The problem is that Leadership mostly translates to boss-ship, says Senge. “The leader is the boss. In such cultures when asked to focus on the customer, the executive insists that he does. ‘I have always focused on the customer, my boss!’”

STEPPING ACROSS THE THRESHOLD

“Leadership comes from ‘stepping across the threshold’. We confuse leadership with position of authority. There is deep confusion. Positions of authority are very important, but personal capacity to lead is imperative. To be an innovative, learning organization one needs leaders at all levels of the hierarchy.”

A defining feature of an effective leader is his ‘don’t wait for permission, but be ready to ask for forgiveness’ attitude. Post-colonial societies have similar issues. The colonial masters instilled a certain mindset wherein the boss is the boss, and no questions asked. This attitude is hierarchical and authoritarian and does not inspire innovation. Leadership is collective as well as individual. Succession planning is not about finding the next hero. It’s about setting up an effective organization.”

‘To become a leader is to become a human being’ is a saying attributed to Confucius. Senge brought attention to the term ‘charismatic leader’, saying that in the Western world it referred to mostly males. ‘Charism’ means divine gift in the Christian faith, as indeed does the word integrity come from integral. To be charismatic is to be yourself, and the best leadership style is your own. Many different leadership styles have been coined by management gurus, and these include the creative energy style; the thoughtful, soft-spoken style that one could associate with Senge himself; the Ying and Yang style, etc.

These styles are necessary tools to grow the people, says Senge. “But tools don’t produce outcomes, the people do. Practicing with the tools is what makes for perfection. The operating context is important.”

ASPIRATION OR DESPERATION

Reflection means thinking about thinking, and occupies a central tenet in Senge’s discourse. “Perceptions are shaped by experiences. Reflective conversations make us more aware of what’s going on. None of us see reality as it is, objectively. We do not describe what we see; we see what we know how to describe.” Engaging in hindsight through a ‘chewing of the cud’ never fails in clearing the cobwebs of the minds and generating clarity in thought.

Fostering aspiration also came under the microscope. “The oldest word associated with leadership is vision. Can people relate to that vision? Tap the capacity for aspiration. There are only two fundamental motivations for change – aspiration and desperation. Negative vision drives change through fear of loss, but that works only for short periods of time. Having survived the scare it’s back to business as usual. One cannot build an innovative culture around fear.”

Managers are concerned with motivation. Extrinsic motivation works through money, promotions, and other such material inducements. “We tend to substitute extrinsic motivators for intrinsic motivators. Passion is generated internally. William Edwards Deming is some one Senge holds in high esteem, and says that Deming advocated a healthy balance of extrinsic and intrinsic, with efforts made to substitute fear with passion.     

UNDERSTANDING COMPLEXITY

Understanding complexity or interdependence is at the heart of Dr. Peter Senge’s work, and calls for seeing the health of the enterprise as a whole. Vision without reflection will generate a very frustrated and cynical organization, he says.

“How do we create conditions where people can be at their best? We learn to walk because we want to learn to walk. Primary and secondary education is very important for our future. Children are instinctive systems thinkers and they learn it from their family. In school the teacher beats that out of us. Where do we learn to ‘please the boss’? In school! There’s a very clear authority structure. Very often it is also true in the home. ‘Never challenge the parent’ is a paradigm that persists, and responsible for phenomena like the ‘generation gap’. Family, school and work shape us. Institutions have to grow and evolve for change to happen.”

BANE OF THE QUICK FIX – SYMPTOMATIC VERSUS FUNDAMENTAL SOLUTIONS

Senge has spent a lot of time teaching in China and studying the Chinese. “In 2 or 3 decades China has uplifted hundreds of millions of people to a higher level of affluence. Kids start the day with doing Taichi. They practice calligraphy to hone their creativity, and engage in recitation and chanting, creating a vibrational field and a sense of harmony. The DNA about how things are done has to be deeply imbedded in the family, school and work. Modern institutions’ DNA is about profit and more profit. Social harmony has to replace the lust for profit.”

The bane of the quick fix is of particular concern to Dr. Peter Senge, and the question that needs answering is that if profits are down do we opt for symptomatic solutions or fundamental solutions? Symptomatic solutions are a reactive approach that shifts the burden to quick fixes in the short term. Fundamental solutions may cost more and take more time, but they fix the problem once and for all.

Senge gave the example of P&G’s problem where its brand sales were below target. The product manager was central and sales promotion was the symptomatic solution that relied on soap operas because P&G wanted to sell more soap through advertising promotion. That, incidentally, is where the term ‘soap opera’ evolved from.

Symptomatic solutions have side effects over time, and fundamental solutions require basic innovation. Last 5 P&G CEOs had come from sales & marketing backgrounds, and the last CEO had written copy. Being an advertising man, he was heavily biased towards sales and advertising with no experience of innovation. The next CEO didn’t come from sales and marketing and was more inclined to probe deeper in search for product innovation and fundamental solutions.

SYSTEMS THINKING

“Systems thinking is about seeing patterns,” says Dr. Peter Senge, regretting that the toughest issues are undiscussable, and their undiscussability is undisdiscussable!

“We kid ourselves that symptomatic solutions are fundamental solutions, but they yield relief only in the short term with the same problems cropping up time and again. Fundamental solutions create the basis for long term effectiveness and require sacrifice in the short term. The real processes of change are more complicated than figuring out the solution and then implementing it. Flexibility is the hallmark of innovative organizations. Every situation is unique and it’s your ability to recognize this and act accordingly that makes for effective managers.”

The Ladder of Inference is a useful tool to determine how well rooted a hypothesis is. High on the ladder of inference means there are a lot of assumptions behind the hypothesis with empirical evidence conspicuous by its absence. What are the assumptions behind the challenges? Shell was a pioneer in ‘scenario planning.’ The ‘crumbling walls’ scenario about the collapse of the USSR was being addressed 4 years before the Berlin Wall came down.

First rung of the Ladder comprises data directly observable input; second rung comprises immediate interpretations, and this happens very quickly and there are pitfalls. An American nodding means ‘I agree’, while a Japanese nodding means ‘I hear you’ and does not indicate agreement. The 3^rd rung includes attributions, while the 4^th rung comprises generalizations. There are a lot of options available with us, and the jumping to conclusions is one of them best avoided.

Leaders are forceful advocates, says Senge, citing William O’Brien the CEO of an insurance company in the USA who was also his mentor. “O’Brien was high on advocacy and high on inquiry. You have to genuinely believe that you don’t have all the answers. The big mistake that we are prone to making is thinking that we know what is being said. When crossing cultural lines always reconfirm your understanding of what is being said.” The other question worth pondering is how can we challenge each others’ views without insulting each other and invoking defensiveness?

The Questions and answers sessions threw up some interesting thoughts. ‘What is popular is often not right, and what is right is often not popular’; ‘Sacrifice means to make sacred’; ‘Deming coined a term ‘overcompensation’ to denote payment for services that people were willing to provide out of kindness’; ‘George Marshall (5 star general) of the Marshall Plan said ‘great leaders are born and then made’; ‘Blindness exists at the top of the hierarchy’;  ‘We don’t need globalization as a process of marginalization; Globalization must happen from the bottom up.’

REFLECTIONS

Amongst other goodies tucked inside the Octara briefcase presented to all seminar participants, was a slim spiral bound document of some 16 pages. The slimness of the document was deceptive indeed, for within those 16 pages were words whose weight would rock the world and turn it upon its head for its own good. Titled ‘Reflections’ (reflections.solonline.org), this was the Journal of the Society for Organizational Learning, set up by Dr. Peter Senge, and dedicated to Knowledge, Learning and Change.

Of the 16 pages, 12 were dedicated to the cover story ‘Creating Desired Futures in a Global Economy’ penned by Senge himself. In it he says that there is nothing more elemental to the work of leaders than creating results, but it’s no longer possible to create positive results in isolation. He then asks what it means to live in a global society, and follows it up by narrating the experience of the World Bank’s Mieko Nishimizu who met an Indian woman who had to walk four miles every day to gather fresh water. “This is not life,” the Indian woman had said. “This is only keeping a body alive.”

Such conditions are a reality for an increasing number of people in most of the developing world, and cannot be separated from the shaping an increasingly global society. The future appears alien to us and differs from the past in as much as the earth itself is a relevant unit with which to frame and measure that future. We belong to one inescapable network of mutuality – mutuality of ecosystems; mutuality of freer movement of information, ideas, people, goods and services; and mutuality of peace and security. We are tied in a single fabric of destiny on planet earth. Policies and actions that attempt to tear a nation from this cloth will inevitably fail.

ROCK STAR!

The CEO TCS Holdings, M.A. Mannan, presented the vote of thanks, and said that‘Peter Senge was like Shahrukh Khan for him! A rock star! Mannan said that earlier in his banking career he was hired by United Bank Limited to fire 8000 people and wound up retaining all of them! “They had been there for the last 30 years and had seen the glory days of UBL under Agha Hasan Abidi. UBL went on to scale great heights, and from 130 billion rupees rose to become worth 300 billion rupees.” Mannan said that he had made the 5^th Discipline compulsory reading for TCS, complete with pop quizzes! Jim Colins’ next, he said while praising Jamil Janjua for doing a great job.’

TWO THUMBS UP FROM SENGE!

A couple of weeks after Dr. Peter Senge had left Karachi’s hallowed shores, Octara received an email from him which is reproduced below and is self-explanatory:

“It was a pleasure working with Octara on my recent visit to Pakistan. They did a great job coordinating all the details, from planning the content of the event, to visas and  on-the-ground coordination. The event itself was produced in a thoroughly professional manner at a high level that would meet any standards internationally for room, sound and AV, food, and participant support.

Most importantly, I was very impressed by the caliber of attendees at the conference, which I am sure reflects Octara’s reputation in Pakistan. As a visiting speaker, this is one thing you can never control, and yet it is, in my judgment, the single greatest determinant of the outcome - especially if the event, like mine, involves a great deal of interaction among the participants. I look forward to working again with Octara in the future” - Peter M. Senge (MIT, Society for Organizational Learning, and The Academy for Systemic Change).