Monkswood Associates

Monkswood Associates Newsletter: September 2005
Topic for the month – Under ground

My opening thought for September:

“Three things cannot be long hidden:
the sun, the moon and the truth.”

Buddha (Hindu Prince Gautama Siddharta,
founder of Buddhism, 563 – 483 BC)

In nearly every organisation, things take place behind the scenes. These underground or shadow deals, values, rules are never found in employee handbooks or organisation policies, yet dealing with them effectively is an integral part of every person’s job.

What might the reasons be? And what can you do to improve things?

What remains unspoken in your work?

Reason: lack of awareness/thought

The unspoken may be about an individual, team, or organisational issue. For example, think about when an organisation needs to change to grow. Frequently when any long-serving employees struggle with the changes, they are discounted, ignored, berated, discarded. Their past good performance, which enabled the organisation to be ready for this growth phase, is out of sight, underground. They are seen as barriers to, rather suppliers of, the future. This approach is not done maliciously, just through looking at it in a limiting way.

I have seen a more open and aware approach being used to good effect. In essence, the director acknowledged openly and authentically their important contribution and encouraged them to bring their experience and what currently works well to the future. He matched his actions to these words. In this way he gained positive change with less conflict and greater speed.

Reason: intentional hiding

Another example demonstrates the impact of actively putting something underground. A training consultancy had a contract where no Associate Trainer expenses were covered by the client. Therefore, such expenditure came directly out of its profit.

For around six months this organisation was recruiting Associate Trainers and would only acknowledge that they needed more. However, these new Associates happened to live close to where the bulk of this contract took place.

You can imagine what the existing Associates were thinking! This lack of openness impacted their motivation, morale and willingness to accept work. They felt they were standing on less trustworthy ground. Fortunately the organisation had a change of mind. They decided to be open about a key root cause for their decision, reducing costs. The existing Associates breathed a sigh of relief. Once more they stood on solid ground. Immediately, motivation, morale and willingness to accept work returned.

So hiding information intentionally or unintentionally has consequences, usually to the detriment of the individual, team and/or organisation.

What other reasons enter your attention?

How to develop awareness

What if you want to raise people’s awareness around what goes unsaid in your organisation? How can you start such a discussion and get people to talk about things normally left unspoken? What follows are two ideas.

The first one I gained from Play for Performance newsletter published by The Thiagi Group Inc (www.thiagi.com):

Ask everyone to draw a tree on a piece of paper within 45 seconds. This tree may be realistic or abstract. The only critical requirement is that is needs to be drawn within the 45-second time limit. Time the 45 seconds and stop them drawing when it ends. Ask “how many of you included the roots when you drew the tree?” When you gained responses, you can follow up with various questions including some or all of the following:

The anonymous box

Another idea is to ask people to bring with them questions or comments about what they see as currently hidden in their team and/or organisation.

Each question need to be on a separate piece of paper and placed at the beginning of the meeting in a box. I am only suggesting that they come to the meeting with them so that they can type them up if they really want to ensure their comments/questions remain anonymous. A senior manager/director would need to be present to respond to the questions and comments as they are pulled out of the box. This enables unspoken issues to be raised in a safe way.

What other ways could you bring to light the unspoken?

Write to me about your ideas on other ways - helen@monkswoodassociates.co.uk.

Essential books about changing people and organisations

“Working the shadow side” by Gerard Egan, Jossey-Bass, 1994, ISBN 0-7879-0011-7

Gerard Egan opens this topic up so clearly and then gives practical ideas about what you can do about it in a lot of its guises.

‘A hidden connection is stronger than an obvious one.”

You are welcome to reprint any part of this newsletter as long as you acknowledge the source, including full authorship, copyright, and subscription information.

Please ask any questions that the topic has raised, or share your thoughts and experiences with me, Helen Wade, at: