The Hedgehog Effect E-Book

Manfred F.R. Kets de Vries

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 418

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

Beschreibung

In The Hedgehog Effect, Manfred Kets de Vries presents the case for leadership group coaching as an experiential training ground for learning to function as a high performance team. His group coaching model, incorporating living case studies, has been developed over more than 20 years of delivering programs to top-level executives and sets the standard in the field of leadership group coaching. Written for coaches, consultants, leadership development directors, and anyone working in or with teams, The Hedgehog Effect begins with an in-depth analysis of what teams and groups are all about. The intricacies of leadership coaching are illustrated with an elaborate example of a team coaching intervention. In Part Two, the author applies a psychodynamic lens to the dynamics of teams and groups, taking a close look at relationship patterns, how groups evolve, and the phenomenon of the group-as-a-whole. Part Three takes a more systemic perspective, addressing the challenges that change processes pose for people in organizations, and how to create best places to work. Kets de Vries supports the whole with the story of an organizational change initiative accomplished through group coaching.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Cover

Title page

Copyright page

DEDICATION

PREFACE

SCHOPENHAUER’S HEDGEHOGS

THE PARADOX OF TEAMWORK

MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE

LEADERSHIP GROUP COACHING AND THE CREATION OF AUTHENTIZOTIC ORGANIZATIONS

ABOUT THIS BOOK

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

PART ONE: AN INTRODUCTION TO THE LIFE OF GROUPS AND TEAMS

CHAPTER 1 HOW A GROUP BECOMES A TEAM

TEAMS: WHAT, WHY, AND HOW

THE DARK SIDE OF DYSFUNCTIONAL TEAMS

THE VIRTUES OF TEAMS

WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED SO FAR?

CHAPTER 2 SWIMMING IN THE RELATIONAL “SOUP”

LEADERSHIP GROUP COACHING: AN ART AND A SCIENCE

A LEADERSHIP GROUP COACHING STORY

GROUP COACHING: A SOCIAL LEARNING EXPERIENCE

CHAPTER 3 LEADERSHIP COACHING AND HIGH PERFORMANCE TEAMS

THE VICISSITUDES OF TEAMS

WHERE LEADERSHIP GROUP COACHING COMES IN

TEAM COACHING: MULTIPLYING THE POWER OF INDIVIDUALS

THE HOLISTIC PICTURE: MICRO, MESO, AND MACRO

CREATING A COACHING CULTURE IN ORGANIZATIONS

PART TWO: A PSYCHODYNAMIC PERSPECTIVE ON INDIVIDUALS AND GROUPS

CHAPTER 4 UNDERSTANDING INDIVIDUALS IN GROUPS

THE CLINICAL PARADIGM EXPLAINED

A CLOSER LOOK AT RELATIONSHIP PATTERNS

THE DEMONS OF SHAME AND GUILT

EMOTIONAL CONTAGION

MIMICRY AND MIRRORING

CHAPTER 5 THE SECRET LIFE OF GROUPS

LINEAR THEORIES OF GROUP BEHAVIOR

MONOMYTHICAL THEORIES: HEROIC JOURNEYS

THE HELICAL POINT OF VIEW

TWELVE ANGRY MEN

CHAPTER 6 INTO THE CLOUD: THE PHENOMENON OF THE GROUP-AS-A-WHOLE

THE COLLECTIVE AND SOCIAL UNCONSCIOUS

THE REALITY OF THE SOCIAL UNCONSCIOUS

THE QUESTION OF AUTHORITY

SCAPEGOATING AND ALTERATIONS OF MOOD

THE GROUP-AS-A-WHOLE AS A FORCE FOR CHANGE

THE BLIND MEN AND THE ELEPHANT

PART THREE: CREATING AUTHENTIZOTIC ORGANIZATIONS

CHAPTER 7 TOWARD SYSTEMIC CHANGE IN ORGANIZATIONS

CHANGE WITHIN A SYSTEMIC CONTEXT

THE PROCESS OF INDIVIDUAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE

DEALING WITH RESISTANCE TO CHANGE

THE PROCESS OF ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE

CHAPTER 8 BEING AN EFFECTIVE CHANGE AGENT

INTO THE ZEITGEIST: A LOOK AT THE CHANGE AGENT’S WORLD

CREATING A TRANSITIONAL SPACE IN GROUP COACHING

COMMUNICATION: LISTENING WITH THE THIRD EAR

THE YIN AND YANG OF EMOTION AND COGNITION

RESISTANCE JUDO: CONTAINING CONFLICT

COURAGEOUS CONVERSATIONS

THE VICISSITUDES OF CHANGE

A FEW ADMINISTRATIVE DETAILS

THE TALE OF M’BOGO AND SYNCERUS

CHAPTER 9 THE ZEN OF GROUP COACHING

SELF-PORTRAIT: CREATING THE TRANSITIONAL SPACE

LIFE NARRATIVES: LETTING THE FOCAL ISSUE EMERGE

ANIMAL METAPHORS

PARADOXICAL INTERVENTION

MOTIVATIONAL INTERVIEWING

COMPETING COMMITMENTS

THE WAY OF ZEN

STAYING ON COURSE TOWARD A POSITIVE OUTCOME

ACTION PLANNING

CHAPTER 10 A HOLISTIC DESIGN FOR ORGANIZATIONAL INTERVENTIONS

ENGAGING PEOPLE IN THE CHANGE PROCESS

ORGANIZATIONAL INTERVENTIONS

INSTITUTIONALIZATION OF CHANGE

A CASE IN POINT

CONCLUSION

LEARNING AND UNLEARNING

THE TEACHER AND HIS DISCIPLES

APPENDIX: INSTRUMENTS

1. THE LEADERSHIP ARCHETYPE QUESTIONNAIRE

2. THE PERSONALITY AUDIT

3. THE GLOBAL EXECUTIVE LEADERSHIP INVENTORY

4. THE INNER THEATER INVENTORY

5. THE ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE AUDIT

Index

This edition first published 2011

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Kets de Vries, Manfred F. R.

 The hedgehog effect : executive coaching and the secrets of building high performance teams / Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries.

p. cm.

 Summary: “The book is important as it is one of the very few that touches the topic of team coaching, and that deals with group coaching and change”—Provided by publisher.

 Includes bibliographical references and index.

 ISBN 978-1-119-97336-2 (hardback)—ISBN 978-1-119-96226-7 (ebk)—ISBN 978-1-119-96227-4 (ebk)—ISBN 978-1-119-96228-1 (ebk)

1. Teams in the workplace–Management. 2. Employees–Coaching of. 3. Leadership. 4. Organizational change. I. Title.

 HD66.K48 2012

 658.4′022–dc23

2011036003

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978-1-119-97336-2 (hbk) ISBN 978-1-119-96226-7 (ebk)

ISBN 978-1-119-96227-4 (ebk) ISBN 978-1-119-96228-1 (ebk)

To Sudhir Kakar

Life is made by the friends we choose. As my fellow traveler in the wilderness of this world, he helped to create a new world for me. During the years, we may have grown separately, but we have not grown apart.

PREFACE

The well-run group is not a battlefield of egos.

—Lao Tzu

United we stand, divided we fall.

—Aesop

When spider webs unite, they can tie up a lion.

—Ethiopian proverb

A community is like a ship; everyone ought to be prepared to take the helm.

—Henrik Ibsen

The organizations we admire, and the places where most people would like to work, are known for having a special environment or corporate culture in which people feel, and perform, at their best. I call these authentizotic1 organizations [1]. These companies have meta-values that give organizational participants a sense of purpose and self-determination. In addition, people feel competent, experience a sense of belonging, have voice and impact on the organization, and they derive meaning and enjoyment from their work. Employees are pleased and proud to work in such exceptionally creative, dynamic, and productive environments. They like working together, having understood that well-functioning teams can be highly efficient, not to mention more fun than working alone. Organizations with authentizotic cultures are not only benchmarks for health and psychological well-being in the workplace, but they are very often profitable, sustainable enterprises as well.

A great place to work is one where people:

find meaning in their worktrust the people they work for/withhave pride in what they doenjoy the people they work for/with.

The meta-values of authentizotic organizations are fun, love (implying working with a close community of people) and meaning (profit with purpose).

Are you working in one of these organizations?

I believe that one competitive advantage that comes from this type of organizational culture is the ability to create effective work teams. Competitive advantage now lies with organizations that bring together their specialists in research, manufacturing, logistics, talent management, marketing, customer service, and sales with speed and efficiency to get their products and services to market. Organizations in social services, education, health care, and government also operate in complex environments that face similar issues and require a high degree of collaborative action. Across a wide range of organizations, teamwork can provide the competitive edge that translates opportunities into successes.

So why is it that, although authentizotic organizations seem so desirable when seen from the exterior, and so pleasant when experienced as an employee, ultimately so few organizations can claim to have this culture? Why is it that teams are so often dysfunctional? Some answers may lie in our own human nature: our ability to trust one another just so far, and perhaps not far enough; and our inability to see past our own needs to understand that richer benefits, both psychological and material, may be easier to obtain through the collective efforts of a group rather than as individuals. But that is not so easy for us to accept, let alone change.

SCHOPENHAUER’S HEDGEHOGS

Arthur Schopenhauer, in his series of essays, Parerga und Paralipomena [2], included a tale about the dilemmas faced by hedgehogs during winter. The animals tried to get close to one another when it grew cold, to share their body heat. However, once they did so, they hurt each other with their spines. So they moved away from each other to be more comfortable. The cold, however, drove them together again, and the same thing happened. At last, after a great deal of uncomfortable huddling and chilly dispersing, the hedgehogs discovered they were best off remaining at a little distance from one another.

Schopenhauer’s parable was quoted by Sigmund Freud in one of the footnotes to his 1921 essay Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego [3]. He related the hedgehogs’ dilemma to the “sediment of feelings of aversion and hostility” in long-term relationships. In his essay, Freud asks a number of rhetorical questions about intimacy, the need for which is one of our most common, natural, human needs. How much intimacy can we really endure? And how much intimacy do we need to survive in this world? The hedgehogs’ quandary is also our own.

Almost every long-term emotional relationship between two people or more contains this “sediment” of negative feelings, which escapes perception because of the mechanism of repression. As the hedgehogs’ dilemma suggests, human relationships have a substantial degree of ambivalence, requiring us to contain contradictory feelings for the other person. We can see Schopenhauer’s parable as a metaphor for the challenges of human intimacy. Are we destined to behave like these fabled hedgehogs—forever jostling for a balance between painful entanglement and loveless isolation? Will we always struggle with the fear of engulfment and the fear of loneliness?

Societal needs drive human hedgehogs together, but we are often mutually repelled by the many prickly and disagreeable qualities of others. We all have a simultaneous need for and fear of intimacy, creating a dilemma for commonsense living. The distance that Schopenhauer’s hedgehogs at last discovered to be the only tolerable condition of mutual interface represents our common code of conduct. A certain amount of distance is part of the human condition. Although our mutual need for warmth is only moderately satisfied by this arrangement, we re less likely to get hurt. We will not prick others—and others will not prick us.

“How much closeness is too much? How much can we open up to others?”

We also see the hedgehogs’ dilemma in group settings. How much closeness is too much? How much can we open up to others? What can we disclose about ourselves? What degree of intimacy is enough? And when is it necessary to set boundaries? Opening up too much can lead to an exposure of our weaknesses and make us vulnerable to shame and guilt reactions. This conundrum—our simultaneous need for closeness and distance—is a fundamental reason why people often find it so difficult to work successfully in groups and teams.

Where do you rate yourself on the intimacy-avoidance axis?

What kind of “hedgehog” are you?

How does your position on this axis affect your relationships with others?

Reflect on your various relationships. Where would you place each of them on this axis?

THE PARADOX OF TEAMWORK

“Teamwork is a crucial element of the effectiveness of organizations.”

If we look closely at the organizational context, we can see how this dilemma plays out subtly, yet forcefully, in daily interactions. Teamwork is a crucial element of the effectiveness of organizations, not the least because well-aligned team thinking and goal orientation facilitates dealing with current crises and designing long-term strategies. The ability to work well in teams—to accept a certain degree of closeness—is undeniably essential in present-day organizations. Yet we too easily overlook the reality that for most teams, it can be very difficult to find the right balance between loose, inefficient connections at one extreme, and stifling interconnections at the other.

In addition, it is equally clear that many organizational leaders are ambivalent about teams. Too many of them have no idea how to put together well functioning teams. Their fear of delegating—losing control—reinforces the stereotype of the heroic leader who will do it all. For many, teams represent a hassle, a burden, or a necessary evil. This often becomes, not surprisingly, a self-fulfiling prophecy. Although many teams do generate remarkable synergy and excellent outcomes, some become mired in endlessly unproductive sessions, and are rife with conflict. As many of us have discovered to our despair, the price tag of dysfunctional teams can be staggering.

Team success

Think about effective and ineffective teams you have been a member of. What has made one type of team a success and the other a failure? Write a description of both teams.

Working in an effective team was like:

Working in an ineffective team was like:

Compare the two descriptions and figure out the differences between these two teams.

Paradoxically, the use of teams in the workplace is both a response to complexity and a further element of complexity. Ineffective teamwork can mean very high coordination costs and little gain in productivity. In some corporations and governments, the formation of teams, task forces, and committees is a defensive act that gives the illusion of real work while disguising unproductive attempts to preserve the status quo. At best, this does little harm because fundamentally it does nothing; at worst, team building becomes a ritualistic technique blocking important actions that might enhance constructive change. Dismantling a dysfunctional team might even require a kind of Gordian knot solution, which could lead to damaging outcomes both in economic and human terms.

MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE

Why do so many teams fail to live up to their promise? The answer lies in the obstinate belief that human beings are rational entities. Many team designers forget to take into account the subtle, out-of-awareness behavior patterns that are part and parcel of the human condition. Although teams are created as a forum for achieving specific goals, the personality quirks and emotional life of the various team members can cause deviations from the specified task. Indeed, there is often a degree of naivety among an organization’s leadership, who fail to realize that a group dynamic can derail a scheduled direction, so that the team’s real goals can deviate widely from its stated goals. Many people in positions of leadership fail to appreciate the real complexity of teamwork. They don’t pay heed to the hedgehogs’ dilemma.

Organizational designers need to accept that below the surface of human rationality lie many subtle psychological forces that can sabotage the way teams operate. But irrational as these behavioral patterns may be, there is a rationale to them, if we know how to disentangle the patterns. Meaningful teamwork entails numerous real risks for individuals, because of fear, anxiety, and uncertainty about the exercise of influence and power. If these concerns are not addressed, the anxiety generated by the risks involved in team working becomes too great and cannot be contained through leadership actions or facilitating structures: individuals will mobilize social defenses to protect themselves. These defenses, expressed through rituals, processes, or basic assumptions, displace, mitigate, or even neutralize anxiety but also prevent real work from being done. The result is preoccupation with dysfunctional processes and inhibiting structures that reinforce vicious circles preserving the status quo.

“Executives need to realize that, when they create teams, there is more going on than meets the eye.”

Executives need to realize that, when they create teams, there is more going on than meets the eye. Teams are forums in which sensitive organizational and interpersonal issues are dealt with discretely (and often indiscreetly). If people are to function non-defensively in the face of performance pressures in the workplace, they need leadership and supporting conditions that convert risk and anxiety into productive work. Unfortunately, team designers are largely unaware of concepts from psychodynamic psychology and systems theory, and the rational-structural point of view usually dominates.

I argue that a purely cognitive, rational-structural perspective on teamwork will be incomplete if it fails to acknowledge the unconscious dynamics that affect human behavior. In too many instances, organizations are treated as rational, rule-governed systems, perpetuating the illusion of the economic man as an optimizing machine of pleasures and pains, and ignoring the multifarious peculiarities that come with being human. Like it or not, there is no such thing as a Holy Grail of rational management. The rational-structural view of organizations has not delivered the promised goods. It has only created economic chaos and grief. Organizational designers need to pay attention to the conscious and unconscious dynamics that are inherent in organizational life. They need to become familiar with the language of psychodynamics—although I realize that this could be uncomfortable and disturbing for those who come from a background in management or economics.

Creating and maintaining effective team-based work environments necessitates a dedicated focus on both the structural and the human aspects of organizational life. Innovative work arrangements provide a structure and platform for team organizations, but these are not enough. The leaders of the organization must also instill, through their own example and through well-communicated codes of conduct, an internal, interactive coaching culture in which participants can engage in candid, respectful conversations, unrestricted by reporting relationships, or fear of retribution. It means establishing, and perhaps even enforcing, core values of trust, commitment, enthusiasm, and enjoyment. This can be a daunting challenge. It takes openness throughout an organization, and a willingness to change from a mindset of “me first” to “what’s best for the team?” But given the complexity of the new world of organizations, where those that master the multiplicity of lateral relationships will lead the pack, there is not much of a choice.

LEADERSHIP GROUP COACHING AND THE CREATION OF AUTHENTIZOTIC ORGANIZATIONS

The question is, how can organizations and their leaders initiate and perpetuate the kind of change in thinking and environment that supports an authentizotic culture based on thinking about the common good? One answer may be leadership coaching. This type of intervention, which most commonly takes the form of one-on-one interactions between an executive and a coach, has changed the way many progressive organizations view professional and personal growth and development. One-on-one leadership coaching is an investment in future service potential, through building the talent pool in the organization, and helping people adapt to change [4].

One-on-one coaching certainly has its benefits, but personal experience has taught me that leadership group (or team) coaching—in essence, an experiential training ground for learning to function as a high performing team—is a great antidote to organizational silo formation and thinking, and a very effective way to help leaders become more adept at sensing the hidden psychodynamic undercurrents that influence team behavior. In leadership group coaching sessions, people from already existing working groups, or participating in mixed-function groups, can test degrees of closeness, metaphorically speaking, under the guidance of a trained facilitator. They experience openness and trust in a safe setting, and see the advantages of better understanding the strengths and weaknesses of each individual. Knowledge transfer among group members becomes a natural activity, rather than something to be controlled. Essentially, people come to see the importance of effective group cohesion by experiencing it in the group coaching session.

Group coaching interventions are more likely to induce alignment between the goals of individual group members and those of the organization, creating greater commitment, accountability, and higher rates of constructive conflict resolution. Effective group coaching not only helps develop the coaching skills of each group member (through the process of peer coaching); it also accelerates an organization’s progress by providing a greater appreciation of organizational strengths and weaknesses, which will lead to better decision making. It fosters teamwork based on trust; in turn, the culture itself is nurtured as people become used to creating teams in which people feel comfortable and productive. When they work well, team-oriented coaching cultures are like networked webs in the organization, connecting people laterally in the same departments, across departments, between teams, and up and down the hierarchy.

ABOUT THIS BOOK

In this book, I examine both the conscious and unconscious aspects of behavior in group situations. I include systemic factors and highlight what organizational designers or change agents must do to make teams effective. I look at organizational and individual phenomena above and below the surface.

Many of the concepts I introduce are not easy to grasp, let alone put into practice. To help the reader, I have divided this book into three parts. In Part One, I move from the surface to a more in-depth analysis to obtain a better understanding of what teams and groups are all about. I also discuss how a group becomes a team and give an elaborate example of a team intervention. In addition, I discuss the intricacies of leadership coaching. In Part Two, I take a psychodynamic lens to better understand the dynamics of teams and groups, presenting the clinical paradigm. I also take a closer look at relationship patterns and discuss how groups evolve, exploring the phenomenon of the group-as-a-whole. In Part Three, I move to a more systemic view, addressing the fundamental challenges change processes pose for people in organizations. I deal with the question of how to create authentizotic organizations—best places to work. In the final chapter, I recount the story of an organizational change initiative that was accomplished through group coaching.

The real reward is to see participants who have been through a group coaching intervention process put into place coaching cultures that sustain not only development and performance, but also a more fundamental sense that the people in the organization are human, not machines. In the end, challenges are much easier to face when we combine our strengths through honest and open communication and create effective teams. Such interventions contribute to the creation of more humane, sustainable organizations.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This book is the outcome of many years of work with a host of top executive teams. My original “laboratory” has been a CEO program that I have run for over 20 years at INSEAD, “The Challenge of Leadership: Creating Effective Leaders.” I owe huge thanks to its participants for the many insights they have provided me with over the years. I must also pay special tribute to my friend of so many years and collaborator in this program, Sudhir Kakar, who in his inimical way provided a path through the many group muddles that most others would fail to negotiate.

A second program for which I am partly responsible as Scientific Director is “Consulting and Coaching for Change.” I am especially grateful to my two principal collaborators, Roger Lehman and Erik van der Loo, who have been instrumental in making this executive master’s degree seminar such a success, year after year.

In addition, I am also very obliged to the many CEOs and other senior executives who had the courage to offer me the opportunity to work with their teams by engaging the KDVI consulting firm. Embarking on a group coaching intervention process is not for the fainthearted—whether you are a participant or a coach. I have learned a lot from their wisdom.

I should like to thank my team at INSEAD’s Global Leadership Center (IGLC) who have always been supportive of my work. I am grateful not only to the administrative staff but also to my program directors and coaches, who had the vision to recognize the value of this form of intervention—and have taken it to new heights.

Finally, I would like to thank Elizabeth Florent-Treacy, Alicia Cheak-Baillargeon, and Murray Palevsky for their willingness to have a serious look at this manuscript in its early form. Elizabeth in particular has been a great help in restructuring the manuscript as it appears today. And, as always, I acknowledge my debt to Sally Simmons, my imperturbable editor, who keeps her good cheer while solving what often look to me like labyrinthine problems.

In my work with teams, I never learned much by just talking—most of my learning came about by asking questions, listening, and reflection. This book is an effort to help people to experience fully what happens in teams, in particular to better understand the out-of-awareness processes that are endemic to team dynamics, and to demystify what may appear mysterious. My hope is that this book will help the reader realize the full potential of teams, and contribute to the creation of better places to work.

I view the readers of this book first and foremost as people in the coaching profession who want to deepen their insights into the conundrum of group coaching. This book will also be very helpful to human resource professionals interested in the question of how to create an effective coaching culture in their organization. Last (but certainly not least), this book is aimed at the informed executive who realizes the importance of running effective teams, and wants to know how to go about it. Managing talent well has become the name of the game. As the famous American basketball player Michael Jordan once said, “Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence win championships.”

Note

1 From the Greek authenteekos, meaning authentic, and zoteekos, vital to life, and referring to best places to work.

REFERENCES

1. Kets de Vries, M. F. R. (2001a). “Creating Authentizotic Organizations: Well-functioning Individuals in Vibrant Companies.” Human Relations, 54 (1), 101–111.

2. Schopenhauer, A. (1851). Parerga und Paralipomena: kleine philosophische Schriften, Vol. 1–2. Berlin: Julius Frauenstädt.

3. Freud, S. (1921). “Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego.” In J. Strachey (Ed.) (1950), Collected Papers of Sigmund Freud, Vol. V. London: Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psychoanalysis.

4. Crane, T. J. and Patrick, L. N. (Eds) (2002). The Heart of Coaching: Using Transformational Coaching to Create a High-Performance Coaching Culture. San Diego, CA: FTA Press.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries brings a different view to the much-studied subjects of leadership and the dynamics of individual and organizational change. Bringing to bear his knowledge and experience of economics (Econ. Drs., University of Amsterdam), management (ITP, MBA, and DBA, Harvard Business School), and psychoanalysis (Canadian Psychoanalytic Society and the International Psychoanalytic Association), Kets de Vries scrutinizes the interface between international management, psychoanalysis, psychotherapy, and dynamic psychiatry. His specific areas of interest are leadership, career dynamics, team building, coaching, executive stress, entrepreneurship, family business, succession planning, cross-cultural management, and the dynamics of corporate transformation and change.

A clinical professor of leadership development, he holds the Raoul de Vitry d’Avaucourt Chair of Leadership Development at INSEAD, France, Singapore & Abu Dhabi. He is the founder of INSEAD’s Global Leadership Center. In addition, he is program director of INSEAD’s top management program, “The Challenge of Leadership: Creating Reflective Leaders,” and “Consulting and Coaching for Change” (and has five times received INSEAD’s distinguished teacher award). He is also the Distinguished Visiting Professor of Leadership Development Research at the European School of Management and Technology (ESMT) in Berlin. He has held professorships at McGill University, the Ecole des Hautes Etudes Commerciales, Montreal, and the Harvard Business School, and he has lectured at management institutions around the world.

The Financial Times, Le Capital, Wirtschaftswoche, and The Economist have rated Manfred Kets de Vries one of world’s leading leadership theoreticians. Kets de Vries is listed among the world’s top 50 leading management thinkers and among the most influential contributors to human resource management. He has been the recipient the “Harry and Miriam Levinson Award” from the American Psychological Association and the “Freud Memorial Award” from the Dutch Psychoanalytic Institute. He has also been given the “Lifetime Achievement Award” (the Leadership Legacy Project of the International Leadership Association), being viewed as one of the world’s founding professionals in the development of leadership as a field and discipline. Presently, Kets de Vries is seen as the leading figure in the clinical study of organizational leadership.

Kets de Vries is the author, co-author, or editor of more than 35 books, including Unstable at the Top; The Neurotic Organization; Organizational Paradoxes; Leaders, Fools, and Impostors; Life and Death in the Executive Fast Lane; The Leadership Mystique; The Happiness Equation; Lessons on Leadership by Terror; The New Global Leaders; The Leader on the Couch; Coach and Couch; Family Business: Human Dilemmas in the Family Firm; Sex, Money, Happiness, and Death; Reflections on Character and Leadership; Reflections on Leadership and Career Development; Reflections on Groups and Organizations; The Coaching Kaleidoscope; Leadership Development; and Tricky Coaching. Further titles are in preparation. His books and articles have been translated into over 31 languages.

In addition, Kets de Vries has published over 350 scientific papers as chapters in books and as articles. He has also written approximately a hundred case studies, including seven that received the Best Case of the Year award. He is a regular writer for a number of magazines. His work has been featured in such publications as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times, Fortune, Business Week, The Economist, The Financial Times, and The International Herald Tribune. He is a member of 17 editorial boards and has been elected a Fellow of the Academy of Management. He is a founding member of the International Society for the Psychoanalytic Study of Organizations of which he became a lifetime distinguished member.

Kets de Vries is a consultant on organizational design/transformation and strategic human resource management to leading US, Canadian, European, African, and Asian companies. He is the Chairman and principal owner of the Kets de Vries Institute (KDVI), a global leadership development consultancy firm. As an educator and consultant he has worked in more than 40 countries.

The Dutch government has made him an Officer in the Order of Oranje Nassau. He was the first fly fisherman in Outer Mongolia and is a member of New York’s Explorers Club. In his spare time he can be found in the rainforests or savannas of Central Africa, the Siberian taiga, the Pamir and Altai Mountains, Arnhemland, or within the Arctic Circle.

www.ketsdevries.com

www.kdvi.com

PART ONE: AN INTRODUCTION TO THE LIFE OF GROUPS AND TEAMS

CHAPTER 1

HOW A GROUP BECOMES A TEAM

Individually, we are one drop. Together, we are an ocean.

—Ryunosuke Satoro

Sticks in a bundle are unbreakable.

—Kenyan Proverb

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.

—Margaret Mead

“One for all, and all for one”—the famous oath from Alexandre Dumas’s The Three Musketeers—symbolizes the quintessence of teamwork. It is through cooperation, rather than conflict, that we attain our greatest successes. If we are prepared to support each other, the greater part of our problems will already be solved. As d’Artagnan and the three musketeers understood, their fate as individuals was tied to their fate as a group.

As novels on camaraderie go, it would be hard to find one as famous, or that has so completely captured the popular imagination, as The Three Musketeers. It is a confounding narrative: joyful, maddening, eccentric, full of convoluted twists and turns. It dramatizes significant events in the history of France—the action begins in 1625 and ends three years later—and entertains the reader with spectacular displays of bravery, loyalty, and wit on the part of the three musketeers and their young comrade-in-arms, d’Artagnan. The four heroes of the tale are involved in labyrinthine intrigues concerning the weak King Louis XIII of France, his powerful and cunning advisor Cardinal Richelieu, the beautiful Queen Anne of Austria, her English lover, George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, and the siege of the rebellious Huguenot city of La Rochelle.

With great ambitions, d’Artagnan, the main protagonist of the story, sets out for Paris with three gifts from his father: the modest sum of 15 crowns, a horse, and a letter of introduction to the captain of the King’s Musketeers, a military unit serving as the protectors of the Royal Household. D’Artagnan wants to become a musketeer himself, and must prove himself worthy of such a position; however, he doesn’t have much going for him except his wits and his skill as a swordsman. But with the help of his fellow musketeers—the legendary and noble Athos, the devoted Porthos, and the cunning Aramis—d’Artagnan succeeds in gaining glory, and fulfills his destiny.

Teamwork saves the day in The Three Musketeers. Loyal to each other to the death, the musketeers have no compunction at pulling a fast one on their enemies. The strength they have in working as a team, their devotion to excellence, their willingness to sacrifice, their great trust in each other, their generosity of heart and spirit, and—the most powerful virtue of all—their unshakable dedication to a cause greater than themselves, inspire the reader’s imagination. It is a tale that can be viewed as a moral lesson, highlighting the importance of cooperation, unity, and perseverance.

A team like the three (or, even better, four) musketeers is timeless. The characters in this book are so life-like and the dialogues so real that we can easily transplant this 19th-century novel about 17th-century events to our day and age, laugh at the comedic elements in the tale, and cry at the tragic ones. In many ways, the adventures of d’Artagnan and the three musketeers are universal—teams are an inspiring feature of human life. To quote a Japanese proverb, “None of us is as smart as all of us.”

This story touches on many of the themes we will explore in the various chapters of this book. The best team is one where members are ready to take personal risks, prepared to tackle conflict, and willing to have courageous conversations. These developments, however, are contingent upon an underlying team culture of trust, reciprocity in self-disclosure to improve interpersonal dialogue, and constructive conflict resolution.

The story of Dumas’s heroes also helps to make a connection from the wide-ranging exploration of the group-as-a-whole, to a more specific description of well-functioning teams. Just as individuals have moods, emotions and other peculiarities, groups (or teams) have similar characteristics, which influence aspects such as cohesiveness, performance and the emotional state of other group members.

The musketeers’ battle cry—“All for one, and one for all”—reveals some of the signifiers that make teams work. The musketeers believed that when one of them was in trouble, they were all in trouble. If one of them needed help, they all provided it. If one succeeded, they all succeeded. For them, reciprocity and interpersonal trust were indisputable. At both a conscious and at an unconscious level, their behavior was in sync. Due to their team spirit and friendship, the musketeers discovered they could accomplish anything as a team, if they just put their mind to it.

Alexandre Dumas’s fictional 17th-century adventure remains an effective prescription for our third millennium workplace; the underlying, out-of-awareness psychodynamic individual and team processes of his musketeers were aligned with the task at hand. Helping to create this kind of team is one of the over-arching objectives of executive and leadership group coaching.

TEAMS: WHAT, WHY, AND HOW

Before discussing teams, let’s first specify the difference between a group and a team. A group is any number of individuals who form a recognizable unit, cluster, or aggregation.

Teams are specific groups of people with (it is hoped) complementary skills and abilities who join together to collaborate. People in a team possess a high degree of interdependence geared toward the achievement of a common goal or completion of a task for which they hold one another mutually accountable. In contrast to most groups, teams often identify and reach an agreement on their common goals and approaches, rather than looking to a leader to define them. What’s more, the outcome of a team’s activities will affect team members as a whole, not just each member individually. In the organizational context, team members are empowered to share responsibility for specific performance outcomes, and work together for a limited period of time. The most effective size for teams is between five and 12 people. Larger teams require more structure and support, while smaller teams often have difficulty engaging in robust discussions when members are absent [1–7]. (As groups and teams essentially differ depending on the degree and intensity of interdependence, throughout this book these two terms will be used interchangeably).

Are you a part of a team or do you merely belong to a group of people?

Study the following questions and answer them either YES or NO

 YESNO1. Do the people you work with have a high degree of interdependence, geared toward the achievement of a common goal or completion of a task for which they hold themselves mutually accountable?  2. Do you belong to a group of people with complementary skills and abilities who come together to collaborate?  3. Does the outcome of your activities affect not merely you, but all the other people you work with?  

If you answered YES to all these questions, you are most likely part of a team.

As a caveat here, I should point out that although well-functioning teams are essential to the world of work, there are occasions when putting together a team to get a project off the ground may not really be the best option. Some jobs or projects can be completed much more effectively if assigned to one person. But when jobs are very interdependent and the task is highly complex, teams can replace individual executives to carry out what used to be traditional, single-executive functions.

Having asserted how important well-functioning teams will be in this new world of work, we need to ask ourselves how truly effective most teams really are. We know (frequently from personal experience) that many teams do not live up to their billing. A substantial body of research shows that many claims about the benefits of teamwork appear to be more fantasy than reality [8, 9]. There are numerous damning signifiers of people’s negative experiences of teamwork, for example: “A committee is a group of people who can do nothing individually but who, as a group, can meet and decide that nothing can be done”; “A team is a group of the unwilling, picked from the unfit, to do the unnecessary”; “A team is an animal with four back legs.” Far too often, teams soak up too much time and too many resources, flounder, and become quicksands of tension and antagonism.

Creating a winning team implies taking a collection of individuals with different personalities (perceptions, needs, attitudes, motivations, backgrounds, expertise, and expectations), and transforming them into an integrated, effective, holistic work unit. This can be quite a challenge. Some personality types just do not click. For many different reasons, some people’s character and behavior are like the proverbial red rag to a bull [10].

Teams and Need Systems

One way to approach the challenge of creating well-functioning teams is to focus not on what makes people different, but on what they have in common. For example, teams can satisfy our sense of belonging. In other words, while teams may initially be formed to fulfill a task, they may also meet other needs at an individual level. Many people like working in teams because they desire a sense of social interaction, affiliation with a community, and pride of accomplishment or greater purpose. In fact these intrinsic rewards may be even more important to individual members than financial or other tangible means of compensation. Therefore, addressing individual needs may well contribute to motivating team membership and performance.

“Most people have a powerful desire to be part of a group in which they feel recognized and understood.”

Most people have a powerful desire to be part of a group in which they feel recognized and understood. Belonging—being part of a social context—is essential for the development of self-esteem and self-confidence. Social outcasts may end up feeling empty and depressed. Social connection (and fear of losing it) is crucial to the quality (in some cases, even the duration) of our lives. Applying this lens to teams, it is clear that individuals in teams are less anxious about the work they need to accomplish when they are part of a team that takes the time to build a sense of community and belonging for all members. Altruism—the desire to make a difference—also draws people to work in teams.

Is altruism important to you?

Study the following questions and answer them YES or NO

 YESNO• Are you the type of person who will do anything for others?  • Are you able to give and share or are you quite self-centered?  • Are you willing to help someone even if helping doesn’t benefit you immediately?  • Are you the kind of person who freely offers help when someone else is in need?  • Do you enjoy helping people?  • Do you feel bad when you see people who are less fortunate than you?  • Are you always prepared to help strangers?  

If you answered YES to most of these questions, your score on the altruism test is high. You often go out of your way to help others, and in some cases do so without even being asked.

Many aspects of human social relations exist within a complex web of kin and reciprocal altruism [11]. Working in teams that have a meaningful purpose may help people feel that their own ability to make a difference is magnified by the power of the group. The musketeers were not only a band of brothers, in a sense, but together they were serving a great cause.

Fundamentals

The experience of the individual is the first layer at which it is possible to assess a team. Does the team have a shared sense of purpose? Do its members all pull in the same direction at the same time? Is there complementarity in skills and competencies? Is each member of the team pursuing the same thing? Have the team’s goals and objectives been discussed and agreed openly? Does the team stick together through highs and lows, taking both the blame and the rewards as something to be shared by all? Do team members seem to be enjoying working together most of the time? Ensuring that these fundamental criteria are present will help to lay the groundwork for trust and a willingness to put the team’s goals first.

The interpersonal relationships that arise from team dynamics need to be managed in a strategic rather than opportunistic manner. And that’s easier said than done. Many things can go wrong. For example, which team member is going to take charge? Who sets the boundaries? Who is going to be the main action driver? And how will all these decisions be made?

One of the most dangerous ways to manage the dynamics of a team is to allow the most forceful individuals to drive decisions about resources, thus creating a profound sense of unfairness and helplessness among the other members of the team. And group dynamics can become even more dysfunctional when the organization is in the throes of a succession process. In such instances, a zero-sum-game mentality—“I win, you lose”—may dominate team dynamics, with each member of the team trying to position him- or herself for the top job.

For all the reasons given above, a critical moment in team building comes as each member is integrated into the team; it should made be clear what skills he or she has, and what contribution can be expected. Newcomers quickly, albeit instinctively, figure out how they fit within the team and the complementary roles they can play. At some level, their own individual hopes and wishes will also come into play as they enter the team. The integration process, however, is far more difficult than it would seem.

THE DARK SIDE OF DYSFUNCTIONAL TEAMS

A powerful lion, a donkey, and a fox decided to go out hunting together. That way, they thought, they would get much more than if they each hunted alone—and they were right. At the end of the day they had amassed a huge heap of food. “Right,” said the donkey, “let’s divide it all up between us.” And he shared it out in three equal piles. When the lion saw what the donkey had done, he roared, “What’s this?” jumped on the donkey, killed him, and ate him. Then he turned to the fox, saying, “Now it’s your turn to divide the food.” The fox had more emotional intelligence than the donkey. He made two piles—a very big one, and a very small one. “Hmm,” said the lion, pulling the big pile toward him. “Who taught you to share things out so well?” “That would be the donkey,” replied the fox.

Is your organization beset by team killers?

Study the following questions and answer them either YES or NO

 YESNO• Does your team suffer from fuzzy goals/changing priorities?  • Do you think there is a false consensus among the members of your team?  • Does your team have unresolved overt conflicts?  • Does your team find it difficult to reach closure?  • Are calcified meetings characteristic of your team (i.e., people coming late or arriving not at all)?  • Does your team suffer from uneven participation?  • Do the members of your team not feel accountable to one another?  

If most of your answers are YES, your team is in a lot of trouble.

It may not even be a team.

It’s easy to see dysfunctional dynamics at work. They dominate teams whose stated goal is not the real one, or teams with fuzzy goals, or rapidly changing priorities. We can see them in teams rife with role conflict and ambiguity, unresolved overt and covert conflicts, poor timekeeping and absenteeism; teams that cannot reach closure, that have rigid, ritualistic meetings, uneven member participation, tunnel vision, indifference to the interests of the organization as a whole, and a lack of resources, skills, knowledge, and accountability. There is no genuine collegiality, collaboration, or coordination in these teams. These are the teams that give teamwork a bad reputation.

Highly dysfunctional teams are like a contagious disease; they have an insidious influence and create a toxic environment. Competitive feelings among team members can result in sabotage of each other’s work, unjustified criticism, and withholding information and resources, contributing to the breakdown of the team’s proper functioning and the creation of neurotic organizations [12, 13]. All these activities can be very subtle.

The situation is aggravated by the fact that some people who act this way may feel justified in doing so, from a sense of being personally wronged. This is fair process or equity theory taken to the absurd. Yet insidious and irrational as these acts may be, they will be very damaging to the organization and its members.

In many dysfunctional teams, blaming and scapegoating will become major dynamics, doing very little for the organization’s productivity and the creative process. In these teams, members avoid dealing with conflict, preferring to resort to veiled discussions and guarded comments. Discussions are likely to consist of generalities and platitudes. Unsurprisingly, many such teams morph into highly constipated, slow decision-making bodies, underperforming and floundering despite all the resources made available to them. Predictably, their decision outcomes will be sub-optimal [14–18].

Despite the strong forces of cohesiveness and groupthink within teams, members (like the hedgehogs) have constantly to cope with forces of attraction and separation. Although there will be strong forces aiming at harmony and cooperation, forces of polarization and regression will always be present, as will a regressive tendency toward “splitting,” the unconscious failure to integrate aspects of self or others into a unified whole. As human beings, we have a tendency to regress and separate or “split” people into different categories, labeling the aspects of them that we find acceptable “good” and the things we find painful or unacceptable “bad.” As a result, and because this is an interactive process, we may alternate between over-idealizing and devaluing individuals, teams, and organizations [19–22]. Groupthink may raise its ugly head [23].

What are the signs of groupthink?

Study the following questions and answer them YES or NO

 YESNOHave you ever been a member of team where  • there was an illusion of invulnerability, creating a false consensus?  • there was an unquestioned belief in the morality of the group?  • there was, in each instance, a collective rationalization of the team’s decisions?  • opponents were stereotyped?  • you engaged in self-censorship—where no criticism was tolerated?  • illusions of unanimity prevailed, creating a false consensus?  • there was strong pressure on dissenters to conform?  • there were self-appointed “mind guards” protecting the group from negative information?  

If you answered YES to most of these questions, you may have been part of a groupthink process, making hasty, irrational decisions. In this situation, individual doubts are set aside, for fear of upsetting the team’s balance. In an attempt to reduce conflict and reach consensus, you may not have analyzed an important issue critically.

While personality conflicts are very troublesome, structural organizational design errors can bring additional misery. Essentially, if good people are put into bad systems, we should not be surprised by their poor results. If teams are created merely as a gesture that some form of action has been taken, without giving the members of the team a clear mandate for what needs to be done, form will take precedence over substance, and empty rhetoric over doing real work. For example, teams may have been created without a clear goal and measures of success, with fuzzy boundaries, and with very poorly defined tasks. Teams may be composed of people with the wrong talents—individuals who would do better staying where they are. And so on and so on.

“If good people are put into bad systems, we should not be surprised by their poor results.”