Conversation 14: How to Convert Committee Work into Teamwork

Once I was invited to lecture in Canada. The chief executive officer of the host company picked me up at the airport the evening before the lecture, and invited me to a hospitality suite to meet the other executives attending the program. They were playing poker. There were three tables with four executives at each one. They joked and laughed; their energy was high. Hundreds of dollars changed hands. It was well past midnight when they finally stopped playing.

As they were leaving, I noticed something very interesting. At one o’clock in the morning, after playing poker all night, their adrenaline was still flowing. They said, “Great game! Let’s get together again soon.”

I wondered about what had happened. If I had taken those same executives and put them in a meeting where they would have to make decisions on say, budgeting, they would’ve been exhausted after two hours, drained of energy. None of them would look forward to the next committee meeting.

Seeing this exhilaration, I wondered about the difference between playing poker and attend- ing a committee meeting. If the same executives were given a group assignment to make a decision, why wouldn’t they behave the same way they did in the poker game? Tell me, what’s the difference between playing cards and conducting management by committee meetings?

They were playing, having fun.

Fun is the outcome, not the cause.

They like the challenge in poker.

They compete in business as well. That’s certainly a challenge.

They all start with an equal chance?

True, but you could say the same in business as well.

Rules! The game has explicit rules.

Right. You wouldn’t play poker, or any other game, with people who violate the rules. You wouldn’t trust them. All games have rules.

That poker game inspired me to write training programs on participatory management by teamwork, rather than by committee.

Life is one long game and you’d better learn the rules.

When children make up games, the first thing they do is agree upon the rules. If someone breaks the rules, they stop playing and fight.

Any interdependence in life is governed by rules, we just have to discover them. There is no functional interdependence without rules of conduct, although we do not always understand or have an awareness of these rules. Life, my friend, is one long game, and you’d better learn the rules.

So where does this take us? Why is knowing the rules and playing by them so important?

There is no teamwork without Mutual Trust and Respect, and there is no Mutual Trust and Respect without adherence to mutually agreed upon rules of conduct.

If that’s true, then following the appropriate rules will also result in teamwork.

Now you understand. Here’s what I did: I applied (A)dministration to (I)ntegration. First, I realized that anything that fosters disrespect or mistrust must be forbidden, and everything that strengthens trust and respect must be encouraged.

That is the bottom line of your methodology for managing organizational transformations?

Yes, there must be rules of conduct that foster respect and trust!

But what does respect mean? How do you generate respect by making rules?

I found the answer in the work of philosopher Immanuel Kant. He said that respect is the acceptance of the sovereignty of the other party.

What does sovereignty mean in this case?

Think of what it means in international relations.

Sovereignty means that a nation has the legitimate freedom to do what it wants regarding its own internal matters.

Right, and if a nation makes a decision about its internal matters that we don’t like, we can’t send our army to force that nation to change its decision. That would violate its sovereignty.

The same applies to interpersonal relations. The day I say, “How dare you think or say that?” I have sent out my metaphorical army to force you to change your mind. I accept your sov- ereignty to think and speak as you choose because you have the legitimate freedom to form and express your own opinions. If I protest the expression of your opinions or insist that you change them, it is disrespectful because I am violating your sovereignty.

Mutual respect means, then, that we accept each other’s sovereignty to think and express ourselves differently?

Right.

How about mutual trust?

That is a bit more complicated to explain, but let’s do it. We said from the beginning of our conversations that change is part of life, right?

Right.

In English we say that life is give and take.

Yes.

Why don’t we say that life is take and give, like in Turkish or Arabic?

Because when you give first, you trust it will be reciprocated.

This is important because in the short term there is no win-win, no commonality of interests. Someone wins and someone loses. However, if it is reciprocated, it eventually balances out.

A person will give if he trusts that it will be reciprocated.

Cultures that say take and give have little trust. They are riddled with conflicts. For trust there must be faith.

Could you give me some rules that you have tested to guide me through this maze?

I’ve developed rules that I tested in many companies in different cultures around the world. I found that people could change their behavior without talking about Mutual Trust and Respect, if the structure of the organization was right. Good fences make good neighbors. Where people had common vision and values, and followed the rules of conduct of MT&R in their discussions, guess what? People started acting with MT&R; it developed naturally.

You are free to think whatever you want. What I care about is how you behave.

That seems so artificial. That would not be honest or genuine. You are preaching manipulation.

Some people say, “Prove to me that there is God, then I will believe.” Other people say, “I believe there is God. Let us find Him.” The first group will never find God.

Why not?

For the skeptic there are no answers. For the believers there are no questions. If you believe that there is God you will find God in the smile of a child, in the summer breeze, in a sunset, everywhere you look. If you believe there is no God no proof will suffice to convince you.

We first believe, then we go and search for information to support our belief. So start believing in Mutual Trust and Respect. Assume the other person is trustworthy and that there is something to learn from him. Then check the evidence.

Behave as if you trust and can learn from the other person. If the person deserves your trust and your respect, it will grow. If you start with disrespect and mistrust you will never have the chance to develop trust and respect. You will not give other people the chance to prove you wrong.

But that means I have to take chances.

Yes. Start with small doses.

This discussion represents a real paradigm shifting in my thinking. What are the rules of conduct?

They are very simple, but their simplicity makes them powerful. I warn you not to discount their power just because they are simple.

Why are you warning me?

Because some people have been conditioned by the academic world to think that if something isn’t complicated, it’s too simple to be worth anything. In fact, just the opposite is true. I’ve spent years trying to simplify things, and believe me, it’s hard work.

So tell me, what are those simple but powerful rules you’ve learned.

An entire course at the Adizes Institute trains students how to apply the full spectrum of rules, but I’ll give you a sample. One rule deals with the starting time of meetings. Meetings don’t usually start right on time. The few people who show up on time feel foolish. Important people will probably be late, and the more important they are, the later they believe they can arrive. You can often analyze the whole organizational hierarchy by the order in which people arrive for a meeting. The boss arrives last, and if anyone arrives later than that, it’s offensive.

The first rule in this Adizes Methodology is that meetings start on time. This shows respect for everyone attending.

But what if it’s impossible for someone to be on time?

That’s okay. People may be up to ten minutes late as long as they pay an agreed-upon penalty for every minute of tardiness. Latecomers pay their penalty and sit down. Paying the fine indicates that they realize they’ve broken the rules. It is a symbolic act, not a financial punishment. No explanation for tardiness is necessary and regardless of how legitimate the excuse is, payment is expected nevertheless. As a matter of fact, the penalty should elicit laughter. In many companies, instead of paying money, people have to do push-ups. They can choose to do real push-ups or executive push-ups.

What are those?

You bend your knees up and down, up and down. It is funny. Can you see the president of a company doing that? I have Prime Ministers doing that. People laugh. Clap hands. The person doing the knee ups and downs laughs too. It develops camaraderie. And people do not come late if they can help it.

We also end meetings on time, respecting that people might have other assignments.

I remember why: When meetings get prolonged, (P) pressure emerges and bad judgments are made.

True. Ending on time also shows that you recognize and respect that the other person has other commitments.

Another rule deals with who speaks in meetings. When people speak about a deep emotional problem or something they’ve created, they usually keep thinking about what they’ve said long after they’ve stopped talking. They’re listening to their own mental “tape,” checking whether they’ve said what they wanted to say. When that happens, their eyes usually start wandering. The danger is that somebody else might start talking, but to whom are they listening?

Obviously to themselves.

That’s why it is very difficult to communicate, especially with creative (E)s. The slightest provocation starts them thinking so intensely that they don’t hear others. That’s why they’re often accused of being arrogant and disrespectful. It isn’t out of disrespect that they don’t listen; it’s because they have so many of their own ideas to consider.

In committee meetings, rather than teamwork sessions as the Adizes Methodology prescribes, when a person finishes speaking, the chairman usually passes the right to speak to somebody else. This procedure is a big mistake. Especially with (E)s, because they are not listening to others and they can dominate the meeting taking most of the floor time. So in Adizes the rule is that no one can interrupt a person who is speaking until that person passes the right to speak to the next person.

How do we know when someone is finished talking?

You tell me. Who is the only person in the world who knows that you’ve finished saying what you wanted to say?

Me!

Right. Only the people speaking know when they have finished. Here is the second rule of the Adizes Methodology for managing meetings: People may talk for as long as they wish. If they stop talking, think about what they have said, then resume talking, that’s okay. No one else may interrupt. When they really feel they’ve finished talking, they look to their right, which signals to others who wish to talk that they may raise their hand. The person who has just finished speaking calls on the next person to her right who has a hand raised. Notice she doesn’t call the person who raised a hand first, but the first person to her right who has a hand raised. Furthermore, the person speaking must call the next person by first name only. Why must they use first names only?

Why not use the last name or just gesture to the right? Why not just say “pass” or nod, signifying permission to speak? This sounds terribly constraining. I thought you were an (E); now I think you’re a closet (A).

The only way you can evaluate what I am talking about is by experiencing it, not by analyzing it. Please understand: I have worked out the minutest details of how to convert an organization’s culture from one that lacks trust and respect to one that has trust and respect. Theory is nothing until it is tested.

This rule about addressing others by first name only was developed for many reasons. When you are emotionally involved with an issue, you might forget the name of the person to whom you are speaking. It may take a few seconds before you can remember it. For instance, it takes me ten seconds to remember my son’s name when I want to address him when I am upset with him.

If you do remember a name, that’s a sign that you have finished processing information and are ready to listen to others. If you have difficulty remembering, you haven’t really finished thinking. Don’t rush it. Go back and think about the issue again. Think about what you have said, restate it, and correct it as many times as necessary, until you’re certain you have said what you wanted to say.

When you come back from your deep thoughts, turn to your right, and if you can instantly recall the first name of the person on your right with a hand raised, you have finished thinking and talking.

Why can’t I use his last name?

There is a good reason for that. Remember when you were a child and your mother or father got upset with you? They would call you by your full name: “Jonathan Smith, it’s time for you go to bed.” That’s how they made it formal. On the other hand, it’s harder to be upset when you use a person’s first name. This is your insurance policy against the group becoming upset over a subject. If everyone has to call each other by first names, that will lower the level of frustration and hostility. Somebody might be very upset, and speak and speak and speak. When the time comes to pass the permission, that person will usually take a deep breath and calmly say, “Joe.” He will not be able to say “JOE!” in an aggressive way. The last name can be expressed in an aggressive way, as was done by our parents, but not the first name. That’s the rule for keeping the climate friendly. Furthermore, people love to hear their first name mentioned. It reinforces a supportive climate, no matter how painful the discussion.

Why not pass to the first person who raises a hand?

Because then the (E)s will dominate the meeting. (P)s or (E)s will raise their hands first even though they haven’t finished thinking about what they want to say. They will do that just to get the floor. They’re going to present half-baked ideas. People in the meeting will start behaving aggressively as they compete for airtime. By calling the first person on the right who has a hand raised, you create a situation in which others will simply have to wait.

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Why is waiting so good? That’s exactly why I hate meetings. They take forever.

In Hebrew, the words tolerance, patience, and pain all come from the same root, SVL. That made me think: What we want in teamwork is mutual respect, but there is no mutual respect without mutual tolerance, right?

Right.

I can’t say, “I respect your opinions, but I don’t tolerate them.” That doesn’t work. There is no respect without tolerance, and there is no tolerance without patience. I can’t say, I tolerate your different opinions, but I have no patience to hear them. The only way you can tolerate someone’s opinion is to have the patience to hear what she has to say. Now, tolerating different opinions and developing the patience to hear them is painful.

I can see why so many people show disrespect in committee meetings. They cannot take the pain of being tolerant of people who disagree with them and have no patience to listen to the end of their argument.

What do people do when they have different opinions and there is little tolerance? They raise their voices and speak quickly. Do you know what they’re exhibiting? Pain! They rush through the meeting, trying to escape the pain. They are speeding headlong on the highway to destructive conflict.

Calling on the first raised hand to the right, even though others may have raised their hands first, forces the other people to wait. As they wait, they develop patience, and as they develop patience, they develop tolerance. Slowly, they learn to live with pain.

In my opinion, one of the purposes of management training and development is to increase a person’s ability to handle the pain that stems from conflict.

Experienced leaders know how to deal with the pain involved in dealing with people. They’re like Teflon: Nothing sticks to them. Less-experienced leaders who can’t sustain pain have difficulty managing because they lose their heads at the first twinge of discomfort. They go into backup behavior and misjudge. Experience is important because it helps managers develop the ability to handle interpersonal pain.

In the Adizes Methodology, we train people to become better managers partly by training them to tolerate the pain of listening to people who disagree with them. What happens is very interesting.

Here’s an example:

Let’s say the seventh person down the circle raised a hand first, but the right to speak must be given to the first hand raised to the speaker’s right. Let’s say the right to speak is passed to several people before it is finally awarded to that seventh person. At first that person was fidgety and anxious to speak, but by the time he is called on, he realizes he has nothing to say, he’s changed his mind. While listening to the others, that person learned something. Mutual respect is developing here, because people are learning from each other.

You’re saying that if we passed the right to speak to the person that raised a hand first, respect wouldn’t develop?

Right. The (E)s and (P)s, who are fast on the draw, would dominate the meeting. The (A)s would take their time to think things over, and the (I)s, who always watch what’s going on would never speak. The (E)s would conclude that the (A)s and (I)s have nothing to contribute and would despise them. Instead of mutual respect, mutual disrespect would set in. By being forced to listen to (A)s, the (E)s might realize they aren’t the only ones with good ideas.

The best sign that people are learning and that there is mutual respect is when people don’t rush to make judgments. After you manage several meetings this way, you’ll hear people say, “I have an idea, but I’m not so sure about it. I would like to hear other people’s reactions.” They have started listening to each other.

Would you go over these rules one more time?

First, whoever speaks may speak for as long as she needs. Nobody may speak or raise a hand while someone else is speaking. People must wait their turn, no rushing, no pressure. When a person finishes talking, and she is the only one who can make that decision, she looks to her right. Whoever wishes to talk should then raise a hand. The person who has finished talking calls on the first person to her right who raised a hand. She must address that next person by first name. The moment she calls the next person’s first name, she relinquishes the right to speak. Now only the person called upon may speak.

But the person might talk forever. Some people have something to say, and there are others who have to say something. I could grow old listening to the latter type go on and on.

If you want to make conversations long, make them short. And if you want to make them short, you had better allow them to be long.

There you go again. What happens if people speak out of turn?

Anyone who interferes with the person who is speaking pays a penalty or does push-ups. The money collected for all violations is given to charity.

People know they’re not supposed to violate rules when they see the penalty money pile up in front of them. They wait their turn, and then speak softly. In Hebrew we say “Divrey hachamim benachat nishmaim,” which means, “the words of wise people are listened to peacefully.” In Arabic they say, “Al agial min alshiatan,” meaning “rushing is from the devil.” Stupid people shout and scream at each other.

In meetings that are run according to these rules, you know that no one will interrupt, pressure, or override you. You can think fully about what you want to say. You have the time to check whether you said what you meant to say, and you are always able to finish expressing your thoughts. This enables other people to hear you as well. In turns, we go around the circle until we have finished discussing whatever the issue is.

Yes, but what happens if one person speaks about subject X, then another talks about subject Y, and someone else starts with Q? Before you know it, you’re talking about fifteen different subjects simultaneously and you have lost the original agenda.

That’s why the chairman of the meeting, called the (I)ntegrator, must see to it that people don’t change the agenda. The (I)ntegrator must direct the discussion and interrupt the flow as necessary. By doing this the group will not spread itself out in several different directions. As I said, it takes a seven-day course to learn how to lead meetings correctly.

What about the penalties? Do they always work?

Penalties don’t work well with extreme (E)s. They don’t work well in countries like Israel and Greece, where (E) is prevalent in the culture. In the United States penalties don’t work well in young companies that are very (E)ntrepreneurial.

Big (E)s don’t care about money. I’ve seen more than one case where an (E) would get upset, throw ten dollars on the table and say, “Here is one dollar for violating the rule now, and nine dollars for the next nine times I want to speak. Because I want to speak when I want to.”

(E)s don’t mind losing a hundred dollars in fines in one session as long as they make their opinion heard. For extreme (E)s, I have a different rule. Any time (E)s violate the rules, they lose their turn to speak. There is no bigger punishment for (E)s than not being allowed to speak. So they quiet down, follow the rules, and participate like any other team member.

Are there more rules?

Many, many more.

Have you tested them?

I’ve developed a methodology that has been practiced for more than forty years in thousands of companies around the world. It’s been validated in different cultures (fifty-two so far) with different technologies and in companies of different sizes. We have taken compa- nies and converted them from cultures with low Mutual Trust and Respect, cooperation, and communication, to ones with strong Mutual Trust and Respect and strong cooperation and communication. We have converted the energy that was being wasted on internal conflicts to energy that can now be directed externally to deal with competition and to satisfy client needs.

Does it last?

It works. But the MT&R culture is not stable. If the companies stop practicing Adizes they will lose the advantage the methodology provides.

Why would they stop?

Because change, real change, is painful. Adizes is effective, but not popular, so some companies stop. For instance, if a new CEO comes in who is not trained in the Methodology, he can stop the process, change the structure, and dismantle what was painstakingly built.

The difference between teamwork and committee work is:

DIAGRAMA

Pay attention: MT&R is not created just with the above rules. We need common vision and values. We need a (PAEI) organizational structure. We need a process for running meetings correctly. We need the right people. It is more complex than just turning your head to the right and calling someone by their first name.

Now please give me the bottom line of your theory. What would you say if you had to say it while standing on one foot?

Build a climate of Mutual Trust and Respect in your organization by having: 1) common vision and values; 2) a (PAEI) diversified structure; 3) a collaborative communication and decision-making process; and 4) mature people who command and grant respect and trust. That is the essence. That’s how you’re going to build a better organization, or country, or whatever it is you’re managing, including your marriage, children, community, or your life.

These were very long conversations. How about summarizing them again?

Why don’t you do it?

Summary

Management is the process for solving problems that emerge because of change.

Those problems have a predictable pattern: some are normal, some are abnormal. They follow an organization’s lifecycle.

As described in Adizes, Managing Corporate Lifecycles

In order to manage anything well, we must make effective decisions that will solve these problems and we must be able to implement those decisions efficiently.

In order to make effective decisions, a complementary team is necessary. None of us alone can make first-class decisions all the time. Furthermore, in order to implement decisions we need a perceived long-term commonality of interests with the people necessary to implement what has been decided.

Having a complementary team and common interests is not easy. There will be conflict. This happens because we miscommunicate when we think, speak, and act differently.

Commonality of interests is not a common occurrence either. We don’t always have a win-win climate. It is another source of conflict. Conflict is a natural part of the process of managing or living.

Because management has to deal with change, no management exists without conflict. Different people think differently about what should be done about change. And different people have different interests that are affected by change. Show me change, and I’ll show you conflict. The trick to managing change well is to convert the conflict from being destructive to being constructive.

Conflict is constructive, synergistic, when people who have different styles learn from each other’s differences. Communication, based on rules of conduct for mutual respect, is necessary for this to happen.

If there is a perceived win-win climate, at least in the long run, and if we trust each other that short-term imbalances in interests will even out over time, we will cooperate, and conflicts of interest can be channeled into being constructive too.

Therefore, good management is teamwork based on Mutual Trust and Respect, on collaborative cooperation and open communication.

For successful teamwork we need rules of conduct in the process of decision making that nourish Mutual Trust and Respect. We also need people who are mature and without any blanks in the (PAEI) code, and leaders must have big (I). We need a correctly structured organization and we need common vision and values.

To repeat: Conflict is the reality that accompanies change. We want it to be constructive. For that we need the right culture. For that we need mature people, the right process of decision making, the right organizational structure, and common vision and values.

I am especially intrigued by the process of converting the destructive energy created by conflict into constructive energy. The $64,000 question is how do you create such a culture?

Let us discuss that next.

DIAGRAMA