The Power of Collaborative Leadership. Lessons for the Learning Organization

309 Pages·2000·5.334 MB·English

by  Bert Frydman, Iva Wilson, JoAnne Wyer and Peter Senge (Auth.)

"The Power of Collaborative Leadership makes Peter Senge's The Fifth
Discipline come to life. For those who agree with the basic message
of Senge, this is fascinating reading material. It clearly demonstrates
that getting involved in organizational learning is a long and tough
journey. It opened my eyes."
-Ton Vervoort, Philips International BV
"The Power of Collaborative Leadership takes us beyond process man-
agement, total quality management, and even transformational
leadership to organizational learning. The authors draw the impor-
tant distinction between traditional single-loop learning and much
more robust double-loop learning, which can shake a corporation
or a society to its very foundations.
They explain how the leadership that comes from true organi-
zational learning distributes power throughout the organization,
rather than concentrating it in a centralized hierarchy.
The Pourer of Collaborative Leadership is a thought-provoking and
important contribution to management literature that every busi-
ness leader should read, reflect on, and learn from."
--Peter A. Darbee, Senior Vice President,
CFO, and Treasurer, PG&E Corporation
"In The Power of Collaborative Lectdership, Bert Frydman and Iva
Wilson allow us to journey with them through their odyssey of
learning within large, highly structured organizations faced with
new market demands and rapid technological change. This book is
an honest and personally candid accounting of their personal learn-
ing experiences and the challenges that all who greet life with an
open mind and a desire to search out new frontiers must ultimately
face.
This gift of a learning history will aid readers in their personal
and professional journey toward greater competitive effectiveness.
The Power of Collaborative Leadership will teach organizational leaders
to apply the principles and insights that enable all employees to
release their creative, life-affirming energy into the workplace."
-Dave Morse, Vice President,
Customer Sales and Services, Pacific Bell, SBC, Inc.
"The format of The Power of Collaborative Leadership is ideally suited
for its purpose. The authors' reflections about their experiences, as
interpreted by the ideas of organizational learning and human
dynamics, are fascinating to read. As an ex-CEIO, I found myself fully
engaged with the authors' discussions. I only wish that I had the full
benefit of this book while I was leading my own company, and I'm
sure that many other executives will feel the same way.
I would strongly recommend this book to anyone who has
taken an interest in organizational learning and who is thinking
about introducing the concepts of OL to their work environment.
7he Power of Collaborative Leadership will become a classic OL
resource book that should benefit all who care about improving the
quality of life and work in modern business organizations.”
--Peter M. Banks, retired President and CEO,
ERIM International, Inc.,
and former Dean of Engineering, University of Michigan
”This book is every manager’s story. Two senior execs who have been
through it all-restructuring, reengineering, downsizing, and
TQM-engage the reader in a rich dialogue. They argue that trans-
formation is a must in today’s world and ponder whether organiza-
tional learning is the way to go. They tried it in practice and learned
a lot on the way. So will the reader!’’
-Arie de Geus, author, The Living Company
“If you believe as I do that organizational learning is a requirement
if one hopes to build and sustain a successful organization, this is a
must-read. Frydman, Wilson, and Wyer provide real life insight into
the challenges of establishing an organizational learning environ-
ment. They’ve been there, and their experiences are real. Now they
have provided the opportunity for more organizations to join the
journey to an environment where people can build futures.”
-Rich Teerlink, retired Chairman and Chief Executive Officer,
Harley-Davidson, Inc.
”The Power of Collaborative Leadership is an extraordinary opportu-
nity to ‘participate’ in a reflective conversation with today’s foremost
organizational explorers. Their process of learning and the practical
integration of their collective experiences unfold before the reader.”
-David Marsing, Vice President and COO,
Network Communications Group, Intel Corp.
”The Power of Collaborative Leadership goes beyond the usual touting
of one’s successes by taking a courageous look at failures as well, and
providing rich insights into the pitfalls and the challenges of pursu-
ing visionary aspirations in the face of pragmatic realities. Through
candid reflections and thoughtful dialogue, the authors provide
valuable lessons about what it takes to embark on a learning jour-
ney, both individually and as an organization. This book is a must-
read for all leaders who are serious about transformative change in
their organizations.”
-Daniel H. Kim, Founding Member, Society for Organizational
Learning; Co-founder, Organizational Learning Center at MIT; and
Publisher, Pegasus Communications, Inc.
’The Power of Collaborative Leadership expresses an approach to busi-
ness that releases creativity and empowerment in the relationships
between individuals at all levels of the traditional corporate organi-
zation structure, and therefore has the potential to revolutionize the
structures of corporate organizations in the future. Reading 7’he
Power of Collaborative Leadership is not an end in understanding the
learning model but a beginning in the exploration of the limitless
opportunities that open creative expression (both within and
around organizations) has the potential to unleash.”
-Michael J. Kearney, Executive Vice President, Advance
Transformer Company (a division of Philips Electronics)
”The true power of 7’he Power of Collaborative Leadership lies in the
frankness of the conversation that Iv,~W ilson and Bert Frydman, two
early adopters of organizational learning, have with the reader. Iva
and Bert call it like it is in the real world-through vivid descriptions
of the challenging but valuable journey to become more effective as
leaders of learning organizations.”
-Kenneth W. Freeman, Chairman and CEO,
Quest Diagnostics Inc.
“What happens when two very successful senior business executives
become enamored of an academic theory and apply it in two differ-
ent industrial-age organizations? Anyone interested in organiza-
tional learning, institutional change, or new concepts of leadership
will find much to ponder in this candid dialogue between two lead-
ers as they share their fascinating experience with corporate culture
change.“
-Dee Hock, Founder and CEO Emeritus, Visa International;
author, Birth of the Chaordic Age; Founder and Coordinating
Director, The Chaordic Alliance
“A very useful and insightful book. It is fascinating to hear two real
practitioners of organizational learning examine-and learn from-
their own experiences.”
--Phil Carroll, Chairman and CEO, Fluor Corporation
”Reading The Power of Collaborative Leadership is like crossing the
Rubicon of life-as businesses and individuals alike discover the
power of organizational learning, there will be no turning back. The
learning experiences shared in this book provide sound reality to
organizational learning theory that will shape both high perfor-
mance organizations and high-quality interpersonal relationships.
The Power of Collaborative Leadership is a gift to the next generation.”
-Ken Baker, President and Chief Executive Officer
Environmental Research Institute of Michigan
"Provocative and challenging! The authors offer readers a new per-
spective on how to lead an organization, how to involve employees,
and how to get results through people involvement and learning.
They give receptive leaders a new tool for the toolbox as Senge and
Peters have done before them. You may not agree with all the con-
cepts presented, but I am sure you will be a better leader after read-
ing 7'he Power of Collaborative Leadership."
-Clifton I,. Smith, President and CEO,
Corning Asahi Video Products Company
"In The Pouter of Collaborative Leadership, the authors open their
hearts with a great deal of courage. They share the doubts, uncer-
tainties, disappointments, and frustrations encountered during their
journeys, while still growing from such rich and volatile learning
experiences. The reader gains invaluable insight on the dos and
don'ts so fundamental to any business manager who strives to move
an organization to a new level of performance through organiza-
tional learning"
-Marcos Magalhiies, CEO, Philips Electronics, Latin America
-&A member of the Reed Elsevier group
Copyright 0 2000 by Bert Frydman, Iva Wilson, and JoAnne Wyer
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Frydman, Ben, 1345-
The power of collaborative leadership: lessons for the learning organization/
Bert Frydman, Iva Wilson, JoAnne Wyer.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index
ISBN 0-7506-7268-4 (alk. paper)
1. Organization learning. 2. Leardership. I. Wilson, Iva 1338- 11. Wyer,
JoAnne, 1348- 111. Title.
HD58.82.F79 2000
658.4'063-dc21
00-030350
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to learn and to write this book
Foreword
”Whoever does not understand history is doomed to repeat it.”
This familiar refrain has rarely been more timely, especially in the
world of organizations and management.
In this era of profound change, it is hard to find organizations
anywhere-businesses, schools, healthcare organizations, govern-
mental organizations-that are not trying to reinvent themselves,
develop e-commerce strategies, or dismantle old cultures to adapt
to new realities. But their efforts are usually disappointing. The
history of success of quality management, reengineering, or the
more recent trend, knowledge management, is dismal. Typically,
less than a third of these programs are even still alive a year after
they are announced. Those that survive rarely achieve hoped-for
impacts. Obviously, sustaining change in established institutions
is not easy.
But what is even more disquieting is how little serious effort
managers seem to muster to understand why change efforts fail.
”Try and try again” seems to be the motto. Yet, repeating yester-
day’s errors is not likely to produce tomorrow’s success. What
hope can there be for learning if what is actually going on is that
no one wants to talk about ”failure.” If it is not safe to explore
what happened when highly visible change efforts produce disap-
pointing outcomes, these problems will be repeated. Yet, under-
taking such reflective self-examination takes time. Analysis can
quickly become finger pointing. So, it is also easy to see how it
may seem better to ignore disappointments, to declare victory and
move on-even if that means the disappointments will likely be
repeated, often by some new ”change leader.”
Ironically, learning from success fares no better. Because of the
lack of appetite to study our history, when successful change does
occur in some part of a larger organization, it rarely spreads. In
fact, the innovators typically leave rather than deal with the inter-
nal politics and bureaucracy of their former employers.
xv
xv i Foreword
For example, several years ago, a leading auto manufacturer
brought out a new passenger car which eventually proved to be
one of its most successful ever. It was a best seller for over 15 years.
The team that developed the car became mythical within the
industry. They developed extraordinary spirit and camaraderie.
They broke lots of rules. They pioneered innovations in process
and leadership methods. And, they all left the company within a
year after the car was launched.
Recently, a major American electronics manufacturer intro-
duced a dramatic new product platform, the first fully digitized
product of its sort. The product is also almost completely reman-
ufacturable; that is, when the customer is done, they can give it
back to the manufacturer and new machines will be built from the
old, thereby achieving both substantial cost savings and reducing
environmental waste. The product has won many engineering
awards, and after two years, its sales exceed all forecasts. Yet, its
lead engineer, who also developed extraordinary teamwork
through his innovative leadership, has also left the firm, and other
members of the original product team have scattered.
In neither case was there any effort by the firm to understand
why the innovators were so successful. If they broke rules, maybe
the rules are wrong. If they created new practices, maybe others
could learn from them. None of these larger changes has occurred,
because there was no attempt to study or learn from the innova-
tors. This pattern of failure to learn from highly successful but rad-
ical innovations occurs far more often than most recognize.’
I have come to the conclusion that the inability to learn from
history is not just due to lack of will or political conservatism.
Though these undoubtedly play a part, there are deeper issues. We
simply do not know how to learn from history where change
efforts are complex and their outcomes, both successful and
unsuccessful, are threatening. Managers are action-oriented peo-
ple. They are paid to produce results not insights. Even if they are
reflective by nature, which many are not, they have little help in
doing so, and very few models to guide them. And matters are get-
ting worse, not better. With overwork and stress levels rising, what
little predisposition for reflection and analysis exists is now
swamped by a rising sea of day-to-day urgency. The search for
quick answers results either in “Here’s how we did it” books by
retired or current CEOs, most of which offer little serious reflec-
tion or self-criticism, or in typical academic case studies that look
at a complex change process from the proverbial ”50,000 feet,”
summarizing everything in fifteen pages. More serious academic
studies of change typically take a theoretical point of view that
Foreword xvi i
gives little sense for the feelings and thinking of those on ”the
field of battle.” Overall, we lack a genre of reflective histories that
both serious practitioners and academics alike would find valu-
able.
This problem has been very evident to those of us who have
worked to develop the Society for Organizational Learning (SOL).
SOL was founded to promote partnerships among practitioners,
researchers, and consultants to build knowledge for fundamental
change. Most of the corporate members are Fortune 100 compa-
nies. Over the past ten years, SOL members have undertaken many
major change efforts, often with researchers closely involved. This
has resulted in a series of learning histories and other reflective
studies that, we hope, will contribute useful exemplars of what is
possible when practitioners are committed to building transfer-
able knowledge and researchers are committed to practical
impact.2
I am very pleased that The Power of Collaborative Leadership has
now arisen from the spirit of partnership and mutual inquiry
within the SOL community. It is a rare book, one that actually cap-
tures “thinking in the moment” from experienced practitioners. It
reflects the complexity of feelings and multiplicity of interpreta-
tions that coexist in complex change efforts. It shows how time is
needed to make sense of things, and how that sense-making can
continue to evolve for many years. It weaves theory and practice
with integrity by delving deeply to explore non-trivial insights and
potential guiding principles that emerge from experience. In short,
it is a very exciting book for those of us genuinely interested in
expanding our capacity to learn from history. For those looking
for easy answers and quick futes, it would better to look elsewhere.
In many ways, the uniqueness of the book arises from the
three-way partnership that produced it. It starts with two very dif-
ferent managers, Bert Frydman and Iva Wilson. Bert and Iva have
been involved in organizational learning efforts in large, well-
established firms for many years. Both rose to hold positions of
influence in their organizations. Both had a passion for innova-
tion and believed deeply that their organizations had to change.
Yet, you can hardly imagine two more different personalities
or styles of leading change. Bert is Canadian-American. Iva is
Eastern European. Bert rose through the ranks, starting as a field
technician. In a sense, he was always close to the mainstream of
his organization. Conversely, Iva was always on the periphery of
the mainstream. She was the first woman to earn a Ph.D. in engi-
neering at a prestigious German university. In virtually all of her
engineering managerial positions, she was the first woman.
xviii Foreword
Eventually, she became the highest-ranking woman manager for a
global electronics firm. Hers is an impressive CV, but it was not an
easy journey, just as it is not easy for most women like her who
have breached the walls surrounding previously male-dominated
workplaces.
Bert’s and Iva’s differing career paths also signal very different
leadership styles. Bert is a problem-solver by nature, a practical
person shaped by what Ed Schein calls the ”operator culture” in
which he grew up professionally.3 Iva, by contrast, is a product of
what Schein calls the ”engineering culture.” Because of this, by the
time they became executives they brought with them very differ-
ent mindsets. Bert tends to see a messy world of imperfect solu-
tions achieved by committed people acting locally, often without
much support from management. Iva tends to be ”proactively
optimistic,’’t o use Schein’s term, believing that complex problems
can be understood and conceptual breakthroughs are possible.
The third member of the partnership is a gifted researcher,
JoAnne Wyer. To her credit, rather than suppress the differences
between Iva and Bert, as most would have done, JoAnne artfully
accentuates them. The result is a fascinating tapestry of different
perspectives facing the common challenges of transforming orga-
nizations. These are exactly the types of differing worldviews that
characterize most management teams. When the differences are
honored, synergies can develop. When they are suppressed, polit-
ical gamesmanship tends to dominate, and the team as a whole is
usually capable of little more than watered down compromises.
So, in this way, Bert and Iva’s conversations are a window into
how real dialogue among truly different people can energize orga-
nizations. Lastly, Bert and Iva’s differences not only highlight their
views, but also make it easier to discover your own views. You will
find yourself drawn in, taking sides, agreeing strongly with one
and disagreeing equally strongly with the other. You will then dis-
cover that what you are really finding out about is yourself their
passions evoke your own. You are a party to the conversation. The
circle of reflection is expanding.
Making the tapestry still richer are four exceptional executive
leaders from other SOL companies, whose views are woven into
the conversation. Bill O’Brien, former CEO of Hanover Insurance,
helped a bankrupt company become one of the top performers in
the U.S. property and liability industry over a 20-year period. Rich
Teerlink was CEO during one of the most famous corporate
revivals in recent history: the rebirth of Harley-Davidson. Phil
Carroll was CEO of Shell Oil for five years, during which the com-
pany went from record losses to record profits (Phil is now CEO