Dua, Sameer - Declaring Breakdowns, Creating A Future That Matters PDF
Dua, Sameer - Declaring Breakdowns, Creating A Future That Matters PDF
In this book, Dua provides a strong ‘how-to’ for those who are
ready to claim their agency and take a proactive stance towards
creating a brighter future.
Veronica Olalla Love
Chief Executive Officer, Newfield Network, USA
The special gift Sameer has is reflected very much in this book. He
enlightens the audience with certain truths that were hidden from
them before, and raises the awareness of a leader to a whole new
level. These ideas and practices can be used to significantly increase
success and bring real results. Leaders can become what they can
and want to be when they have this high level of a wareness and
some specific tools they can use.
Sameer’s ideas are always pragmatic and clear, and at the same
time inspiring. They demonstrate deep understanding of how
humans—people—think and act, and the belief in people’s ability
to control their acts, their future and their leadership.
I enjoy reading Sameer’s notes, as much as I enjoy listening
to him talk about leadership in his seminars, which are always
inspiring and mind openers.
Sharon Kedem-Shanny
Vice-President Delivery APAC, Amdocs
SAMEER DUA
Copyright © Sameer Dua, 2016
Published by Vivek Mehra for SAGE Publications India Pvt Ltd, typeset in
Adobe Caslon Pro 11/13 pts by Zaza Eunice, Hosur, Tamil Nadu, India and
printed at Sai Print-o-Pack, New Delhi.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Name: Dua, Sameer, author.
Title: Declaring breakdowns : powerfully creating a future that matters,
through 6 simple steps / Sameer Dua.
Description: Thousand Oaks : SAGE Publications India Pvt Ltd, 2016. |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016001973| ISBN 9789351509837 (pbk. : alk. paper) |
ISBN 9789351509844 (ebook) | ISBN 9789351509820 (epub)
Subjects: LCSH: Leadership. | Self-actualization (Psychology)
Classification: LCC HD57.7 .D823 2016 | DDC 650.1–dc23 LC record
available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016001973
ISBN: 978-93-515-0983-7 (PB)
The SAGE Team: Sachin Sharma, Sandhya Gola and Rajinder Kaur
This book is dedicated to my family, my strength:
Amma, Daddy, Mummy, Papa, Mamma, Shalini, Prashant, Rashmi
and Namrata.
My beautiful wife, Tina, and my three lovely children, Ashna,
Anaaya and Ayaan.
Thank you for choosing a SAGE product!
If you have any comment, observation or feedback,
I would like to personally hear from you.
Please write to me at [email protected]
Vivek Mehra, Managing Director and CEO, SAGE India.
Bulk Sales
E-mail us at [email protected]
I. Getting Started
1. Introduction 3
A Breakdown to Be Declared 4
Who Is This Book For? 7
A Suggested Approach for This Book 7
The Promise of the Book 8
What Is Learning? 8
Summary and Reconstruction Section in
Each Chapter 10
What Is a Generative Practice? 11
Summary and Reconstruction of Our Understanding 12
Generative Practices 12
3. Transparency 24
Introduction24
Transparency of the Present 25
The World You See 26
Transparency of the Future 31
Summary and Reconstruction of Our Understanding 34
Generative Practices 36
11. Execution 180
Performance Happens ‘on the Court’ 180
Transform Your Relationship with Failure 181
Is Your Confusion an Indulgence? 184
Get into Rhythm 187
Summary and Reconstruction of Our Understanding 189
Generative Practices 189
Epilogue 191
Appendix 1: Old Interpretation to New Interpretation 193
Appendix 2: Form for Declaring a Breakdown and
Creating a Future of Design 199
Appendix 3: Distinctions 203
Index 217
About the Author 220
List of Figures
5.1 Elements of Declarations 75
Sameer Dua
Founder and CEO
Institute for Generative Leadership, India
Foreword
I quite like the point Sameer has made in his book that each
individual, each project, each team, each organization, each coun-
try has a default future; a future that is probable, and yet almost
certain. And that most of us are blind to this default future. This
plain awareness of the default future is an invitation to us to create
a new future of choice. In hindsight, I can clearly see the number
of times my default future was not so appealing to me, and each
time that happened, I created a new future and took persistent
actions to achieve that future.
For example, when I did not get admission in a medical college
due to my grades, I initially experienced defeat. However, I did not
allow these internal conversations that created the experience of
defeat to brew for long. I changed my conversations with myself,
and got committed to my new future.
Inside of my commitment, and my love for science, I chose to
study BSc (Hons) in Zoology with chemistry and botany as minors.
I studied hard to excel and got the first rank in the university. It
was my own little way of saying to these colleges, ‘Look at what you
missed out on—I could have been a good doctor.’ I declared a break-
down and designed a future of my choice, rather than exist in drift.
Then again, after I graduated, in a conversation with my father,
my future changed. My father drew my attention to the science of
brewing and helped me create a future in the world of brewing. At
that time, brewing was a fairly nascent stream in India and there
were not many professional brewers. There were cultural assess-
ments that stopped women from working in this male-dominated
industry. I never accepted these cultural assessments, challenged
them, created my own new assessments, and because of this, I
proved myself in a vocation yet unexplored by Indians and more
so by women the world over.
I could identify with Sameer’s 6-step process of declaring
breakdowns completely as I see how I have been working on those
steps in my life. I have always been cognizant of the present in
terms of where I am, and very clear on where I want to go (my
future of choice), and have accordingly focused on what actions
I need to take today, to get to where I want to go.
Foreword xix
given up this book a long time ago had it not been for Sheeja.
She has supported me in many ways in the writing of this book.
Her commitment to this book, our organization, our programme
participants and humanity, in general, inspires me. I remain
indebted to Sheeja for her love and compassion.
I am also thankful to my other colleagues at IGL, India, for
their exceptional support and commitment to the organization,
and to me personally. This goes out especially to Dhanashree,
Shilpa and Joe.
I have 2 heroes in my life who I have not mentioned yet. These
are guys I have grown up watching and wanting to emulate all my
life. These heroes are my father and my brother, Prashant. Both
of them have always kept my interest before theirs, promoted me,
encouraged me, cheered me and ensured they always take the fall,
while I have a soft landing. My fearless and bold attitude comes
from the fact that I know I have these heroes to reach out to,
should I ever need something.
And above all, it took me 12 years to really start to ‘listen to’
the love, the selflessness and the hard work my wife, Tina, puts in
ensuring that I have great comfort in my life. She takes exceptional
care of some of our key cares—our family, our home and our
beautiful children, creating an uncluttered space for me to write
this book and to go out in the world and do my work. I love you.
And, finally and most importantly, I thank you—the reader—
for picking up this book to read. I hope you enjoy reading it.
Preface: The 5 am Club
Getting Started
1
Introduction
Humans are most times blind to how and when a certain order
gets formed and then we do not even question this order. This
order is the way we do things. At a lot of times, this order works
for us. And at many other occasions, we simply continue to operate
in this automatic or programmed mode without questioning the
order that gets formed. This now does not work for us anymore.
The way to deal with this is to declare a breakdown.
When I use the word ‘breakdown’, a lot of people ‘listen’2 to a
mechanical breakdown. In one of my consulting assignments with
a global organization with a turnover in excess of $40 billion—a
member of the top management team laughed when I suggested
4 Declaring Breakdowns
A Breakdown to Be Declared
At this stage, in the introduction chapter itself, I want to declare
a breakdown.
Introduction 5
What Is Learning?
The general understanding held by many is that you learn by
knowing. There is a common myth and a cultural blindness that
understanding something cognitively is the same as
‘knowing
Introduction 9
What is learning?
Learning is to shift embodiment, to shift capacity for action and to shift what
outcomes can be produced and promised.
What is not learning?
Learning is not just understanding, and is not only academic.
How does learning happen?
Learning happens through action and through practices. By understanding
the concepts in this book, you will only know about how to declare break-
downs. However, for you to know how to declare breakdowns, you will need to
actively practice the distinctions provided in this book. There is a difference in
‘knowing about’ and in ‘knowing’, and the difference is practice.
Reflective Pause
1. What has learning meant for you till now?
2. How is this understanding of learning different from your earlier
understanding?
3. What new learning (through practice) have you recently undertaken?
• be observable,
• be executable,
• be learnable through practice and
• generate the desired result.
Generative Practices
1. You are always in some practice or the other. Write down
what practices you have embodied, such that you are now
unaware of its existence in your embodiment. For exam-
ple, the way you sit in a meeting; your first reaction when
you receive negative feedback or news; your tone and your
language when you interact with your subordinates, or
your family; the way you draft your emails; and your daily
practices when you arrive at your office.
Introduction 13
Notes
1. http://www.thefreedictionary.com/breakdown, accessed 16 February 2016.
2. There is a difference between hearing and listening. Hearing is a biological
phenomenon, and listening is a linguistic phenomenon. To listen is to
interpret what you hear. You can also listen to what you smell, what you see
and what you feel.
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bert_Lance, accessed 16 February 2016.
4. I heard this phrase in a programme that I attended at Landmark Education.
5. Richard Strozzi-Heckler, The Leadership Dojo: Build Your Foundation as an
Exemplary Leader (California: Frog Ltd, 2007).
2
The Centrality of Conversations
Generative Conversations
Our common-sense understanding tends to be that communica-
tion is to describe things, not generate them; we tend to believe
that communication is simply for transfer of information, with an
emphasis on good presentation rather than listening skills. What
we are blind to or unaware of is that our language is generative.
With language, we generate or bring things into existence.
Lera Boroditsky, a cognitive scientist from Stanford University,
states:
Do the languages we speak shape the way we see the world, the
way we think, and the way we live our lives…? For a long time,
the idea that language might shape thought was considered
at best untestable and more often simply wrong…. What we
have learned is that people who speak different languages
do indeed think differently and that even flukes of grammar
can profoundly affect how we see the world. Language is a
uniquely human gift, central to our experience of being human.
Appreciating its role in c onstructing our mental lives brings us
one step closer to understanding the very nature of humanity.3
• action,
• outcomes of action,
The Centrality of Conversations 21
• possibilities,
• commitments,
• identities,
• opinions and much more.
Generative Practices
1. In conversations with people,
a. notice what people ‘listen’ may be different from what
you actually intend to convey.
b. notice what you ‘listen’ may be different from what
people actually intend to convey.
Start to become aware how you and others may be listening
to respond, rather than listening to understand what the other
is saying. We will develop this concept and practise as we
go along.
2. Observe how you and others bring history and experiences
into a conversation. Please observe how we listen has a great
deal to do with our history, our culture, our experiences
and our practices. Consider if you had a different history,
cultural background, experience or practices, how would
you have ‘listened’ to the same conversation.
The Centrality of Conversations 23
Notes
1. This distinction of ‘conversation’ has been created for IGL by Bob Dunham.
2. These cultural differences examples have been taken from Anne Arundel
County, Maryland. http://www.aacounty.org/Partnership/Resources/Cultural_
Differences.pdf, accessed March 2015.
3. Max Brockman, What’s Next? Dispatches on the Future of Science: Original
Essays from a New Generation of Scientists (USA: Vintage Books, 2009)
4. Steve Zaffron and Dave Logan, The Three Laws of Performance: Rewriting the
Future of Your Organization and Your Life (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass/Wiley/
Times Group Books, 2009).
5. Bob Dunham’s sessions in ‘Coaching Excellence in Organizations’ programme.
3
Transparency
Introduction
A ccording to Oxford Dictionaries, the word ‘transparent’ means
‘functioning of a process without the user being aware of its
presence’.1
In our normal day-to-day lives, we humans are used to our
routines. We are not aware of or we do not need to consciously
focus on a lot of things that help us achieve results. These are
the things that are transparent to us. They are sitting in our sub-
conscious mind and do not demand our focused attention all
the time.
Charles Duhigg, in his book The Power of Habit, states, ‘one
paper published by a Duke University researcher in 2006 found
that more than 40 per cent of the actions people performed each
day weren’t actually decisions, but habits’.2
Our cortex, the site of consciousness, can process sensory input
at about 40 events per second; in contrast, our limbic system, the
site of our unconsciousness, can process about 20 million events per
second.3 Conscious thinking is mostly serial; unconscious thinking
is mostly parallel. The body, therefore, moves our practices from
conscious to unconscious performance so that they can be done
faster and better.4
Transparency 25
A Short Exercise
I am going to ask you a simple question that will take only a few seconds
to answer. My request to you is to respond to this question. As simple as it
may seem to you, it has the potential to show something to you that you may
have been blind to until now. Please respond to this question immediately on
reading it.
So, here it is:
Look around you and find all ‘green’ that you see in the room. Try and find as much
green as you can in the first 10 seconds.
Please do the exercise now.
a. Did you find new ‘green’ in this room that you had not noticed earlier?
b. While looking for green, did you see any other colour?
Why do you think she (or if you did the exercise, even you) found
green?
She (and you) found green because you went looking for it.
The invitation of this exercise was for you to see that you get
what you look for. It is as simple as that.
This lady had all this while been looking for the ‘green’, that
is, evidence that her colleagues were out to get her. And guess
what she found! She found the green—every small action was
considered to be evidence that she was not required in the office.
She ‘missed’ all other evidence that suggested otherwise, the same
way that she (and maybe some of you) ‘missed’ seeing other colours
while she went looking for the green.
I left that lunch meeting asking her to now look for a ‘new
green’—that is, the greatness in her colleagues. I requested her to
go all out looking for their greatness in every one. And when you
go out looking for the green, you fail to notice any other colours.
To cut the story short, initially, she had trouble doing so; however,
with a little practice, she only found greatness in people, at work
and everywhere else. She did not pay attention to anything else, or
missed what did not point to the greatness of people.
So, here is a new claim:
When you observe that you are at the source of how a p articular
relationship is, or for that matter you are at the source of any
result that you currently have, you in effect give yourself the
power to transform that relationship or that result.
relationship not working, and that it was her who kept looking for
the unreasonableness in this lady, new actions emerged for her—
actions that were not available to her prior to our conversation. She
started to ‘look for’ reasonableness, giving her the benefit of doubt.
Very soon, she realized that this lady was actually much better than
she gave her credit. She also saw new ways to interact with her, to
produce a different result.
The way the world occurs to a CEO of an organization is
different from the way the world occurs to a front-line employee
of the same organization. The physical world ‘out there’ is the
same. It is the linguistic world of interpretations and assessments
of the two that differs (see Figure 3.1).
Reflective Pause
Take a deep breath and get aware that you have been breathing all this while.
Look around you and notice things that are kept in your room, that which
you did not notice earlier. Notice life around you, in your room, outside the
window/door from where you are sitting.
Now, turn your attention to your feet touching the ground (and if they are not
touching the ground, feel the bed, sofa or whatever else they are touching).
Feel the sensation in your feet. Move your attention to your clothes touching
your body. Feel the sensation of your clothes touching the body.
All of this, and a lot more, was going on while you were reading this book.
These sensations were transparent to you while you were in the flow of
reading this book.
A question for you to consider—‘What else maybe transparent to you as you
go about leading your life?’
Please take a moment to reflect on this.
One world is the physical world that you The other world is the world that you
live in. manifest. You also live in this world like
you live in the physical world.
This world is the same for all living You are the only person living in this
beings. world. This world is exclusive to you.
You describe this world. You create this world (in your thinking
and speaking).
In describing the world, you are talking In creating the world, you reveal the way
about what’s ‘out there’. you see.
Here, the world comes first and then you Here, the word comes first and then the
describe the world with your words. world gets created (you speak and it
gets created).
Your moods and emotions do not impact Your moods and emotions greatly impact
this world. this world.
This world is ‘THE Truth’ This world is ‘YOUR Truth’
This world does not impact your being- This world that you create, is the cause of
ness (all of us live in this world and yet the way you be.
all of us are ‘being’ different).
In this moment, this is the way this world Here, you have all the choice. As a matter
is, and you have no choice in how it is. of fact, this world is the way it is
because you exercise choice and create it
this way (whether you know it or not).
The way this world is – is. The way you create this world determines
the possibilities that you have.
This world does not pre-dispose you to This world not only pre-disposes you, it
any action. often propels you into action.
This world has no impact on your results. This world has a great impact on your
results. Because it is this world that
pre-disposes you into action, and
actions give you results.
Source: © Sameer Dua, Founder, the Institute for Generative Leadership, India
Transparency 33
today—maybe 2–3 years ahead. I did not realize when you say
future, it includes even 5 minutes from now’.
For example, if a driver drinks alcohol in good measure and
drives a car at 120 kph, there is a default future of him having an
accident. And that default future is not 2, 3 or 5 years ahead. It
could be only a few minutes in the future. Similarly, if I have coffee
just before sleeping, I have to be aware of my default future that I
will not get sleep soon that night. The caffeine intake will change
the chemistry of my brain and block the action of a natural brain
chemical that is associated with sleep.
Not too long ago, I coached a senior vice-president (financial products) in a
global IT company. After 6 months, he was requested to move to the USA
and take responsibility for a larger geography. Another person from Bengaluru
moved to Pune and took on this role of my coachee. I was brought on as a
coach for this new person too.
It was very interesting for me to see that both of them worked in the same
organization, both had exactly the same role, more or less the same team, the
same boss, the same market they operated in and the same clients. Everything
in the ‘outside world’ was the same.
However, the way they saw the world was completely different. Each saw dif-
ferent challenges, each saw different opportunities and each saw different areas
of improvement for the team.
Based on what each saw, each took different actions. And because each took
different actions, they had different results. I am not commenting whether or
not these results were better than the other. They certainly were completely
different results.
Generative Practices
1. This chapter made a claim that ‘you get what you look for’,
and also shared an exercise of ‘looking for the green’. Based
on that, in your journal, make a note of ‘what green did you
find today? Is that the green you went looking for?’
2. Further to the earlier point, also journal, while ‘looking for
the green’, what did you miss seeing?
3. What does the claim ‘the world you see is function of the
observer you are’ mean to you? Become aware of what is
transparent to you in this moment.
4. Get present to the linguistic world that you are creating and
that you have created.
5. Think of everything that you do in your day and become
present and aware of the actions you take that are transparent
to you.
6. Look around you and get present to different people and
the contributions they make to your life that are currently
transparent to you.
7. Make a daily entry in your journal of the earlier practices
as part of ‘tuning up your observing’ and seeing new
possibilities for yourself.
Transparency 37
Notes
1. http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/transparent, accessed
16 February 2016.
3. Charles Duhigg, The Power of Habit (New York: Random House, 2012).
2. Peter J. Denning and Robert Dunham in their book The Innovator’s Way
referred to this from the following book: Bruce H. Lipton, The Biology of
Belief (Santa Rosa, CA: Mountain of Love/Elite Books, 2005).
4. Peter J. Denning and Robert Dunham, The Innovator’s Way: Essential Practices
for Successful Innovation (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2010).
5. http://www.thehealthsite.com/diseases-conditions/top-8-interesting-facts-
about-the-human-eye/, accessed 16 February 2016.
6. I attended The Art and Practice of Ontological Coaching programme of
Newfield Network, USA, and that is where I first heard this claim. I found
this very powerful, and this has stayed with me ever since. As a part of the
programme, we were given a book called Language and the Pursuit of Happiness
by Chalmers Brothers. This claim is also made in this book.
7. Steve Zaffron and Dave Logan, The Three Laws of Performance: Rewriting the
Future of Your Organization and Your Life (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass/Wiley/
Times Group Books, 2009).
8. Veil of transparency: The veil of transparency is the cover that conceals
transparency. To lift the veil of transparency would mean to disclose or uncover
transparency—it is to make what was earlier transparent to you, obvious.
4
Interruptions That Require Coping
• our attention,
• our behaviour,
• our practice,
• our expectations of the present and/or
• our interpretation of the future we are moving towards.
40 Declaring Breakdowns
Your disclosive space is your common sense, that is, the totality
of your interpretations, your assessments and your habits that
disclose a world to you. This space exists in the realm of you don’t
even know that you don’t know.
Your disclosive space is your already always orientation towards
the world. It is already there and it is invisible to you; and, yet it
impacts the way the world shows up for you.
It is interesting that Spinosa, Flores and Dreyfus used the word
‘space’, because it is through this space, or through this vantage
point, that a particular world gets disclosed to you.
The key elements of the disclosive space that shape your future
are:
Figure 4.1 The Key Elements of the Space That Get Disclosed for You
Moods and
Standards and Practices
Emotions
Purpose and
Possibilities
Games you Style
that you see
play
pages is d ifferent from the world that shows up for people who do
not have this care.
Similarly, a dear friend of mine, Dilip Kukreja, has a care for
juvenile diabetes. The way the world shows up for him is different
than the way it shows up for me. For example, when he reads a
newspaper, he ‘sees’ news items on diabetes and juvenile diabetes,
while I completely miss seeing these news items in the same news-
paper. Similarly, I always notice articles on organ donation, and he
misses seeing articles on organ donation.
We are reading the same newspaper, but our disclosive space,
in the area of our care and concern, is different, and hence while
we look at the same newspaper, our eyes pick up different articles,
and miss the others.
When I talk about cares, I am not only talking about care for
social causes. In the case of a lady I knew, her care was to retain
her job, because she felt threatened by the competitive environ-
ment in her organization. Because this was her care, the world
showed up differently for her. She did not miss an opportunity
to gift, send a card or compliment a senior colleague so that she
could get into their good books. This is how the world showed
up for her inside of her disclosive space based on her care and
concerns.
44 Declaring Breakdowns
Your Style
Your style has a lot to do with your practices. For instance, in one of
the local chamber of commerce meetings, a CEO of a s ignificantly
large real estate company mentioned to me on arriving late: ‘I never
arrive on time. It makes me seem desperate, and I do not want to
give the impression that I am desperate to the world’.
The way the world gets disclosed to this CEO as compared to
the author to whom I referred earlier in this section is completely
different.
If you really get the claim made in the previous chapter, the
world you see is a function of the observer you are, you will start to see
your disclosive space has a lot to do with what world gets disclosed
to you. As a matter of fact, you only see the world that gets disclosed to
you, given the observer you are.
If you get aware of your disclosive space, you have a choice to
recreate your disclosive space, and open up possibilities, those that
were not available to you earlier, for a new world to show up for you.
Interruptions That Require Coping 47
Ranjit Nair worked as a senior human resource manager for a chain of 5-star
hotels. He was awarded a promotion and the designation of an assistant
vice-president. For Ranjit Nair, this was an interruption that opened new pos-
sibilities for him When you are awarded a promotion at work, it is generally
assessed as an interruption that opens up new possibilities for your work life.
Your a ccountabilities increase, and you have new reportees and a new future to
achieve. Ranjit Nair was no different.
However, along with other perks also came a change of workplace. Ranjit
would now be required to travel about 4 hours to and from work every day.
Ranjit was happy initially, but soon he started detesting the daily travel and
began to lose interest in his work. What started out for him as a jump in
his career now started becoming a reason for his daily discomfort. In a few
months, Ranjit started looking for another job. This same interruption that
earlier opened up possibilities for Ranjit now closed possibilities for him
He was now a different observer than when he was initially offered the
promotion.
Earlier, the promotion occurred to him as an interruption that opened new
possibilities (in his career). Later, this same interruption of the promotion
seemed like one that closed possibilities (for his health and family time).
Nothing changed in the world ‘out there’. All that changed was the way Ranjit
Nair observed.
External Sources
External sources of interruptions are where you have no control in
the causation of the interruption, that is, you are not at the source
of creating the interruptions. These are caused with no active
participation of yours.
Interruptions That Require Coping 51
Internal Internal
Unintentional Intentional
Internal Sources
Internal sources of interruptions are when you are at the source of
creating the interruptions.
(Continued)
54 Declaring Breakdowns
(Continued)
Roger Weatherman intentionally declared a breakdown in the otherwise
t ransparent procedures to reduce the waste of time, money and effort. His orga-
nization’s probable yet almost certain future of no significant improvement in
the production numbers and profitability was not acceptable to him.
Bringing in new technology meant
• seeking funding from lending institutions,
• rewriting all process notes,
• training employees in the use of this new technology and
• overcoming several other operational challenges.
In the interest of increasing their capacity and doubling their profitability, the
organization went ahead with this new technology and greatly benefitted from
it, financially, and also in providing greater work satisfaction for their employees.
The greater your ability to see new possibilities and question the
status quo, the more successful you can be. Questioning status quo
means to intentionally create interruptions, to achieve a future of
choice rather than one dictated by drift.
IGL, India, the organization that I founded in partnership
with IGL, USA, received a requirement from an organization that
is a part of a $70 billion German group. This organization wanted
to change their culture and have a new high-performance culture.
What this organization was doing was declaring a breakdown,
and causing an interruption. They acknowledged that the cul-
ture they had did not work for them any more. This was despite
the fact that in certain areas, this organization was judged to be
world-class.
People regularly create breakdowns, thereby creating
interruptions—it is just that we do not know that we are doing so.
This book is an endeavour to bring this into our conscious realm so
that we can continue to do so, not out of default, but out of choice.
And do it effectively.
Interruptions Choice to
(caused by declare a
external sources) breakdown
Part II of this book deals with the process of declaring and dealing
with a breakdown.
Generative Practices
1. Explore how the interruptions that you chose to create
helped you to be where you are today in your life.
2. Think of a time in your recent past, when an external
interruption took place in your life. If that same i nterruption
were to happen to you now, how would you observe that
interruption?
3. Make a daily entry in your journal of the above practices
for the sake of widening and deepening your capacity to
observe and create possibilities for what you care about.
4. Please continue to engage in the practices of the earlier
chapters. Let practices at the end of each chapter not replace
practices recommended in the previous chapters, but have
new practices build on previous ones.
Notes
1. This has been adapted from Rafael Echeverria’s (of Newfield Network) paper
on ‘Moods and Emotions’. While he calls this a break in transparency, I have
called this an interruption, as we do at IGL. At Newfield Network, there is
no distinction between a break in transparency and a breakdown. At IGL, we
distinguish a break in transparency as an interruption, and then based on the
observer, she/he may declare a breakdown (or not declare a breakdown).
2. C. Spinosa, F. Flores, and H.L. Dreyfus, Disclosing New Worlds: Entre-
preneurship, Democratic Action, and the cultivation of Solidarity (Cambridge,
MA: MIT Press, 1997).
3. Adapted from the works for Werner Erhard and Michael Jensen.
4. The disharmonies term came originally from Spinosa, Dreyfus and Flores’
book Disclosing New Worlds: Entrepreneurship, Democratic Action, and the
cultivation of Solidarity.
5. ‘Sensing’ as a term has been used by Robert Dunham and Peter Denning in
their book The Innovator’s Way. There is a chapter dedicated to ‘sensing’ in this
book.
PART II
The 6-step
Process at a
Glance
H ere are the 6 steps to designing a future of your choice for
yourself, and for your organization. That’s what the promise
of this book is – to provide you with simple steps to create and
achieve a future that works for you. When I say, ‘simple’, I don’t
mean ‘easy’. These may be simple to understand, but you need to
keep practicing these steps to gain mastery of these.
Furthermore, when I say ‘simple’, I don’t mean they are trivial
or unimportant. As a matter of fact these are so important that I
dare say these are non-discretionary. In some form or other, you
need to follow these 6-steps. You can either depend on luck, or
follow these steps to achieving your new future of choice.
Once there is an interruption, either created by you, or
caused by external circumstances, you have a choice to declare a
breakdown.
62 Declaring Breakdowns
Declare a breakdown
(You are willing to be the cause of creating and achieving a new future)
Step 6: Execution
All of the above is meaningless if you do not execute on your
commitments to fill in the gap between ‘what is so today’ and the
‘new future’. At the end of the day, it is only actions that give you
results. You must get skilled in order to take actions yourself, and
also in calling on your network of help to coordinate actions with
others so that the new future/shared future is achieved.
5
Declaring Breakdowns
If you panic with the question and your first response is ‘I don’t
know what I care about’, do not worry. As human beings, we are
creatures of care. A first place to look might be how you spend
your time. Work? Family? Community? Health? Environment?
Music? Spirituality? Where and how do you spend most of your
time? This can begin to show us some of what we care about,
including some of what we may only subconsciously care about
(such as looking good, staying comfortable and risking or not
risking too much).
Care is fundamental to declaring breakdowns. Why would
you want to declare a breakdown in a matter that you have no
care for? Only when you know what is meaningful, or what is
of consequence to you, or what your cares are, that the question
arises, ‘Am I taking care of what I care about?’ And if not, you have
a choice to declare a breakdown in that area of your life.
We invite you to get present to what is it that you really care
for, and then consider declaring breakdowns in the matter of
your care to enable you to take care of what you care about.
Reflective Pause
Take a few moments to reflect on:
What are your different areas of cares?
Once you have identified different domains of cares, the next question for you
to reflect upon is:
Are you taking care of your cares?
I invite you to journal your different cares; and then reflect on how well are
you taking care of your cares.
You will notice that I have taken essential features of all the above
definitions and created a new distinction that is all encompassing.
Let us extract the important elements that emerge from this
definition, and the earlier definitions.
Reflective Pause
1. Up until now, who has had power in the matter of different areas of your
life?
2. Do you give yourself authority in the matter of your life?
Declarations when you declare, you own the future, and not
just have some goals.
Declarations to make a declaration, you need authority to do so.
The way I see this image is a lone tree standing in an empty barren
land, facing the storm head-on. It is centred in the face of crises,
with its roots firmly entrenched in the ground.
Another way of declaring that I take a stand is to state ‘I commit
to’, and perhaps this comes from the battlefield a nalogy, where it
may be stated for symbolic reasons for someone or a group to hold
a particular piece of ground in the face of adversity. Generally, you
take a stand when there is adversity or great o pposition, and it is
easy to give in to what you are not committed to. The way I see the
above image, it seems easy for the tree to give up being a stand, in
the face of a storm.
Martin Luther King Jr took a stand on the civil rights issue,
Mahatma Gandhi took a stand for the independence of India,
a coachee of mine took a stand for setting up a branch of his
organization in the UK and my dear friend Sunil Jain has taken a
stand for the differently abled to get equal opportunities in sports
in India.
When you take a stand, you do not beat around the bush, you set
aside your fear of mockery, scorn or laughter. You just make the
choice and say it! And mean it. State it as if it is a fact, even if it
isn’t. If you want it to become a fact, you have to treat it like one.
And you do not say ‘you’re sorry’ when someone disagrees. You
make it clear that this is the future you will take action inside of.
And you are an open invitation to others who want to join with
you in making that future become real.
(Continued)
Conversation for Responsibility
a. What happens if I take no new action (Default future)?
b. What is my care? Am I OK with the default future?
c. If No, then what is the new future that I want to create?
d. Am I ready to take a stand to achieve that new future?
Reflective Pause
In which areas of your life are you being the effect and not the cause? What is the
impact of this on your cares, on your leadership and how people ‘listen’ to you?
You have a choice—do you want to take responsibility in these areas? What
will it take for you to do so? What might be the costs of not doing so?
Please journal your thoughts.
Team Breakdowns
The First Question to Be Asked Is ‘What Is a Team’?
A team is a group of people that share a promise.12 A team is
constituted by the shared promise. Without a shared promise,
the team is not a team; it is just a group of people together.
Teamwork, whether it is effective or not, is generated by the
conversations of the team members. The culture of your team is
evidenced in the kind of conversations you have and the results
that they produce.
Declaring Breakdowns 83
Effective Teams
Effective teams are those that engage in and are capable of having
the conversations that produce the necessary commitments for
successful coordination of action. Effective teams have a clear under-
standing of what these conversations are and how to have them.
The topic of this book is not all types of team c onversations, and so
we are focusing only on the ‘declaring a breakdown’ conversation.
Generative Practices
1. Reflect on what you care about. Write down in your journal
what you declare to be your key cares or concerns in life.
2. For each concern, assess whether you are satisfied with how
you are taking care of this concern.
3. What are the missing declarations that you can make in
each area of your care?
4. Do you choose to be a stand and take responsibility for
achieving the future that you have declared in each of your
cares? If so, what could be the missing actions to achieve the
future that you have declared? As you read the book, these
missing actions will start to open up for you—we also have a
dedicated chapter on missing actions. However, at this stage,
we request you to speculate about these missing actions.
5. Is your team constituted in a shared promise? If not, what
could be the shared promise of your team? And what would
you need to do to get others to commit to a shared promise
of your team?
6. If your team is already committed to a shared p romise,
consider declaring a breakdown every time the team
promise is at threat or at risk.
7. Journal your thoughts and practices. Make at least one entry
a day as part of your practice to create possibilities in your
life and work.
Notes
1. Chalmers Brothers, Language and the Pursuit of Happiness (Florida: New
Possibilities Press, 2005).
2. From unpublished papers written by Bob Dunham for the Generative
Leadership programme of IGL.
3. Ibid.
4. Mathew Budd and Larry Rothstein, You Are What You Say You Are (New
York: Three Rivers Press, 2000).
88 Declaring Breakdowns
5. http://india.gov.in/sites/upload_files/npi/files/coi_part_full.pdf, accessed
16 February 2016.
6. Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, Think Like a Freak (USA: William
Morrow, an imprint of Harper Collins, 2014).
7. Mitchell Krog Photography: http://mitchellkrog.com
8. http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/responsible?q=Re-
sponsible&searchDictCode=all, accessed 16 February 2016.
9. http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/blame, accessed 16
February 2016.
10. Being centred is being in a physical, mental and emotional state of choice.
We are centred when our body, mind and emotions are in a state where we
can choose our actions. When we are not in a state to choose our actions,
we are ‘off-centre’; our reactions and tendencies choose for us. We cannot
blend when we are off-centre. In centring, we attain complete balance and
focus regardless of our situations:
• Our mind is alert, we are connected to what we care about and we are
free of distracting mental chatter.
• Our mood is serene and open to the current situation.
• Our physical state is dynamically relaxed, alert, balanced around our
centre of gravity and ready for action.
These three aspects are mutually connected.
11. To find your ground when making declarations is that you can trust your
declaration. You are operating from a position of certainty, rather than of
disbelief or hesitation.
12. Bob Dunham has a yet unpublished paper called the ‘Ten Conversations
of Teams’. I came across this paper in my education at IGL, USA. I have
referred to the above-mentioned paper in this section.
6
Get Present to ‘What Is So’ (Assertions)
are also most importantly a listening act, and the reason they
are called a listening act is because the way you listen to the
Assessments assessment will impact what action you will take, and hence
will impact the result you have.
• ‘I cannot do this’,
• ‘This is an impossible target’,
• ‘The only way I can succeed is by doing this and this…’,
• ‘This is a daunting task’,
• ‘If only I had (this), then I could achieve (that)’,
• ‘I am not a morning person’ and
• ‘She is so annoying’.
Assertions Assessments
Assertions are claims of facts. Assessments are opinions, judgments or
For example: Ram is the Managing subjective statements.
Director of AAA Corporation. For example: Ram is brilliant at his work.
Assertions belong to the thing being Assessments belong to the Observer. Different
observed. Observers will have different opinions.
For example: Ram is the CEO of AAA (Even if a group observers the thing in a
Corporation. particular way, the assessment still belongs
Here you are speaking about Ram’s to the group and not to the thing being
designation and the organization he observed. It becomes a group assessment.)
works for. For example: Ram is brilliant at work
is your assessment of Ram. There may
be others who may not make the same
assessment as you.
Get Present to ‘What Is So’ (Assertions) 93
Assertions Assessments
Assertions can either be true or false. Assessments cannot be verified to be true
For example: Rohit came late for yesterday’s or false. However, assessments can be
meeting by 30 minutes. grounded or ungrounded.
If there was a camera recording the For example: Rohit is unreliable.
meeting, it could be proved whether or Rohit being unreliable cannot be generalized
not Rohit came late or not. and cannot be proved true or false.
However, you can give evidence of Rohit
coming late for all meetings and hence
you make a grounded assessment that
Rohit is unreliable as far as coming on
time for these meetings is concerned.
Assertions reveal about the thing being Assessments reveal more about the observer/
observed the standards of the observer than the
For example: John did not wish Peter thing being observed.
or Anna ‘Good morning’ on Monday For example: Peter assesses John to be rude
morning. because he did not wish him good morning.
So, as per Peter’s standard, that is being rude.
John did not wish Anna ‘good morning’
too and as per Anna that does not mean
John is rude.
Assertions have to do with the past and Assessments have everything to do with the
the present. future.
For example: In yesterday’s meeting Ram For example: Ram is unreliable, and once
came late by 30 minutes. you assess someone as unreliable, in the future
you relate to that person as unreliable.
Assertions are where language is most Assessments are where language is extremely
descriptive and least generative (the only generative and creative.
speech act where language is descriptive). For example: The table is big and we can
For example: The dinner table is 10 feet play table tennis on it.
by 4 feet. In my language, I have created the dining
In this case I am describing a property of table to be a table tennis table and also big
the table. enough to play table tennis on it.
Assertions are not influenced by moods Assessments are greatly influenced by moods
and emotions. and emotions.
For example: A stranger’s elbow touches For example: In an angry mood, Chris
Chris. assesses that the stranger ‘should be keeping a
safe distance’ and yells at the stranger for not
maintaining the distance. In a happy mood,
Chris makes the assessment ‘it’s OK—it’s a
mistake’ and smiles at the stranger.
Assertions are ‘what is so’. Assessments are ‘what you make of what is so’.
For example: The table is 10 feet by 4 feet. For example: I make this table big enough to
play table tennis on it.
94 Declaring Breakdowns
There are innumerable events that take place in our everyday lives. We
as humans by default pick and choose certain events and create our
interpretations or assessments around the events. In simpler words,
we humans are story-making machines. When an event occurs, we
very quickly generate a story about it in our minds, and one of the
traps we easily fall into is believing that this story is ‘the truth’.
Worse, we fail to recognize that we made up that ‘truth’.
Let us see a typical day for Alan at work. Alan is the Senior
Manager of a multinational bank. On one Friday, he enters his
office premises totally engrossed in checking his emails on his
phone. He does however hear the security man greeting and
wishing ‘good morning’ to his colleague who is walking along with
him. The security man does not greet Alan. Alan in that moment,
very subconsciously, assesses that the security guy does not respect
him. He gives an angry glance to the security man.
They then live their lives operating inside of a truth that they have
created, having completely forgotten that they are the authors of
these stories. They are empowered by these stories, and sometimes,
they are disempowered by these stories. They become happy, sad,
angry, frustrated, resigned, resentful and so forth, all because of the
stories that they create.
Reflective Pause
At this stage, I invite you to take a reflect pause and consider the stories you
are creating and holding to be the truth.
96 Declaring Breakdowns
Assertion about the event Child refused to tell a story in front of the class
(What is so)
Assessment that was made Her son will get lower marks on his tests, his
by Naomi (What she teacher will think little of him, his friends may
made of what is so) not relate to him, he will lose his confidence
and he will turn into a shy boy!
Actions Naomi scolded her child
Result An unhappy and confused 7-year-old boy
100 Declaring Breakdowns
Assertion about the event Child refused to tell a story in front of the
class
Another assessment that could be made by • He is a child, he will learn as he grows
Naomi (What she made of what is so) • He probably did not understand what his
teacher meant
• He is not confident about the topic he
needs to speak on
• He needs more practise
Some other actions that she could take • Let it be and allow her child that space
to learn and grow
• Speak calmly to her child and help him
understand what it means to speak in
front of the class
• Give him instances where she herself had
broken her barrier of speaking in front of
an audience, thus reinstating an element
of self-confidence in the child
• Speak to her child and explain to him
the topic that needs to be spoken on and
make the entire conversation more visual
and exciting for the child
Results A happy, confident child (which is Naomi’s
ultimate commitment)
Reflective Pause
What are the assessments that you have about yourself that are stopping you
from breaking through. What are the assessments that you have about others?
What is the impact these assessments have on your results?
Get present to these stories.
Get Present to ‘What Is So’ (Assertions) 103
Grounded Assessments
We usually do not make assessments about our assessments. We
just have assessments and leap forward with our overwhelming
opinion and action. But when something important is at stake,
we will produce better results if we ask the question ‘Is this the
best assessment for me to make given what I care about, and the
importance of the consequence of my choice?’
While distinguishing assertions and assessments earlier, I had
stated that assertions are claims of facts and are either true or false;
and assessments are opinions, judgements or conclusions and are
not true or false but grounded or ungrounded.
I have also stated the importance of making assessments.
If you do not make assessments, you will not take action. To
take action, you need to make assessments. So, how do you
know which assessments are grounded and which ones are not
grounded? Which assessments you can trust and which you cannot
trust? Which assessments will serve you better?
Grounded assessments are assessments that have answered a
set of questions that require clarification before the listener can
accept the assessment. These questions concern care, standards,
domain and evidence.
Grounding is a practice to make assessments about a ssessments.
If an assessment is ‘grounded’, then it has evidence to an acceptable
standard and is more likely to be effective in producing a desired
outcome than an assessment that is ‘ungrounded’—lacking clear
standards, evidence or specification of the domain of concern.
Grounding does not make an assessment true; it only provides
evidence and argument that it is a good assessment for our pur-
pose. And ungrounded assessments only mean the assessments
lack a relevant story with evidence to trust the assessments. In
grounding, we recommend that you ask certain questions. We ask
that you seek for rigorous answers, and use the answers to generate
the assessment about the assessment.
104 Declaring Breakdowns
Acceptance
Acceptance is a critical distinction when declaring breakdowns. My
experience has been that people accept ‘their assessments’ as the
truth, and move forward with the declarations. This is a fundamental
error commonly made by working executives. To make a d eclaration,
you have to distinguish ‘what is so’ from ‘what am I making of what
is so’. And then accept ‘what is so’ for what it is.
Acceptance is acknowledging ‘what is so’. It is a cknowledging
the facts about events. Most times, we accept our assessments
about the situations to be the truth. We accept that meetings are
Get Present to ‘What Is So’ (Assertions) 107
Reflective Pause
Take a few moments of a reflective pause.
Presence
To declare breakdowns, as discussed earlier, you need to accept
the assertions as they are. The concern we have is people do not
distinguish between assertions and assessments, and end up
accepting their assessments as the truth.
To accept the assertions, and not live in a world of stories or
assessments, you need to be present in the moment.
Presence is an essential state of being when you are conscious
of your commitments and drive your actions towards that purpose,
with a choice to create what you want. Presence is living in the
moment and feeling alive to what is happening around us. Presence
is seeing things that were otherwise invisible to us. Presence helps
us to live the moment to its full profundity. Presence is a vital
catalyst to nurturing and enhancing relations.
The bad news is your internal conversations, which are your
stories, have the power to make you dance like a doll on strings.
These conversations are a part of you and will never stop. The good
news is you can have control over these internal conversations.
Being present to these conversations is your access to altering
these conversations. Once you are present to these internal con-
versations, you then have a choice to allow these conversations to
continue or to change them.
Imagine a situation where you are stuck in a traffic jam on your
way to work. You get all worked up and frustrated and hurl abuses
at the situation. You can feel your eyes are rigid, your eyebrows
Get Present to ‘What Is So’ (Assertions) 109
are tensed, your stomach is squeezed in and you are taking short
breaths. You are in this state for the entire 30 minutes while you
are stuck at that point on the road. Your mind is busy making
assessments of the impact of missing your first meeting, and being
late for that all-important video call with your client.
Now imagine a situation when you are present in the moment.
You are centred and you accept that there is a traffic jam and you are
stuck in it. If you imagine your body in this scenario, you will realize
your eyes are not tensed, your jaw is not clenched, your e yebrows
are relaxed and overall you are feeling at ease and in control of the
situation. In such a mind and body state, it is so much easier to
think rationally and take measures to ensure your absence at work
will not hamper your productivity to as large an extent.
It is human tendency to have stories going on in our heads
while we see an event unfolding. Getting present to your inter-
nal conversations quickly is a matter of practice. This awareness
gives you the choice of creating powerful conversations that
matter to you.
Being present is very essential for dealing with breakdowns.
It is being present to the assertions and also being present to the
choices you have in making assessments that will impact your
actions and hence results.
If presence is indeed so important, let us first begin with what
does presence even mean.
To have presence is to live in this moment, in the here and now.
Not in your past, and not in your future. To have presence is to be
bodily alert in this moment. It is to be aware of your emotional
state, its impact on how you see the world and also its impact on
others around you.
To have presence is to be connected every moment with the
question: ‘for the sake of what am I doing what I am doing’. It
is being connected to your purpose, and acting in fulfilling your
purpose.
What I have stated earlier is the internal aspect of presence.
There is another aspect to presence, which is the external aspect
of presence.
110 Declaring Breakdowns
First C: Choice
At IGL, we claim ‘You always have a choice’. We understand that
humans may have no choice in the matter of the facts of this world.
For example, I have a coachee who runs a successful b usiness, but is
visually blind. In this moment, he has no choice in the matter of his
eyesight, and he cannot state ‘I always have choice, and I want my
eyesight back’. That is not what we mean by ‘You always have choice’.
My coachee may have no choice in the fact (assertion) that he
is blind; however, he always has a choice with how he approaches his
blindness. He can be disempowered about it; he can blame God for
it; he can blame his destiny for it; or he can simply accept it, and
move on in his life to take care of what he cares about.
In every moment, irrespective of your external circumstance, you
have a choice in how you interpret your external circumstance, and
how you interpret your external circumstance will determine what
action you take. To be in a state of choice is also known as being
centred.
We are centred when our body, mind and emotions are in a
state where we can choose our actions. When we are not in a
state to choose our actions, we are ‘off-centre’; our reactions and
tendencies choose for us.
Second C: Care
In this moment, what care are you taking care of ?
Get Present to ‘What Is So’ (Assertions) 111
Third C: Commitment
Bob Dunham, the Founder of IGL, makes a claim that our actions
are shaped by our commitment. This claim has been tested in dif-
ferent situations over 30 years, and not once has it been proved
otherwise.
The question here is, ‘Are you aware of your commitment, or
are you blind to your commitment?’ For example, when you go to
a colleague to make a request, and the colleague responds angrily,
112 Declaring Breakdowns
do you clarify why you made the request you made, or do you jump
to retort to his angry comment?
You had a commitment when you went up to the colleague to
make a request—your action of making the request was inside
of some commitment. But when you received an angry response,
you lost connection with your commitment of why you were
making the request in the first place, and suddenly became com-
mitted to teaching the other person a lesson, or defending your
position, or guarding your false self-esteem, or something else
of the sort.
Being connected to your commitment, moment to moment, is
having presence.
Declaring breakdowns is an important leadership move;
however, to be able to declare breakdowns, you need to have
presence. You need to be connected with your choices, with your
cares and with your commitments.
Generative Practices
1. Every evening give yourself 10 minutes to think about the
assessments you made about the events in the day, that is,
‘What are the stories you made of what was so’. Draw out
a table like shown in the cases of Cedrick and Naomi. List
out at least 5 events and against them write down ‘what was
so’ and ‘what did you make of what was so’.
2. Think of 3 major situations that have overwhelmed you in
the past where you were totally consumed by your interpre-
tations of the events. Remind yourself—what stories did you
make that caused the overwhelm. Now think about what
powerful stories you could have made in those situations
and the possible difference those stories would have made
to your life then.
3. In the next working day you have, bring your attention
consciously to the thoughts in your mind during meetings
or conversations with colleagues or even when you are busy
at work. Make a mental note of them or journal them at the
end of the day. You will be amazed at your findings.
4. What are the assessments you have about yourself ? Get
present to these assessments and ground these assessments.
116 Declaring Breakdowns
Notes
1. The term ‘somatics’ derives from the Greek word somatikos, which signifies
the living, aware, bodily person. It posits that neither mind nor body is sepa-
rate from the other; both being a part of a living process called the soma.
The soma is often referred to as the living body in its wholeness; somatics,
then is the art and science of the soma. Richard Strozzi-Heckler has provided
this understanding of somatics in his book The Art of Somatic Coaching.
2. Bob Dunham in his Leadership papers for the Generative Leadership
programme.
7
Default Future
I had a coachee who was a businessman and ran a decent-sized business. His
business in the last few years was not doing very well. No new products were
introduced, the market of the existing products was shrinking and generally
the competition was taking over market share. In one of my early interactions
with him, I asked him, ‘If no new actions are taken by you, where do you see
yourself 1 year, 3 years and 5 years from now?’
This question is a powerful question, and it straightaway makes the c onnection
between what we do today and the impact our today’s actions have on our
future.
He was taken aback by this otherwise simple and obvious question. Something
shifted for him in this question itself. He was evidently drifting in his
professional life. He said, ‘1 year from now, if I don’t take any major actions,
my business will make further losses; and then 3 years from now, it would be
exceedingly difficult to survive with the growing losses; and 5 years from now,
my business would definitely be in liquidation.’
This is what is meant by default future.
People can predict and foresee their default future only if they ask
themselves—what is the default future in this area? Granted, we
Default Future 119
cannot see specific things like the date of our death or what the
National Stock Exchange average will be on 31 March 2020. But
we have written (and are writing our future in the actions that we are
taking and the assessments that we are making) our own future and
we do not realize it.
We all understand that if we do not save for our retirement, we
are going to have to live our elderly years sparsely with nothing
to get by on except depending on our children to support us or
on charity. If you smoke cigarettes and continue to do so for
40 years, your default future is that you will most likely have health
problems in the future.
Results
Assessments Actions (Default
Future)
Default Future 121
Awareness Choice
122 Declaring Breakdowns
Generative Practices
I invite you to consider and journal your default future in the
following areas:
To help you become aware of your default future, here are some
questions for you to ask yourself in each area of your life:
Every action and decision we make today impacts our goals, col-
leagues, team, organization, family and friends. While you are
considering the above questions, I also want you to imagine how
your actions impact the default future of people around you.
(Please do not worry if your default future gets you concerned. As a
matter of fact, for some of you, chances are it may. I would like you to be
aware of your default future, which may be blind to you currently. This
awareness will present a choice to create a new future, which is the topic
of the next chapter.)
Note
1. Steve Zaffron and Dave Logan, The Three Laws of Performance: Rewriting the
Future of Your Organization and Your Life (California: Jossey-Bass/Wiley/
Times Group Books, 2009).
8
Creating a New Future
The targets were the same for the old and the new franchi-
sees. The new franchisee over exceeded the targets in the first
6 months.
Conversations for possibilities are pervasive and we are all
engaged in them. Some conversations for possibilities close
possibilities and others open possibilities.
The first franchisee ‘created’ a future around the assessment
that ‘this target was impossible’. They closed possibilities with this
creation. The actions that these people took subconsciously fell
inside of the context that ‘the target was not possible’.
The second franchisee ‘created’ a future, suggesting ‘these were
easy targets and that they could exceed these targets’. They opened
up possibilities with this creation. The actions these people took
were inside of a context, suggesting that the targets were low and
that they wanted to earn the bonus for exceeding the target.
What you speak opens and closes possibilities.
Your word is the power that you have to create. Through the
word you express your creative power. It is through the word
that you manifest everything. Regardless of what language
you speak, your intent manifests through the word. The word
is not just a written sound or a symbol. The word is a force; it
is the power you have to create the events in your life.
7. The key is to see the power you have to create; once you do
this, most of the battle is won. Most people simply do not
believe they have this power to create and have not lived
life from this disclosive space. Irrespective of the way you
have lived your life—you are always only one conversation
away from creating a new future.
8. It is a practice to develop, to be present or alive to the future
you are creating.
9. The general common sense of our way of life is ‘I need to
know how I will achieve’ first and then I will be able to
declare ‘what future I can create’. This is a misunderstanding
of our common culture. My claim is the ‘what’ needs to
come first, and then the ‘how’ starts to get disclosed.
10. For most people in our culture, ‘not knowing’ stops them—
they must know to act. In generative leadership, ‘not
knowing’ is a place to begin action. Here our first action is
to ‘know’, and then to invent new value.
11. Taking action with ‘not knowing’ is a skill, and one that is
fundamental to leadership.
12. Creating a new future is critical to declaring a breakdown.
When you declare a breakdown, you are in effect stating
that the default future is not OK with you, and that you are
at the source of creating a future of your choice.
Generative Practices
You reflected upon your default future in different areas of your
life in the previous chapter. If your default future does not work for
you in any area of your life, this practice is an invitation for you to
design a new future of choice in those areas of your life.
Notes
1. http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/possibility?q=Possi-
bility&searchDictCode=all, accessed 16 February 2016.
2. David Steindl-Rast, Gratefulness, the Heart of Prayer: An Approach to Life in
Fullness (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1984). http://www.gratefulness.org/
readings/dd_abcs_h-j.htm
3. L. Ron Hubbard, Dianetics and Scientology Technical Dictionary (Denmark:
New Era Publications, 1975, 1978).
4. Don Miguel Ruiz, The Four Agreements (California: Amber-Allen Publishing,
Inc., 1997, 2012).
5. Bob Dunham has a yet unpublished paper called the ‘Power of Not Knowing’.
I came across this paper in my education at IGL, USA, and found this concept
powerful. I have referred to the above-mentioned paper in this section.
9
Identifying Missing Actions
Anatomy of Action
Here are some fundamental claims (Figure 9.1):
Care / Concerns
Conversations
Commitment
Actions
Outcomes
The root cause of all outcomes, positive or negative, are conversations
we have effectively, ineffectively or don’t have.
Having conversations is non-discretionary. You either have them or
face the consequences of not having them.
some kind of action. So, action of ‘no action’ will give you a
result of ‘no result’ or a result that may not be satisfactory
or acceptable. For example, Peter is speeding and he knows
this but takes no action to slow down. The police stop him
and the result is he gets a ticket. Similarly, Allen sits all day
in front of his TV and watches sports channels. The result
is his family does not have food on the table. His ‘inaction’
of not working to earn money, and his ‘action’ of watching
sports channels all day, gives him the result of no food on
the table.
We also ‘decide’ that no intervention or action will pro-
duce what we want, so we take the action of abiding with
what is happening anyway. It is an active choice. The prob-
lem is that we often do not see it as a choice being made
by us, and we give up our power to choose in the story and
emotion of resignation.
For example, assessments we make such as ‘I cannot
make a difference’, or ‘I cannot go against authority’, or ‘I
am not good enough to act’ are stories that create a mood of
resignation and give us our choice of no action.
In a health care services company where I delivered a
keynote talk, the vice-president stated to me, ‘The powers are
not with me. The Board takes all the decisions, and tells us
what to do, so what’s the point of me doing anything—it
will be rejected by the board in any case.’ The v ice-president
was blind to the ‘choice’ he was making. He was making an
assessment (he was blind to the choice he had in making this
assessment—he thought this assessment was ‘the truth’), and
that assessment was giving him the emotion of resignation.
Because of that assessment and the emotion of resignation,
he continued to take no action.
In our life, we are constantly looking for how to improve
our actions, to improve our results. For that to happen, the
interpretation that action is movement and activity does
not help. We need to use the interpretation that action is
generative acts in language that shape subsequent action.
One fundamental ‘generative act’ that creates and shapes
our movement and behaviour is commitment.
Identifying Missing Actions 139
Missing Conversations
Talk is powerful. You need to engage in the right conversation at
the right time. This is crucial for your personal and organizational
success. To look for the missing conversation is not a part of our
cultural reality. However, the claim that I make here is:
If you do not have the results that you want, there are missing
conversations that you need to distinguish first and then
have—with others and with yourself. If you have d ifferent
conversations, you can have different results. And if you
want different results, you must have different conversations.
the organization and its actions and results but also begin to have
the sensibility to see the missing conversations. For example,
dissatisfaction in a certain area is a symptom of a missing promise
in that area; if it were fulfilled, it would produce satisfaction
instead of dissatisfaction. This missing promise may be the result
of a missing request. The missing request may be the result that
people are not clear who is responsible or authorized to make
such requests.
By understanding what the conversations would look like to
produce a desired result, we can see the missing conversations
in the current situation. This may be an opportunity to declare a
breakdown.
Once you have declared the breakdown, and created a new
future, a powerful question is, ‘What conversations are missing
that would produce this new created future?’ The reason this is a
powerful question is because once you have asked this question,
you ‘listen’ for missing conversations.
Let us now look at listening as unavoidable, crucial and
powerful action.
Listening
• objective facts,
• care and commitment and
• possibilities.
Reflective Pause
Take a moment to pause and observe what it is that you are generally listening
for.
Recognize that you have a choice in this matter. Remember, what you ‘see’ is
a function of what you listen for.
Conversation for
Relationship
Conversation for
Possibility
Conversation
for Action
• Shared interest
• Shared care
• Shared commitment
• Emerging possibilities
• Conditions of satisfaction
• Commitment
• Care (for the sake of what?)
Identifying Missing Actions 149
• Shared interest
Conversations for
• Shared care
Relationships
• Shared commitment
Conversations for
• Emerging possibilities
Possibilities
• Conditions of satisfaction
Conversations for
• Commitment
Action
• Care (for the sake of what?)
Shared Care or
Shared
Shared Interest Shared
Commitment
Concern
For example:
And all of this can only be accomplished by taking the time to talk,
having conversations.
Conversations for relationship require us to slow down, to do
our best to understand one another, to suspend judgement, to
be curious and to listen—deeply. We allow our own world to be
touched and opened, by the world of other people. Done well,
we give our aspirations wings through the trust of others and the
shared sense of being up to something that matters.
Identifying Missing Actions 151
• Shared Interest
• Shared Care and Concern
• Shared Commitment
Reflective Pause
In which of your relationships is a conversation for relationship missing
currently? With your subordinates, peers, seniors, family, friends and so forth?
How will having this conversation impact the result you have in your
relationship with these people?
1. Listen
2. Speculate
3. Choose
4. Declare
Speculate Declare
Different
For the Based on the
possibilities
emerging option available Declare the
that may emerge
possibilities make a choice for future
for you as an
from the future your future.
observer
Listen Choose
154 Declaring Breakdowns
Speculate
According to Denning and Dunham, ‘A speculation is a
conversation in which the participants create new possibilities for
future action, and set a context in which those actions make sense’.
Speculative conversations relate to what could exist or might be
done in the future. The key questions to be asked are, ‘What is it
possible to do?’ ‘What future would we like to create?’ Or ‘What
new can we achieve or create?’5
The characteristics of speculation are
• openness to possibilities,
• no commitments to action and
• suspension of assessments.
Declaration
Most accomplishments begin when someone makes a declaration:
‘This is possible’. Your missing action, or missing conversation, can
be that of a declarative speech act, that is, of bringing forth a new
future through the speech act of declaration.
While we constantly make declarations about what is or is
not possible, we seldom do so responsibly. Every word we speak
either expands options for action and brings forth a new future or
guarantees the status quo, or even closes possibilities. Please refer
to Chapter 5 for more information on declaration.
156 Declaring Breakdowns
Generative Practices
1. What do you care about? If you have not identified your
cares yet, this might be a good time to do so.
2. Remember, you take care of your cares when you have
commitments in each of your cares, and you act inside of
these commitments. What are your different commitments
inside each of your cares (what results would you like to
achieve in each of your cares)?
3. Practice the listening act. Actively choose any one from
the following three types of listening when in conversation
with yourself or with others:
• Listening for objective facts
• Listening for care and commitment
• Listening for possibilities
4. Be present to when you are listening to make yourself right
(or listening to make the other wrong).
5. In which of your relationships do you need to have a
conversation for relationship? Have these conversations
with them and journal what transpired?
6. By having these missing conversations for relationships
with people, what conversations for possibility opened up
for you? What new possible outcomes may be generated,
which were not available to you earlier?
Notes
1. Fernando Flores, ‘Preface’, in Conversation for Action and Collected Essays:
Instilling a Culture of Commitment in Working Relationships, ed. Maria
Flores (South Carolina: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform,
2012), ix.
160 Declaring Breakdowns
Powerful Request
An effective request gets the performer to commit to the action.
The act of a powerful request gets the performer to commit to
a new (shared) future and then take actions inside of this new
future. A powerful request goes beyond an effective request. It has
all the elements of an effective request and more.
A powerful request is made when you create a new e mpowering
(shared) future that connects with the other person and this
person is touched, moved and inspired by this new empowering
shared future. The person feels a shift in that moment that
makes this person want to achieve the future you have created. A
powerful request shows up as an opportunity to the other person
and motivates the other person to make a commitment to that
new future.
168 Declaring Breakdowns
Unreasonable Request
As a coach, I have seen people getting stopped from making
requests, which mean they have stopped themselves from taking
action and participating actively in the causation of the future they
created. The reason for doing so is that they assess their request to
be unreasonable. Humans get stopped from achieving extraordi-
nary success because they want to be reasonable. ‘Unreasonable’
is an assessment that you make, without realizing that you are
making this assessment, and it is this assessment that stops you
from making a request to the performer.
There are several automatic assessments that stop people from
making requests, such as
Your missing action may be a missing offer that can change the
course of the future and lead you to a new future of your creation.
Negotiation
Negotiation is the process that takes place after the request or
offer has been made, and before an agreement has been arrived at
between the customer and the performer. The performer in case
of a request and customer in case of an offer can have 4 possible
responses to a request or offer:
1. Accept
2. Decline
3. Negotiate
4. Commit to commit
Each of these are totally valid responses. Unfortunately, the
common sense in much of the world is that a ‘decline’ to a request
is not an acceptable response. My claim is that a ‘decline’ is as valid
a response as an ‘accept’ is. I would rather have a ‘decline’ than
have an ‘accept’ and then have the performer not perform. We are
looking for commitment in our interactions with others. Promise
or decline show the commitment of the other person and show us
the future that we share together. A promise that is really a hidden
decline is a breakdown coming.
When there is decline, many people make it that the ‘person and
their care has been declined’. This is certainly not the case—it is
not the person or their care that has been rejected, it is the request
that has been declined. The person making the request is distinct
from the request. When a request is declined, the person is not
declined. If you embody this distinction, you will not be stopped
from making requests (including unreasonable requests) to people.
When one performer declines, it does not mean that all
performers will decline your request. I have noticed that people
start to question their request and make their request unreasonable
when a performer declines the request. You can most definitely
make the same request to another performer, who may offer a
different response.
Conversation for Action 171
Declaration of Completion
When the performer performs the action, it is important that the
performer performs per the COS agreed between the customer and
the performer. During the process of performing the action, it is
important that the performer remains in touch with the customer
and keeps the customer updated on unexpected delays or changes.
Once the performance stage is completed, the performer
declares completion to the customer. It can be in the form of
stating ‘It’s complete’ or ‘I’ve done the actions you requested’, or
submitting any report that was part of the COS.
In my experience as a coach, I have noticed this is a common
missing conversation in conversations for action (Figure 10.2).
Declaration of Satisfaction
Once the performer declares completion, there is one more step
in the completion of the entire conversation for action and that is
the declaration of satisfaction by the customer to the performer.
This declaration of satisfaction is usually just a simple ‘thank you’
(Figure 10.3).
174 Declaring Breakdowns
Generative Practices
1. Are you making effective requests? What elements of
requests are generally missing for you?
2. Use these elements of effective requests and see how this
impacts the response to the request (making effective
requests does not guarantee a trustworthy commitment—it
certainly increases the chances of receiving a trustworthy
commitment).
3. If action is shaped by commitment, a question for you to reflect
upon is: ‘Are you committed to action, or are you committed
to comfort?’ What action are you committed to, inside of
achieving a new future in each of your cares? Please journal
your responses. We often avoid honest conversations and
commitments to stay in our comfort zones. This often limits
our impact as leaders.
4. What do you do when you make a request and receive a
commitment that you cannot trust? Do you accept this
untrustworthy commitment? You have a choice to let the
person know that you do not trust his/her commitment,
and seek a commitment that you can trust.
5. What does ‘promise exists in the listening of the other’
provoke in you? Do you agree with this statement? A place
Conversation for Action 179
Use these questions for daily journaling, for the sake of improving
your capacity to create the future with others that you are
committed to and care about.
Notes
1. I have referred to the work of Fernando Flores on this topic. He has a book
titled Conversations for Action and Collected Essays: Instilling a Culture of
Commitment in Working Relationships, edited by Maria Flores Letelier (South
Carolina: CreateSpace Publishing Platform, 2013).
2. Chalmers Brothers, Language and the Pursuit of Happiness (Florida: New
Possibilities Press, 2005).
11
Execution
but just cannot get myself to’ or ‘I have been planning to start my
business but am waiting for the right opportunity.
‘Being on the court’ means making and fulfilling promises and
not wondering what people around you are saying. Listening to
too many other assessments (including the internal chatter of your
mind) can shake your conviction and take you off your course.
Then there are other people who do get on to the court,
but seek approval, assurance and views from the ‘people in the
stands’. It is fine to seek others’ views, and that actually is a great
idea. However, the views that are important are that of your
coach, teammates, captain (read ‘manager’) and so on. Certainly
not of the ‘people in the stands’. (And if you do not have a coach
yet, seriously consider getting one.)
‘Being on the court’ means being the cause in the matter.
Remember, it is actions you take that lead to your performance.
History is evidence of the fact that no one has ever won the game
by being in the stands.
The problem for a lot of people is not that they do not know
what to do; the problem is that they simply do not do it.
It is important that you get clear for yourself that your only
access to impacting life is action. The world does not care what
you intend, how committed you are, how you feel or what you
think, and certainly it has no interest in what you want and
don’t want. Take a look at life and see for yourself that the
world only moves for you when you act. (Werner Erhard)
Most people agree that the two strongest human urges are
survival and procreation, but there is very little consensus on
the next most powerful. I believe it’s the need to succeed.
Humans hate to fail—hate it more than almost anything else.
182 Declaring Breakdowns
He adds:
the time they were conceived!). I am seeing them grow week after
week. First, they would not recognize us, but now they do; earlier,
they could not hold their necks straight, but now they do.
As they grow older, they will first learn to turn while lying
down. Once they have turned and come on their stomachs, they
will not be able to go back to their earlier position of lying on their
back. They will yell for help and one of us will have to straighten
them. But, they will not learn from this ‘mistake’—they will do the
same thing again and again and again, till they learn to turn back
on their own.
And then they will learn to sit up, and then to crawl. While
crawling, they will fall a number of times, hurt themselves and yet
not stop. Eventually, they will master crawling. Again, thankfully,
that will not be enough for them.
They will want to learn to walk, run, cycle, swim and so on.
And each time, they will fall several times, possibly even harming
themselves. Yet, they will not give up.
It is interesting that as we grow older, we think we become
smarter, and yet this smartness works against us. We start to apply
reason (read ‘we start to make assessments’) and make decisions
that do not help us. If we fall (read ‘fail’), we create such c onvincing
reasons for not attempting again.
Failure is simply an assessment of a moment where our
expectations were not fulfilled. But we still have a future, and a
rich one.
In a workshop that I conducted recently for a large multinational
organization, there was a practice that I asked the participants to
do first thing in the morning of day 3. A senior manager in this
organization could not complete the practice. He ‘decided’ that he
was ‘slow’ and hence he could not complete the practice.
To me, he did not seem slow at all—he was active in the
conversations during the programme. It was clear that the other
participants had high regard for him, and his achievements. However,
it was evident that he believed completely that he was ‘slow’, and
him being slow was the reason for not completing the practice. My
guess is that the practice was not completed because subconsciously
he was proving himself to be right—that he was ‘slow’.
184 Declaring Breakdowns
And according to him because he ‘is’ slow, he does not make big
promises. And when you do not make big promises, you do not
have to execute on these promises.
Your many attempts can fail, and that is fine. The problem
arises when you stop making attempts due to failure! The choice
is between inaction and failure! For me, it is a no-brainer! I would
much rather choose failure. The more you reside in inaction, the
more you engage in conversation of wanting to avoid failure!
Make failure a lesson and an opening for the next step, not a
block to the journey to your future. As long as you have breath and
choice, you can create your journey to the future, and in fact always
are doing so (your actions are creating your future, and so are your
inactions).
Another reason people do not take action is because they are
confused about what next to do.
As a final point, I ask you the same question: ‘Do your current
rhythms support you in generating the future you desire?’
Generative Practices
1. Remember, ‘performance happens on the court’. Where in
your life are you not on the court, but on the stands? What
is missing?
2. What is your relationship with failure? Get present to the
assertions and the assessments, and remember, ‘failure’ is
only a conversation.
3. Reflect and journal the existing rhythms that you have cur-
rently in your life.
190 Declaring Breakdowns
Note
1. Roger Martin, ‘Are You Confusing Strategy with Planning’, Harvard Business
Review, 2 May 2014. https://hbr.org/2014/05/are-you-confusing-strate-
gy-with-planning/, accessed 16 February 2016.
Epilogue
(Continued)
Old Interpretation New Interpretation
Practice is done by sportspersons, musi- Leadership is a performance art. To learn
cians, artists and so on. However, for leadership, we need to know the con-
leaders, once we have the knowledge, cepts (the science), and then practise to
we can deliver. become masterful in the art.
One way of engaging with life and the
world is through abstractions, thinking
and reflections, but the mastery of action
is always from embodied skill.
The common-sense understanding of a Conversation is the interaction of human
conversation is speaking and hearing. beings that creates action, meaning,
Most people presume beyond speaking listening, moods and emotions and con-
and hearing, there is not much going nection with others and the future.
on in a conversation. Conversations are not just words, but the
whole body reactions that are provoked
when we interact in language, and when
we interact and language is provoked.
Conversations include language, moods
and emotions, body reactions and
experiences and the listening that is
based on the history of the people in the
conversation. Conversations are shaped
in linguistic and cultural practices.
Communication is for transmission of Communication is about sharing a world,
information. cares and creating a shared future.
Communication is ‘changing together’,
and each person brings their world-
view, background and presence to each
conversation—it is a place of contact
where the future is always being created
through interaction (and even in silence).
One way that language is understood in While our old interpretation works, it hides
our current age is as a description of that language is generative, and highly
our world, a set of labels that we use to creative—not just descriptive. Language
describe things and people, a medium has the power, and through language, we
for the transfer of information. Much generate
research in language has worked in this • action,
framework—that words correspond to • outcomes of action,
entities and phenomena in the world. • possibilities,
We see that a word like ‘chair’ corre- • commitments,
sponds to an artefact by that name in • identities,
the world. • opinions,
• moods and emotions and much more.
Appendix 1: Old Interpretation to New Interpretation 195
(Continued)
Old Interpretation New Interpretation
The common-sense understanding of our The world we see is a function of the
culture is that the world we see is a observer we are. We live in two worlds,
function of what is ‘out there’. one is the physical world, and the other
is the linguistic world that we create and
manifest. The physical world is the same
for everyone. However, it is this linguistic
world that we create that determines
• how we show up in the world,
• what actions we take and
• what results we have.
The world is what it is and we have no We create our world.
impact on it. And we are creating our world, whether
or not we are aware of it; it is extremely
powerful to learn how to create our
worlds because awareness creates choice.
There is one way of seeing things, and it There are as many ways of seeing things as
is only my way. there are observers.
We live in the world. We live in language. We create the world
through our interpretations and how we
see it.
Our world is always a world of our
interpretations.
We are who we are (you are fixed). We are who we create ourselves to be—
moment to moment. And we are doing
this anyway, including when we live in
the story that we are not.
Results are an outcome of the actions Indeed. Results are indeed a function of
we take. the actions we take. However, the actions
we take are a function of the observer
we are.
We have opinions, judgements and That is right. However, sometimes our
assessments. opinions, judgements and assessments
have gotten us. Our lives are being
driven by these opinions, judgements
and assessments and we may be blind
to this.
We can become aware of our automatic
judgements to design ones that serve our
purpose.
Appendix 1: Old Interpretation to New Interpretation 197
(Continued)
Old Interpretation New Interpretation
Our results come from physical activity While for certain results, physical activity
(doing). may be required, all our results have
their root cause in conversations—
conversations that are had, conversations
that are missing, conversations that are
performed poorly or conversations that
are performed well.
Leaders are people with authority. We are all leaders. The question is, ‘Are we
exercising our full-blown leadership in
this moment?’
Appendix 2: Form for Declaring a
Breakdown and Creating a Future of
Design
Acceptance
• Acceptance is acknowledging what is. Acceptance is not
acknowledging your assessments as ‘the truth’.
• Acceptance means that we are centred in the world as it is
and ready for action, rather than consumed and off-centre
with our assessments or preferences about the situation.
• We are present, and can take action, rather than being in our
mood and conversations.
• We are in the mood of ‘it is the way it is—now what am
I committed to, and what actions will I take to fulfil my
commitments?’ rather than the mood of ‘I don’t like the way
it is, and I’m going to be triggered and perturbed’.
• Acceptance has a lot to do with letting go.
• Acceptance does not mean agreement or approval.
Action
Action is shaped by language, and the generative acts of language
are the actions that shape subsequent actions.
204 Declaring Breakdowns
So, in effect:
Action equals generative acts in language, and also physical
action that is shaped because of these generative language acts.
We interpret action not as some disembodied activity that we
have to organize ‘out there’, but rather as generated by acts of
commitments by people who care about some concern.
Action is shaped by commitment—by the commitments we
make or do not make, the clarity of the commitment and the
ownership and importance of the commitment to the person
committing. This is crucial for our understanding of action in
organizations, because the fundamental unit of work in organizations
is the agreement, not the task. Agreements are commitments.
Assertions
An assertion is a claim of fact, which is either true or false, to
a standard established by the community.
Assertions can be substantiated or refuted through observation
and evidence.
The important elements of assertions are as follows:
Assessments
An assessment is a statement of evaluation, opinion or judgement.
Assessments are neither true nor false. Instead, assessments can be
grounded (supported by evidence) or ungrounded.
The important elements of assessments are as follows:
Awareness
Awareness means that something has been distinguished in our
perceptual field, giving us the potential of paying attention to it
and putting it into language. Awareness is the foundation of our
power to act and interact with another. To be unaware is to be
blind. When we are aware of something, we have a choice in our
response to it. When we are unaware, we have no choice.
The realization that awareness is the foundation of all action
is behind the principle ‘awareness creates choice’. We are literally
aware only of what our bodies are trained to be aware of.
Blindness
Blindness is a state where we do not know that we do not know.
Blindness is a state of no choice.
Centred
Being centred is being in a physical, mental and emotional state
of choice. We are centred when our body, mind and emotions are
in a state where we can choose our actions. When we are not in a
state to choose our actions, we are ‘off-centre’; our reactions and
tendencies choose for us. We cannot blend when we are off-centre.
In centring, we attain complete balance and focus regardless of our
situations.
206 Declaring Breakdowns
Conversation
Conversation is the interaction of human beings that creates
action, meaning, listening, moods and emotions and the future.
Conversations are not just words, but whole body reactions that
are provoked when we interact in language or when we interact
and language is provoked.
Conversations include language, moods and emotions, body
reactions and experiences and the listening that is based on the
history of the people in the conversation. Conversations are shaped
in linguistic and cultural practices.3
• Shared interest
• Shared care or concern
• Shared commitment
Declaration
A declaration is a speech and a listening act, made by a person
of authority to do so, where he or she, out of nothingness, brings
forth a new possibility, a new future into existence that they own.
A declaration can begin, resolve or end things.
Appendix 3: Distinctions 209
Default Future
Default future is the future that was going to happen unless
something dramatic and unexpected happened. By default
future, we do not mean the inevitable future—such as ageing
and eventually dying—but rather what is going to happen in our
experience, whether we give it much thought or not.4
Future of Design
Future of design is the opposite of default future. A future of
design is a future you create with your declarations.
Generative Conversations
Communication is considered to describe things, not generate
them, to be the transfer of information, with an emphasis on good
presentation rather than listening skills. However, language is
generative in addition to being descriptive. We focus on the aspects
of language and communication that generate action and thereby
results; that generate possibilities, meaning, value and s atisfaction
for ourselves and others; and even generate moods and emotions
in our experience.
The relevance of speaking and listening for organizations,
leadership and coaching is to recognize the generative power of
language. One way that language is understood in our current age
is as a description of our world, a set of linguistic tokens for entities
in reality, a medium for the transfer of information. Much research
in language has worked in this framework—that words correspond
to entities and phenomena in the world. We see that a word like
‘chair’ corresponds to an artefact by that name in the world. As
I have said, this perspective hides that language is generative, not
just descriptive. Language has the power to generate action, the
outcomes of action, possibilities, commitment, identities, opinions
and much more.
In the 1940s, Oxford philosopher John Austin pointed out
that we perform acts in language that are not descriptive, but that
generate commitments and the future. He discovered that when
we make a promise, for example, we are not describing something
210 Declaring Breakdowns
in the world. Instead, we are making an act, and the act is one of
commitment—showing what the speaker is committed to—for
the future. A request is a similar act, in which we do not describe
something but rather make an act that shifts the future through
the commitment that is spoken, listened and asked for. Austin
called these linguistic acts ‘speech acts’.5
Generative language has the power to create new futures, to craft
vision and to eliminate the blinders that are preventing people from
seeing possibilities. It does not describe how a situation occurs; it
transforms how it occurs. It does this by rewriting the future.6
Generative Interpretation
At IGL, we state that for an interpretation to be generative, it
must
• be observable,
• be executable,
• be learnable through practice and
• generate the desired result.
Generative Practice
A generative practice is a conscious choice to embody a behaviour
that can be used in whatever situation we find ourselves in. It is
a commitment to a way of being in the world. It is life affirming,
creative, and it produces a reality by how we orient to our life
situation.
Learning to type, on the other hand, is a specific practice; it is
specific to a certain context and it takes care of a specific concern.
But typing is useful only when we are typing. A generative practice
we can use anytime, anyplace, even when we are learning to type.7
Grounded Assessments
Grounded assessments are assessments that have answered a set of
questions that require clarification before the listener can accept
the assessment. These questions concern care, standards, domain
and evidence.
Appendix 3: Distinctions 211
Internal Conversation
Internal conversation is the conversation that you have with
yourself. It is that little voice inside of you that is rarely silent.
This internal, little, voice determines how you observe the events
in your life.
Interruption
Interruptions are nothing but a break in your transparency. An
interruption disrupts the ‘established order’, and this established
order was transparent till the ‘interruption’ took place.
If something happens that leads us to a different assessment
of what it is we can expect in the future, we would call this an
interruption. An interruption implies a change in our space of
possibilities. What we assumed was possible before may no longer
212 Declaring Breakdowns
Leader
A Leader is someone
Missing Actions
In the world of generative leadership, missing actions are missing
conversational moves that are distinguished by the observer. If you
do not have the results that you want, there are missing actions/
conversations, those that you need to distinguish first and then
have with others and/or with yourself.
Possibility
The common-sense understanding of possibility, as per the Oxford
Dictionaries, is ‘A thing that may happen’.10 I am not talking about
this as possibility that may happen someday in the future.
The possibility that I am talking about in this book is a creation
of yours, that empowers you in this moment, shapes the way
you think and feel in this moment, to take new action. When you
create this kind of a possibility, you impact your ‘now’. You impact
your present.
For example, when I created the possibility of setting up IGL,
India, it changed the way I felt in that moment. I felt a new surge
of energy, a new power to take actions that were hitherto unknown
to me. A possibility that excites you automatically puts you in the
Appendix 3: Distinctions 213
mood for taking action right now. You know you can make this
happen, as long as you take actions in line with achieving this
possibility.
Presence
To have presence is to live in this moment, in the here and now.
Not in your past, and not in your future. To have presence is to be
bodily alert in this moment. It is to be aware of your emotional
state, its impact on how you see the world and also its impact on
others around you.
To have presence is to be connected every moment with the
question: ‘for the sake of what am I doing what I am doing?’ It
is being connected to your purpose, and acting in fulfilling your
purpose.
The above-mentioned definition is the internal aspect of
presence. There is another aspect to presence, which is the external
aspect of presence.
Simply put, presence is how you land on others. In others
words, presence is the assessment others make of your impact on
them. Even before you open your mouth to speak the first word,
people may make assessments about you. This assessment is based
on the body you show up in and the emotional energy you emit
generally, and in particular moments. Of course, once you start
to speak, what you speak and how you speak also impact the way
others assess your presence.
The 3 Cs of leadership presence are
• choice,
• care and
• commitment.
Problem
When something happens/does not happen, and for you that
should not ‘be’, then ‘it’ is a problem. Problems are all about ‘what
I make of what is so’.
214 Declaring Breakdowns
Relationship
A relationship is a promise.
I am the father of my children. While my children are my own,
it is not that because they were born through me that I have a
relationship with them of being a father. I am their father because
I choose to be in this relationship with them and honour the
promise of this relationship. There is a certain set of e xpectations
that my children, my wife, my parents, my children’s school and
the society have of me as a father. And when I honour their
expectations, I do truly become a father in their eyes.
My brother on the other hand has two adopted sons. They were
not born through him, and yet, his promise as a father is by no
means any less than mine. There are biological fathers, who do
not keep the promise of being fathers. So, my claim is that being
a father is not about blood, but about a promise.
Similarly, all other relationships are promises. A relationship
between a client and the vendor company, a relationship between a
subordinate and his line manager, a relationship between a husband
and wife and so forth.
Responsibility
Responsibility is being willing to be the cause in the matter.
It is taking the posture that you are the source or the cause of
something, and that outcomes can be shifted by your actions.
Somatics
The term ‘somatics’ derives from the Greek word somatikos, which
signifies the living, aware, bodily person. It posits that neither
mind nor body is separate from the other; both being a part of
a living process called the soma.
The soma is often referred to as the living body in its wholeness;
somatics, then is the art and science of the soma.11
Appendix 3: Distinctions 215
Speculation
‘A speculation is a conversation in which the participants create
new possibilities for future action, and set a context in which those
actions make sense.’ Speculative conversations relate to what could
exist or might be done in the future. The key questions to be asked
are ‘What is it possible to do?’ ‘What future would we like to
create?’ or ‘What new can we achieve or create?’12
Team
A team is a group of people with a shared promise. A team is
constituted in a promise. Without a shared promise, the team is
not a team; it is just a group of people together.
Transparency
Transparency is the functioning of a process without the user
being aware of its presence.13
What Is So?
‘What is so?’ are assertions, claims of facts, which are either
true or false, when compared to a standard established by the
community.
Notes
1. Dunham in his Leadership papers for the Generative Leadership programme.
2. Richard Strozzi-Heckler, The Leadership Dojo: Build Your Foundation as an
Exemplary Leader (California: Frog. Ltd, 2007).
3. This distinction of ‘conversation’ has been created for IGL by Bob Dunham.
216 Declaring Breakdowns
4. Steve Zaffron and Dave Logan, The Three Laws of Performance: Rewriting the
future of your organization and your life (San Francisco: Jossey–Bass/Wiley/
Times Group Books, 2009).
5. Extracted from the papers authored by Robert Dunham, for IGL.
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid.
8. This has been adapted from Rafael Echevarria’s (of Newfield Network)
paper on ‘Moods and Emotions’. While he calls this a break in t ransparency,
I have called this an interruption, as we do at IGL. At Newfield Network,
there is no distinction between a break in transparency and a breakdown.
At IGL, we distinguish a break in transparency as an interruption, and then
based on the observer, she/he may declare a breakdown (or not declare a
breakdown).
9. Adapted from the works for Werner Erhard and Michael Jensen.
10. http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/possibility?q=Possi-
bility&searchDictCode=all, accessed 18 February 2016.
11. Richard Strozzi-Heckler, The Art of Somatic Coaching: Embodying Skillful
Action, Wisdom, and Compassion (Berkeley: North Atlantic Books, 2014).
12. Peter J. Denning and Robert Dunham, The Innovator’s Way (Cambridge:
MIT Press, 2010).
13. http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/transparent, accessed
18 February 2016.
Index