I recently asked a group of senior technical people, scientists and engineers, the question: "What is the most powerful conversation you have participated in at work in the last three months?"
Their responses ranged from: 1)a very negative experience where the project team was told by management that they had been working on a project that had been dropped from the priority list months ago to; (2)a conversation that was emotionally-charged and therefore powerful to; (3)knowing that my input was making a difference to; (4)asking individual technical professionals what kind of work they really wanted to be engaged in.
A powerful conversation in my judgment is one that surfaces and even challenges underlying assumptions.
A powerful conversation makes it possible to discuss "undiscussables".
A powerful conversation shifts the frame of what is being discussed. A new way of looking at the challenges or opportunities at hand unfolds.
Powerful conversations require a relationship, not just a connection, where it is "safe" to go beneath the surface of the usual management reporting protocols.
As one technical lead stated: "I can't remember when I was last in a conversation that wasn't all roadblocks."
What do you think makes for a "powerful conversation"? When was the last time you participated in one? What could you do to facilitate such a conversation?
Showing posts with label collaboration. Show all posts
Showing posts with label collaboration. Show all posts
Monday, January 31, 2011
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Innovation as a Social Enterprise
Stories abound about the lone inventor, cloistered at the moment of “eureka”! Like most myths it makes good theater, and is far from the reality of modern R&D. Janet Rae-Dupree said in a recent New York Times article, “Truly productive invention requires the meeting of minds from myriad perspectives, even if the innovators themselves don’t always realize it (my emphasis)”.
Invention is a social phenomenon. Some of us primates have evolved the capacity to see, hear, and experience others as if we were them, empathy. It is a trait that helps us negotiate the complex political terrain we inhabit as social animals. It can also function to feed our imagination using the thoughts of others, to build on not only the explicit content, but the underlying sense of what they are trying to express.
I recently watched this in action with eight colleagues, relative strangers, at a weeklong forum on “Measuring Sustainability”. Our focus was energy systems, our challenges, too little time, too much complexity, and a book chapter to draft on the last day. The group had two assets: a diverse set of backgrounds and the ability to build on each other’s ideas, criticisms, experiences; empathy. This “meeting of minds from myriad perspectives” produced an insightful, inventive, useful and novel approach to the problem. We’ll be proud to see it in print with our names on it.
The ability to harness this capacity can be a critical asset for R&D leaders. Rae-Dupree quotes Robert Fishkin, president and chief executive of Reframeit, Inc. “We need to get better at collaborating in noncompetitive ways across company and organizational lines.” We need empathy to unlock the power of diversity.
Jack Johnston - Contributing Author
Invention is a social phenomenon. Some of us primates have evolved the capacity to see, hear, and experience others as if we were them, empathy. It is a trait that helps us negotiate the complex political terrain we inhabit as social animals. It can also function to feed our imagination using the thoughts of others, to build on not only the explicit content, but the underlying sense of what they are trying to express.
I recently watched this in action with eight colleagues, relative strangers, at a weeklong forum on “Measuring Sustainability”. Our focus was energy systems, our challenges, too little time, too much complexity, and a book chapter to draft on the last day. The group had two assets: a diverse set of backgrounds and the ability to build on each other’s ideas, criticisms, experiences; empathy. This “meeting of minds from myriad perspectives” produced an insightful, inventive, useful and novel approach to the problem. We’ll be proud to see it in print with our names on it.
The ability to harness this capacity can be a critical asset for R&D leaders. Rae-Dupree quotes Robert Fishkin, president and chief executive of Reframeit, Inc. “We need to get better at collaborating in noncompetitive ways across company and organizational lines.” We need empathy to unlock the power of diversity.
Jack Johnston - Contributing Author
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