A widespread notion persists: that women, when compared with their male counterparts, are more naturally inclined toward peace. Is moral superiority a feminine virtue? Traditionally, women are characterized as maternal, nurturing, and gentle; whereas men are seen as having a propensity for violence and belligerence. Women talk about their problems; men solve conflict physically, requiring an outlet for their “natural” aggression. When female-perpetrated violence does occur, it is treated as unnatural or aberrant. This binary notion of gender is reinforced through socio-cultural stereotyping.
Regardless of the validity of this notion, the underlying assumptions are widely endorsed. Clearly, if women are better at making and sustaining peace, their involvement in post-conflict leadership is indispensable. The participation of women in reconciliation efforts is required; however, a properly gendered perspective of the contribution of women is very complex. The recent increase in government representation of women, as in post-genocide Rwanda, is an exemplary trend and can aid conflict prevention efforts. However, for this to be the case assumptions about women must be re-examined and potential dangers avoided.
The topic of gender is an important consideration in any academic discipline or professional field. However, the way in which this is usually done – as an examination of difference – is not especially useful, as it often serves to perpetuate patriarchal underpinnings. Discussing the courses she teaches in negotiation, Professor Deborah M. Kolb suggests ways to “weave insights about gender more directly into the curriculum” so that gender is not just a “footnote in a class,” but rather a “window into some critical processes in negotiation” (Kolb, 2000, p. 348).
Within conflict resolution theory, Kolb points to two expressions of the difference model that have emerged concerning gender: the deficit model and the valuing difference model. In the deficit model, (unfortunately) the most commonly held view according to Kolb, “the focus is on the skills that men have and women lack” (p. 348). On the other hand, the valuing difference model appreciates the insights of women that may have previously gone unnoticed or unarticulated. This latter model is helpful to a point, but there is still a fundamental flaw with either expression of difference thinking. Both the deficit model and the value difference model are guilty of essentializing women. “From the gender difference perspective, our explanations about difference are often traced to essential and fixed characteristics” (p. 349). This is especially problematic since it is clear that stereotypically male or female character traits – if they exist at all – are not of equal value in society.
Considering gender solely in terms of difference is not fair to either men or women. A more accurate, and advantageous, understanding does not treat identities as fixed categories but rather reflects a shift toward the interactive process of negotiation or conflict resolution. Kolb calls this “doing gender” (p. 350). Gender should be seen as contextualized and socially constructed through interaction. “The focus on the interaction emphasizes the fluidity, flexibility, and variability of gender-related behaviors” (p. 350). When gender is “done,” new insights emerge that can further the overall goal of resolving conflicts. Gender is not a fixed category; it is itself a form of negotiation. The wholehearted and open-minded participation of both men and women is required to prevent violent conflict.
-Rebecca Joy Norlander
Kolb, D. M. & Collidge, G. G. (1991). Her place at the table: A consideration of gender issues in negotiation. Negotiation: Theory and Practice. 261-277.
Unbound Posts
Exploring Emergent change
When we look at change, we can easily distinguish between planned and unplanned change. In simple terms, planned change is a change that we seek. Conversely, unplanned change is the type of change we are forced to accept and integrate. This latter type of change may have been planned by others and we are just the unsuspecting recipients of it; or the unplanned change may be totally unexpected by everyone, as in the visit of a tornado and its resulting devastation.
There is also a third type of change: emergent change.
This type of change is not in anyone’s agenda or on any weather radar. It simply manifests in our biological and social systems when the underlying components have achieved a new order that gives way to new behaviors.
If we look back to how social media, like Facebook and Twitter, emerged as a global means of communication, we can see that no one forced us to use them. There was no email or memo that mandated compliance. We simply discovered a new way to meet with old friends, make new ones, and share any information we want from any of our devices and at any time.
Facebook and Twitter are modern examples of emergent change; however, the history of emergence started with the creation of our universe. Looking at the four-and-a-half billion years of evolution on our planet, emergent change has been responsible for moving us from hydrogen atoms to iPhones. Emergence is the phenomenon of a system achieving new order in a totally self-organized manner giving course to new forms and dynamics. Molecular combinations, DNA, the myriad of physical forms in the history of Earth, our manifestation as human beings, and the evolution of our societies are all part of a succession of emergent changes.
We do not typically pay attention to emergent change because it is long term. It may take years and even millennia to manifest. We are currently engaged in a debate of whether global warming is real or not. Scientists who advocate for the effects of global warming forecast a change of large proportions that would dramatically impact life on the planet. Assuming this is true, we do not know the effects of “real” emergent change from global warming. We have individuals on the “doom and gloom” part of the spectrum who predict that our way of life would collapse not only because of global warming but because of our unsustainable use of natural resources. On the other side of the spectrum, there are those who believe that emergent change will align all humans on a common purpose and that great advances will ensue to accommodate new forms of living along a sustainable path.
Let’s take a brief look at how emergent change takes place summarizing concepts from the article “An Information-Theoretic Primer on Complexity, Self-Organization and Emergence” by Mikhail Prokopenko, Fabio Boschetti, and Alex Ryan, as well as the book “Engaging Emergence” by Peggy Holman.
Emergent change takes place in an “open” complex system. In this context, “open” means that the system receives a regular supply of energy, information, or matter from its environment. The system is complex because of its number of components and their nontrivial and purposeful interaction, which results in a coordinated behavior.
The nontrivial interaction in this system is challenged by internal constraints leading to the breakdown of current behavior between the individual components. This creates a disruption in the system.
The system then goes through a process of differentiation in which innovation and distinction among its parts takes place. Higher complexity can be achieved through this differentiation.
When the system achieves a new state of coherence, it is more organized than before. This new order is achieved without a director or any explicit mandates. The parts in the system are self-organized.
The changed system then expresses new patterns of interaction, which emerge as new behaviors. The changed system also exhibits radical novelty (such as new properties or coherence); stable system interactions; dynamic wholeness that is always changing; and downward causation as the system shapes the behavior of its parts.
Once coherence is reached at the higher level of complexity, adaptation is set into motion. When adaptation occurs across generations in the system, the system evolves. The evolution of the entire system gives rise to large-scale effects. Once evolution is achieved, the change is irreversible.
To follow the Facebook and Twitter example, our communication systems evolved from Gutenberg’s printing press to electronic communication, personal computers, and mobile devices. The effects of those changes brought the computerization of our communications and the resulting social transformation of having part of our presence in electronic form.
Once we became ever-present via email and used the web to conduct part of our daily lives, social media was a natural extension. Each stage in our communication transformation underwent the dynamics of emergent change: from cave paintings to the first printed bible circa 1455, the first telegram, the first phone call, the first email by Ray Tomlinson in 1971, the first Facebook posting, and the first Twitter message ever sent.
It is important to differentiate the planned change of designing a product with emergent change. Products such as the iPod and iTunes were designed to transform how we buy and listen to music. Their manifestation was planned change by Apple. The advent resulted in unplanned change for Tower Records and other providers of physical media. Their market gradually disappeared. The emergent change is how accessible our music and other forms of media are to us. We can summon the perfect song at any time from any of our devices. Apple did not make this happen. We did. We could have resisted the planned change from Apple and killed the iPod in 2003, but we did not. Again, there was no memo, no mandate; we simply coordinated with each other to evolve on how we listen to music. We achieved a new coherence.
From the above, we can ascertain that any state of complexity is temporary. Apple and other designers are busy at work to entice us to create another emergent change. However, no company can create emergent change, only us—the members of the social system. This is a profound message as we look at our future as a species. We have the power to create the right interactions as we differentiate in an emergent change cycle.
Disruptions of our current coherence will always take place. We have no choice in that matter. Our choice lies in how we differentiate. The new state of coherence is based entirely on how we interact with each other and our environments. Our future—our new coherence—rest in our hands. This has been true since the Big Bang and has not changed. As satirist Steve Bhaerman through his alter ego Swami Beyondananda said, “The bad news: there is no key to the universe. The good news: it was never locked.”
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Teamwork and the role of reflection
Last updated: September 18, 2023
Reflection is one of the hardest things for leaders to implement.
Even if leaders knew the value of reflection, it would be hard to implement. As it is, reflection is an unknown capacity that has enormous potential to accelerate learning. According to Jack Mezirow, founder of transformative learning theory, without reflection, there is no learning. My experience tells me he’s right.
Our Group Reflection
At our last team meeting, my virtual team and I went through a process of reflecting on what is going well and what we could do better. We have made great strides since our face-to-face meeting in January, and our ability to talk together openly and honestly keeps improving. We challenge each other and disagree when we need to, inviting and welcoming all perspectives. It helps us create programs and develop online products and services that are better because of our collective efforts. Everybody has a different part to play, and we coordinate and align our work to contribute our best.
Why Reflection is Important
I had to reflect on the many improvements we’ve made lately that help our collaboration. We’ve improved our technology, including collaborative software, and a server setup to share documents in real-time and manage our projects. We’ve improved our team tools and processes. We are talking together well—inviting different perspectives and learning from them, which strengthens us as a team as well as our products and services.
During our team reflection, everyone spoke up and everyone acknowledged that there were things we could do better, like inviting our quiet contributors to speak, asking for help when we need it, and listening better. But, overall, we are doing well.
When virtual teams get together, they remain disparate parts of a big puzzle if they don’t include reflection. Reflection helps people understand each other. It enables insights to percolate through the group. And there are fewer misunderstandings and conflicts between people. If a conflict arises, it can be dealt with on the spot. Team reflection is a process and, just like learning, it is a process that also has outcomes.
Purpose of Reflection
Reflection has positive outcomes of shared meanings, greater coordination, and clearer communication. When teams reflect together, they gain insights and coordinate their actions to accomplish change. Without reflection, teams still learn and coordinate action, but the cohesive interconnectedness just doesn’t begin to hum with excitement, like a neural net flowing with electricity. Reflection processes help people align and interconnect.
Reflection is both an individual and group activity. Individually, people reflect on things and then bring their thoughts and ideas to a collective process of reflection. The individual and group interconnect. Individual thought is respected and invited; collective thought is encouraged and developed. A team needs to gain the capacity to think together by developing communication skills that include creating the ability to reflect together. Collective intelligence is fostered by face-to-face and virtual interactions and supported by online tools.
How to Virtually Reflect as a Team
IT systems and applications provide valuable infrastructure for working together. There are lots of ways to reflect together with the support of technology:
- Circulate a document for comments. The comments are collected and incorporated into the document.
- Meeting agendas and notes ensure nobody misses important information.
- Implement project management (who needs to do what by when within a guidance process).
- Have virtual meetings through teleconferencing or video conferencing.
- Use collective writing through applications, such as Google Docs, that manage versions, allow comments, and track changes.
Technology is an important piece of the puzzle and helps geographically dispersed groups work together seamlessly. A conscious process of reflection on teamwork is also essential for facilitating team learning. Innovation springs from the reflective space. And it takes a very strong leader to see the need to develop the capacity for reflection and to implement the processes.
People are usually in a hurry; empty silence is quickly filled. Sometimes the most awesome innovations spring from silence as people’s minds begin to resonate together and a collective intelligence begins to emerge.
Team Reflection
A process of group reflection helps us learn from what we have done. If we’ve made mistakes, we don’t have to repeat them. If we had success, we can anchor the actions that helped us succeed. Whether on a virtual team or one that meets daily, asking “how,” “what,” “why,” and “who” questions are powerful.
“How did it go? How’s it going?”
“What can we do better? What got in our way?”
“Why are we doing this? Why should we be doing this?”
We rarely ask ourselves “Is this the right thing to do?” to make our “correct” decision is crucial. That’s when the “who” questions are most valuable: “Who can support us? Who needs help? Who is the best customer for this?”
First, we have to ask the questions, and then we have to listen to the answers. Whether a team shares the same room or works from different locations across the globe, our thinking power can be gathered in energetic patterns that help us do collective work with greater alignment. Team reflection helps us connect more deeply than words alone can. When we gain the capacity to reflect together, we begin to attune with each other, and our collective work is strengthened.
Pursue a Psychology Degree
Learn more about the purpose of reflection as a team and how it can influence productivity and teamwork. Here at Saybrook University, we offer a variety of in-person and online Psychology Programs that can explore the human mind and expand on team reflection.
Building a productive and efficient team comes from effective communication, including the use of team reflection. Expand your knowledge of the psychological influences and tendencies that make a great team leader and member by studying in one of Saybrook University’s master’s or doctoral programs, or even one of our professional certifications.
Humanistic and Clinical Psychology M.A. programs:
- M.A. Psychology
- M.A. Psychology, Consciousness, Spirituality, and Integrative Health Specialization
- M.A. Psychology, Creativity, Innovation, and Leadership Specialization
- M.A. Psychology, Existential and Humanistic Psychology Specialization
Psychology Ph.D. programs:
- Ph.D. Clinical Psychology
- Ph.D. Psychology
- Ph.D. Psychology, Consciousness, Spirituality, and Integrative Health Specialization
- Ph.D. Psychology, Creativity, Innovation, and Leadership Specialization
- Ph.D. Psychology, Existential, and Humanistic Psychology Specialization
- Ph.D. Psychology, Psychophysiology Specialization
Professional Certificates:
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Fame is a Dangerous Drug: The Psychological Mindset of Being Famous
Fame is a dangerous drug. I should know. I wrote the book on it—or, rather, the book chapter.
That chapter, “Ready for the Close-up: Celebrity Experience and the Phenomenology of Fame,” describes the dead-end cycle of fame’s merry-go-round through first-hand reports of celebrity experience in the book “Film and Television Stardom.”
As was evidenced in the death of 48-year-old Whitney Houston, fame and celebrity can closely mirror substance abuse symptomology—and over time, result in actual substance abuse, isolation, mistrust, dysfunctional adaptation to fame, and then, too often, untimely death. The examples are familiar: from Judy Garland to River Phoenix and Michael Jackson to Whitney Houston.
The research conducted shows that fame changes a person’s life forever, and it is felt more as an impact or “overnight” experience rather than a gradual transition.
Developmentally, the celebrity often goes through a process of first loving, then hating fame; addiction; acceptance; and then adaptation (both positive and negative) to the fame experience. Becoming a celebrity alters the person’s being-in-the-world. Once fame hits, with its growing sense of isolation, mistrust, and lack of personal privacy, the person develops a kind of character-splitting between the “celebrity self” and the “authentic self,” as a survival technique in the hyperkinetic and heady atmosphere associated with celebrity life.
Some descriptions of fame include feeling like “an animal in a cage; a toy in a shop window; a Barbie doll; a public facade; a clay figure; or “that guy on TV.”
Famous people describe a new relationship with the “space” around them as a component of learning how to live in a celebrity world. “It’s like fame defines you to a certain degree: it puffs you up, or it shrinks you down,” one celebrity said.
The psychology of fame is variously described as leaving the person feeling “lonely; not secure; you have a bubble over you; family space is violated; a sense of being watched; living in a fishbowl; like a locked room; and, familiarity that breeds inappropriate closeness.”
Yet, while the celebrity experiences many negative side effects of fame, the allure of wealth, access, preferential treatment, public adoration, and as one celebrity put it, “membership in an exclusive club,” keeps the famous person stuck in the perpetual need to keep their fame machine churning.
The unfortunate truth, however, is that for each and every celebrity, the fame machine can only churn for so long. As a former famous child star revealed, “I’ve been addicted to almost every substance known to man at one point or another, and the most addicting of them all is fame.”
The irony, of course, is the extent to which so many people in our culture clamor at some level for their own slice of fame, first noted in Andy Warhol’s prediction of 15 minutes for everyone. It has become the American way. In fact, iconic filmmaker Jon Waters believes that being famous is everyone’s unspoken desire.
“Most everybody secretly imagines themselves in show business,” he says, “and every day on their way to work, they’re a little bit depressed because they’re not … People are sad they’re not famous in America.”
And so we watch Snooki and the Kardashians, and cringe at the memory of any episode we may have caught of “Being Bobby Brown” or “The Anna Nicole Smith Show.” Then we quietly ask ourselves “What is going on here? Are we somehow complicit in the downward spiral of so many great talents of our time? Have their lives become an opportunity for our own vapid TV viewing, satiating voyeuristic interests, while munching junk food mindlessly on the couch?” (I am as guilty as anyone.)
And, from the other vantage point, how dangerous are the blinding lights of fame to the unsuspecting and naive star? How does fame affect mental health? How vulnerable are famous people to fame’s addictive qualities and its ensuing engulfing pathology? The answer is: very.
The relevant question becomes how can a celebrity survive fame? How can someone take a God-given talent, like Whitney’s, or Michael’s, or Judy’s, rise to mega-stardom, and ride the merry-go-round of fame with health, grace, and perspective until it is time to finally get off? Clues to the answer lie in becoming part of something larger than oneself (countering fame’s natural tendency toward narcissism) and dedicating all one’s drives and ambitions into making a real difference, in a meaningful way, in the world.
Through such determined commitment to using life to its fullest, as a show of gratitude for all the riches and rewards, and rooted in humanistic notions of self-responsibility, meaning, values, authenticity, and mindfulness, the celebrity has a fighting chance. (See actor Matt Damon and his H2O Africa Foundation; rock star Bono and his many good works to end poverty and hunger; or actor and child advocate Goldie Hawn and The Hawn Foundation supporting mindfulness in early education, among others.)
As an older, wizened celebrity warned about the ephemeral nature of the fame experience: “It’s just so much the will-o’-the-wisp,” he said, “and you can’t build a house on that kind of stuff.”
New existentialists blogger Donna Rockwell, Psy.D., is a clinical psychologist specializing in celebrity mental health and the psychology of fame, and is associate faculty at the Michigan School of Professional Psychology. She is a mental health contributor on WDIV-TV in Detroit, and is a former reporter and producer for CNN and WRC-TV, in Washington, D.C. She is working on a book on the psychology of fame and celebrity.
This blog is based on Dr. Rockwell’s dissertation research from 2004, “Celebrity and being-in-the-world: The experience of being famous: A phenomenological study,” Center for Humanistic Studies.
Recommended Read: Rockwell, D. and Giles, D.C., 2009, “Being a Celebrity: A Phenomenology of Fame,” Journal of Phenomenological Psychology, (40) 178-210
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Martin Buber: Are you a ‘thou’ or an ‘it’?
“I believe that the key to creating society that is nourishing, empowering and healing for everyone lies in how we relate to one another.” — Martin Buber, an Austrian born Jewish philosopher
I came across Martin Buber’s work early in my studies of existentialism and existential psychology. Buber’s philosophy was genuine, and showed his love and hope for humanity. His existential philosophical piece entitled “I Thou” is a philosophical discussion on how we relate to other, consciously and unconsciously, and what makes us human.
This is what drew me to his idea. Buber introduced two distinct ways of relating I-Thou and I-It.
I-It vs I-Thou
- In the I-Thou encounter, we relate to each other as authentic beings, without judgment, qualification, or objectification. I meet you as you are, and you meet me as who I am. In the I-Thou relationship, what is key is how I am with you in my own heart and mind.
- The I-It encounter is the opposite in that we relate to another as object, completely outside of ourselves.
I-It and I-Thou Examples
Let’s step out of the philosophical language. How does this show up in reality?
I remember when I was an intern working at a shelter for families who were experiencing homelessness. The greatest asset that I had was the relationships I formed with the families that lived at this shelter.
It was both hard and wonderful to listen to their stories. I found that I carried them in my mind and heart even after being away for days. I would relate to them even when they were not with me in the room. I would think about the last conversation I had with a mother about her feelings of grief around a lost family member.
My relationship with her was constant even if she was not there. This was an experience of her becoming part of me and part of my own identity. How? Her stories were always on my mind. As a result, her stories become part of my own stories that I am reflecting on now.
This way of relating was or rather is powerful. I was far more effective as an intern therapist because of what Buber suggested.
The I-It relating would be radically different. I have been participating in community organizations for nearly 15 years. Over the years, I have sat in numerous meetings with the agenda of helping “the homeless.” The term “the homeless” distances us from seeing the humanity in the families that I was working with at the shelter.
They were more than homeless families. Being homeless was just a state of being, not who they were as individuals. A few years ago, I began to shift my internal and external language away from using the term “the homeless” as way to describe the lovely folks I was working with.
In doing so, I moved away from the I-It relationship that Buber described as being a relationship based on seeing others as things or in this case as objects, which can easily be dehumanizing.
The I-Thou relationship where one meets the other as who they are rather than what they represent is powerful and healing. Rather than looking at a mother who is living at a shelter as a “homeless mother,” we can see her as a mother and a woman with a name and a personal story to share.
Her story becomes part of our lives and in turn part of our humanity.
When I consider Buber’s philosophy in relation to social change, how we relate to one another would be a great service.
Even when I was no longer working with the homeless, I was working with people to help them find themselves and a new home.
Consider these terms that are often used in policy, health, and community services.
- HIV infected individuals
- Single mothers
- Alcoholics
Do we relate to someone as an HIV infected individual, or do we relate to this person for who they are in their experience being HIV infected?
I believe that is the question Buber’s I-Thou and I-It philosophy can address. We would be better served in our intentions to create a better world for so many if we considered how we relate to one another.
On a conscious level, we can acknowledge how the labels and assumptions we have about others impact our conversations and relationships. On a more intimate level, we can acknowledge how we hold each other in our thoughts even when we are not with others.
It takes work to be open to such a deeply intimate relationship with others. I am still working on developing a similar relationship with others in my world, really as a way to become a better therapist and person.
I still think of the families I had the opportunity to be with at the shelter. I hold them in my heart and in a sense still have what I would consider a genuine relationship with them, even if they are not here with me. That holding of another is I-Thou relating. It is this type of connection to others on a spiritual and emotional level that can only lead to true relating and compassion for one another.
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Saybrook University introduces PhD program focusing on Creativity Studies
A complex fast changing world demands new, creative approaches to everything from corporate strategies to food preparation: Saybrook University is pleased to announce the creation of a unique psychology PhD program specializing Creativity Studies.
Saybrook has a long connection with the study of creativity: one of its founders was legendary psychologist Rollo May, who wrote The Courage to Create, and significant work on creativity was also performed by Saybrook faculty such as Abraham Maslow.
Today Saybrook is home to many of the leading contemporary scholars studying creativity, including Ruth Richards, Editor of Everyday Creativity, and Steven Pritzker, Co-editor of the Encyclopedia of Creativity. Together, they are creating a community that helps students become scholars in their own right.
The program will appeal to students interested in studying every aspect of creativity, including the traditional arts as well as a variety of other fields such as organizational creativity, mental health, education and social transformation. The curriculum will also include research into aspects of everyday creativity including, family life, daily decision making, and relationships. This study of creativity will be both academic and hands on: as they become scholars of creativity theory, students will also apply what they learn to enhancing their own creative process and providing learning skills to help others.
Steven Pritzker, Director of the program, stated: “Saybrook’s rich history and unique program has helped us attract a faculty that includes some of the foremost writers and researchers in the world. Students working on their thesis or dissertations will be able to work with leading scholars such as Mark Runco, Sandy Russ, Louis Sass or Dean Keith Simonton.”
The Psychology PhD Program specializing in Creativity Studies will allow students to participate without relocating: most classes will be held online, at a distance – but students will be required to come to San Francisco twice yearly for conferences, intensives, and direct interaction with faculty.
Located in San Francisco, California and Seattle, Washington and with students and graduates across the United States and around the world, Saybrook University provides humanistic values-based graduate education to nurture and professionally train and develop humanistic action-oriented scholar-practitioners. The University is comprised of the Graduate College of Psychology and Humanistic studies; the Graduate College of Mind-Body Medicine; and LIOS Graduate College (Leadership Institute of Seattle).
For more than 40 years, Saybrook has empowered students to find their life’s work and achieve their full potential. Saybrook’s programs are deeply rooted in the humanistic tradition and a commitment to help students develop as whole people – mind, body, and spirit. Saybrook University is accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC). It is also authorized by the Washington Higher Education Coordinating Board and meets the requirements and minimum educational standards established for degree-granting institutions under the Degree Authorization Act.
To learn more about Saybrook University visit www.saybrook.edu.
To learn more about the psychology PhD program specializing in Creativity Studies, visit https://www.saybrook.edu/phs/academicprograms/psy/phdcs
For more information, contact Dr. Steven Pritzker, program director, at [email protected] and 415-681-6999.
Family code of conduct: Getting everyone together to listen, learn, and grow
A family is a delicate edifice with a natural tendency to fragment, split, and move in different directions over generations. New people enter as spouses and children with their own interests, preferences, and lifestyles. But when a family shares ownership, oversight, and dependence on shared investments, they challenge this tide. Such connected, “enterprising” families must work continually to head off and manage conflict between an ever-enlarging pool of family members, who share blood but know each other less.
They often fear conflict because they are more of a mystery to each other. While a second generation of brothers, sisters, and cousins know each other while growing up, as they get older, they tend to grow apart and see each other only at rare and restrained family gatherings.
They may be relative strangers, but they could share ownership and potential ownership in significant businesses, investments, real estate, and philanthropic assets. Because of the deep emotional family history, they cannot just be business partners coming together to exercise rational self-interest. Other ties must be taken into account, like whose uncle did what to your father or how your siblings are being treated in a business. Actions that are “just business” can hurt personally, and the personal hurt can lead to anger and conflict in other areas.
So a family that remains together as partners over three or more generations should always put family communication, conflict resolution, and alignment of interests at the top of their list of critical challenges. They should look for professional help to anticipate or deal with their differences.
The professional often tries to help by convening a family meeting, like a focused gathering of family members (defined in various ways, depending on the context) to discuss the conflict, provide alternatives, and take action on troubling issues. This seems reasonable and simple, right? Yet, I hear many stories where getting together was not just not helpful but led to feelings that make further contact even less likely while the problems remain simmering.
“We had a family meeting, and it was terrible.”
“No one wants to get together a second time.”
“Things came out that were better left alone.”
“Dad (or Uncle Jerry, or cousin Bob) had a meltdown and walked out.”
“No one listens to me because….”
Poorly planned and executed family meetings can further traumatize a family even when a professional brings them together with the best intentions.
Setting the stage for a family meeting
Nothing is as difficult as the first moments when an intergenerational family comes together as a whole.
While not total strangers, they are a collection of differing styles, viewpoints, values, ages, genders, and often ways of living and working. Their whole lives may be formed regarding the benefits of this legacy, but it does not change the reality that they may be strangers to each other.
Even smaller family meetings—such as of parents and their adult children—share this anxiety about starting. The feeling of awkwardness or the fear that one person will dominate, that others will not be heard, or that a business issue will trigger deep family emotions may lead to avoidance. A family expresses this by finding it difficult to schedule the meeting, postponing it, or limiting the time together.
The problem is that family members may not know how to create an environment for effective communication. They enter a strange environment without knowing how they can act to overcome the emotional traps and bad habits that they have eluded over time as a family. The first family meeting must make people feel safe to talk to each other in a respectful way and to be listened to by others.
One way to create a safe harbor in the meeting is to start by having the family create what we call a code of conduct that is about how they will talk to each other, not what they will talk about.
A code can be a guide to the difficult process of communicating in a fair and safe manner. It is a list of rules (or expectations) for communication that everyone agrees to hold each other to when they meet or interact as a family. Often a family has many bad habits—dominating, interrupting, blaming—that inhibit communication. A family meeting must begin by confronting these bad habits and deciding to help each other change. They are like addicts who have to support each other to make difficult changes. The regular family “rules” used to deal with personal relationships and emotional realities may be counterproductive for a family meeting. The family rules need to change or adapt to meet the difficulties of family members defining their future and agreeing on policies.
Creating the code of conduct
Developing a family code of conduct might start with each family member sharing something that they feel the family has to agree on in order to have a safe harbor for communication at the meeting. This gives each person a chance to share their anxieties before things start. It is not hard for a family member to begin to talk about things that inhibit communication.
The first things that inevitably come up are things like “Don’t interrupt,” “Get everyone to talk, not just the people who always dominate,” or “Talk about yourself without blaming others.” Each of these can be discussed and defined by the family as a principle of communication. When the family is done, they should write the principles on a large piece of paper and place it on the wall so that everyone can see them through the entire meeting. The more each family member can express concerns and feel that others have heard them and that the code reflects their own family, the more committed the family will be to them. They understand that the code marks the family’s entry into a new way of working together, which will be difficult for them as it means overcoming earlier habits.
Some facilitators begin the discussion with a list of behaviors for good communication. For example, many use the four principles defined by anthropologist Angie Arrien as a guide, which echo another set by Steven Covey:
- Show up.
- Pay attention.
- Tell the truth, without blame or judgment.
- Be open to outcomes, not attached to an outcome.
This is helpful only if family members have a chance to talk about how each rule would look if it were practiced by their family. They are deceptively simple and easy to think up but hard to practice. The point is to actively engage them and move them from good ideas to practical tools to guide behavior that they accept.
After such a discussion, the family will come up with a set of ground rules for communication that they agree will make them more effective. Setting up (or reminding people about) rules or a code of conduct should always be the first topic on the agenda of a family meeting (even if the meeting consists of three people). The family may define a code that they use for every meeting, but at the beginning, they need to be reminded of it. Each person will come into a family meeting with fears about talking and concerns that what he or she wants to share will not be heard or respected.
There are many types of statements in a family that act as “emotional triggers” that give rise to memories of other events that were hurtful. These memories may bring upset feelings or anger to the surface. Rules about behavior can’t always stop these triggers or the eruption of feeling the triggers generate, but they can limit them. At their best, rules can help a family consider other ways to deal with being upset. Also, the presence of other family members at a meeting can sometimes help two people who are upset over something take a step back and look at what is actually happening.
So when there is a code of conduct, who is in charge of policing it? And what happens if someone doesn’t follow it? This role can be jointly handled by a facilitator, the person—a family member or outside helper—whose role is to make sure the meeting goes well for all family members.
A family often allows anyone to break in and observe that someone is not observing the rules. For example, a working family may find family members making comments like “He isn’t finished” or “Let’s slow things down. People seem to be getting upset.” These process comments show that all family members feel responsible for adhering to the rules and are able to call each other to account.
Core purpose
A second element of the family code of conduct is setting clear expectations for its purpose, what the group is doing, and when or how decisions will be made.
Each meeting should have a core purpose or a focus that guides the conversation. This might be to learn about the structure of the family trusts, to learn what we all want for our family philanthropy policies, or to plan for the new family leadership. Having a focus helps make the meeting safer in that there is a sense of what will be off-limits or what issues can be shared. Sometimes the agreement is that a person can raise an issue, but any individual can decide that they don’t want to talk about it. Or, there may be an agreement that decisions will not be made and that the purpose of the meeting is to learn about each other.
These understandings about the nature of the meeting and its focus are part of the code of conduct and allow family members to feel comfortable with what will and will not be talked about. This sort of understanding is often critical to having one or more individuals decide to participate in the meeting.
Beyond the family meeting
In summary, a family code of conduct is a set of agreed-upon rules and understandings that a family creates to make a safe, comfortable, and positive setting for family communication in a meeting. A family often has one general code of conduct that they adopt for all meetings, and they may also have some agreements about the purpose they add for an individual meeting. Each meeting begins with a discussion of what the ground rules for that meeting are, beginning with the general code the family has drafted.
The family that adopts a code for behavior in a meeting may decide that the rules are important not only in meetings but in their relationships in general. The whole family may agree to strive to adopt these standards for all their communication and behavior together. The code of conduct may become part of their family mission, vision and values, and their family constitution.
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Your performance management system ‘meets expectations
To: Management
From: A concerned employee
Subject: Performance Management
Well, it’s that time of year again. The leaves are changing color, the kids are back in school in their new shoes, and I’m preparing to meet with my boss to have a year’s worth of behavior summed up in a two-or three-word euphemism that will determine my future income and career potential. Yep, it’s performance appraisal season.
If I’ve had a successful year, the boss will give me a rating of “meets expectations.” A rating, I’m told, that should lift my spirits; after all, expectations around here are quite high, and meeting said “high expectations” is no small accomplishment. Then why does it not feel very good? Perhaps we should rename the rating: “Enthusiastically Meets Expectations!” or perhaps “Meets Expectations Unlike They’ve Ever Been Met Before!” Otherwise, call me crazy, but many employees might be tempted to look at “meets expectations” as a mediocre evaluation.
With all due respect, dear management, here’s the deal. This system called “performance management” doesn’t do anything to help performance and is pretty darn unmanageable. I’ve reached a stage in my life where I’d prefer to receive feedback about what I do rather than be graded on a curve. This time of year, we all seem to be focusing more attention on working the system than doing the work the system was designed to measure.
I think it’s high time to evaluate the system that is used to evaluate us. How, I wonder, would the performance appraisal system itself hold up under the scrutiny it imposes on the rest of us?
Let’s start with performance management’s job description. Successful performance management systems will:
- Ensure equity—We want to make sure that people around here get what they deserve.
- Improve performance—We want to motivate people to do better.
- Provide actionable data—We want people to know where they stand so they can take responsibility for their own careers, and we want to identify our future leaders as well as our future ex-employees.
- Perform other duties as assigned—Like our own job descriptions, it helps to have an extra category to cover responsibilities we haven’t thought of yet.
If we accept the above goals as benchmark attributes of the performance management system, it should be relatively simple to rate how well the system delivers.
Let’s begin with a look at how well our performance management system ensures equity. Raise your hand if you feel that each of us is compensated commensurate with our value and contribution.
Anyone?
Bueller?
Noting no hands in the air, may I point out that no system—even ones that look fair on paper—can meet our fickle and diverse perceptions of equity? I myself vacillate between feeling appreciative and resentful—based on a variety of factors having nothing to do with our splendid organization. Kluging together provisos, conditions, and exceptions will never extend the roof far enough so that no one feels left out. In fact, it’s the exceptions that simultaneously create a feeling of equity for some, while contributing to accusations of injustice from others. On the bright side, there’s something equitable about everyone suffering through the same system, filling out the same forms, and grumbling the same grumbles this time of year. So for the score on “Ensuring Equity,” how about a generous “Meets Expectations?” May as well start the review off on a positive note.
Surely we can count on the system to improve performance. After all, one reason that we suffer through this period of reminiscing and goal-setting is to help us get better at our work.
The theory behind the system works like this.
- First, we define ideal behaviors for every job.
- Second, we compare everyone against the ideal, in a sort of Olympic-judging panel sort of way.
For example, as a level eight financial analyst, here’s what you should be able to do and here’s how well you should be able to do it. Under scrutiny, I’m afraid, the analogy breaks down. Olympic judges, unlike my boss, don’t have to work with the people they’re scoring after the performance. Also, Olympic judges base their ratings on an agreed upon standard; while there’s one right way to perform a triple Sal chow or a round-off back handspring, there are many ways to manage a project or satisfy a customer. Furthermore, how the athlete treats his or her colleagues doesn’t enter into his score. The choice of process, approach, or dress code won’t impact the athlete’s score either. An Olympic diver who comes late to the meeting about local aquatic venue procedures doesn’t have to worry about the impact on his or her score.
Despite the heroic effort of our Human Resources department and the wisdom of the various consulting firms we’ve hired, we’ll never achieve the clarity of assessment we yearn for. We simply can’t separate how we feel about each other and how we treat each other from how we assess each other’s performance. Personally, I consider this bit of humanity good news. In the end, most of us spend more time disputing the veracity of the feedback than ferreting out the kernel of useful perspective.
Don’t get me wrong, dear management, I want feedback from my boss. I’m eager to hear how my actions add or diminish value. It’s just that the label, the rating, or the score doesn’t give me any useful information; it only focuses my attention on whether or not I agree with the assessment. So, when it comes to “Improving Performance,” I give our performance management system a resounding: “Needs Improvement.”
3. Lastly, we want our performance management systems to provide actionable data about the people in our organization.
Interestingly enough, though I may benefit from this feature, it’s also the most potentially damaging aspect. How well does our performance management system provide you, the folks who control whether or not I continue in your employ, the information you need to decide my fate? It’s a hard question to answer because I don’t have visibility into the conversations going on about what’s next for me. I don’t mean to impugn anyone’s motives, but I can’t help thinking that the last presentation I made to you matters a whole lot more than my grade—oops, I mean “rating on my performance appraisal.”
I’m a little stuck here. What would you do if you had to assess a category of my performance, but you lacked any real data? I suppose it’s best not to draw attention to the fact that I can’t objectively rate how well our performance management system is doing its job with respect to “Providing Actionable Data.” Let’s check the “Meets Expectations” box on this one.
At this juncture, I can guess what you’re thinking: “Don’t bring us problems without solutions.” Fair enough. Here’s one way to think about it. We would never knowingly spend time, money, and organizational attention on a process that doesn’t add value. One simple way to determine whether a process adds value is to eliminate it completely and see who complains. If the only group to miss our performance management system are the lawyers who crave documentation, may I humbly suggest that we’re investing a lot of energy on a system with dubious value? It seems to me that disgruntled employees and their lawyers haven’t exactly been deterred by the riveting and comprehensive histories of performance we keep on file. In fact, I’m of the opinion that the system itself creates more perceptions of inequity than it eliminates.
How then do we ensure equity, improve performance, and get actionable data on how our employees are doing? How about we teach managers and employees to talk to one another with candor and empathy? After all, if employees don’t have to embellish their contributions in order to outrank their colleagues and appraisers don’t have to fret over delivering a disappointing rating, we’ll have plenty of time to talk to each other.
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Are you a Saybrook University alumna or faculty member who is interested in submitting a blog post for potential publication on UNBOUND? You may do so by submitting your finished piece or pitch on the right-hand side panel of UNBOUND pages.
Systems archetypes and their application
System archetypes are common and usually recurring patterns of behavior in organizations. These patterns almost always result in negative consequences. You can use system archetypes to effectively answer the question, “Why does the same problem occur over and over?”
System archetypes were first studied in the 1960s and 1970s by Jay Forrester, Dennis Meadows, Donella Meadows, and others in the nascent field of systems thinking.
In his popular 1990 book, “The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization,” author Peter Senge explored system archetypes and, along with Michael Goodman, Charles Kiefer, and Jenny Kemeny, documented the most common set of patterns of behavior in organizations that have a tendency of recurring. These systems-thinking archetype researchers leveraged the annotations of John Sterman, a pioneer in system dynamics. The structures and graphical language of system dynamics allowed Senge and his colleagues to document these common system archetypes and make them accessible to the average reader.
Eight system archetypes and their storylines
The eight most common system archetypes are:
Fixes that fail—A solution is rapidly implemented to address the symptoms of an urgent problem. This quick fix sets into motion unintended consequences that are not evident at first but end up adding to the symptoms.
Shifting the burden—A problem symptom is addressed by a short-term and fundamental solution. The short-term solution produces side effects that affect the fundamental solution. As this occurs, the system’s attention shifts to the short-term solution or to the side effects.
Limits to success—A given effort initially generates positive performance. However, over time the effort reaches a constraint that slows down the overall performance no matter how much energy is applied.
Drifting goals—As a gap between goal and actual performance is realized, the conscious decision is to lower the goal. The effect of this decision is a gradual decline in the system’s performance.
Growth and underinvestment—Growth approaches a limit potentially avoidable with investments in capacity. However, a decision is made to not invest, resulting in performance degradation, which results in a decline in demand validating the decision not to invest.
Success to the successful—Two or more efforts compete for the same finite resources. The more successful effort gets a disproportionately larger allocation of resources to the detriment of the others.
Escalation—Parties take mutually threatening actions, which escalate their retaliation attempting to “one-up” one another.
The tragedy of the commons—Multiple parties enjoying the benefits of a common resource do not pay attention to the effects they are having on the common resource. Eventually, this resource is exhausted, resulting in the shutdown of the activities of all parties in the system.
The set of common system archetypes has its own unique causal storyline. This storyline is universal and can be applied to the understanding of individual manifestations inside organizations. For instance, the fixes that fail archetype has the “squeaky wheel” as its main storyline. In this system archetype example, a quick fix is applied to a pain point (or “squeaky wheel”) to reduce its symptom and the “noise” generated by it. The storyline gets complicated when the unintended effects of the quick fix become consequential. These effects start to add to the problem, making the quick fix less or totally ineffective.
Read more:
Aside from a storyline, system archetypes have a structure. This structure consists of a number of mostly endogenous variables and feedback loops—one or more of which contains a delay that usually contributes to the unintended consequences of the behavioral pattern, a crucial aspect in understanding social sciences. Endogenous variables are those that form part of the feedback loops that both modify and are modified by other variables.
Three of the common eight system archetypes—limits to success, growth and underinvestment, and tragedy of the commons—contain endogenous variables that act as external constraints to these systems. The structure of these system archetypes is depicted through causal loop diagrams, a tool from the field of system dynamics.
Unintended consequences (Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons)
This diagram (left) shows the structure of the fixes that fail archetype. This structure has three variables: the problem symptom, the quick fix, and the unintended consequence. The flow between the fix and the unintended consequence has a delay and is the main reason for the existence of the archetype. Two feedback loops are present in this structure: a balancing loop for the quick fix and a detrimental reinforcing loop for the manifestation of the unintended consequence.
Archetypes and their applications
System archetypes can be used as a diagnostic tool to better understand the dynamics of a specific set of behaviors that have manifested an unwanted condition.
The theory behind system archetypes is that situations with unwanted results or side effects can be mapped to common behavior models. Given the knowledge available about system archetypes, problem-solvers, in general, can apply its principles and arrive at a rich diagnosis of a situation and plan a recovery. The knowledge base on system archetypes provides guidelines for determining what archetype is at play and, once identified, how to approach an intervention.
From a proactive perspective, system archetypes can be an essential part of planning. A variety of strategies can be tested through the lens of archetypes to identify potential pitfalls and address them in the planning stages when they are easier to tackle. Additionally, system archetypes provide a language to communicate among members of an organization regarding how a particular system is expected to perform. Unintended consequences in system archetypes are well known and can be translated into potential or realized consequences. Having a language to document, communicate, and analyze behaviors provides a useful and consequential framework for dealing with changes necessary to prevent or eliminate negative behavioral patterns. Moreover, once the particulars of system archetypes are mastered by members of an organization, their knowledge can be leveraged to build robust systems immune to their side effects.
If you are curious about how system archetypes can work in the fields of social science or integrative medicine and health sciences, Saybrook University offers programs that focus on students, making sure they reach their full potential, with an academic focus in humanistic psychology to make the world a better place. Learn more by exploring our programs below.
Learn more about Saybrook University
If you are curious about learning how system archetypes can work in the fields of social science or integrative medicine and health sciences, Saybrook University focuses on its students, making sure they reach their full potential, with an academic focus in humanistic psychology in order to make the world a better place, with our programs below.
Case study: Musings on ‘John,’ his glasses, and existential-humanistic psychotherapy
“John” came to psychotherapy complaining of anxiety, dark moods, and difficulty connecting with others. A slight man, John wore glasses and made little eye contact with me in our our first meeting. When he did make eye contact though, I could not help but notice that he squinted, as if straining to see me.
He quickly detailed a laundry list of things in his life left undone for a number of vague reasons that, to me, were circular and hard to follow. He had not yet filed his divorce papers from a separation four years ago. He left a graduate program and owed the school money. He had been unemployed for several years and needed to find work. He wanted to smoke less marijuana. He needed to be more assertive with a friend, etc. From our first session, John struck me as an incredibly bright individual whose will had atrophied over the years.
Conventional (i.e., medical-model, treatment-focused) thinking in psychotherapy might say something like, “John is depressed, likely because of a chemical dysfunction in his brain. One of his primary symptoms is amotivation. Because he is depressed, he is unable to attend to the matters required of him (e.g., divorce papers, school loans).
While I do not wholly discount this reasoning, as a psychotherapist trained in existential-humanistic psychotherapy, I have a simultaneous, yet different perspective. Irvin Yalom suggested clients often present to psychotherapy feeling disappointed with the way they are living their lives. They experience existential guilt for making decisions that led to only partial fulfillment or complete denial of their potential. This guilt often manifests as depression, anxiety, or a combination of the two. With this in mind, we might say that John’s depression did not cause his lack of motivation, but his lack of motivation—his repeated decision to not act when an action was required—has led to his current depressed state.
Yalom also suggested that the work of psychotherapy is, in part, to re-engage the will of our clients so that they may live more fully within natural human limitations we all face. Additionally, existential-humanistic psychotherapy holds that the client will bring his or her way of being in the world into the consulting room. These ideas came to life when, several sessions into our work together, John began to make more eye contact (a good sign, I thought) and I commented on his squinting.
“Yes, yes,” he said. “It is a real problem. I got these bifocals two years ago and I’ve never been able to see with them.”
“You have gone two years with glasses that don’t help you see?” I asked, somewhat shocked.
“Yes,” he said. “And I think it really contributes to my mood. But there’s nothing I can do about it.”
“How’s that?”
“Well, I suppose I could do something about it,” he responded. “They just don’t fit right and never worked from the start.”
“How often have you thought about doing something about it?” I asked.
“I think about it all the time!” he said. “It drives me crazy, not being able to see.”
As this exchange continued, John attempted to move on to other topics several times. However, I found myself slightly obsessed with his glasses. It seemed like such an important symbol for his struggle to self-motivate. Having worn glasses myself, I found it hard to imagine how John could go so long not seeing clearly. Over and over, I brought us back to the glasses in the here-and-now, gently nudging him to deepen into what it was like for him to have this problem that drove him crazy but not to do anything about it. Although I immediately wanted to help him develop a plan to remedy the situation, I fought the impulse, opting instead to stay in John’s dilemma of inaction with him. I realized that to move too quickly would have been to impose my will on John, rather than waiting for John to come to his own willful action.
Now the reader might expect that I am going to finish this post by writing that John eventually bought new glasses and no longer strains to see me in my office. However, no such luck. What I can say is that John and I have discussed his glasses in subsequent sessions and, at his suggestion, have even discussed options (read choices) available to him to find new glasses. At the same time, in subtle ways, connections between his glasses and other domains of his life replete with unfinished business have been made. All of this feels like progress to me. However, conventional psychology, driven by behavioral outcomes, might argue otherwise. Perhaps it might argue that if I am going to use John’s glasses and his lack of motivation to get a new pair as any kind of indicator at all, then our work has not yet served him. After all, he still can’t see well.
As an existential-humanistic therapist, I guess I see it differently.