6 - Stakeholder Conversations Flashcards
Board is shaped by stakeholder system - describe need to advance psychological thinking
Individual psychology -> social psychology -> systems psychology
How has company law evolved to consider stakeholders? (6)
s. 172:
(1) long term
(2) best interest of employees
(3) relationships with suppliers, customers and others
(4) impact of ops on community and environment
(5) rep for high standards of conduct
(6) need to act fairly as between members of company
Describe “parallel process”
Therapist recreates or parallels their client’s problem while they discuss the problems with their counselling supervisor. This mirrors the boardroom.
Board behaviours can be understood as representative echoes of the wider stakeholder system.
Framework to consider behaviours
(1) Individual lens (e.g. lack of emotional intelligence)
(2) Interpersonal lens (issues)
(3) team relationships (e.g. having an awayday)
(4) team tasks (lack of clarity over current purpose or direction)
(5) stakeholder interfaces (e.g. board purposes jarring with key customer group)
(6) wider systemic lens/context (e.g. wider challenges, regulatory change)
Fundamental attribution error
“tendency to believe that what people do reflects who they are” - competency, commitment, character
Peter Hawkins on systems perspectives
“No longer do the main challenges in organisations lie in the people or in the parts, but in the interfaces and relationships between people, teams, functions and different stakeholder needs”
Katharina Pick (2007)
“I find that directors are first and foremost interested in bringing their professional expertise to bear on board activities”
[Expertise may silo a board director if they cannot also integrate their expertise into their role of being an equal member of the board team]
2010 medical study on loneliness
influence of having poor social relationships on the likelihood of our dying is comparable to the elevated risks caused by smoking and alcohol consumption, and is greater than the influence of physical inactivity and obesity
Maister et al définition of trust
trust = credibility + reliability + intimacy
Levels of communication mode (Berne, 1950s)
- ritual and cliche (hello/weather)
- facts and info (agenda)
- values and beliefs (personal values)
- emotions and feelings (ups risk and vulnerability stakes)
Donaldson & Warwick (2016) interviews - one charity trustee
How management respond to question indicative of level of trust.
“I was on a charity board where two members of the executive team were very nervous that the board was going to misunderstand their role and make decisions in excess of their responsibility. This created a dynamic in meetings in which what we got from the executives was defensive. There was a lack of trust and lack of openness.”
“You can create trust simply by the way you respond to a question”
Transaction Analysis Theory (Berne)
- Parent ego state (nurturing vs critical) (autocratic vs benevolent dictator - corrosive and engendering lower performance)
- Adult - neutral and logical - required by chair and cosec
- Child
Tuckmans’ stages of group development (1965)
- forming - task focussed - behave independently and tiptoe on eggshells
- storming - people voice opinions - conflict
- norming - being to resolve differences and coalesce
- performing - establishing mission/visions/roles/norms
- adjourning - mourning/transforming - completing tasks, breaking up and “turning light off”
Lencioni Five Dysfunctions of a Team (2002)
- absence of trust
(leader role: go first) - fear of conflict
(mine for conflict) - lack of commitment
(for clarity and closure) - avoidance of accountability
(confront difficult issues) - inattention to results
(force on collective outcomes)
Niall Fitzgerald (chairman of Reuters) - challenging
“We must be prepared to challenge, confront, disagree and probe, but always in a way that is constructive and supportive of the business agenda. Nothing should be left unsaid within a team that is committed to success”
Kantor - Four Player Model
- Mover (provides direction)
- Follower (provides completion)
- Opposer (provides correction)
- Bystander (provides perspective)
Isaacs added distinction between inquiry (between bystanding and following) and advocacy (between moving and opposing)
According to Isaacs what features of high performing teams?
Connectivity
Advocacy:Inquiry balance
Other:Self - high balance
Positivity:Negativity - strongly positive
What is the Losanda Line?
High performing teams exhibited at least three positive statements for every one engative statemeent (2.9:1 ratio)
Conflict in teams can come from:
- relationship conflict
- task conflict - how go about
- process conflict - use of resources - who has responsibility
Jen & Mannix (2001) on different conflicts
Higher levels of relationship conflict likely lead to problems
higher levels of task and process conflict can be beneficial - depending on when they occur in team’s evolution. Beneficial to occur at start of task and when team forming - but if not resolved quickly, performance steeply decreases over time.
High levels of task conflict beneficial to quality f decision making and discussion up until midpoint of discussion.
Drama Triangle
Three players: victim, persecutor and rescuer
Happens when we fall into the trap of being overly parental and rescuing others who should know better.
Bvalco recommendations for challenging well in the boardroom
- Chair should never start or finish a discussion with their opinion
- Vital to listen, summarise views and encourage equal participation
- Chair’s role in encouraging evidence-based rather than person-centred challenge
- Notice and raise an overly aggressive approach - understand if style or confidence
- Get to know directors individually
- Verbally praise differences and thorough consideration of options
- Use empathy and info search in equal doses
- Encourage directors to agree single most important thing board must do
- Expect input to the agenda, so directors arrive engaged
- Instil sense of team authority
- thinking and deciding require different brain processes - don’t let be intertwined
- apportion time between informing, thinking and decision-making
- use 3:1 ratio
- In annual review, analyse quality of constructive challenge using content and behavioural analysis
Dulewicz and Herbert (2004) 16 tasks of the board - what are the four categories?
Four areas:
1. supervision of management
2. accountability to shareholders
3. strategy and structure
4. longer-term vision
Heuristic to summarise team tasks
4 Ps: purpose (mission and values); picture (vision); plan (strategy, objectives and targets, systems and processes, charter); parts (roles and responsibilities)
