Identifying and sharing a good reason, armored, the best proof that we can find of our authentic intent to protect our interlocutor from threats to its survival, to its success: this is the heart of the technique, and notoriously without our heart we can’t move a step.
And if we do not find it, or if it is not shared? Then we have another problem, definitely more serious and urgent than giving negative feedback: we are on the limit of our possibility to manage, at the limit of the termination of the employment relationship.
The collaborator may perhaps continue to do his part, more or less, not following our guide, but on his own, perhaps under the pressure of something else, of the temporary fear of being left without a salary: the centrality of the lack of sharing remains fundamental. Yes, the fundamentals on which work together is based.
The step concerning the identification and sharing of good reason, armored, which makes the result that we have declared unacceptable, is immediately a sort of review of the fundamentals, a crucial verification of the sharing of at least one of the fundamentals on which, so far, our work together is based.
And if we see that the verification has a negative outcome, then it is much better to deal with it, and immediately: perhaps something has recently changed in the framework of the collaborator, and we do not know it yet, better to update, get back in phase and see what can be done ... if something can be done.
In my long experience, managers do not deal with fundamentals, they take them for granted, it is obvious that we all share the fundamentals of work together: we work together, don't we? this is the concrete proof, that’s all we need.
And when asked what are the fundamentals of each collaborator, how is the mix of motivations of each collaborator, that we know is certainly different and unique for each collaborator, distinctive of each collaborator, in the best of cases, we get the description of the mix of the manager’s motivations.
That the manager assumes to be, of course, the only valid mix, and that everyone obviously shares, because everyone functions, or must function, like the manager: so, where is the problem?
The problem is that the reduction to a single mix, to a single type, only works sometimes, it is a statistical fact, and it goes in the opposite direction to generating value through diversity: inadequate management of diversity, which for us is more exactly the inadequate management of the interaction with the Other as a unique and unrepeatable subject, presents prohibitive accounts and costs.
Not that the theme of diversity is of today, there has always been the question of how to deal with it: gender, generation, ethnic diversity have always been present, globalization and the lengthening of human life have only accentuated and made more evident that it is necessary to offer better answers than all-as-me, on pain of a poor overall performance and the abandonment of the best resources.
The heart is fine, but the head is also needed to succeed: we have identified and shared the good, armored reason, now what do we do?
The unsatisfactory result remains, and there remains the need to obtain satisfactory results with the best possible continuity: in short, the task remains of activating or generating the neural code, the neurograms that can guide those behaviors, those actions that obtain satisfactory results.
The technique indicates to formulate the request for proposals, plans, carefully avoiding giving instructions and suggesting solutions, and it is an excellent indication, systemically founded and very valid.
Our task, as a manager, as a guide, as a leader, is to help the collaborator generating those codes that will produce the expected results, reversing dangers and threats, recognizing him as a autopoietic subject, demonstrating esteem and trust: the last thing to doing is giving instructions, valid only when we are absolutely sure that the collaborator will not know how to get by otherwise, and, above all, when there is not enough time to learn.
Which happens very rarely, since our employees know their job and know how to solve the issues that concern them, something that every manager knows perfectly well. We might ask why, then, in 90% of cases, managers, like the one in the first case examined, provide orders and instructions, are they all stupid?
Of course not, in the hundreds, thousands of cases that I have dealt with, the first factor is the drive to see what they have in mind in the way they would realize it, a thrust that supports the Sameness Principle, which we have already met, an archaic code that has generated excellent fruits in the past, and that still continues to produce them.
So instead of doing their job, supervisors, managers, directors, end up doing the job of the collaborator; and so, instead of guiding and supporting, in the virtual environment they are sharing with the collaborator, they share (or try to share) their codes, their neurograms with the collaborator, since for each of us the best code is ours.
So for good, no doubt ... the point is whether and how effective this is, and the field tests are indisputable: it is not effective, nor efficient in the vast majority of cases.
Next to the pressure aimed at satisfying the Principle of Similarity, we also find the difficulties to constitute the Other as a Subject, to use the resources of our Ego system with wisdom and balance.
What do you propose? What is your plan? How do you think we can ...
As I said, the technique has been known for a long time, and I don't know, honestly, who the real author is, I found it following a TTT, training the trainers, thirty years ago, I doubt that who presented it be the "inventor", but it was so obvious that it was the right thing to do (well before I dealt with emotions and systems) it has since become a pillar of my work.
Now we know quite well the reasons, and above all the obstacles to its rich and effective use: the first we saw it in the positive acknowledgement, the activation of the friend / enemy primary code, the second is the primary systemic protection code that triggers the drive to satisfy the Sameness Principle, the third is the primary code that intervenes in the constitution of the Other as a Subject.
All very useful codes, and that at the right time and in the right place continue to produce excellent results, but no longer in the advanced management of interaction with collaborators that is required today of supervisors, managers, managers, of the leaders of our time.
So, the step remains: what do you propose?