Araz

High-performing teams, just like well-functioning societies, are successful because all members actively share their thoughts, opinions and talent. There’s a lot written about teams and organizations that structure themselves to get the diversity of voices/opinions into the conversation to drive innovation and growth. But there’s not much that points the responsibility towards the individuals themselves to make sure their opinion is heard.

People express their opinions and thoughts in different manners. Some do this very openly and feel very comfortable to express their thoughts in front of a large group of people. Others approach things from the background engaging the people they need to in dialogue. This is only two examples of the many ways in which individuals can express their thoughts and ideas; the important thing to notice is in both cases the person is making sure they are getting their opinion heard.

I have worked with several people who just keep everything inside themselves. They get frustrated because they never end up expressing how they really feel and they end up blaming the fact that they can’t express themselves on others. What further aggravates me is when others come to the defense of these individuals claiming that they are the protectors of those unable to express themselves. They say things such as, “I am speaking for those who cannot speak”, or “you don’t know this opinion because this person can’t express themselves.”

To me this approach is completely counterproductive to the development of individuals, teams and the community as a whole. People need to take responsibility to make sure they are heard. And you need to find a way of doing it yourself; other people who speak for you are just creating crutches. And furthermore, I think that those people who seem to be helping out don't really want the other person to develop because it gives them a feeling of power and superiority that they know better than others (and even if having power and feeling superior is not their intention, it definitely comes across that way).

Innovation and human growth are driven by diversity; but we can't achieve this it if people aren't contributing. No one is going to do it for you.

Last month Rotterdam held its annual International Film Festival. I thought it would be fun to go, so I started to search for films and decided to look at the films whose title started with a Z (my thinking being how could you possibly come up with a film name starting with the letter Z?!). The first film was listed as Zara and since it’s my name spelled backwards, I decided to go.

The film is written and directed by a Kurdish filmmaker. It’s the story of a young Kurdish girl that goes back to her village (Zara) after having spent over a decade away. The show I saw was the European premiere, so the Director, Producer and others were present for a brief Q&A after the show. They mentioned the film took a long time to get into production because getting funding was hard; main reason being was that it is a very melancholic and sad film (and of course lots of people don’t really want to see films like that).

Kurdish people do have a quite sad history. Now I’m not saying that they’ve been perfect; every race/culture has had its share of hurting others. My understanding is the recent history has been particularly painful as Kurds have been denied their right to exist as a race and their right to have sovereignty over a territory they see as their home[1].

The film was indeed quite melancholic. What struck me was that I could relate to their sadness. Growing up in Canada as part of the Armenian Diaspora, I experienced a lot of this sadness in my family and in the Armenian community. The sadness is mostly around what Armenian’s describe as Turkey’s denial of the genocide, which took place in 1915. I remember my father telling me stories about why his mother was an orphan; that she saw her parents killed in front of her eyes, because her father was a priest and the intellectuals were the first ones killed. He would describe the pain she experienced of being forced to walk through the desert in Syria to finally end up with her sister at an orphanage in Aleppo.

Growing up hearing these stories shaped my understanding of truth. However as I read, explored, and experienced the world I discovered that this was not the version of truth held by others. I got the chance to challenge my understanding of the truth by engaging others in a meaningful dialogue on this topic as I explored their stories with them. I have the fortune of having several Turkish friends who are quite dear to me. Together we’ve discovered so much in common about ourselves, our cultures, and actually had the chance to talk about our versions of the truth, what it means, and how it makes us feel. One of my good friends who I went on my first trip to Armenia has a Turkish mother, and an Armenian father, and speaks both languages. And I fell in love with Istanbul when I went there and definitely plan to visit again soon.

I remember being in Puerto Rico in 2006 and I met a systems engineer who wanted to find an internship to Turkey. When he found out that I have an Armenian heritage he said, “so then you don’t like Turkey right?”. I was shocked by this statement. It made me realize that some people don’t look at me as a person; they look at me as a race.

I recently read this statement in an article, “you can’t hate someone whose story you know”. I believe that this is the way for people to start looking at each other as humans. Sharing with each other our stories, our versions of the truth, is for me the only way that we will ever be able to find the "T"ruth.

I capitalized the T in truth as I do believe that there can be one universal truth. I also accept that reality is shaped by the perceiver. My hypothesis is that we can only arrive to the Truth by sharing, understanding, and empathizing about our multiple truths. I believe this can open the door to ending hatred and finding peace.

The only sad part I remember of being in Istanbul was when I was in line to get food in the cafeteria. The man you served me looked at me and asked, “Turkish”? I said no and I explained that I am Canadian and Armenian. The smile on his face suddenly disappeared and was replaced by a cold hard stare. It made me wish we could communicate so I could learn his story.

This topic came to mind from a recent conversation I had with the branch manager of a global company. She was facing a challenge with her COO; he had requested that certain functions and roles needed to participate in her monthly branch meeting. Now for their other branches the number of people present in the meeting would be around 7 or so. In her case it was almost 30 people.

There are two things about this conversation that surprised me. The first was the manager and the COO were having an argument over the number of people that should be present in the meeting rather than discussing the purpose of the meeting. Once you’ve determined the purpose, from there you can figure out who needs to be there to achieve the purpose/desired outcomes. The second is why would a COO go to that level of detail in a globally based organization to dictate who needs to be present in which meeting, rather than giving direction on outcomes that need to be achieved and being open to mediating locally as circumstances require.

There is a subtle, but important difference between standardization and harmonization. Standardization is about conformity. For example, there is some beauty in the fact that McDonald’s uses Heinz as its ketchup supplier all around the world. (Well I think it’s nice that you’re guaranteed to get the same taste of ketchup no matter where you are, which is nice because you can get comfort from that familiarity). It’s also in McDonald’s interest to standardize their ketchup supplier because it reinforces their brand.

Harmonization is about consistency. To me, this subtle difference indicates that when you harmonize you focus more on common goals and outcomes. In this case an executive board member could provide the outcome and frameworks and allow these to be adapted to local needs and market opportunities.

If you’re a global company, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you are the same everywhere. Now this isn’t to say that companies can choose an either/or approach. Both can exist and what matters is considering which approach is appropriate/necessary for the circumstances. For example, I’m not sure we’d be so happy if the International Aviation Association let countries select their own ways of directing planes; the risk is too high for something to go wrong.

I think all this again comes back to the fact that leaders simply need to think and be conscious of the ‘why’ behind their decisions/actions/approaches; essentially better considering the impact they will have. I think this is a post I’ll have to come back to later as I can already see it connected to several other questions/themes. One of these being how can we get leaders to start thinking so they can manage the complexity present in a global organization in a way that truly builds a world-class company?

I was recently having a conversation with some of my teammates at work around what we believe should be done to make our world more sustainable and to reduce xenophobia. My perspective was the following:

1.     Sustainability: I believe we should put all our efforts towards redesigning the way we live. By this I mean we need to change our system of production and consumption to move from a cradle to waste system to a cradle-to-cradle system (for more on this you should read the book Cradle to Cradle by William McDonough and Michael Braungart). 

2.     Less xenophobia: ‘You can’t hate someone whose story you know’ – I read this recently in an article written by Margaret Wheatley (and apparently she read it off the back of a t-shirt!). I think that we can combat xenophobia by having people really understand and engage in each other’s stories. Once you know someone and you empathize with them, how can you hate them?

The perspective of one of my teammates on sustainability is that everyone should do their part; saving light, getting double paned glass on windows, not using plastic utensils etc. And not that I’m against this (and I try in little ways to do it myself), I was just stating my own belief on how we can solve our unsustainable manner of living.

Now what was interesting about all this was when I realized that we were coming to different solutions simply because of where we were looking at the problem from. She saw the problem from the perspective of individuals, whereas I was looking at the problem from the perspective of industry and the global economic system. What’s funny though is that when I took the problem of how to reduce xenophobia, I was looking at the solution very much from an individual perspective.

It was at this point where it struck me that having awareness over what I was paying attention to when looking at the problem meant that I could understand and better explore the other solutions being proposed. It felt like I could take off the glasses I was using, put on another pair, and then look at the problem again with fresh eyes/from a new perspective.

Consciously practicing ‘re-framing’ I believe is an important aspect of leadership[1]. The Chairman and co-founder of the company I currently work for, Tom Cummings, recently co-wrote, with Jim Keen, a book titled Leadership Landscapes. One of the leadership practices that Cummings and Keen talk about in the book is the ability of leaders to ‘re-frame’. Imagine, like I described above, that you view the world through a set of glasses. What happens if one day you take those glasses off and you put on someone else’s glasses? Will things still look the same? How will this impact your thinking? How will it shape your behavior? Re-framing is the ability that leaders have to solve intractable problems by being able to change the lenses they are using to look at the situation.

A re-framing practice that Cummings and Keen suggest is to look at your issue/problem across the landscapes. Imagine a landscape in your mind. When I imagine it I see myself standing on a hill looking to the horizon. At the furthest point of my vision is the horizon (rolling hills, flat plains or the sea) and just in front of me standing where I am is me, the trees, the houses etc. In the context of leadership, Cummings and Keen indicate 5 levels of the landscape: individual, team, organizational, industry, and macro business. A re-framing practice I find useful is to take the challenge I’m facing and ask myself which landscape I’m approaching it from. Once I know that I can either 'bump up' or 'bump down' the challenge on the landscapes. Changing the context often helps to solve the problem.

Another article which I believe links to the concept of re-framing across landscapes, is by Roger Martin, Dean of the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto. He wrote an article in Harvard Business Review titled, How Leaders Think. In the article he says that we shouldn’t emulate what leaders do, but how they think. 

Interestingly enough, re-framing also links to my recent post on innovation. Diversity exists in groups because we all approach problems from different perspectives. The ability to switch these perspectives helps to drive innovation because it opens the door to exploring new and creative approaches. 

My last post left a question in my mind; does harmony negate innovation?

Innovation is a new way of doing something. I believe you can’t have innovation without having diversity. An interesting article by Margaret Wheatley describes how diversity plays an important role in driving innovation. Of course diversity can generate friction: different perspectives, ways of thinking and behaving which can be uncomfortable. For me, friction is not contradictory to harmony. 

Have you ever worked with someone that is totally different from yourself? Thinks differently, speaks a different language, studied a different academic discipline? I have and in many instances I have found myself engaged with people completely different than myself in incredibly transformative dialogues. There’s something that happens in the conversation where our seemingly opposing views and structures of thinking interact to generate innovation: a new solution/approach towards our common goal.

Harmony requires diversity. If you look at a musical score or an orchestra, it sometimes seems strange that all of those chords and instruments are together. In the same score, people can be singing in different pitches, starting and ending in different places, some singing andante and others allegro. If you look at the pieces separately you might not be able to piece them together; when you hear them played together they produce something so beautiful; something you never thought it would be possible when you considered the pieces individually. 

For me, the conversations and moments I described have been one of incredible harmony. Where I’ve felt that I’ve just been in flow with the other person/people. And of course there have been moments of disagreement, frustration and discomfort. The real difference is those moments where everything just shifts and suddenly the problem, which seemed so intractable, gets solved. It's this harmony that has generated a new way of doing something; in other words, innovation.

Well I feel a little late to finally be joining the blogging world as it seems that everyone has had a blog except me. So why start now? It’s pretty straightforward; I like to share my thoughts/opinions with others, and I enjoy writing and I think blogging will help to keep my creative writing skills fresh. I’ve always kept a journal, but when you know that no one's reading it sometimes you write really random things; this way I can write what I hope others will enjoy reading!

When I first joined and created my profile, there was a space that I could put my tagline. That got me thinking so much that I had to stop creating the rest of my profile to give a little bit more thought to what I’d want my tagline to be (don’t worry it didn’t take me years; just some minutes reflecting!)

I came up with ‘co-creating harmony’. Why this?

A central theme I’ve noticed in my life since I was a child is a strong desire for things to be in harmony. I think this partially comes from years of singing in a choir in which you need to be attentive to how others are singing/playing music around you so that overall what you sing/play is beautiful (and the audience claps!). Still today if a new song comes out I can listen to it for the first time and 10 seconds into the song I can sing the rest of the tune.

Another reason to desire harmony I believe could be inherited; my dad has told me lots of stories of my grandmother and how she would always be bringing about peace between the neighbours through quiet conversations that would eventually bring them around to sorting out their differences. I have several childhood memories of trying to establish harmony between my friends; one of which was in the fourth grade (I think I was 9 at the time) and I sat down with two of my friends who had been fighting and made them write down a list of things they did not like and did like about each other. I then showed to them in a logical manner that it did not make sense for them to keep fighting because the things they liked about each other outweighed what they did not like (ah, the things we do as kids!).

Co-creating came from some of the lessons I’ve learned in my quest for harmony. I used to get into a lot of trouble with friends in high school when I could not take sides and join a group. And I never wanted the groups to be separate; I wanted all of us to hang out together. That didn’t always work and sometimes left me in the middle of everything and sometimes with all the blame. As an adult I’ve started to understand that harmony needs to be co-created; it needs to be desired by others. I don’t want to impose harmony on others; I want us to bring it about together and have it as a shared purpose.

For now, I’m satisfied with this introduction and hope you enjoyed it. I think I already have my next post in mind; does harmony negate innovation?