Possibility 1: An escalation is about an issue of some kind. A problem is transferred from one owner to another. If you’re at the receiving end, it comes on top of all the other things to do. And if the “sub-ordinate” cannot solve it, you’ll probably face a hard time trying to do so .

Possibility 2: Most of the escalations happen “too late”. The issue has already caused problems to an extent where it may hurt. And in business, when it hurts, the manager is responsible.

Possibility 3: At the other end of the escalation, the sender feels powerless to do his job. He actually has to give up control and often escalations become fingerpointing games with all the destructive emotions and actions attached to it.

Most escalations happen for the wrong reason, at the wrong time, with a wrong intent and/or in a wrong way. All wrong, at least if you look what the effect of an escalation ideally would be. Wrong also because of the effects on collaborative relationships and, consequently, performance.

Escalation is technically speaking nothing else than upwards  delegation. Usually it is a request for help to solve an issue for which the solution lies beyond the control of the individual or team confronted with it. Ideally escalation rules and paths are defined in a way that makes them most effective in the context. That’s theory and rules have their limits in complex situations.

Escalations should only help in finding solutions, a bit like Jim in one of the early posts of this blog. the difference would be that Jim nor yourself is the owner of the solution, nor do any of you have everything under control. An escalation about a past event with no added value for the future is destructive in nature. Let’s say you would escalate the fact that your kid broke a glass… What would you escalate? What do you want support with? Would an escalation actually help in any way to avoid glasses from being broken? Or do you want the information of a glass being broken reported to a “higher” level? For reporting, there are other, better suited tools like… eurhm… a report.

Some questions to ask yourself before escalating something:

• Is this a complaignt about something? Yes: not an escalation.
• Can the matter of the escalation be interpreted as a request for help or assistance? Yes: a good candidate for escalation.
• Is there any benefit for future issue resolution to be expected from this escalation? Yes: a good candidate for escalation.
• Is the escalation objective: getting even, settle scores, “making it feel”, exercise power,  getting something across or through their thick skulls? There are other tools for that.

Collaborative and effective escalations:

• never come out of the blue. The involved people should already be aware of the upcoming escalation
• should deal with content, not relationships. Good relationships help in tackling the escalated issue at hand.
• need to be stated in terms of status and situations. Forget for a moment how you came there. Just state what is going on “here and now”.
• have to make future collaboration easier. De-personalize your communication.
• are requests for assistance of some kind and may be a signal of an organisation or process that needs improvement.

Escalating an issue based on a sense of ownership and with an intent of making collaboration better, easier and more effective  is always good news.

How do you interpret this little message, if you get it in the service desk mailbox where you happen to work? Check all interpretations that apply:

- “Cool,  a thank you note!”.
- “I don’t know mr. L., nor H. nor V. What is this?”
- “Hmmm, let’s see: someone (V.) sends an email on behalf of someone else (H.) with a statement about a notebook for a third person (mr. L.). The message says thanks. Ok, that means we have to start up the procedure to deliver a notebook to mr.L. quickly because V. is the P.A. of H. and that means that the issue has been escalated.”

This is a real life case. The receiver chose option one. The sender wanted the receiver to think along the lines of option three.
What does this have to do with Collaboration? Well, quite a lot I’d say.

What the sender (V.) really wanted to say is:
“Helpdesk guys, make sure that mr. L. receives a notebook as soon as possible. It’s urgent because it has been escalated to a high level (namely that of H.)”.
I don’t know V. any better than the helpdesk people and I’m sure she is a nice person, hence “Thanks for …”.
The receiver had the same idea about V. and has not thought of interpreting the note as a request. Everyone involved feels awkward now and thinks awkwardly about  all other involved. The company has a nice and swift procedure for this kind of requests, all involved want this kind of requests to be handled as smoothly as possible and it didn’t happen…

What could have worked better? It’s a communication issue, isn’t it? In short:  “Please” and “Thank you” are not synonyms.

“Please, provide a notebook to mr. L.. Thank you. Best regards, H”.

Same emotional intent, clearer request and much better effect, I dare to bet.
So, how friendly it may seem to thank someone in advance, it is considered pushy (and therefor disrespectful) by many. When someone, like in the above case, is seen as a nice person, the “thank you” is interpreted as such. If this person was seen as a bully and if people would be afraid of her, then the effect would probably have been that the message would have been seen as a request. It’s ok to be pushy, it’s ok to be nice and friendly, if you are honest about it. Remember: you are responsible for every bit of your communication, for the possible interpretations other people make and thus for the effects. Undesired outcomes with a risk of being blamed kill collaborative capabilities.

Primo:  a team player doesn’t necessarily behave like one .
You want people who act like the best team players do in the context of the job. Being a team player or knowing what a teamplayer does and doesn’t do is supportive to the behavior, but it’s the behavior itself you’re after.

Secundo: if you trust your “team player” assessment, why you have to do the assessment?
The only thing you assess is that a person can behave as a team player in the assessment context and you trust that he will behave likewise on the job. If your argument is that people have the best of intentions and that they can be trusted, I am with you. But what is the value of assessing it? A simple “yes” from the candidate to the question if he will behave like a team player in his work context has at least as much value as the findings from the assessment.

Tertio: are you certain that you and the candidate have the same idea about how a team player behaves?
And even if you agree on how he behaves, how would you check that? The knowledge means nothing. Again, it’s the behavior itself you’re after.

Why are you after the behavior? You’ll have a number of good reasons. Chances are that you believe that this behavior will bring the team or the company a positive result of some kind. Maybe even that it is crucial to perform well in the specific job. You may have found some evidence in statistics, survey results and research. If it is important enough to write it in a job ad, it must be high on your list of requirements. If it is that important, why don’t you do more to make your own team player, one who naturally behaves like you know a team player does?

That is where collaboration coaching fills in the gaps. A collaboration coach will detect on which level his coachee is functioning. He’ll make the coachee aware of his limiting beliefs and help them replace by beliefs that support sustainable behavior. After that, you really don’t need to impose rules nor protocol. You know, at the end of the day, we all share common values. Starting from those, we all like to behave like team players do. What the heck: we’re all team players.

Pick the one key word that is flying around in any conversation about how the World will be able to create the wealth necessary to support our way of life: Innovation, more specifically Open Innovation. Innovation comes from the combination of ideas leading to something new. Something seemingly simple like, let’s say, a sundial was pretty innovative way back. Think of it: a tree casts its shadow on the ground. The direction of the shadow is an indication of where the sun is. The sun’s position is an indication of the time of day and even of the time of year. The number and the quality of combined ideas that are materialized in a simple sundial is dazzling. I invite you to have a look at photos of sundials here. Ideas stacked on ideas, from different backgrounds and cultures.  After many centuries people ended up creating something like the Sundial Bridge in redding, Ca.

There is no way for us to find out how the first sundial looked like and what it was made of. It is safe to say though, that the first person to create one has not thought of creating something like the Sundial Bridge or like the Equatorial Sundial. Those are the results of many  ideas and growing insight applied to existing creations. Innovation, if you ask me…..

If you look at the bridge, it is a combination of pretty wild ideas. If someone came to you and told you he had the great idea to build a bridge attached to a gigantic sundial…?  People have been locked up for far lessand still, the bridge is there. Ideas combined with ideas, dreams on top of reality, crossroads between function, beauty, technological power and a will to go forward.

Over centuries people have collaborated to create the Sundial Bridge. They’ve looked at what was there and were probably amazed when they imagined the potential, the value of their insight. And most of all: they released fearlessly their dreaming power, their power to realize their dreams and ideas wild as those may have seemed at the time.

Let’s have the courage to unleash our innovative spirit. Let’s be bold in forming alliances. Let’s find the confidence in ourselves and the trust in others to collaborate and innovate. Let’s look further than the competition measured by results. Let’s measure value by intrisic measures too.

Will: Much can be said about the will to release the potential, but let’s just say that a healthy racing horse wants to do what it does best: run the track as fast as it’s potential allows it to do.

Opportunity, however is a different thing. When is the right time to run? Or, for Cultural Intelligence, when is the right time to apply it? Put in other, other words: how to identify a cultural difference that needs to be dealt with intelligently?

A cultural difference is noticed when ways to behave in a given context are different between people or groups. One racing horse may be a slow starter and another one shoots away like a rocket. Much like one person listens and lets other people finish their sentence, while another interrupts and brings his point of view as soon as he can. Is this a cultural difference? It can be. Many people in north-western Europe will find that being interrupted is rude and maybe even disrespectful, while in southern Europe this shows that people are involved, enthousiastic and even very respectful, because they are present, listening and offering a contribution. Seen in that light it is a clear cultural difference. Alternative ways of behaving to show respect. On the other hand, the same behaviour may not be rooted in culture. It can be due to a number of circumstances and states where people find themselves in. Key question is not so much: “What is the cause?” rather than “How do we deal with it, no matter where it comes from?”or even better “How can we turn this difference from a problem into an asset and move forward faster, better?”.

After all, any behaviour originates from a positive intent. It’s just a matter of making it “ecologically fit” within the context. Maybe that is where the real intelligence needs to be sought: the ability to create a greater whole than the sum of the parts.

As for David Livermore’s model: I would add two words to the model: Values in the CQ Drive quadrant and Beliefs in the CQ Knowledge. Oh well, reading back,  it’s just my CQ Strategy to look at this.

It occurs to me that trying to split our life in two is a serious waste of energy. Hell, it causes stress and it makes a lot of us sick. But, ok, there are people who probably need that clear line and they need to lead two lifes, judging on how determined they are to defend the “seperate lives” belief. These thoughts come up regularly when talking to… you know: the kid. But recently they were triggered by talks with clients.

Follow me for a second. We raise our kids to choose a career that will make them feel happy, valuable and so on. Imagine that your kid finds just that career, he or she will be asked to seperate that from the private life? So, we wil ask the kid to not enjoy the happy feelings when he’s not working? “What if your job ain’t that great”, one will ask. Good question, I would say. Can you tell me how you ended up in that job? And secondly, why would you bother: you professional and your private life are two different things… so there shouldn’t be any influence.

But I’m willing to learn. Give me your arguments to keep your private and your professional life seperated. Maybe explain to me what you actually mean by that… Thank you and be whole.

http://prezi.com/o4dpnk3q7uum/

Believe it or not, but the original title of this blog was “Burn the Box”. And then I became aware of TED and its little brother TEDxBrussels. The latter’s baseline: “Burn the Box”. At the time I became aware of TEDxBrussels and its baseline this blog was not online, just yet. So much for being original… I felt I had to find another title for several reasons. I wanted to be original, I did not want to be perceived as stealing ideas and be the laughing stock of those who knew what it is about. On the other hand, I needed to make the point that I wanted to go further than thinking outside-of-the-box, because boxes… well you probably read a few of the other posts.

Dump the Box as a title, though triggered by the thoughts and attached feelings as in the above paragraph, came to mind pretty quick and naturally. It does meet the criteria I had at the time. And once more, it got me thinking of which box should be dumped. the idea is that thinking outside of the box involves taking whatever is in that box and look at it from a different angle. The box is still there, though. Well, I’m not going to make the metaphor dry up by analyzing it much. I am sure you got the picture and that you can think of a great number of other implications. Instead of being the guy who had the original idea, I feel it’s much more important to acknowledge that people at some point will “think alike”. That is when the “Law of attraction” (for as far as I know it) will work on a higher level. That is when “attractors” will start to really kick in.

Attractors? For the mathematical description: see Wikipedia. I heard of attractors in a different context of which more will be said very soon.

Anyway, my box of having to be “original” has been dumped. It feels like a lot of weight has been lifted. I guess that if someone finds it, it’ll be set ablaze to feed a bonfire of some kind.

Pigs have become a status symbol for Hawaiian villagers, much like cars are for westerners. They stand for wealth, prosperity and power. Each year there is a festival where a number of villages celebrate the end of a war that killed many. To this festival everyone can bring live pigs or pork. The pork is there for the celbration, itself. Of the live pigs, anyone who is in need can take one. But this will need to be compensated at some point. It is like a kind of credit. In this way villages have debts to other villages and vice versa. This system of mutual debts is believed to keep the peace and create strong bonds.

Isn’t that a nice reframe? Where, generally speaking, most of the people would consider being in debt is a “bad state”, it can be turned around by realizing that we are all connected and the mutual dependency can become the reason to help each other mutually.

Of course there may be pitfalls attached to this. I just fail to see them, unless one of the parties forgets about the implications and even then the system will restore the balance. I refer to what happens since 18 or so months ago on financial and economic forums.

Let’s kick out the box that contains the negative connotations of debt and dependency. As such debt creates a form of interdependency that can strongly support collaboration. Apply with care and trust.

The old “Dad-needs-to-know-the- answer-to-every-question”-pattern (the bespoke Pavlovian-reflex) began to set it’s wheels in motion. It usually starts with “Uhm, ok…. “. This time, it was silence and – to make sure the kid understood I had heard the question – an honest “That is a very good question.” And as the seconds dragged themselves by, a feeling of nervousness started to creep up.

Questions like boats passed through the lock chamber of my mind, one by one:

• Should I tackle this by addressing the example (learning to calculate) only?
• Shall I ask him if he only learns things that are of clear use now, soon or later?
• Why does the kid want to know?
• Does it matter why he wants to know?
• Which answer will keep his openness to learning new things intact?
• What is a good counter example of something he willingly learned that were of no apparent direct use?
• Which of my boxes contains the “killer answer” to this question?
• Do I have such an answer in one of my boxes at all?

The six million dollar answer to the equally valued question has not been worded, just yet. A Tony Robbins video came close (1. Feed your mind), but the kid needs to experience to learn (don’t we all?).

I found a question, not in one of the boxes, but right in front of me along with the answer “Yes, it is!”. The question is: ‘Isn’t learning a great deal of fun?’

The dumped box of today? It’s huge and heavy: it contains the “Dad-needs-to-know-the- answer-to-every-question”-pattern. I can tell you: I move and learn a lot faster, a lot more and it is even greater fun.