I recently read Arend Ardon’s book Break the cycle. ‘Get rid of the change management and start to explore and apply learnings!’ A thought-provoking statement that spoke to me. While the book focuses on ineffective behaviour of managers in an organizational change, it made me assess my own. In this blog, I’m exploring my personal defence strategies.
Since I work in complex, ever changing organizations, I find myself often in uncomfortable situations or conversations. When it gets uncomfortable, people tend to switch to automatic pilot behavior according to Ardon. Automatic pilot behavior might block true change. One example: defensiveness. As I try to live by one of Brené Browns quotes from Dare to Lead, I thought it was about time to explore where my own defensiveness pops in.
Because that’s integrity – choosing courage over comfort. It’s choosing what’s right over what’s fun, fast or easy. And it’s practicing your values, not just professing them.
Brené Brown – Dare to Lead
Ardon discovers six defence strategies. My translation (I read the book in Dutch) of these strategies:
- Discarding. When your approach or behavior isn’t effective, you blame circumstances or others.
- Downplaying things. When the situation is threatening or uncomfortable, downplay the problem until it’s manageable again.
- Us versus them. Keep the conversation distant by using language like ‘our responsibility’ and ‘what we should do’.
- Keeping distance. When the conversation gets personal, change the language to generic observations like ‘the employees’, ‘middle-management’, or ‘the organization’.
- Non-intervention. Don’t give others feedback about ineffectiveness, so they won’t do that to you either.
- Humor. When the situation is threatening or uncomfortable, joke and change the subject.
You might recognize you switch between a couple of these defence strategies. But you probably have one go-to mechanism you might not even be aware about! My number one is humor. I like to joke a lot. Work should also be fun, right? It is also nice to recognize my own personal development regarding to this. Because at the beginning of my career as a consultant I was also discarding or keeping distance. The past ten years I learned to take the responsibility to look at my own part. What could I change about situations? But reading about the humor strategy threw me off guard a little. To what extend do I apply this ineffective behavior?
I started exploring in my daily work when I tend to joke and what kind of effect it has. And I found out that I usually joke to break the ice a bit. To get rid of some of the tension in the room. That doesn’t mean it automatically leads to ineffective behavior. Oftentimes the air clears up a little, so we can continue the conversation at hand. However, It is good to be aware of these mechanisms and to improve effective behavior. Of course I’m also curious to know: what is your defence strategy?
Read more about Arend Ardon’s work here or in the book (available in English and Dutch).
Essence of Change 