Being a Leader
— Individual Discussion Question 2 —
Resilient Questioning
Week 4
Matthias Nott
Contact: Student ID: Created: Updated: Version:
m.nott@liverpool.ac.uk
H00023837 December 28, 2012 January 2, 2013 1.0
1 RESILIENCE QUESTIONING 2
Discussion Question
In this week’s ‘Leadership and organizing: sensemaking in action article by Pye, the chief executive (CE) in the case took an approach to change that resulted in his being terminated. Was he too focussed on his preeminent ‘position’ as a formal leader and not focussed enough on sense-making? Could the resilient questioning put forth in the Margolis and Stoltz article have changed the outcome of the situation?
With these thoughts in mind, answer the following questions:
1. How could the resilience questioning put forth in the Margolis and Stoltz article have changed the outcome of the situation?
2. Based on your examination of the Peak Learning web site and the pa- rameters of its Adversity Quotient Profile, what adjustments would you have had to make in order to deal with this situation if you were the CE?
Discussion Question Answer 1 Resilience Questioning
Margolis and Stoltz give a framework designed to shift the mindset from cause-oriented thinking, which is inherently oriented backwards, to response-oriented thinking, oriented forward. Their framework builds on the four pillars of control, impact, breadth and duration, in the context of which they demand to ask open questions in a personal way that are visual, specific and collaborative.1
1.1 Control
1.1.1 Visualizing
Instead of visualizing a central solution that he as a CE could sign-off on a global level with his Executive Operations Group, it would have been beneficial for him, after identifying the different stakeholders, to put himself into an observer type of perceptual position2, i.e. for each stakeholder to put him in the position of an outsider and visualize each stakeholder’s interest as well as the relation between the stakeholder and the CE. Through this approach, he could for example have seen the level of ultimate control the local organizations were having, limiting his own level of control, the need for localized products the customers were asking for, the potential fears for their jobs the middle managers might be carrying, the demands for “shareholder value” the shareholders were putting forward as well as the pressure under which they were putting the board members.
With these visualizations, he could have seen that there are quite a number of aspects that he cannot influence himself directly—for example, what happens below the middle- manager level—and consequently he would have opted for a collaborative approach (see section 1.1.3 on the following page).
Module: Being a Leader Matthias Nott, University of Liverpool Date: January 2, 2013 Document: Individual Discussion Question 2 Resilient Questioning (Week 4) Version: 1.0

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1.1.2 Specifying
Of course we cannot know what would have done the “manager [he] most admire[d].” (Margolis and Stoltz, 2010, p. 90) But what we can assume is that the approach in this section should be to be specific in addition to recurring to an external authority. So the point is in this context to make sure his questions are specific—which can already be achieved by adding the wording “what specifically” or “how specifically” or “who specifically” to a given question.3 As a result, he might have seen that the regional managers have the ultimate power for veto; consequently, he would have opted again for collaborating with them so that they are on board with the strategy he was going to have implemented (see section 1.1.3).4
1.1.3 Collaborating
The first phase of implementations failed essentially because of the lack of inclusion of everyone from the middle-manager level and below. This means, the “first attempt to implement global change was paid lip service to but never embraced or embedded as the changing definition of reality. The second attempt directly drew in key players who took an active role in shaping that definition.” (Pye, 2005, p. 45). This effectively shows how the focus on collaboration from the Margolis and Stoltz framework could have helped to avoid that missing buy-in from the onset, by asking the right questions to the right people.
1.2 Impact
1.2.1 Visualizing
While we need to keep in mind that in the context of Wicked Problems, we want to avoid premature action—see note 4 on page 7—the CE could have shown more decisive action as required by the shareholders in communicating better his approach and raising awareness to the issue of organizational change against the background of regional differences. This clear communication would have allowed him to concentrate on the actual implementation of change while keeping in check the shareholders who were demanding for increased returns—which would in any case not materialize in a short timeframe, as the first phase has demonstrated clearly.
1.2.2 Specifying
Asking what specific effects his actions could have on the people around him would have provided for an indication of how he could help them come to terms with the new situation of redefined responsibilities—as well as impending redundancy (see Margolis and Stoltz, 2010, p. 42). Overt communication on these issues would have helped avoiding hidden agendas and obstruction to his actions.
Module: Being a Leader Matthias Nott, University of Liverpool Date: January 2, 2013 Document: Individual Discussion Question 2 Resilient Questioning (Week 4) Version: 1.0

1 RESILIENCE QUESTIONING 4
1.2.3 Collaborating
Asking who specifically might run a risk of hanging back—the local business heads, for example—and how specifically he could mobilize their efforts, he would have again fostered a collaborative approach as described in section 1.1.3 on the preceding page.
1.3 Breadth
1.3.1 Visualizing
The focus of the question to ask in this context is on mobilizing previously unknown positives by focusing on marginal returns. In the given case, he could have tried to identify which of the regions have the biggest upside potential, and have concentrated on their issues rather than trying to design a global solution to fit all regions.
1.3.2 Specifying
The focus of this question is on telling a story—on making sense, i.e. on delivering a management of meaning. People are going to buy into his plans only if they can understand and buy into the bigger story. He was lacking communication with the regions as well as with managers that were potentially facing being made redundant, and only once he addressed these issues with an open communication, he was able to bring them on board—and even have them literally sign the commonly developed plans (see Margolis and Stoltz, 2010, p. 42).
1.3.3 Collaborating
In addition to what has been said in section 1.1.3 on the previous page, the context here is on transformational management in a collective context that focuses on solutions rather than problems, on identifying opportunities, on creating choice. It is again to be seen in the context of making sense, of showing the proverbial silver lining in the clouds, of helping people to see what they do not see because their more imminent fears may be getting in their way. So this question focuses fundamentally on reframing, on mobilizing efforts in order to achieve goals that were previously unseen—see as well section 1.3.1.
1.4 Duration
1.4.1 Visualizing
The idea here is to shift the attention from the problematic “now” to the brighter “future.” Since “energy flows where attention goes,” this helps people to work around and through imminent problems staying motivated because the CE gives meaning to a strategy which now makes sense because the employees can now see the future, which means they know now where they are going.
1.4.2 Specifying
In order to come up with the story that he wants to tell—see section 1.3.3—, the CE should try to identify what specifically the future is going to look like from the point of view of the different stakeholders as identified in section 1.1.1 on page 2.
Module: Being a Leader Matthias Nott, University of Liverpool Date: January 2, 2013 Document: Individual Discussion Question 2 Resilient Questioning (Week 4) Version: 1.0

NOTES 5
1.4.3 Collaborating
The focus here is on the outcome, as opposed to focusing on the next steps like in sec- tion 1.3.3 on the previous page. So again, this is about giving meaning, making sense and drawing the attention to the future because, in the words of Jackson and Parry, “if you do not aspire to change something and you don’t have a good reason for changing it, you cannot and should not lead.” (2008, p. 18).
2 Adversity Quotient Profile
The Adversity Quotient Profile (ADQ) established by Stoltz gives an analytical framework designed to analyze the leader’s resilience based on the four pillars of control, ownership, reachandendurance.5 OtherthantheresilienceframeworkfromMargolisandStoltzthat focuses on the change agent in his social context, the ADQ from Stoltz focuses on the person and his performance in a given situation. Its questions help him make a difference between what he can versus what he cannot change (control), to define and assume responsibility for a situation (ownership), to limit the impact of the situation (reach) and to build the necessary persistence to go through the solution process (endurance).
What the CE could have done would be to apply this framework not only to himself, but to the different stakeholders: He could have done better analyzing the impact of the regional organizations, i.e. the control he did not have, just as he attributed too much ownership of the task to himself and his close peers, underestimated the reach of his measures with regards to the end customers and sales people at the front line who felt left behind—and finally, he could have used the framework to support each of the key players in his organization to bring about the endurance necessary to see the solution through to the end.
The problem we see with the actual ADQ questionnaire from Stoltz is that its ques- tions, though shuffled in sequence across the different pillars, are easy to second-guess, which is one of the criticisms raised by Brooks with regards to personality testing: “One problem has been that some candidates manage to ‘second-guess’ the tests and give an- swers that they believe would please ... rather than give their true response.” (2009, p. 52) Also, the questions are closed trying to be quantitative, hence reduce choice, while the resilience questions are open and thus more likely to stimulate the cognitive pro- cesses to increase choice. Against this background, and also because the ADQ framework focuses on personal traits rather than the collective process which we see much more relevant in the face of Wicked Problems, it appears the resilience questioning framework from Margolis and Stoltz is more applicable to the given situation.
1500 Words excluding question, footnotes and references.
Notes
Module: Being a Leader Matthias Nott, University of Liverpool Date: January 2, 2013 Document: Individual Discussion Question 2 Resilient Questioning (Week 4) Version: 1.0

NOTES 6
1. The framework from Margolis and Stoltz can be structured in short as a the following set of questions: (all quotes from Margolis and Stoltz, 2010, pp. 90–92):
◃ Control: “What features of the situation can I (even potentially) improve?”
– Visualizing: “What aspects of the situation can I directly influence to change the course of this adverse event?”
– Specifying: “What would the manager I most admire do in this situation?”
– Collaborating: “Who on my team can help me, and what’s the best way to engage that person or those people?”
◃ Impact: “What positive impact can I personally have on what happens next?”
– Visualizing: “How can I step up to make the most immediate, positive impact on this situation?” – Specifying: “What positive effect might my efforts have on those around me?”
– Collaborating: “How can I mobilize the efforts of those who are hanging back?”
◃ Breadth: “How can I contain the negatives of the situation and generate currently unseen posi- tives?”
– Visualizing: “What can I do to reduce the potential downside of this adverse event—by even 10 %? What can I do to maximize the potential upside—by even 10 %?”
– Specifying: “What strengths and resources will my team and I develop by addressing this event?”
– Collaborating: “What can each of us do on our own, and what can we do collectively, to contain the damage and transform the situation into an opportunity?”
◃ Duration: “What can I do to begin addressing the problem now?”
– Visualizing: “What do I want life to look like on the other side of this adversity?”
– Specifying: “What can I do in the next few minutes, or hours, to move in that direction?”
– Collaborating: “What sequence of steps can we put together as a team, and what processes can we develop and adopt, to see us through to the other side of this hardship?”
2. In Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP), this is called the “third perceptual position” which, according to Grinder and Clair, is “a perceptual position from which you are able to see and hear clearly and cleanly that which is occurring in the context under consideration including a representation of yourself as one of the actors, from this privileged outside perceptual position.” (2001, p. 256)
3. We can again learn from NLP here: The NLP verbal pattern language model, as explained in Grinder and Clair (2001, pp. 142–164), helps the agent of change—the CE, in our case—to do a mental drill-down into the situation he addresses, without running the risk of adding his own interpretations—or content— prematurely. As Grinder and Clair say, “the agent of change introduces absolutely no content material. All content—all the words and their associated meanings—that are challenged for specification have their source in the client’s spontaneous speech productions. The unspecified nouns and verbs are presented by the client, extracted by the agent and placed in the challenge frames, and re-presented to the client.” (2001, p. 158) This is highly congruent with Margolis and Stoltz in that it is inherently non-reflective: “At the verbal level, the agent focuses exclusively on detection and on the process of extracting and re-presenting to the client portions ... that are unspecified. The objective for the agent is to create a
Module: Being a Leader Matthias Nott, University of Liverpool Date: January 2, 2013 Document: Individual Discussion Question 2 Resilient Questioning (Week 4) Version: 1.0

NOTES 7 context in which, through the manipulation of process, the client arrives at a new, enlarged and enriched set of choices . . . ; not for the agent to understand anything.” (Grinder and Clair, 2001, loc. cit.) So, for example, instead of asking “What features of the situation can I (even potentially) improve?” (Margolis and Stoltz, 2010, p. 91), he could have asked “What specific features of the situation can the CE improve, even potentially, and who specifically has control over which other specific features that are relevant to this situation?” Notice also that again we utilize the third perceptual position (“the CE” instead of “I”).
4. He might also have seen that the CE is running the risk of trying to collect “low-hanging fruits” by being prematurely pro-active in answering the question “How can you step up to make the most imme- diate, positive impact on this situation?” (Margolis and Stoltz, 2010, p. 90) Because, as Margolis and Stoltz point out, “the goal . . . is not to come up with a final plan of action . . . rather it is to generate possibilities—to develop, in a disciplined and concrete way, an inventory of what might be done.” (2010, p. 90, emphasis theirs). Because, like Grint warns that “the pressure to act decisively often leads us to try to solve the problem as if it was a Tame Problem . . . But we cannot know how to solve Wicked Problems, and therefore we need to be very wary of acting decisively precisely because we cannot know what will happen.” (2010, p. 4)
5. The Adversity Quotient Profile framework from Stoltz can be structured in short as a the following set of questions: (all quotes from Stoltz, 2001, pp. 3–4):
◃ Control:
– Actual Influence: “To what extent can you influence the situation?”
– Perceived Control: “How much control do you perceive you have?” ◃ Ownership:
– Self-Attributed Responsibility: “To what extent do you hold yourself responsible for improv- ing this situation?”
– Actual Accountability: “To what extent are you accountable to play some role in making it better?”
◃ Reach:
– Context: “How far does the fallout of this situation reach into other areas of your work or life?” – Duration: “To what extent does the adversity extend beyond the situation at hand?”
◃ Endurance: “How long will the adversity endure?”
Module: Being a Leader Matthias Nott, University of Liverpool Date: January 2, 2013 Document: Individual Discussion Question 2 Resilient Questioning (Week 4) Version: 1.0

References
Brooks, I. (2009). Organisational behaviour: individuals, groups and organisation. (4th ed.). Harlow, UK: Pearson.
(Cit. on p. 5.)
Grinder, J., & Clair, C. B. S. (2001). Whispering in the Wind. J & C Enterprises. (Cit. on pp. 6, 7.)
Grint, K. (2010). The cuckoo clock syndrome: addicted to command, allergic to leadership. The University of Warwick. [Online]. Available from: http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/ 5306/1/WRAP Grint 200811-cuckoo clock 3.pdf (Accessed: 19 Nov 2012).
(Cit. on p. 7.)
Jackson, B., & Parry, K. (2008). A very short, fairly interesting and reasonably cheap book about studying leadership (2nd ed.). London: Sage.
(Cit. on p. 5.)
Margolis, J. D., & Stoltz, P. G. (2010). ‘How to bounce back from adversity’, Harvard Business Review, 88 (1), pp. 86–92. [Online]. Available from: http://sfxhosted.
2
exlibrisgroup . com . ezproxy . liv . ac . uk / lpu ? title = Harvard + Business + Review & volume=88&issue=1&spage=86&date=2010 (Accessed: 12 Dec 2012).
(Cit. on pp. 2–7.)
Pye, A. (2005). ‘Leadership and organizing: sensemaking in action’, Leadership, 1 (1), pp. 31–49. [Online]. Available from: http://lea.sagepub.com.ezproxy.liv.ac.uk/ content/1/1/31.full.pdf+html (Accessed: 12 Dec 2012).
(Cit. on pp. 2, 3.)
Stoltz, P. G. (2001). ‘Your adversity quotient’, Innovative Leader, 10 (2). [Online]. Available from: http://www.winstonbrill.com/bril001/html/article index/articles/ 501-550/article517 body.html (Accessed: 7 Dec 2012).
(Cit. on pp. 5, 7.)
REFERENCES
Module: Being a Leader Matthias Nott, University of Liverpool Date: January 2, 2013 Document: Individual Discussion Question 2 Resilient Questioning (Week 4) Version: 1.0