Change

The Unsuspected Element of Conflict and a Sufi’s Wisdom

by Semira Soraya-Kandan on 21. Dezember 2011

Many people are very fond of taking things at face value. In the contexts of expert organizations many are focused on the factual dimensions of their tasks. Dealing with any social aspects of cooperation and collaboration is straining and challenging for experts.
People taking things personally as soon as some conflict peeks around the corner are a big challenge for leaders.
From a leadership perspective it is much more useful to have a broader concept of conflict and to develop a positive, even welcoming attitude towards it. This requires considerable and sustainable change in the leadership and organizational culture.
We recently had a leadership workshop with such an expert organization wanting to change its leadership culture from a traditional top down authoritarian leadership style to a more participatory and empowering leadership style. Then the question came up: What do people in the organization understand when they hear the word conflict? Many associate it with something negative and with something personal.
Yet, conflicts are often not what they seem to be. They cannot easily be taken at face value. In conflict avoiding contexts, people often agree with each other too quickly not recognizing that in fact they only found an apparent consensus. The covered dissensus comes up later when actions don’t abide. But people also often disagree too early, going on in a blind dissensus, not realizing that in fact they may not be so much apart, if they only found out what was behind an apparent opposition.
So, as a spontaneous response to our discussion, I shared a Sufi wisdom by Idries Shah:
(c) Semira Soraya-Kandan
The Unsuspected Element
Two men were quarreling outside of Nasrudin’s window at dead of night. Nasrudin got up, wrapped his only blanket around himself, and ran out to try to stop the noise. When he tried to reason with the drunks, one snatched his woolen and both ran away.
“What were they arguing about?”, asked his wife when he went in. ”It must have been the blanket. When they got that the fight broke up.”
 
What ideas do you have about helping others to learn that conflicts cannot easily be taken at face value?

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The German Sommermaerchen Changes our Country & International Soccer. Some Lessons for Managers & Politicians

by Semira Soraya-Kandan on 5. Juli 2010

Summer finally arrived in Germany and with it the enthusiasm about the FIFA World Cup in South Africa. The Germans had a very hard time dealing with their national identity. The Nazi history neccessarily lead to a high ambivalence towards national pride, not just one’s own, but anyone’s.

Yet, the globalization of the economies changed many German companies and their cultures. Nowadays a much broader group of employees work in nationally and culturally mixed teams and contexts than 15 or 20 years ago. German politicians no longer deny the fact that Germany is a country of immigration; they even slowly understand that we are a country in definite need of it.

With the 2006 world cup in Germany, many took a new approach to national identity; viewing it as much more diverse and allowing for multiple identities. We witnessed many young people living in Germany with other cultural backgrounds, also passports, supporting the German national team.

The success was welcomed, yet many hoped that Germany should do well, but not win.

In 2010, everyone first worried, when Joachim Löw announced that Michael Ballack will not be able to play. Reorganization, change was needed. They adapted to the new situation very well. To most people the success of the German National league is a big surprise.

An exception to this is Amir Kassaei’s world cup blog, one which you should definitely read from beginning to the end.

In 2010, migrants not only support the German team by wearing flags over their shoulders on parades; they even defend the German flag on their shops against some German left activists.

Others, like Baktat, the Mannheim founded international food maker and retailer and Metropol Hayat, Mannheim local Turkish Magazine, support the German national team even with poster prints!

Baktat and Metropol Hayat Support the German Team at the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa

Very similar to the discussion in international business about the new global requirements with respect to competition, innovation and strategy, we now witness an intense discussion of the changing success factors of today’s globalized soccer game.

Today’s German team is much younger, much more multicultural and plays with a very fresh, new style.

The new German national team has surprised the world. Now, we want the “Sommermärchen”  to go on and win the world cup.

All this “dreaming” and adoration does however have some basis in substantial strategy, know how, potential and performance. Joachim Löw had a clear vision of how he wanted to succeed and what kind of systematic training he needed for these great talents.

Some of Jogi Löw’s success factor are:

  1. Understanding the change of the game by systematically studying recent developments in international soccer
  2. The change of the game is a paradigm change: Today a team of individual stars only will lose: Best performance means best team
  3. Best Teams means using the potentials of the diversity of the team
  4. Linking diversity to vision, strategy and implementation
  5. Systematic training and hard work

    6. And last but not least:

  6. He managed to create an exuberant team spirit
  7. He practices a mindful leadership communication: knowing what to say when and how to say more with less

For managers and politicians alike, this new German national team is a lesson on implementing best practice – on teamwork, on motivation, on diversity and integrating, on talent development, well, on leadership.

They are not simply imitating some former soccer stars like e.g. Brazil or the Netherlands. Rather, they are creating something new, some kind of synthesis of international impulses and influences and retaining some of the strengths of German soccer, something of their own. The result is a team that plays soccer differently.

The most moving scene for me personally, however, was, when Miroslav Klose and Jerôme Boateng hugged.

On South African soil.

Sixteen years after the end of Apartheid.

Congratulations, South Africa!

Congratulations, Jogi Löw & Team!

No matter how the world cup ends, for me, you have won already.

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Women’s Quota – Paving a Path to Power and Diversity?

by Semira Soraya-Kandan on 8. April 2010

The discussion about introducing a women’s quota is highly controversial. In Germany it has mostly been rejected, in public administration as well as in industry. Many argue that a quota weakens women’s positions in the workplace rather than strengthening them. Women’s successes will be attributed solely to the quota, not to their achievements. Mostly you hearonly yes or no answers to the quota. I myself was never in favor of it.

On March 8th of this year, the world commenced the 99th International Women’s Day. India introduced a women’s quota for its parliament. – The upper house of India’s parliament has approved a bill which reserves a third of the seats in the national parliament and state legislatures for women.

Deutsche Telekom Introduces a Women’s Quota

The very same week, the Deutsche Telekom announced the introduction of a 30% women’s quota for their middle management by the year 2015. Wow, I thought and wondered what their arguments will be.

Summarizing Thomas Sattelberger, member of the board of management for HR, their main reasons are:

  • All measures taken so far have not brought about the change we sought for.
  • The glass ceiling needs to be broken, this is what we want to achieve.
  • It is a necessity with respect to fairness in society.

And René Obermann, CEO of Deutsche Telekom, clearly states: “Having more women on the top will improve our performance.” (my own translation)

Currently the Deutsche Telekom has overall roughly 11% women in leadership positions, internationally 24 %, yet in Germany itself only 18%.

The decision sparked off a lot of news coverage, even in the international press.

Let us look at the context:

Women’s Careers in Germany

According to a study published by the DIW (German Institute of Economic Research), there were only 2,5% women on boards of the top 200 largest German corporations in 2009, the only chairwoman of a German board being IKEA’s Petra Hesser. On the board of Germany’s 30 DAX corporations there is only one woman: Barbara Kux, a Swiss working for SIEMENS.

Dr. Sonja Bischoff, an economics professor at the University of Hamburg has regularly investigated the situation of women’s careers in Germany since 1986. On March 8th, Dr. Bischoff reported on her fifth round of her study “Who leads in(to the) future?”.

Her latest results show:

  • the number of women in middle management has multiplied by four
  • almost every 5th manager in German companies is female
  • women in leadership position have risen from 4% to 18 % mainly leading in the fields of HR, finance and marketing

Another larger study published by Hoppenstedt shows that the upper levels of management (level 1 and 2) have a continuously increasing number of women: doubling from 1995 with 8,17% to 19,56% today. Yet, in larger companies this increase is less and slower from 3,2% to 5,9%, and even less with increasing size of the company.

This supports Bischoff’s results showing that a majority of women leaders are self-employed respectively entrepreneurs who can self-organize a flexible workplace.

Apart from the considerable lower average pay, Sonja Bischoff sees the greatest barrier to women’s careers still to be “prejudices against female superiors”. In her study, 24 % of the 370 women participants experienced a lack of trust in their leadership competence. She concludes, “personal experiences of discrimination are as much as they were in 1986”.

This is a very bad resume for German business.

Given these numbers, the decision by the Deutsche Telekom definitely has a signaling effect.

As a first matter of fact, a majority of girls currently finish school with better grades than male peers. Two thirds of current students in business administration are women. They are very successful right up to entering the professional world and the beginning of their careers. Why should their performance decline with age and professional experience?

As a second matter of fact, the top 100 largest corporations have 526 board positions. Only 7 are women.

This is hardly due to lower performance, maybe rather to a reluctance to compete.

A majority of German corporations are still against any quota. Yet, according to a study published by Odgers Berndtson almost half of the 49 women in the top management of Germany’s top 500 corporations even favor it with some reservation.

A Diversity Outlook

In my view, the question of a quota cannot be answered with a simple yes or no any longer. With respect to dimensions of time, society, economic and international development, organizations will have to come up with a pragmatic response to questions like:

  • Do we have a realistic chance of hiring and developing enough qualified and talented women in our business fields?
  • What do we risk by potentially loosing higher qualified male candidates?
  • Can we afford to miss out the women given the demographic developments?

And less defensively:

What do we gain – short term, midterm and long term – by implementing a quota

  • a) with respect to changing career paths in the long run?
  • b) with respect to increasing diversity in management?

I do believe, “diversity wins“, as Tom Peters likes to say.

The quota will not win by itself. It can only be effective with corresponding measures, as e.g.:

  • recruiting and developing talented women and men in support of diversity thinking,
  • offering systems that sustainably improve flexible workplaces in support of family lives of all employees, women and men
  • finally, develop leaders to meet the requirements of growing diversity

As with most leadership decisions, we will be able to judge the success of such measures only retrospectively.

A women’s quota may not be a simple and easy path to power and diversity. But promoting women in leadership is not a simple question of pro or contra quotas any longer. There are more differentiated perspectives to the issue on the agenda today.

The media reports and the discussions I have had with various collegues and clients around the Deutsche Telekom decision made me change my mind. I believe it also show that this change is already taking place on a wider scale.

What do you think?

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