O'Toole's Despotism of Custom
I’m a big proponent of this values-based leadership that keeps coming up in the readings we’re doing, including the O’Toole reading. I have many questions about what it takes to keep those values alive in everyday work and some of O’Tool’s chapters brought those questions out.
The author’s basic assertion that institutions are easily seduced into maintenance of the status quo goes right to the idea of values for me. What values are inherent in the status quo that are so attractive to (some) people? Questions I have that I ask below are about ideas like who the values do and don’t belong to, who does and doesn’t know the values, who takes time to consider values, actions and their relationship. Also, as different people in a system often lay claim to their rights, I’m interested in making sure the necessary accompanying responsibilities are clear as well.
Values, peer pressure, and creativity & innovation This is something I’m interested in exploring deeper. O’Toole quotes Mill: “Society has now fairly got the better of individuality; and the danger which threatens human nature is not the excess, but the deficiency, of personal impulses and preferences…In our times, from the highest class of society down to the lowest, every one lives under the eye of a hostile and dreaded censorship.�
This feels like peer pressure. I’m no expert on the topic, but it seems to me that peer pressure comes directly from the peers’ values – whether spoken or not; understood or not. Several questions about peer pressure come to mind: --Where does peer pressure come from? --What is leadership’s role in creating peer pressure or changing its qualities? --What is everyone’s role in creating peer pressure or changing its qualities? (Again, thinking about the rights people lay claim to and the responsibilities that come with them.)
If an institution’s values do not lay the groundwork for risk, creativity, and innovation, then the institution should expect entropy to increase and atrophy to set in. O’Toole describes Mill’s idea that the amount of eccentricity is linked to amt of “genius, mental vigor, and moral courage.� in an institution at any given time (229). I wonder if the amount of eccentricity has less to do with the amount of genius, etc. than it has to do with the culture of the place. If the values of the institution don’t encourage or include “eccentricity� then it is not likely to be openly represented. Question: As a leader, what can I do not only to allow for eccentricity, but actively promote it and contribute to it?
One more question about values: A group may have values without knowing it and without knowing what those values are, what they mean, and without understanding them. People may be invested in a status quo without knowing the values that undergird it. When the group is forced to define their values in a thoughtful way, what happens when the newly defined, understood values don’t square with the status quo?
Rights and responsibilities What happens when a group protects its rights without knowing or acknowledging the accompanying responsibilities? The second chapter in this reading talks about the “ideology of comfort.� The Haves may have what they have without having a clue why they have it. What happens when they don’t own the responsibility that comes with those “rights?�
On page 248, O’Toole says that people resist change because they don’t want another person’s will imposed on them. If we “have a right� to not be imposed upon, what is our responsibility to the group with regard to the status quo? If our right to the status quo is implicit, do we then have the responsibility to actively, genuinely listen to and consider someone else’s perspective? Does that responsibility depend on our individual values? On the groups shared values?
I’m certainly no expert on these things but I’m going through some of this values-definition in my workplace and I can say that the changes I am seeing already are very positive. My challenge for the foreseeable future will be to make those values the fabric of our unit. That’s not something we’ve read about yet in this course, but I’ll be looking for it in future readings and in your thoughts and comments.
--scott marshall
Comments
Question: As a leader, what can I do not only to allow for eccentricity, but actively promote it and contribute to it?
I choose to answer this question by using O'Toole's own comments The Ideology of Comfort. He says, "The leader must convince the people with power of the rectitude of the proposed change. Even more, the leader must be able to show that the proposed change is a necessary step toward progress as defined by the haves.
If you take this to heart, one solution for actively promoting and contributing to eccentricity is convince those in power that it's a necessity. The question I would ask then is, who are those in power that need to be convinced?
Although it wasn't mentioned in the article, I think it's fair to extrapolate that the "haves" in an organization include those who work for the primary leader (the boss), and are recognized as leaders (either formally or informally) by most of the staff. If you can identify and convince those people that the culture they are accustomed to requires the kind of change you espouse, then you shouldn't have much trouble convincing the vast majority of your staff.
To reiterate, I think the key focus is recognizing who those leaders are and coming up with an argument that convinces them that a specific change is needed. If that works, and I think it would, it legitimizes O'Toole's hypothesis that to make change, convince the leaders that it's necessary.
Scott Dauner
Posted by: Scott Dauner | February 25, 2008 09:12 PM
Hey Scott D. - thanks for the comments. Wonder how you think a leader might promote creativity and risk taking in the name if innovation? As I understand it, building trust is particularly important because without a safe space for new ideas, they just won't come out. I suppose that the leader would need to take the same risks she's asking others to take.
I'm also wondering if the safe space idea applies more or less to either the Haves or the Don't Haves? On the one hand, if you make it safe(r) for the Haves to take a risk, maybe you risk a stronger status quo...? If you encourage risk-taking/creativity in the Don't Haves, then maybe you get fresher ideas that don't perpetuate the status quo...?
I know it's Tuesday and it's tough to fit in an exchange this late before class but I'd be interested to hear your thoughts (and others' of course). Thanks.
--scott marshall
Posted by: Scott Marshall | February 26, 2008 07:25 AM