Of machines and soccer coaches

By “systemic” we mean those theoretical and practical approaches that are essentially based on recent sociological systems theory (N. Luhmann and others), constructivism (H.v. Foerster, P. Watzlawick and others) and process-oriented forms of therapy and counselling (systemic family therapy, solution-oriented counselling, etc.) and that have found their way into organizational consulting for some time now. We choose this approach because we assume that it:

• It is currently the theoretically most powerful form of description and interpretation of leadership and organization in their increased degree of complexity and networking.
• approaches and perspectives that are best suited to successfully mastering the central challenges facing leadership today (providing meaning and orientation, organizing communication and decision-making intelligently, dealing with complexity, uncertainty and constant change).
• offers a repertoire of effective consulting tools and forms of intervention that can be used effectively by managers to shape goal- and solution-oriented management action.

Taking a systemic view of leadership means clearly distinguishing
from the traditional understanding of management and leadership.

The key points of a systemic understanding of leadership can best be clarified by distinguishing it from the traditional understanding of leadership and management. At the heart of a traditional approach is the model of linear control familiar from technology and business management. Organizations (and therefore also the people working in them) are seen as clearly controllable units whose behaviour can be predicted according to an input-output and cause-and-effect scheme. Managers are expected to achieve a clearly predictable result (output) through a specific input (e.g. precise task planning, clear instructions, an unambiguous objective or a change management process that has been planned in detail). If this result does not occur, either the type of input is optimized (even ‘better’ instructions, even ‘more precise’ formulation of objectives, etc.) or the blame is placed on the individual. The employee is incompetent or resistant or simply wrong at this point, the manager is not charismatic, strong, assertive or goal-oriented enough.

As a manager today, you have to do a lot – above all provide orientation, organize communication intelligently and deal with constant change.
The traditional understanding of leadership ultimately combines two approaches: Organizations are more or less controllable ‘machines’ that can be clearly regulated on the basis of business or technical laws and successful leadership is primarily a matter of personality traits. This traditional understanding of leadership supports an extremely “heroic self-concept” (R. Wimmer) of leaders: a high claim to have everything under control; a direct and often micromanagement-like control of tasks that are actually delegated; a preference for direct intervention; blaming others, etc. It stands to reason that the feeling of self-overload and burnout that is not uncommon among managers can also be seen as a consequence of this mechanistic-heroic leadership and management model.

People are largely internally driven.
Recognizing this is one of the most important prerequisites for successful communication and leadership.

A systemic understanding of leadership and consulting, on the other hand, is fundamentally different. As a manager – as well as a consultant – you are dealing with living psychological and social systems. They are fundamentally different from controllable machines. It is essential that living systems are largely internally controlled and that their behavior cannot be predicted and controlled in the sense of a clear cause-and-effect relationship. For this reason, communication with them also works differently from technical communication. A certain input does not produce a predictable output; often just the opposite, as every manager knows from their own experience. For example, how someone reacts to a certain statement (“Mr. Schmidt, one of your goals is to successfully implement this project. I therefore expect …”) depends entirely on his specific patterns of perception and interpretation, his way of thinking, his emotional state, etc., in short: on his inner structure and his way of constructing the world. Counseling interventions based on the understanding of expert counseling also encounter similar challenges. If the counselor tells the client exactly what to do from now on, the case is far from being solved, let alone implemented.

Social systems such as companies, business units, institutions, cultures, etc. operate in a similarly autonomous and ‘internally controlled’ way. They consist of “communications” which, over time, condense into certain patterns and rules of communication and shared mental models (values, beliefs, mutual expectations, etc.). Communication shapes independent thought and communication patterns, typical values, decision-making routines and behaviors that significantly influence the behavior of managers and employees (often unconsciously) and at the same time create a lasting context that is no longer tied to individual persons. One can also speak of ‘social stubbornness’. This refers to autonomous rules and structures through which the organization controls and reproduces itself and through which it simultaneously distinguishes itself from its environment as an independent system.

How a business unit reacts to a board resolution, for example, is not determined by the board members, but by the business unit’s established thought model, typical interpretation patterns, behavioral routines and processes. Managers in organizations are therefore always confronted with the paradoxical challenge of taking responsibility for the behaviour of complex systems that are largely internally controlled, i.e. cannot be controlled and managed from the outside in terms of cause and effect. Leadership is therefore to be understood as a “constructive irritation” of the internal processes of systems. The appropriate metaphor for leadership activities – as well as for consulting activities – is therefore neither that of a helmsman or captain who steers his team, department or business unit through ‘rough seas’ nor that of a charismatic visionary savior.

As a manager, you are less the captain than the coach of your team.
It’s more like the coach of a soccer team. They don’t score all the goals themselves, nor can they determine how each individual player behaves on the pitch every second. On the contrary: once the game is underway, it is self-organized within the framework of certain rules, with extremely limited external influence. A good coach will therefore not try to directly steer or control the individual player or the game as a whole. Rather, he will endeavor to achieve the most intelligent teamwork possible through tactics agreed with everyone and to create a framework to which every player adheres by means of jointly agreed goals and rules of conduct. In other words, he organizes himself. The success of his leadership activities is never down to him alone, but is always a team effort. The winning team is the one whose members succeed in coordinating their behavior appropriately and quickly in constantly changing and unpredictable situations. In the best case scenario, this is also possible when the coach is in bed with the flu. The success factors of a winning team therefore do not consist of seamless master and milestone plans or target plans that have been worked out down to the last detail, but rather, for example, in:

• A shared ‘mental map’ (regarding goal, tactics, roles)
• Communication, including the ability to continuously communicate about non-functioning behavior patterns
• Roll flexibility
• Willingness to take responsibility and make decisions
• The feeling of being part of an attractive story told by the coach

The team whose members quickly and appropriately coordinate their behaviour
in changing situations in a self-organized manner wins.

The task of leadership is to use these and other factors to create a context within which the team can steer itself. Applied to Movendo’s consulting approach, this means that we act as experts in the design of consulting, learning and change processes and support our clients in developing the rules of the game that ensure sustainable solutions for their context.