Read Time: ~6 min.
This is the fifth in a series on Ownership-based Change.
Last week we concluded by asserting that the sensemaking function of leadership takes leaders (whether individuals or in groups) to this choice:
Do they embrace beliefs that result in manipulating people to “buy-in” to their “predictably irrational” choices?
OR
Do they embrace beliefs that result in working collaboratively with people whose expertise is different but just as, or even more, valuable and which leads everyone to have deep ownership of the proposed change?
Were you wondering why we used the term “embrace beliefs” rather than “embrace mindsets?”
Some may treat the concept of “belief” as interchangeable with the concept of “mindset.” However, that misses an important difference described by writers Deborah Brownstein and Jonathan Dapra:
Beliefs are called mindsets when they filter how we make sense of the world and ourselves. Mindsets act on our choice of goals and goal-pursuit behaviors, which significantly affect our lives.
There are several things in this quote that catch our attention.
First, this reads as an updated version of an ancient proverb that goes something like this: “As persons think in their hearts, so they are.” This idea is often found in religious or philosophical traditions. Depending on your tradition, the words may vary but the sentiment is the same. We act on our beliefs. Okay, there are plenty of examples of situations when our actions are not congruent with our beliefs, which we discuss below. On the whole, though, our actions as humans are informed by our beliefs.
Second, our beliefs form prior to our mindsets. That is, our mindsets are built on a foundation of beliefs that we hold. For example, if we genuinely believe the Earth is flat, our mindset will not allow us to take an ocean cruise for fear of dropping off the edge of the planet. Taking an example from our current time, if we come to believe that airplanes are poorly constructed (you know, like missing bolts), our emerging mindset about the safety of air travel will cause us to consider travel by train or car when we would otherwise fly. Without beliefs, we cannot have mindsets.
Third, and related to the second, a mindset guides the action we take and informs the behaviors we use to achieve the goals of the action. This is an especially important distinction that Brownstein and Dapra make between a “mindset” and a “belief.” Beliefs create mindsets and those mindsets help us make sense of our world, how we fit in it, how we relate to others, and how we work together with others, including making change.
This leads us to our point today: Beliefs alone are not sufficient to embrace Ownership-based Change.
Holding beliefs about diversity, inclusion, equity, equitable decision-making processes, participation of the whole community, etc. are important yet they are only the starting point. Until they coalesce into a mindset, they fail to be operationalized in change work.
Over the past three decades we’ve seen numerous organizations and groups affirm (informally and formally) many of the beliefs underlying the mindset of Ownership-based Change. However, as they begin to act, they either choose to implement change strategies which do not align with those beliefs or they effectively let go of those beliefs, out of impatience or convenience. This is what happens when our espoused values are not congruent with our lived values.
For example, an organization may declare (espouse) that it values feedback from its clients or customers. It may also carefully, thoughtfully collect evaluation data. However, its true position (lived values) is revealed when it is learned the evaluation data is not read nor actually used to make improvements.
If you’ve spent any time on our website, you know we have a collaborative change strategy known as Begin With Community™ which is built on Ownership-based Change. You may also be familiar with other collaborative change strategies: Collective Impact (Kania & Kramer, 2011); Collective Impact 3.0 (Weaver & Cabaj, 2016); Courageous Followership (Chaleff, 2009); The New Civic Leadership (Chrislip & O’Malley, 2013 and Chrislip, 2015); and Collective Leadership (Raelin, 2016 and Raelin, 2018). Not only are we familiar with these other strategies, which come from both colleagues and friends, we have used some of them with clients. Each is different from the other, even if the difference is subtle.
However, all of our strategies alone, including our own Begin With Community, may not be adequate to actually create durable change. Why is that? Because each is at risk of being overwritten by the flawed “buy-in” mindset preferred by our professional culture for facilitating change. When strategies are at risk of being overwritten by the “buy-in” mindset, it means change makers are vulnerable to our own experience of “snapback.”
- We can “snapback” to our default setting of “buy-in” even when we have the best strategies and tools available to us.
- We can “snapback” even when we’ve become skilled at using those strategies and tools.
- We can “snapback” even when we espouse beliefs that affirm the concept of Ownership-based Change.
- We can “snapback” because there is a siren call back to “buy-in” for all the reasons we described earlier in this series.
There is hope, though. Brownstein and Dapra also remind us that “mindsets are not fixed—they are malleable and can be changed.”
How does a belief (or beliefs) become a mindset (or mindsets)? How do we genuinely change from a “buy-in” mindset to a “Ownership-based Change” mindset? That’s next week.
Now playing on Getting to Third Space: Lamar and Tom talk about “third spaces” for third places
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