The Role of Symbols in the Change Process

Speaker A One of the other things which we found really important in understanding the work and taking the work further is what people mean by by symbols and the use of symbols. We have a model that says the leader really has three tools of behavior, of leadership. One is his or her own behavior. So that's the role modeling and that's very important. I don't want to diminish that at all. But clearly if you are behaving in a certain way but the systems are working opposite to you, you can be saying as much as you like that you trust the people who work for you. But if all the systems require them to fill in 17 forms, if they're going to get a taxi to the airport or to get their expenses, whatever, then there's going to be dissonance, there's going to be a contradiction. So we're saying that the behavior and the systems need to be aligned and that's fairly obvious. But the other one that's less obvious we find, which is the third major tool, is symbols and understanding the meaning of symbols in the organization. And that's something I don't think we've paid enough attention to generally, because in every culture we use, mythologies cultures are sustained by stories. And what a story does, as far as I'm concerned and why we use the term mythology, it links two fundamental elements which I think are part of a healthy and productive social group, which is the rational and the emotional. So to me you never succeed and nor should you succeed purely on a rational basis. Here are the figures now change your behavior, no inspiration, no sense of why where we're going. On the other hand, if we look at demagogues, if we look at dictators around the world, they're very good on the emotive side, the emotional connection, but there's no content to it. So it's whipping people's feelings to a frenzy so that you suspend intellectual argument and then that's highly dangerous. And also from my experience also, it's not long lived. So we're trying to say, well, what's that combination? And that's very much a part of all cultures, the stories that they tell which give you a clue of both how to behave but also what it is that society wants. And the other element to me that's very important in any culture are the symbols and the most common symbolic well, I was going to say language. The most significant symbols in a culture is the language, the words. But of course by definition words can mean lots of different things. And so we get back to understanding what does the word level mean to you? What's the symbolism associated with that? What are the stories that go around that? I don't think we've paid enough attention to the symbols of the organization now when we changed the managerial authorities and I was very concerned that the R in the very veto assigned tasks, reward, initiate, removal, that the reward was too narrow. So we now have R three, which is review, recognize and reward. First of all, you have to review what somebody's done. But we distinguish very clearly between recognition and reward. And recognition is all that feedback that you give to somebody which does not involve money. And I think we underestimate or good leaders don't, but we underestimate the importance of recognition, particularly in today's material age. And there are countless stories of people at all levels in the organization, but particularly people, operators or tradespeople who have had just it's been so meaningful to them to get a letter of recognition, to get to get given something to get or just ordinarily somebody having a bit of a party or so on. Now, the symbolism, if you get it wrong, it's dreadful, absolutely awful. So there's another example. When a company took over a coal mine in the Hunter Valley, terrible industrial relations, and the general manager gave people well, what's the first thing you do when you take over a company? You change all the logos. Symbols. Yep, changed all the logos. New name. And the new general manager gave everybody in the mine, actually a very nice quality baseball cap with the new logo and the company name on it. And if you drove down the hall roads or the road to and from the mine the day after, it was just strewn with caps. And as they came off shift, they just threw them out the trucks as they left the gates. And completely misunderstood. Now, that's not to say be cynical about the intention of the person, but there was an example here of empty symbolism. Where's the change? Where's the change in behavior? Where's the change in systems? But if you can combine those with the symbolic change and when we go into an organization, we do something called a system symbols audit, and we're looking for symbols, we're looking at notice boards, we're looking at fire equipment, safety equipment, how people are behaving to one another. And that can be in language. Also, behavior can be highly symbolic. I went round a plant once with a general manager who, as far as I could see, very generally, proudly took round the plant. At no point did he either speak or make eye contact with anybody in the plant as we went round. Wow. Now, I didn't have to do an awful lot of digging to come to a view about the nature of his relationship. Whereas, of course, other people can wander around the plant, they may well know an awful lot of people and speak to them. So I think we also need to get a better appreciation of the symbolic meaning of all of our work, the nature of the intervention, who's invited it in. What are the mythologies about the leadership? What are the mythologies about different groups in the organization? How is that represented in symbols? How we present ourselves to people in the organization. So we pay a lot of attention to that. Pay a lot of attention to the process. If we're doing some work with people about being properly introduced, treating people as respectfully, with dignity, for example.