Interviews

Gary Muszynski interviews David Rock

Author of Quiet Leadership: Six Steps to Transforming Performance at Work and Personal Best: Setp by Step Coaching for Creating the Life You Want

In One World Music’s transformational learning experiences, the emphasis is on new ways of thinking and creating a resonant environment that promotes positive change.  David Rock's research confirms that OWM's educational approach is in tune with the latest findings on the frontiers of Neuroscience.

David Rock is a leadership coach, teacher, and public speaker advising corporations around the world. He is the CEO of Results Coaching Systems, a leading global consulting and coaching organization, and the co-founder of the coaching programs at New York University (SCPS). Rock's Six Steps to Transforming Performance at Work were developed over ten years, through designing and delivering workshops to more than 5,000 professionals across the United States, the United Kingdom, South Africa, Singapore, Hong Kong, Australia, and New Zealand.

Gary MUSZYNSKI asks …

What are some of the primary ideas that come out of this new Neuroscience research that have important implications for leadership, coaching, and change in general?

ROCK: The puzzle is: Why is it so difficult to help others and facilitate change?  The pieces came from a number of disconnected areas: one person studying attention and how that changes the brain, another person studying insights, general mapping of the brain, how neurons connect, how we grow…many different components.  The pieces of the puzzle started to fall into place.

“In a nutshell, the brain is built to make connections itself.  All of our brains are so different and complex, that changes cannot be predicted or forced from the outside.  The connections really have to happen inside one's self.”

The moment of having a connection or solving a problem is an energizing moment.   The burst of adrenaline and positive neurotransmitters help us push past what usually stops us from changing.  There are strong forces that resist change like homeostasis, fear, focus and effort.  The moment of having a connection and seeing something new our selves is an opposite force that helps drive change.

Most people, when they try to help others, do not facilitate self-directed insight.  They, in a sense, get in the way of it.

“The most effective way of coaching and what is at the heart of leadership is really helping people reconfigure… the ways their brain is structured in a long-term way.  
The word for that is neuroplasticity.” 

MUSZYNSKI:  What do you see as the main resistances to that way of working in organizations these days?

ROCK:  Organizations are often slow in picking up new ideas.  Many are still going through ‘The Quality Movement’ or Leadership and Management ideas that are decades old.  One company told me they gather their people for a Change Initiative every ten years for one day!

‘The Expert Model’ is still alive in many organizations.  That model is that the Boss has the answers, tells people what to do, and the people follow.  They use incentive and punishment to guide behavior.  That is straight out of Science from one hundred years ago. It does work to some degree, as with animals and small children, or on a mass scale.  In one-on-one relationships, it is a blunt instrument that stops working very quickly.

“Leadership is the art of facilitating self-directed neuroplasticity.”

MUSZYNSKI:  Recently we did a program based on Jim Collin’s work on Level 5 Leadership.  The main paradox is balancing humility and will.  In terms of openness and learning, humility and curiosity are really important aspects.

ROCK:  Definitely.  Humility and curiosity means that you are allowing your mind to open up to new ideas and different ways of thinking.  Most people in the workplace are going through so much change under pressure and are so busy that large-scale change to as threatening to their internal operating system.  This makes it difficult for people to think openly.

MUSZYNSKI:  It seems like the challenge is knowing how to intervene in the right way, depending on who is in front of you.

ROCK:  That’s true.  Everyone needs different things in different moments.  In my book, I am saying, “Make no assumptions at all.  Keep checking in with the person that you are leading about what they need.”  Some people may just need a deadline and a threat to get them motivated.  They do not need a long conversation. 

What we need to do is check in and ask how to best support them as a leader.  Ask them how we are going to get from A to B.  Also ask if they know where A is, and where B is.   Or, “Do you know that you are expected to be at B?  How can I help you get there?”  

“In that process, those questions facilitate that person coming up with the answers.  They facilitate insights and new connections.  That’s a way of being a quiet leader instead of just telling people what to do.”

MUSZYNSKI:  So, it is a process of engaging people in their own learning…creating the environment for them to create their own connections?

ROCK:  Yes.  It may sound brutally obvious, but it is amazing how rare it is.  It is difficult for leaders to do this because they get a buzz from making the connections themselves.  The brain is a connection machine.  They hear a person’s problem and try to work it out. It is a human automatic response to helping people.

MUSZYNSKI:   It seems like it would save time.

ROCK:  Yes, it does seem like it…but it doesn’t.  You end up getting into a cycle of debate, which wastes an enormous amount of time. 

MUSZYNSKI:  I want to ask you about creating a positive mental map with someone around a future change.  It could be a personal goal, getting in shape, changing how they work with their team or anything.   I worked with an organization that is adopting the principles of being a High Reliability Organization (HRO).  These are companies in mission critical industries, such as oil refineries, transportation, etc.  These are high-risk environments where safety is of paramount concern.  These companies need to anticipate what could go wrong, what breakdowns could occur, and then to plan around that.

After studying Appreciative Inquiry, it seems counter to the idea of putting the positive map first.  There is a part of me that resonates with looking for problems and figuring out with people how we are going to handle them when they come up.  I am not sure that it is such a bad way to go.  Does that oppose the research that you are doing?

ROCK:  On the surface it does, but there are a number of connections between the two ideas.  The first is that what you are thinking about when you are scanning for problems is the external or linear world.  You are observing systems.  That is very different to focusing on yourself and thinking about all the things that you are doing wrong.  The internal system, your brain, is complex and chaotic, and attention has an impact on that system.

People really pay attention to potential problems and dangers.  Our neurons light up and literally get energized when there is some kind of expectation of fear or even ambiguity.  Fear does get people to pay attention. 

Most change initiatives and management models have urgency at their core.  You have to make the lack of change a problem.  To get people to pay attention, you tell them all the things that are going to go wrong if they don't change. 

MUSZYNSKI:  That would be contrary to some of Seligman's thinking (Positive Psychology) or the Appreciative Inquiry approaches.  It is interesting to wade through these different ways of thinking.  I have studied with someone around the importance of language and images in creating a new map of the future.  In a sense, we use language and image in a Social Constructionist way to create new worlds of possibility.  He was saying that if we don’t know where the breakdowns are in a system, then we don’t know how to create value.  When he interviews clients in terms of a needs assessment, he looks for what is not working and where their pain or discomfort is. 

ROCK:  The very language you used then was interesting.  To describe his underpinning assessments, you said he believes that the best way to create value was to notice where there are disconnects or issues.  In fact, that is where our difference in thinking is. 

“I am saying we could help the client to notice where the issues are themselves.  Then we help them work through those issues the way that their brain wants to work.  That is much more efficient and effective.”

MUSZYNSKI:  And, without a specific agenda.

ROCK:  Right, just be curious and unattached to any style, approach, or model.  It is assuming that the client or person that you are coaching has the best machinery for resolving this issue.  That machinery might need fuel, some help starting up, or pointing in the right direction, but is ultimately the best machinery. 

There is too much emphasis on trying to do something that goes against nature.  The nature of the brain is to create connections. 

MUSZYNSKI:  Thank you for your time, your brilliance, and all the work you have done in this field. 

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