LIVE LEARNING
Executive Masters Program in Change Leadership T E AC H E R S C O L L E G E C O L U M B I A U N I V E R S I T Y
For more information about the XMA program, visit www.tc.edu/leadchange, call 212-678-8337 or email odprograms@tc.edu.
Executive Masters Program turns its focus to Group Relations
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hen Mary Manoogian came to the Executive Masters Program in Change Leadership, in its second year at Teachers College, she
expected visual and verbal explanations of the concepts she would be learning—familiar to her from her years in sales at the Center for Creative Leadership, where she is a senior manager. But the finale of the program’s second module, the Group Relations Conference, was even more.
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“It wasn’t just a visual, it was a visceral,” she said. “The concepts that I learned in module one, and all the readings leading up to module two, are now crystal clear. I’ve seen them in motion. They’re not just theory that I’ve learned. Not just a model that I understand. They’re connected to behaviors that I personally experienced and it solidified the learning for me.” The conference, which takes an almost organic look at the module’s focus, group dynamics, is the culmination of several days of academic learning on campus. It’s a largely unscripted interaction that gets at the heart of the subject’s importance using the live reactions and responses of cohort members and other participants. (The conference is optional— out of the 18 members of the 2012 cohort, two did independent self-study projects instead.)
“The concepts that I learned in module one, and all the readings leading up to module two, are now crystal clear. I’ve seen them in motion.” — Mary Manoogian
“We do systems at the organizational level in module one but the focus in module two is really to understand systems at the group level,” said Director of Executive Education Programs Debra Noumair. “In order to do that, you have to understand group dynamics, intercultural communication and diversity. Because it’s about how different groups get authorized—who you follow, why you follow them, why you have authority, why you don’t,” Noumair said. The culmination of that effort is the Group Relations Conference, which looks at group dynamics in their most stripped down form. “It rocks your world,” Noumair said. “If you’ve never done this it calls into question every assumption you’ve ever had about leadership, followership and authority—both your own authority and other people’s.“ And that of course is the goal. “The students can’t go out of here just smarter intellectually,” said Noumair. “There has to be some emotional experience that helps the executives connect the intellectual dots and ultimately helps them experience
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themselves differently and have a different way of moving in their organizations: more nimble, more open and more able to think in complex ways.” If the participants’ reactions are a guide, Noumair was not exaggerating. “It was the most incredible live learning lab— having a chance to be both in the fight but on the thirty-thousand-foot balcony seeing how group dynamics play out in the real world,” said Khaatim Sherrer El, Chief of Staff at the Foundation for Newark’s Future. “As someone in the program said, it was like being in a room where everybody could read everybody else’s mind.” Indeed Manoogian couldn’t believe people were actually thinking what they were thinking. “I thought I was pretty self aware,” she said. “I thought I was savvy when it came to interpersonal skills and group dynamics. I had no idea that these thoughts and social identity issues were so prevalent. I was just clueless to them. And I got to see them. The real take away for me was just how much of a role social identity and the baggage people have play as they go through life, good and bad. You are who you are because of the experiences that brought you here. I get it intellectually. I didn’t realize interpersonally how much it plays out.”
The XMA program, as its known, is a yearlong, fourmodule, 45-credit course that focuses on developing change leaders. It seeks to attract mid-level executives who are positioned to play key roles in the change their companies could go through over the next few years.
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For many of the cohort members, group dynamics were already a key, if somewhat mysterious, part of their lives.
The XMA program, as its known, is a yearlong, four-module, 45-credit course that focuses on developing change leaders. It seeks to attract mid-level executives who are positioned to play key roles in the change their companies could go through over the next few years. To help them do that, the program provides grounding in both the latest literature on organizational change and such experiential learning activities as the mini-consultancy the cohort is assigned to perform during the first module and the Group Relations Conference in the second. The program calls on subject matter experts to teach the second module: Sarah Brazaitis, Senior Lecturer and MA Program Coordinator in Social-Organizational Psychology, teaches Group Dynamics and Terry Maltbia, Senior Lecturer in Adult Learning and Leadership and Director of the Columbia Coaching Certification Program, teaches Intercultural Communication and Diversity Leadership. For Simon Aimer, Managing Director and Principal Consultant at Strategy and Execution, Ltd., a consultancy based in New Zealand, these are lessons that could not be taught any other way than via XMA’s experiential model. “If you want to learn finance, if you can be motivated to be
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bothered, read it in a book,” he said. “If you want to learn physics, read it in a book. Even consumer marketing you can read in a book. This stuff you can read all the books you like, you won’t get a fraction of it.” The members of the 2012 cohort came from as far away as Singapore and as nearby as midtown Manhattan; and also included, in addition to Manoogian, Sherrer El and Aimer, a regional manager from Cisco Systems, a development manager at L’Oreal USA, a senior organizational development leader at Novartis, a Shell Oil HR manager and a learning and development specialist from Google. Besides Noumair, the faculty of the program features Warner Burke, TC’s Edward Lee Thorndike Professor of Psychology and Education and Chair of its Department of Organization & Leadership, and William Pasmore, Visiting Professor of Practice in Social-Organizational Psychology: all three experts in the field. To complete the course, the cohort members must attend two modules at the Tarrytown House Estate and Conference Center 45 minutes north of the city and two at TC. In between, they are expected to spend 10 hours a week on courserelated assignments and attend half-day, monthly, virtual sessions for project supervision, teamwork, information sharing and any additional lectures. For this, the second in a series of articles about the program, participants were interviewed at the beginning of the second module and after it had been completed.
“It was the most incredible live learning lab—having a chance to be both in the fight but on the thirty-thousandfoot balcony seeing how group dynamics play out in the real world.” — Khaatim Sherrer El
For many of the cohort members, group dynamics were already a key, if somewhat mysterious, part of their lives. For example, Manoogian, who leads a team at CCL, said her understanding of group dynamics before coming to the program was largely intuitive. “I feel like I’m a good change 5
leader and I make a lot of change happen in my organization,” she said. “The reason I came here was to get the educational background to support it. Now I’m not just giving Mary’s opinion. I’m telling you this is researched, proven and here’s the data to back it up.”
“In order to usher in change and steward it from a place of integrity, you really have to have the buy-in of the people you’re working with.” — Ivet bandirma
Alana Weiss, Learning and Development Specialist at Google, Inc., came to the program with a similar motivation: “I’m looking towards more complex problems and creating effective partnerships with other practitioners and I’ve realized it’s really valuable to have access to the Organization Development language we’re learning in XMA,” she said. “Change is not going to be something that’s initiated by just one individual. Back at our organizations, we’re not going to be able to achieve anything alone. At Google, our work, our success, our projects are all based on team success. And so being able to communicate change in a clear way is of the utmost importance.” Ivet Bandirma, Managing Director of Nimbus Dance Works and Founder and Consultant at AMR Coaching and Consulting, said she received a tip from a colleague about the importance of communication as she was starting an assignment in South America in a previous job. “She is a psychologist here in the states. She works in the inner city, but isn’t from there so it took her a good three years before she got comfortable enough to lead. Now she is a leader in the community—they look to her for that.” The difference Bandirma said was that her friend spent time listening to and forging connections with the people she would be working with. “Just because I’m the managing director doesn’t mean I’m a great leader and it doesn’t mean I’m going to have a followership that is actually loyal to me,” she said. “In order to usher in change and steward
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“If you’ve never done this it calls into question every assumption you’ve ever had about leadership, followership and authority—both your own authority and other people’s.” — Debra Noumair
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it from a place of integrity, you really have to have the buy-in of the people you’re working with.” And Peter Goh, Senior Vice President of Compensation, Benefits and Mobility for the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation, arrived with a similar goal. “Change only comes about through people changing their behavior,” he said. “But individuals may be influenced by group dynamics so without understanding that, you can’t get to the heart of how to make the person change.”
“If people don’t speak up then there’s no diversity of views from which to make decisions. And therefore we are poorer for it and we will not be able to compete as well in the marketplace over the next 15 years.” — peter goh
Indeed, Goh said he hopes to take part in an ongoing, crucial company effort to do just that. “We’re tackling the issue of the culture of people not speaking up,” he said. “If people don’t speak up then there’s no diversity of views from which to make decisions. And therefore we are poorer for it and we will not be able to compete as well in the marketplace over the next 15 years.” Not surprisingly, diversity management is an important part of what the participants study in module two, a focus that particularly attracted Jose Vicuna, an HR Manager at Shell Exploration and Production. “I’m particularly interested in expanding my knowledge of the variety of theoretical frameworks used to manage diversity,” he said. “By working in an organization that pays serious attention to diversity like Shell, I have a clear definition of what diversity means to me and my role in supporting my business. Additionally, there is a diversity vision and strategy. That’s all very good. However, I have learned that a specific diversity definition reflects the way an organization sees the world, and at the same time, the way it sees itself.” So Vicuna said the deeper diversity study offered by the XMA program would put him ahead of the game. “Given the ever growing complexity of our business environments and the different places
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where we do business in the world, it is important to expand my knowledge and be able to access different theoretical frameworks to address the non-conventional diversity challenges I may face.” That diversity study also drew Michelle Friedman, Founder and CEO of Advancing Women’s Careers, LLC, who works primarily with female executives in male dominated industries. “Diversity’s actually very important to these clients—they don’t want to just figure out a way to make their numbers look more diverse,” she said. *** When the participants entered the room where the Group Relations Conference was to be held, during the final three days of the module, they were presented with all the trappings of a regular conference. Members of their cohort and some 30 others sat in chairs arranged in concentric circles and at exactly the opening moment, the conference leaders entered the room and the director gave a speech delineating how the event would proceed. But it soon became clear that familiar form was merely a lulling artificial construct.
When the participants entered the room where the Group Relations Conference was to be held, they were presented with all the trappings of a regular conference...But it soon became clear that familiar form was merely a lulling artificial construct.
“The speech is a contract that lays down the terms and basically says, here are the boundaries,”
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As the conference proceeds, participants’ natural human efforts to organize themselves essentially become the event’s text, fodder for critique and scrutiny.
Noumair explained. “The leaders are going to observe the boundaries to the letter. At nine o’clock, if somebody’s speaking, they get up and walk out. They don’t do anything that’s socially correct or polite. Because what you want people to learn is what’s underneath a group if you don’t structure it. Horrible things happen to people in social systems if you don’t manage groups. People get scapegoated. If somebody gets fired in an organization and that person leaves and you don’t work on whatever the systemic issues are that led to that person’s firing, the next person you hire is likely to be fired too. People always blame the individual rather than the system even though the system may have played a role in the individual’s inability to perform.” As the conference proceeds, participants’ natural human efforts to organize themselves essentially become the event’s text, fodder for critique and scrutiny provided by the leaders who stubbornly decline to facilitate in an attempt to allow the dynamics of the group to be revealed, consistent with the Tavistock method of group dynamics training. Despite the pressure, Weiss said she was able to keep a “cool head” during the conference and
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garnered crucial work-related insights particularly after she was elected chair of the “community forum,” a construct created on its second day. “I had a lot of meaningful interactions with participants who were very emotionally affected by the experience,” she said. “And I think I was able to play a comforting role—I was honored that people felt comfortable enough with me to share what was going on for them. That was a leadership lesson for me too: in an environment that’s ambiguous and chaotic, people are going to feel uncomfortable and are going to seek support. I learned that my energy is important and contagious and that I can help people feel more grounded.” Back at work, where she has recently been given increased responsibility, Weiss said she had been thinking more about leadership, especially the kind required at Google, where operating amidst ambiguity is part of the job description. “The XMA program is helping me fulfill my leadership potential,” she said. “I like thinking about how we stay on the edge of chaos and still maintain productivity and innovation. In order to get things done and make traction and go forward, being able to lead despite ambiguity is important.” Aimer also gleaned insights into his work life. “For 20 years, I’ve sort of evolved this idea that the questions clients think they want answered are not the real questions, the real issues,” he said. “And that’s what partly drove me to XMA. After modules one and two and especially the Group Relations Conference, I let my mind explore the possibilities of what defense mechanisms and motivators I’m witnessing.”
“That was a leadership lesson for me too: in an environment that’s ambiguous and chaotic, people are going to feel uncomfortable and are going to seek support.” — AlANA WEISS
Aimer said his clients have noticed. “I’ve found myself, when the opportunity presents itself, approaching problems in a different way with better results,” he said. “I find myself much less inclined to dash headlong after symptoms—if 11
not symptoms of symptoms—and think instead about causes.” Aimer and Weiss were not the only ones to see an effect from the program on work results. Friedman saw it in the high quality of the emails she sent out during module two, Vicuna in the sense of having a different set of tools to help him work with groups. And Sherrer El found himself promptly applying his new knowledge to a small change project.
“I find myself much less inclined to dash headlong after symptoms—if not symptoms of symptoms—and think instead about causes.” — SIMON AIMER
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”We just did a staff retreat at my job that I helped to plan,” he said. “We had this sort of critical moment where we had to decide whether the retreat would focus on cultural kinds of issues— how we’re getting along, how do we manage conflict, what are our values and so forth. And the in-the-moment decision that I helped to make was that instead, we wanted this retreat to focus on role clarity. Making sure that people had a really clear sense of their responsibilities and how those responsibilities add up to the whole. And the reason for that is something I got out of XMA, that there is a lot of team conflict that comes from people not having clarity about their roles and responsibilities.” For Sherrer El, the experience of the conference has “raised the bar” for the next module. “Sitting at the feet of greats like Warner Burke, Bill Pasmore and Debra Noumair and all the other folks felt pretty much like a traditional learning experience,” he says. “But when you are the assignment you think, ‘Did I really listen to what they said? Because now I’m doing it live.’ And now as I think about the work we’ve got to do as we go into the next module, I’m thinking, ‘Give me all you’ve got because I need to use this. I’ve got another group relations conference coming, it just isn’t with the 40 other people I went through it with last time. It’s with the people I work with.’” www.tc.edu/leadchange
The program is delivered in four one-week modules extending over 12 months. It incorporates pre-work, post-work and guided independent study/action research as part of the formal program requirements. Module 1 Change Leadership Theory and Foundations Systems thinking, organization change, organization structure and design, business strategy Module 2 Group and Team Dynamics Group dynamics, group relations conference, diversity and intercultural communications, team leadership and facilitation Module 3 Individual and Interpersonal Dynamics Leadership self-development, leadership development of others, coaching, conflict resolution/negotiation Module 4 Change Leadership Frontiers Change management, politics and influence, global leadership sustainability, contemporary issues in organizational life 13
Design & Photography: DeirdreReznik.com. Chair Images: Gemenacom/Shutterstock.com
About the Program
T E AC H E R S C O L L E G E C O L U M B I A U N I V E R S I T Y 525 West 120th Street, New York, NY 10027 www.tc.edu