A Transformational Experience

Speaker A Because of these ideas. What did you have to let go of? What was the shock on that to your mental map of how things worked?

Speaker B Well, I have to say I had to let go of a lot of stuff that I had accumulated over my NTL experience. NTL towards the end of my tenure, there got into a notion that democratic management was better than all, and you had to teach people, not let them figure that out on their own rather than autocratic management and so forth. I had to let go of all my notions of management style. I had to let go of my notions of hierarchy being evil. I had to let go of my notion that it was impossible to measure managerial potential, that personality was the key thing in figuring out management competence. I had to let go of my ability to not think. And all of it was a shock, to put it mildly, to my system. And I think that's, by the way, letting go is one of the key problems that Elliot and his work has had in the field. I do a lot of work in a thing called anaclytic depression. Do you know what that is? Yeah, it's a form of depression that occurs when an individual, an organizational structure or an idea that gives you emotional support is taken away from you. Well, managers who live their whole lifetime thinking their personality is the key element in their managerial confidence have to give up that notion. HR people in particular have a terrible time with Elliot's work because they have to give up virtually everything they've learned in their academic and professional careers if they buy into Elliot's world. And most people call it resistance to change. I never use the term anymore. I gave up that you're not resistant to change. You're resistant to suffering anaclytic depression because it'll kill you, and I'm not joking about that.

Speaker A Well, Jerry, you talked about having to let some of these things go, and one reaction to that could be depression. On the other hand, you talked about.

Speaker B Being with Elliot and being so stimulated.

Speaker A Or manic, in a sense, in your own life.

Speaker B Rather you say stimulated. Manic is a little sicker than I would like.

Speaker A Okay, we're editing all this out and stimulated. That's right.

Speaker B That's one of the real puzzles that I've had, is why and I haven't got that one figured out, but it's the kind of thing his work has generated in me, is why some people are stimulated by it and others are depressed by it. I know I make talks with great frequency to both management groups and human resource groups and all kinds of organizational groups, and it's not unusual for people to begin crying during a presentation, and they cry because they realize it's essentially true. When I say essentially true, I don't agree with a lot of stuff that Elliot did, but if you buy into the broad scope of what he did. It's true. And they're going to have to give it up. And they begin to cry, some out of fury and some out of frustration and some out of just flat, hopelessness meaning. If you are talking to a group of HR people and talk about felt fair pay and they've spent their whole lifetime in compensation, what they're doing is irrelevant. Not only irrelevant, destructive, and they know that it's destructive immediately, but they also have to make a living. They got families with mortgage payments and kids to send to college, and what are they going to do? So it's not unusual for me to be in a session where I'm making a talk or presentation and for people to cry at sense of giving up. Others are just totally elated. And one of the things I've noticed in presentations I frequently give that I don't ever give a presentation solely on Elliot. It always combines my work on the Abilene paradox and anaclytic depression with Elliot. But when you start talking about Elliot, people come and stand on their feet frequently to look at the data and the information about stratum and self fair pay and definitions of associations and accountability. Hierarchies and the uproar is frequently nearly incredible. A lot of uproar anger. Laughter oh, my God, we just put in a new compensation system. And I knew it was wrong, but I didn't know why.

Speaker A So how do you work with all this energy in the room of these various sorts? And how do you support all of this psychological movement going on?

Speaker B I don't support it, that's not my problem.

Speaker C But obviously you recognize you're tapping into something very profound in people's experience and that an Elliot produces a mirror or the work or the work.

Speaker B Elliot's work produces a mirror and I'm clearly tapping into their experience. The way I have always gotten into it is, again, through my own work and then through anaclytic depression. I think his main contribution is to design organizations that reduce anaclytic depression, not ones that increase trust. And we've had all kinds of arguments about that and he was wrong, but he persisted in being wrong. That's his problem, not mine. He Sam.