Challenging assumptions and beliefs
A good place to start in challenging implicit and often long held existing assumptions and beliefs is to start to explore their consequences:
- How could beliefs about people and purpose be limiting the potential of the organisation? And the potential of people?
- How could a narrow focus on profit impact people’s sense of meaning at work?
- If the company does have an articulated purpose, to what extent is this truly the operative purpose? If it is not directing strategy and decision making what are the consequences?
- How could assumptions and beliefs about what motivates people undermine any effort to create a shared purpose to serve society?
- What do these (implicit) assumptions/beliefs protect your organisation against? What do they protect your leadership against?
There are hidden benefits of maintaining beliefs – called payoffs or secondary gains, these are things that a person or organisation could lose and miss if they gave up a belief. It is important to realise that most, if not all beliefs, carry out some positive function, even if this leads to ineffective behaviour and unwanted results.
Example – challenging a hidden assumption
We convened a meeting of HR directors of FTSE 100 companies and there was an animated discussion at one point about middle management. The dominant view around the table was that purpose and change got ‘stuck’ at this level which is often referred to as the “permafrost layer”. But one of the directors challenged this view. Her assumption is that leaders at all levels want to engage. She believed that the view that middle management were ‘blockers’ needs to be shifted if anything is to change. Her question was…if the middle management are frozen…then what or who are freezing them?
What was really interesting about this intervention, is that it opened up a much more meaningful, effective, fruitful conversation about the blockers that are stopping people from committing. What became immediately clear was that middle management were all too often the group that are stuck with the unresolved tension between purpose and profit. As one director noted, ‘it is as if we are asking them to pat their head and rub their tummy at the same time.’ People just can’t commit if they are getting contradictory information.
When challenging people’s assumptions about the role of business it is natural for resistance to emerge. This resistance may be to do with fears around identity, value or capability and competence.
For example you might hear:
Identity – “it’s not for us to do”- this could be about what people identify the role of business to be in society or specifically the identity of the company and the industry it is in. It could also be about their own identity and privilege
Value – there is no value for us in doing this – this could be about how the business thinks about value creation (e.g. purely in financial terms), that it considers there is an enduring trade-off between purpose & profit, or indicative of a ‘pie-splitting’ mentality. [Alex Edmans in his book ‘Grow the Pie’ talks about a ‘pie-splitting’ as opposed to a ‘pie- growing’ mentality – the difference is explained briefly here]
Capability – we can’t do this – this could be about the assumed limits to the capacity and competence of the business.
Once you have identified what might be lying behind the resistance for change, a more open and fruitful conversation can emerge.
Wondering how to create a space to explore assumptions and beliefs and to challenge them?
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