Creating a safe experimental environment
The transactional space is extremely relevant to foster honest self-exploration and to master the courage to bring about change in both inner and work life. A major challenge “concerns the creation of a safe experimentation environment—some sort of a transitional space where exploration is allowed and encouraged” (de Vries and Korotov, 2007, p. 383). Learning often happens in a group setting that can become a strong limiting factor, especially if the participants are part of the same Organization. In my experience there is a major difference if attending a course open to managers of different companies rather than an internal training. An effective technique is to allow participants to express themselves at the beginning of the training, relating their personal successes and what obstacles they encounter in their organizational environment. This allows a preliminary boost of self-esteem and the possibility to unload heavy emotional baggage among people who have no biases and who will not judge eventual self confessed weaknesses. On the other hand if the participants belong to the same organization people will be conditioned in two main ways. First of all, they will fear to reveal personal vulnerability and they will rather impersonate an unrealistic all-successful character because, when back to the work environment, any exposed weakness would turn against the individual. A second issue is that people would tend to bring in personal agendas. In my experience, internal leadership trainings are often used “to study the enemy” and to form alliances, which frustrates the purpose of honest self-exploration and experimentation of change.
The above-described obstacles can be overcome if the trainer is very much street wise and cognizant of are the actual internal political struggles in the organization. This can be achieved by organizing a one on one session with all participants before the beginning of the training, where the coach persuades individuals to openly share their fears regarding the training and about other participants. The personal sessions are important because coaches “must have a general sense for each student’s current ability level to do this, because if they make appraisals that are markedly different from reality, the feedback is not likely to be taken seriously” (Slavich and Zimbardo, 2012, p. 592). It is important that the coach is seen as an independent figure that can be trusted as capable of keeping confidentiality regarding “conflicted work relationships, the management of disappointment related to career setbacks, doubts about their managerial capabilities, feelings of being a fake or a failure, and concerns about boredom and burnout on the job” (de Vries and Korotov, 2007, p. 377). The coach should then identify common denominators and provide reassurances during the training and especially he/she should create a group dynamics that rewards participants who are supportive and empathic towards fellow learners. The coach must induce an “eureka” feeling since the very beginning of the training; this implies “find nontraditional ways to overcome participants’ resistance to looking deeper into themselves or seeing their organizational is- sues through the lens of their own development and leadership behavior” (de Vries and Korotov, 2007, p. 379). This can be done through group activities, even games, that allow breaking the initial mask that participants were when joining a training session. Such short group games should aim at the so-called Mental Life Triangle encompassing cognition, emotion and behavior.
It is very important to maintain a good balance between allowing the group dynamics to empower individuals, while also allowing a safer space for expression. For instance, the trainer may ask participants from time to time to write down in a log something that will be shared exclusively with him. I remember a particular leadership training on becoming leaders of change. During a lesson I could not help myself thinking that all we were learning indicated that a particular manager was actually a main obstacle in our organization. The group discussion involved sharing ideas regarding dealing with individuals who were acting as obstacle of change and even how to replace them assigning them a different role. Ultimately, though, I felt I needed just to say it: “John should be replaced”. But obviously I could not say it in front of other people who included his close collaborators. The coach asked us to take five minutes and write down in full honesty what we believe should be the action plan. As I trusted the coach confidentiality I finally wrote in capital letters: “John should be moved to a different leadership position”. Immediately I felt my repressed emotions leaving me, I felt calmer. This simple trick allowed me to relax and continue the training in a more productive way. By the end of the training, replacing John became just one of many action items, most of them related to myself, and what I should personally change in my working life. If I wasn’t given the chance to express my strong feeling regarding how much John was an obstacle, I would have spent the rest of the training applying the information to John and not to myself.
Overcoming personal blocks
As Kotter (1995, p. 64) described, “too often, an employee understands the new vision and wants to help make it happen. But an elephant appears to be blocking the path. In some cases, the elephant is in the person’s head, and the challenge is to convince the individual that no external obstacle exists”. Defensive barriers are manifested in the so-called Conflict Triangle, whose sides are hidden feelings, defensive behaviors and conflict. A coach should assist people through reframing, encouragement, anticipation and rehearsal. Personally I think that the phase of rehearsal is often neglected. In the previous section I described how internal trainings pose the unique challenge of personal agendas and politics boycotting the learning. On the other hand, external courses may lack the power of hands-on rehearsal. For this reason, internal trainings may have the potential of making learning transfer last longer within the organization. The post-training should therefore be given as much importance as the training itself. Too often this side is neglected. Employees and managers are allowed some free time to attend a course, yet not enough resources are allocated to post training. In my Organization we pushed for a change in this direction. Initially the emphasis was to attend training sessions. We realized that e needed to steer away from this mentality and consider trainings as ongoing processes, scheduling time for the rehearsals. For example, a call with the coach is scheduled after a week of the initial training; subsequently, calls are organized between the individual, the coach and two or three other stakeholders that are functional in making a change happen (in case of organizational changes) or with colleagues who can openly comment of personal progress (in case of personal behavior change). This strategy allows good learning transfer because it implies commitment that “accelerates the personal transformation process, because it doubles momentum: It not only influences the person making the public commitment (cementing willingness to embrace an opportunity, capitalize on a strength, or confront a challenge), but also enlists the cooperation of others—a strong reinforcement for change—and creates a network of support” (de Vries and Korotov, 2007, p. 384).
Conclusions
In conclusion, transformational learning heavily relies on the abilities of transformational teachers. I believe that in learning settings the participants must mimic the attitude of the coaches themselves. At times they may convey the impression that they have a set of techniques and appear very confident about their assumptions. This in itself would kill the student commitment of self-exploration. Instead, a transformational teacher must constantly be willing to reframe his own techniques and to adapt them to the participants. The dialectic of the learning process must involve both teacher and learner, equally ready to make change happen in their inner and work life. A coach’s assessment of students should be a two ways road, influencing the teacher as well. As one coach said: “I must also keep in mind that assessing my students can tell me something about my teaching strategies and their effectiveness” (Jones, 2019, p. 21). Basically, transformational learning require a transformational teaching, not simply in the sense that is designed to achieve change in learners, by in the sense that the actual teaching undergoes continue transformation with the same wholeheartedness required by the student.
Luis Miguel Battistella, MBA
Director, Audere Group
References
Jones, M. (2009), ‘Transformational Learners: Transformational Teachers’, Australian Journal Of Teacher Education, 34, 2, pp. 15-27, ERIC, EBSCOhost.
Kets de Vries, M. & Korotov, K. (2007) ‘Creating transformational executive education programs’, Academy of Management Learning & Education, 6 (3), pp.375-387 [Online].
Kotter, J. (1995) ‘Leading change: Why transformation efforts fail’, Harvard Business Review, 73 (2), pp.59-67 [Online].
Slavich, G, & Zimbardo, P. (2012), ‘Transformational Teaching: Theoretical Underpinnings, Basic Principles, and Core Methods’, Educational Psychology Review, 24, 4, p. 569-608, Scopus®, EBSCOhost.
