LSW#25 🪁Beware of Thinking Ruts at Work

...and how they limit our actions and behavior

May 08, 2023

ConteNt vs ConteXt

Consider the paragraph below. Don’t skip, as it’s critical for what’s to follow.

A newspaper is better than a magazine. A seashore is a better place than the street. At first it is better to run than to walk. You may have to try several times. It takes some skill, but it is easy to learn. Even young children can enjoy it. Once successful, complications are minimal. Birds seldom get too close. Rain, however, soaks in very fast. Too many people doing the same thing can also cause problems. One needs lots of room. If there are no complications, it can be very peaceful. A rock will serve as an anchor. If things break loose from it, however, you will not get a second chance.

The words and sentences are grammatically correct, but it reads like gibberish. The sentences on their own have meaning, but overall, we can’t discern what the writer is intending.

What’s missing is context — the background, or the frame within which the entire paragraph makes sense. Now consider the same paragraph but with just one extra word added.

KITE:
A newspaper is better than a magazine. A seashore is a better place than the street. At first it is better to run than to walk. You may have to try several times. It takes some skill, but it is easy to learn. Even young children can enjoy it. Once successful, complications are minimal. Birds seldom get too close. Rain, however, soaks in very fast. Too many people doing the same thing can also cause problems. One needs lots of room. If there are no complications, it can be very peaceful. A rock will serve as an anchor. If things break loose from it, however, you will not get a second chance.

— from On Being Certain by Robert Burton

With the word kite added, suddenly everything fits together. The words are exactly the same. But read within the context of “kite”, everything makes sense in a “certain” way. Even with this addition, the context is of flying kites, rather than the bird kite.

Words without context are meaningless. The same goes for our actions and behavior.
They happen within a certain context.

The “conteNt” of our situation might stay the same, but our approach and actions are driven by the “conteXt” within which we find ourselves.

But here’s the kicker —there’s no universal context. We are actively and constantly “constructing” this context, whether we realize it or not. Mostly we remain unaware of this dynamic, and our own role in creating it.

Work Contexts (thinking ruts)

This role of context in shaping actions and behavior is especially relevant in organizations, and determines your effectiveness in operating within them.

All of us have habitual patterns of thinking when operating in certain contexts. Whether you work in an organization, or are trying to sell into one, it’s helpful to understand what I call “thinking ruts” everyone falls prey to.

According to Barry Oshry in Seeing Systems, organizational interactions are context-to-context rather than person-to-person.

He divides organizations into 4 categories of context: Tops, Bottoms, Middles, and Customers. Each of them has their own set of problems, and how they view the world —aka ruts in thinking.

Why do we have these?

For one these are habitual — well-worn neuronal pathways that influence everything we do. But, they are habitual for a reason — they make decision making easy, and justify our actions, even when it’s counter to what we really want.

It’s useful to go through Oshry’s classification, and see which one you find yourself in most of the time. Then consider, how this might be limiting you. Also note what you can do to improve relationships with stakeholders stuck in their own contexts.

Tops (context: complexity & accountability)

When interacting with Tops, we are not just dealing person to person; we are dealing with people living—sometimes struggling to survive—in a world of complexity and accountability—lots of issues to deal with, difficult issues, unpredictable issues, issues they thought were taken care of that keep coming back,
as well as issues regarding the direction, culture, growth, and structure of the system.

And Tops are accountable for the successes and failures of the system.

How to improve relationship with stakeholder?

… if we see Top’s world more clearly, we can come up with smarter strategies for getting our proposals heard. Can we come across in a way that is seen as reducing the complexity of Top’s world rather than increasing it? Can we come across in a way that communicates that we share responsibility for the system?

Bottoms (context: invisibility+vulnerability)

When interacting with Bottoms, we are not just dealing person to person, we are dealing with people living—sometimes struggling to survive—in a world of invisibility and vulnerability.

They often are not seen by higher-ups, and higher-ups can influence their lives in major and minor ways….

How to improve relationship with stakeholder?

If we are able to see into Bottom’s world, we may have a better idea of why our workers greeted our initiative with a wall of resistance. Given that higher-ups are always doing things to them, it’s easy to see how our initiative was experienced as just another case of “Them doing it to us again.”

And if we see into Bottom’s world more clearly, it may be that we can come up with better strategies for gaining involvement. How can we acknowledge their experience of vulnerability? And how can we position our initiative such that it reduces rather than increases that vulnerability?

Middles(context: torn between)

When interacting with Middles, we are not just dealing person to person; we are dealing with someone living in—sometimes struggling to survive in—a tearing world.

They are pulled between you and others. What you want from them, they don’t have; they need to go to others to get it. And what others want from them, they need to come to you to get. They experience “simple” requests from you or others as complex tearing between you and others.

How to improve relationship with stakeholder?

How can we acknowledge the tearing on Middle, rather than poking fun at it or making it worse? How can we support Middle in getting what we need? How can we reduce the tearing rather than increase it?

Customers (context: neglect)

When interacting with Customers, we are not just dealing person to person; we are dealing with people living in—and sometimes struggling to survive in—a world of neglect.

They are not getting the attention they feel they deserve; they are shunted from one person to another; products and services are not coming to them as fast as they want, at the level of quality they want, and at a satisfactory price.

How to improve relationship with stakeholder?

And if we are able to see into Customer’s world, we have a better understanding of why our Customer reacted to our nice gesture with anger and sarcasm. Customer was not interested in a tour of the facility. Customer was not interested in coffee and donuts. Customer was not interested in completing our customer satisfaction questionnaire. Customer was only interested in quality service, and quality service was not forthcoming. It’s easy to see how Customer experienced all of our nice gestures as more neglect.
And if we are able to see our Customer’s situation, we may be better able to develop the relationship both we and Customer want. How do we decrease Customer’s experience of neglect rather than increase it?

Contextual blindness

Organizational contexts, and their associated thinking ruts, have less to do with hierarchy, and more about how you see yourself within it. In some situations, you’ll be a customer, while in others you might be operating in the “tops” context.

But each context pre-determines available set of actions, and how you respond.

Not being aware of this can be a major blindspot. Conversely, knowing your habitual thinking ruts can be a game-changer in breaking old patterns, and finding new avenues for action, or finding support for your initiatives.

When we are blind to our own contexts, we are vulnerable to falling into scenarios that are dysfunctional for us personally, for our relationships, and for our systems. We respond reflexively to these contexts—not all of us, not every time, but with great regularity—without awareness or choice. It is as if these scenarios happen to us without any agency on our part.

…blindness to our own context results in personal stress, fractured relationships with others, and diminished organizational effectiveness.

— Barry Oshry in Extraordinary Leadership

What’s the solution? Operating from the strengths of each context, and recognizing blindspots and weaknesses of each.

This means for:

Tops: creating responsibility in others
Bottoms: taking responsibility for your own conditions and for the overall system
Middles: maintaining independence of thought and action
Customers: sharing responsibility

But this also creates challenges. It means for:

Tops: giving up control
Bottoms: giving up dependency and blame
Middles: giving up the need to please everyone
Customers: giving up sense of entitlement

👉 During the week, notice your patterns and which thinking rut you are prone to. How can you change your habitual thinking?

Leader’s Library

🔖Articles: Context is an especially rich and deep area, and has multiple applications in careers and organizations. Here are a couple:

Read why Netflix emphasizes context over control in how they operate.
Read why mastering context is key to effective leadership.

📚Books: Oshry’s Seeing Systems: Unlocking the Mysteries of Organizational Life is an essential read to understand organizations from a systems perspective.

That’s it for this edition. Have a great week.

Found this helpful? Share it with someone who might benefit.

The Leading Sapiens Weekly

Discussion about this post