Deutungshoheit

It's challenging enough thinking about what a word means. 'Deutungshoheit' is a level above that: 'sovereignty of interpretation'. In other words, who gets to decide - and to enforce - how everything is to be understood? How can deutungshoheit manifest and shape strategy and its implementation?

First, the obvious and (usually) unspoken core of Strategy – that an organisation should endure. At their heart, all strategy pre-supposes that the organisation generating and applying it has a reason for existing, and a purpose. That this assumption is inevitable doesn’t remove the value of asking should we exist? and, if we didn’t exist, what would be the case for creating us?

At the execution level, many leaders do not appreciate this is a core concern of the Board. Underneath Board questions on financials and risk can be found the worry will this sink us? This existential concern, and the power of the Board, create a major deutungshoheit – that financial and risk lenses have sovereignty in interpretation: I care a little about the design of our brand refresh, but really I’m interested in the proof it’ll bring us revenue. I have seen numerous Board-Exec conversations derailed because the Executive is resistant to the framing that the Board insists upon, regardless of the Executive’s prepared paper.

What’s the answer? Awareness is one, another is in how you frame your strategy. Too often, what’s called ‘Strategy’ is actually a laundry list of initiatives that assumes an unchanging BAU running underneath. But if your strategy sets out the foundational requirements of a healthy organisation, then every proposal or update satisfies the Board’s framing as it articulates the strategic alignment.

I’ll always suggest that one ‘Strategic Pillar’ be something like organisational resilience and capability that wraps governance, healthy finances and so on as outcomes inside that pillar. (It’s also helpful for ensuring every staff member can recognise their contribution to the strategy.)

Another is for Directors to slow down and clarify their framings. When the Executive understands the why behind a framing, communication improves. Obvious, but rarely actually done because Board agendas are nearly always too long and Directors hurry to get through them (that’s another story!)

Hidden deutungshoheit

Here are some examples I’ve seen of sovereignty of interpretation with negative impacts. These move beyond mere assumptions; they are assumed and enacted as if they have validity over every issue and relationship.

• We are good people doing good things (failure to monitor, groupthink)
• It is a truth that customers love us (are you sure? they may not…)
• Our business model is stable and everlasting (kodak, anyone?)
• If we change too fast we will fail (over-cautious, stifling innovation)
• If we change too slowly we will fail (expensive failures, burnout)
• The best we can hope for is to carry on as we are (creeping negativity, shapes reality to match the fear)
• I’m the only person who’s got an eye on this (alienates allies, builds us-n-them)
• The Board don’t understand this org (often, they do. And if not, what are you doing about it?)

And of course there are some very positive examples too:

• We are going to succeed
• Everyone here is talented and valuable
• Our Board backs us
• We will succeed

It’s worth thinking what you might have in your organisation. And if any of these resonate with you, to consider how they might be showing up. For example, I worked in an organisation where impatience for change held sway (“if we change too slowly we will fail”). This showed up as ostracisation of cautious voices and the creation of a clique of “changemakers”, which eventually manifested itself in a very expensive failure and the swift involuntary exit of the leader.

It can also be helpful to notice the common characteristics of critique across the organisation, and consider whether your framing is preventing you from getting the full picture. I know that I sometimes missed things due to my framing of issues. Most notably, because I perceive a sprinkling of structure as being enabling and supportive, I didn’t hear a significant minority within the organisation that thought processes were automatically and inevitably inhibiting. I could have spent more time shaping activities in a way that addressed their views head on and not spent so long puzzled about resistance.

An question to unlock hidden deutungshoheit

I was interim exec for 7 months in a large cemetery trust. It was a complex business, and each Executive had clear framings how they approached issues. Each would bring a different lens to discussion: the dollars, the people, the reputation, the systems, the operations. Sometimes we would get stuck; not because of the issue but because we could not settle on what framing to use to analyse the issue. It wasn’t even ‘what matters most’, it was closer to ‘in what language do we hold this discussion?

We had an interim CEO who would ask this: what does [their] perspective on this imply for your opinion on this? And that would make me, for example, need to place my opinion into a colleagues framing. Note that he didn’t ask if I agreed or not, nor did he seek a compromise. He created space for thinking across the framings, moving us into meta-cognition.

He refused to accept or allow one person’s sovereignty of interpretation to dominate. It’s a technique I have since observed skilled Board Chairs using when their colleagues get stuck in a tennis match of framings.

Cheesy confession

Aged 19, I found my favourite example of deutungshoheit. In this scene in Sartre’s novel Nausea, the existentialist Autodidact is having dinner with his humanistic and wildly optimistic friend, who berates him for his negativity:

"You are too modest, Monsieur. In order to tolerate your condition, the human condition, you, as everybody else, need much courage. Monsieur, the next instant may be the moment of your death, you know it and you can smile: isn't that admirable? In your most insignificant actions," he adds sharply, "there is an enormous amount of heroism."

"What will you gentlemen have for dessert?" the waitress says.

The autodidact is quite white, his eyelids are half-shut over his stony eyes. He makes a feeble motion with his hand, as if inviting me to choose. "Cheese," I say heroically.

Sartre is mocking the friend. How could the action of ordering cheese be considered heroic? He insists that his cynicism (an existentialist would call it realism!) is the only way to interpret the world. When I was 19 I thought his mocking of humanism hilarious. Then I grew up. But I still value this as an intersection of two of my key hobbies – novels and cheese.

Fin

Recognise the sovereignty of the algorithm and throw me a like, please. It’s great to know you’re reading and likes and comments are the only way I find out.

I’m off for some cheese, see you next biweek

Paul

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