Mindset matters - consciously leading with values

Podcast transcript of interview with Tanja Rosenbaum (TR), host of GESUND FüHREN - DER LEADERSHIP PODCAST which was quite special for me (MP)

So here is the transcript in English. Be inspired! If you want to listen to this podcast episode (in german) klick here.

TR: Welcome to a new podcast episode - today with Martin Permantier. Martin, I decided to invite you after I came across all the things you do on values. I find it quite exciting because it actually helps me a bit in my work. You are an entrepreneur, keynote speaker, author and managing director of your own company. With your many roles, maybe we can agree on this: The knowledge you're sharing here now is actually the knowledge you apply in practice in your company, right?

MP: Exactly. Hello Tanja. We are a 30-strong agency in Berlin and we support companies with design, strategy and cultural development services. And the two key aspects of this are mindset and values

TR: I′m often asked: “Isn′t a mindset something intrinsic yet loosely defined? Isn't it something that comes of itself? Or do I have to tiptoe around it?” Maybe I can pass this question over to you.

MP: It's the same with values. Sometimes people say: "I own values", as if they were property. Same with a mindset. "You either have it or you don't." I see it a bit differently. In the dictionary meaning, mindset has three aspects. The way we think about what life throws at us, the way we respond or behave, and our inner attachments. These are three qualities, so to speak, your head, your heart and your being. And those together make up your mindset. In itself, it's a very special word. Attitude, outlook, mental makeup, disposition or whatever else you might call it. And mindset is something that changes in terms of developmental psychology. As a child you have no mindset. You come into the world thinking, "What's going on here?" And at some point you′re told, "This is how things are done here, this is right, this is wrong." And you think to yourself, "Okay, then we'll do it like this." And at some point you become more aware of your thoughts and feelings and change your mindset in terms of how you look at phenomena and also interpret them. What is a good life? What is success? What are rules? What are the roles of men and women? Your mindset towards these issues changes as you mature as a human being. This is a dimension that we have added to our development processes. Because we have seen that values are one thing, but the mindset with which you live them is another. 

TR: We don't necessarily talk about values every day. But in certain circles it often is, almost like a kind of “protective shield” that shows: "This is my position, because I represent this value". But it is rarely that which we are aware of in everyday life. How do you cope with it? That's probably your thing now, when you make first contact with people and want to talk about values: are they already aware of their values?

MP: If you just ask "What are your values?", people will say something appealing, something they think you have to have. But if you really observe yourself, you will notice that your actions in different situations are defined and shaped by very different values. When you turn values into adjectives, it gets interesting. Instead of saying, "Innovation is our value", say, "I am innovative. And I'm this way today and this way tomorrow and I was this way yesterday." If you want to find out someone′s values, it′s helpful to ask them, "Who was a role model for you, a mentor, in your youth or early professional life? Who did you appreciate most?" And then stories flow. And the stories almost always involve how they were seen, that someone said, "Okay, I see you in your potential." And the emotional common ground you shared with that person: "She was fair. He was right. They helped me and saw what I could become." Then such statements come. And that's how you often recognise: "Ah, yes, look, that's your value system." Another person might say: "He was very calm, he always led in a very friendly way and let everyone have their say. And then you'll realise, "Ah, yes, okay. That resonates with you." Those are your values. Where you have emotional congruence, where you feel the emotional commonality that tells you, "This is nice, this is right. These are my values, this means something to me. This has value for me." This is a dimension where you look at it less from a moral standpoint, but more from your own behavioural dimension. How do I behave, what things do I value?

TR: This means that in cases of doubt you have subconscious values that are invisible to your conscious mind. You might claim values that you find classy and somehow attractive when you talk about them. But they have nothing to do with your actual life or your actual actions.

MP: Yes, of course. That's how most value processes work. People stand in front of words, they choose a few and say: "Performance is really important". "We believe in quality, in customer focus." Then all these hygiene values are pinned on the wall. Most companies somehow have five to eight values of this nature. Because they think they have to have them. And because they go through the semantic space and think, "Ok, what sounds good? Yeah, you have to have sustainability and stuff." And then when you ask, "What is success?" and everyone is supposed to complete the sentence, they come to entirely different conclusions. One says, "Success is when we achieve the figures, gets the results and increase sales." The next one says, "Success is when everyone made every effort and we appreciated each other, the figures were also good, but we are supposed to have developed anyway." The next one might say, "I can′t exactly say what success is. Because sometimes what I see as success is not success in the long run because I missed something. Or something I saw as a failure turned out to be a success because I learned something and it moved me forward." Then you realise that when a term like success is written on a piece of paper, you haven't established any emotional common ground at all, because there isn't even any common ground in its interpretation. So we go a different way. We follow the path of the narrative: what stories do you actually tell and what values do they reveal?

TR: Good. This is where I come to the drawbacks of many mission statements, where values are always quoted that are then so rarely filled with life. In principle, it would make much more sense for the organisation to tell its stories and say: "What is it that makes us special and where do we stand? And if it's not ideal to imagine something else: "Where could we go?" It′s a bit like what I see what I see in the poster behind you - that there are such different memes, I only know them from Spiral Dynamics. But maybe you could say something about it first.

MP: Exactly, we go in through the narratives, let people tell stories: "How do you experience reality here? Which values, what is valuable to you, what is important to you? How do you see this reflected here?" Often values are seen as absolutes. I was recently at a police headquarters and one of their values was fairness. Of course, some people in the organisation said: "Fair? No, not at all. Three years ago, Klaus was promoted, but Guido wasn't. That was unfair." In other words, there are stories attached to it that question or even discredit such a value. Or then lead to cynicism of values. "We are supposed to be fair here? That's not true at all." But if you then say, "We want to be fair. A value is not something we have, but something we want to align ourselves with emotionally in conflict situations, and on a scale of one to ten, how fair are we here?" Ten means "totally fair", zero means "not in the least bit". Then one says, "Four." The next one says, "A six." "So what would have to happen for you to say we're a five?" Typical coaching question. And the other one, "What held you back from giving fairness a seven there?" - "Well, because of this and this and this." Then you can say, "Okay, we can work on that score. There's still a dissonance there. The feeling is not yet such that we would say, Great, I totally feel fairness.' But I do feel it on a six, just not on a seven.'" And that's how you can bring values in, so that they really become a behavioural focus and help people shape their organisation. It's not the terms on the wall you have to go along with. Or where people say: "This is so cynical, they're just taking the piss". But you say: "No, the values represent aspirations and help open them up to discussion. Fairness is our thing, we want to focus attention on it, we want to talk more about it and we want to advance it. And even if we are at a four in your assessment, it doesn't matter, it′s our value, in the sense that we are working on it. And then we just want to have a five." But often it's put like, "These are our values." As if we had them, as if they were possessions. You slap them on the wall. You describe them and then you ask three times and there's always nothing behind them. But if you say that these are seminal orientations that we are going to focus more on, then something completely different happens in an organisation.

TR: Do you always need management to define these values? Or do you also work independently of them in individual teams with lower positions rather than the head of the organisation?

MP: You are precisely at a different point. Which is: which mindset do you want to live the values with? And some people just say: “We are the father figures here. We′ll check into a nice hotel somewhere for a couple of days and then we′ll come back with five pieces of paper with the values written on them.” I've also heard someone say, "Today we'll decide on the values, then we'll print them on posters and everyone has to stick to them." And you're like, "No, it doesn't work like that." If you say that an organisation is the sum of its communications, then you have to involve the members of the organisation in some way. So we say, "Take a cross-section of your organisation, 30, 40 or 50 people, and get them talking to each other about what they really experience. What is their lived reality here? And what do they value about being together?" That's when some people think, "Oh, that's a dangerous thing to ask." That′s also a sign. Or to say, "Of course you have values, of course there is something that you value about being together." And that's much easier to identify if you ask throughout the organisation. And what comes out of this is also much easier to relate to. Sure, you might not end up with many words, but the words aren't that important. Even if the word is success, the question is: "What do we connect with it? What is the narrative, what is the story, what is the story we associate with it and that lives in our hearts?" What are the emotional reference experiences where we say, "Ah, yeah, right, fair. We did that then and then, but we haven′t got there yet. We focus more on women taking up leadership positions. And we really do that. We do it there and there and there." Then you would say, "Yes, okay, then you have a value." And that's a different process. And at the same time, in organisations it′s sometimes top-down or values are already there. They arise in different ways. But you can always work on it. Because in a certain sense it's not the expression itself that is so important, but how it is anchored in emotional commonalities. And what stories you can link it to and how that can also influence behaviour. And that also has to do with mindset. You mentioned that it works something like Spiral Dynamics. There are quite a few developmental psychologists who have explored how we understand the world in a constructivist sense and how this understanding has changed. From a moralistic to a more rationalistic understanding, where we say matter-of-factly: "Yes, the values here should be performance, progress, competence and customer focus". And then we move into a more self-determined mindset where we say: "Innovation, strengths– these are important to us, that's what we pay attention to." And then at some point we move towards a more multi-perspective approach. And the researchers we refer to are Robert Kegan and Jane Loevinger, who have done a great job describing how the way we deal with phenomena in a meaningful way changes. They have broken this down nicely and thus also opened up a more development-oriented view of values. We take them as a basis.

TR: Meaningful then means that the way you are with other people practically helps you to live your purpose?

MP: You can always see when you have emotional tension with something, let's take working from home as an example, "No, I can't do that, then they'll all just sit on the sofa", you notice you have tension, your meaning or purpose tells you: "It's not good if they work from home. Then they don't work. I have to control them. How else is it going to work?" And that's the vessel, so to speak, in which you can process your truth. That's how you hold it and that's how much you can hold. Then you realise, "Oh, but the phenomena I encounter are bigger than the vessel with which I can explain this reality.” Suddenly it's the COVID pandemic and they're all sitting at home. “My mindset hasn′t got an answer yet as to how I can deal with it in a meaningful way.”  And then at some point you realise, "Oh, I could give trust. I'll take a look at it. I endure my tension. I arrive at new explanations and realise: Oh, look. 80 per cent of the people deal with it in a great way. I can give them trust. They take responsibility for themselves. That's amazing. I never would have thought it." And that is a typical sign of vertical development, where your vessel gets bigger. That what you thought of as being sensible, logical and right has become bigger. Another example is the issue of the environmental, where in the 80s or 70s people said, "Environmental protection hurts the economy. It's logical: if we have to invest in waste separation, green electricity – it′s all far too expensive. It ruins the economy. We'd better not do it." And today you think: "Hey, it could be done" because today you realise how restricted the sense of purpose was. Which means you deal with the same phenomena in a completely different way today. This way, this expansion of mindset, that you can hold more, more paradoxes, more opposites, more contradictions within yourself, this expansion is described quite well in developmental psychology. And that is the cornerstone of our mindset model. It also helps you to better understand how to get a grip on values. Why some do it from a moral perspective, why some do it from a rational perspective, or to trigger a desired response. True to the belief: "We spur people on with these values. We pin them on a wall and everyone works a bit faster." Towards: what does that actually do to our inner experience? But in order to get there, to take values as something that shapes culture, something that has to do with your inner experience, you also have to be in touch with your inner experience. That is also a small learning curve.

TR: Yes, or maybe even a big learning curve? That's probably the classic, where I always think: "Where do I start now when someone tells me: ‘Let's leave emotions out of this, we'll stay on the factual level'". And then I also think: "Hmm - is that even possible?" Because I know that it takes time for someone to open up and have the confidence to look inside. But in principle that′s what you′re saying too. It really doesn't work without the inner experience, without being in touch with yourself.

MP: Well, the path is short because it′s only about 30 centimetres from the head to the heart. That's a pretty short distance in itself. But I always say when someone says they want to leave their feelings out of it: "Take the book of life and only look at every fourth page. You always skip three." As if that doesn't happen. But these are phenomena that are real. Of course people have feelings all the time. And of course the way we construct language is also a response to what we perceive in our primary feelings and somehow want to bring into harmony. And if you exclude that, then you exclude a great deal of wisdom, also in yourself, in the knowledge of yourself. And at some point you say, "No, I don't want the phenomena of life to go away, I want to perceive them in order to be able to deal with them." A typical sign for the expansion of the mindset is when you say: "I become more aware of my thoughts and feelings and perceive them in their entirety. And no longer pretend that they don't belong there." Which is quite absurd. You have an inner space of experience where they take place and you pretend that it doesn't belong to you. Like, "Somehow that's not mine." Or as some people say, "Oh, no, looking inwards like that, it's all so complicated. I prefer to be objective." Okay, that's also a sign for a mindset. But at some point it expands, because in this mindset you can no longer explain many phenomena in a meaningful way. Not even to yourself.

TR: Right, which leads me to my next question: When you work with people, do you often find that the mindsets they occupy in private life and professional life are extremely divergent? So extreme that you ask yourself: "Do we have here two completely different personalities?”

MP: Yes, of course. We are all many I′s who don't know each other. And if you take note of the vocal pitch, how you speak, for example, when you are really excited, and another time it’s in a different voice, a different posture or bearing, then in principle everything is different. And sometimes you can see how the ego identity changes in minutes. In between there are these kind of blinkers that stop you from seeing it yourself. And of course in the corporate context many adopt a more childlike mindset. You allow things to be done to you and you expect other people to do things that you would never do in private. You enter a state of immaturity and at the same time there is this perception, this incoherence that is also the growth tension that you need and which is felt much more strongly in organisations today. Think about how it was 20 or 30 years ago, what was expected of people. And today people say: "No, if I see myself as a whole person and the way I like to communicate, then I don't like it here. I won't play here, I’ll go somewhere else." Because you want to be more whole or because you feel the incoherence more strongly. Let's take Eichmann as an extreme example, who said he felt totally disconnected from his actions. He was just following orders. You don't have to go that far. You can find many examples where we find ourselves in a system and believe that we have to function in this system and therefore don't experience ourselves as a whole.

TR: Is this also an issue for the younger generations? I hear this again and again from older managers who say: "You can't talk to young people these days the way we were talked to. You have to talk in a completely different way." That they have a different and perhaps more holistic need, to not have to present themselves differently in the working context than in private?

MP: Yes, of course, because they have a different space to talk about things at their disposal. They can talk more easily about their lives, their inner worlds and all these things. Not everyone - it's not that everyone is like that. But then, if we're honest, they say: "Four days a week is enough for me. I want to have a good relationship, I want to play sports and go to the gym, I want to have my friends. I want to live a life where I can be whole. I don't care about the company car and a 60-hour week. If you tell me I'll get more money, I've seen where that goes. No, I don't want that." Yes, that feels like a slight to our generation, who learned: "Get stuck in, make loads of money, then you'll have a good life." But then you realised that you know a lot of people who are wealthy but who have not focussed on themselves enough, that they are not at one with themselves. They continue to be in conflict with themselves in spite of all the property and possessions. I would say that the younger generation are much more forward in terms of communication skills and perceiving their own thoughts and feelings than in my time 

TR: Does that then also work with your approach, that you create mutual understanding through mindset and values? That it doesn't manifest itself in misunderstanding and perhaps even isolation??

MP: People carry treasures within themselves. Reference experiences where they really felt themselves alive, where they really lived, where they were present in their body, perhaps outside in nature, perhaps with their children and people they love. These are qualities that say, "This is my being per se, this is my home per se, this is who I am per se." Now that can feel different or have different stories attached to it. But it is often this feeling: something in me wants to grow and be more present. More in touch with the present. If you activate that and make space for it, if spaces open up and people can talk about it, then they all already have their inner impetus for growth within them. They all have an idea of how it could be. Mostly it's just a matter of creating the space for it, opening it up to discussion and allowing these things to be talked about. You can do this really well through values. People often say after a values workshop: "We've never talked to each other like this before. I've never seen this side of you before." An emotional space opens up and something new emerges from it. Organisations evolve. What exactly happens then, you never really know. It always depends on where they are at the moment, what their issues are and also how they deal with things, i.e. how much space they are given or whether they are kept in check. But I think society as well as organisations sense that not just society itself but we and the world too are on the move.

TR: Yes, and then there are no limits. I work a lot in the public sector. Where a lot is blamed on the system, walls that prevent you developing. Something like that. Where I just think that in such rather rigid organisations you can perhaps work like that, because it always involves the direct environment. This means I am never at the mercy of the system, but at the mercy of the people who support the system.

MP: Exactly. What actually is the system? It was made by us, but it also contains how we communicate. In other words, how a system is organised has to do with how communication is organised. Who is allowed to say what to whom, who is allowed to ask what of whom, and who is allowed to answer and how? If you then say that you are making the hierarchies flatter, that you are making new agile processes, then you change communication and other truths are set in motion. - In the public sector too. Because we also notice that the basic approach of many organisations comes from the military and from feudal societies. And somehow we replicate this, we fall into structures of obedience and feudalism. Where you then say, "Oh, the generals, they earn a thousand times more than us. They have so much responsibility. They are the kings. And below them is the aristocracy, they have a hundred times as much. They worked so hard to get up there. Then below them are the employees. And the serfs are all over the place doing the really hard and unpleasant stuff." This sounds a bit like a caricature, but if you look closely, it's still in us to think like that and to accept it. Where we are so far away from democratic organisations where the CEO is elected. And yet we continue to emulate. What's interesting is when you ask people: "Are you democrats, do you think it’s a good way?" - "Yes, great." - "How democratic are you when it comes to organising work?" - "Oh no, not then. Someone has to be in charge." These authoritarian and infantile practices are strong yet at the same time they are also in the process of decline.

TR: Yes, that gives us hope. Although some people might be worried. Whenever things are on the decline, on the way out, there are always people who say: “Shock horror, we don't know what might follow.”

MP: I'll put it this way, it's an open story. In developmental psychology you can at least say what spaces open up when you form development-oriented organisations. Which can happen. But strictly speaking you can't change people's mindsets from the outside. However, you can offer spaces where they can develop. If you say: "Look, in private you communicate much more openly. You could transfer this ability to this context, when you are less afraid, when power is handled differently." Then it can thrive. The same goes for values, which you can't prescribe. But you can open up spaces where they can be experienced authentically. As a society we naturally exist with all the regressive tendencies that go with it. In general, I am a great optimist. Look at Germany. Where were we 80 years ago, or 60 years ago, or 40 years ago? With all the problems that still lie ahead of us, I nevertheless see a growing ability to deal with them and perhaps not just to say: “It doesn't affect me any more.” But to say: "No, we are human beings, we are clever and at the end of the day have all the know-how we need. Perhaps we sometimes lack the awareness of values or the right mindset to look at it. But that is also something we could develop.”

TR: Great. If someone wants to develop this with you, Martin, how can they best contact you?

MP: We have two books: "Mindset Matters" (in English and  German) and"Werte Wirken " (Values Work – only in German), on which we offer a number of training courses. We do a lot of stuff in companies. We ask: "Do you want to explore the issue of mindsets in your company? Do you want to start a movement or a cultural expedition?" - as we call it. Or we also do workshops on values or value positioning, if someone wants to align their company with values internally and externally. And strengthen this emotional awareness in the organisation. Then we go into organisations and shape their communication systems, including design, website and communications in general. This is agency work on the one hand but also organisational development work and strategic positioning on the other. This might be what makes SHORT CUTS here in Berlin so special, that we focus on all three elements, design, strategy and culture. You can find out all about us on our website short-cuts.de. We have also built an online network community - haltung-erweitern.de - to which we invite people who are interested in the topic. I think the topic of mindsets will be more and more present in leadership. Because it is such an unknown aspect, to look into the development of our own mindset and how we can change logics when we realise that we cannot fix tomorrow's problems with old logics. If we want to develop new logics, we need the self-development of leadership - and this is what we are dealing with in the online community.  We collect experiences, report on relevant research – it’s also called vertical development - and present books, podcasts and videos on the topic. If we take a closer look at politics and what's going on there, then it becomes patently obvious what is actually needed and how we can perhaps develop a different view of leadership so we are better able to act and face the challenges that still lie ahead of us. And they come with their own problems.

TR: They certainly do. Thank you, Martin, for this congenial conversation about values, which I find a really complex topic, and mindsets. An experience I can well imagine repeating if you like.

MP: I’d love to.

TR: Thanks so much for being here, Martin.

MP: Thank you for having me, Tanja.