Here’s a tip for companies:  give every official position term limits.  Just like people can only be President of the U.S. for four years, renewable for another four years maximum, or Governor or Mayor of many states or towns for a limited amount of time, give the CEO, the President, and the department Directors of your company, term limits.

Here are some of the benefits:

Every person brings different skills, strengths, vision, weaknesses and needs to the position.  Different skills, strengths and vision will bring new life to official leadership of the company or department, as needed from time to time.

It’s hard for most officials to keep growing in the same position over many years, or to admit when they want to move on.

Passing along the job means officials need to train others about what they do, and pass along specific skills, relationships and knowledge needed to do their job well.

The group of people who choose the new official — ideally this is the people whom the official will be the official for — the people who work in that department or company, will choose the new person.  This means:

 - coworkers learn about what you do in your job — you become more appreciated.

 - coworkers choose the new person — they feel responsible for who they work with.

Of course in my last writing I focused on explicit planning in relationships.  Most of my work focuses on explicit planning in relationships and then getting the plans done in surprising ways which emerge in the moment.  When you come out of a hike in the woods and come out on the highway, you can choose to go left or right, and sometimes having an explicit map to show the way is desirable.

Sometimes, like hiking in the woods, I want my way to be tacit.  I want to follow my senses without even thinking about where I’m going or why or how or when.  This is kind of blissful for me.  But when I get to a point where I don’t share connection with the woods any more, or when I’m in a relationship where we’ve lost our way and don’t know why we’re together any more, that’s when explicit communication and planning helps.

Of course, there’s the third way.  I’ve had times in my life where I’ve gotten out of the woods, seen the highway racing by, not known what to do, and stopped.  I’ve sat down by the side of the road.  And sometimes that is okay.  Sometimes that is what we want.  Sometimes we don’t know what to do, and we don’t even want to know what to do.  Sometimes we want to be in that place where we don’t know what’s going on, we don’t know how to make it better, and we don’t want to do anything.

What I’ve learned over the last year is, that being wherever we’re at without having a way forward is sometimes what we want.  And when that happens, well, sometimes I like being okay with the not knowing and not wanting and being caught up in despair, or separation, or whatever it is.  But sometimes I want to do something.

1) Feet.  The direction your feet are pointing in is super-important.  Feet are a subconscious pointer of where your attention is going.  Feet towards someone?  They’re much more likely to feel you’re paying attention to them.  Feet away from someone?  You can focus on them a lot more and they’re much less likely to notice.

2) Heads.  Whenever you need to stare at someone to capture their eye or lip movements, they’re much much less likely to notice you if someone is standing between you.  It’s a human/animal thing.  Even better, get the person between you’s head between your head and the head of the person you’re watching.  Even better, get in a conversation with the person between you.  At least, it helps to have an object like a shelf or a tree between your direct line of vision.  Don’t stand TOO close to the shelf or tree or other person or it’s creepy.  Gosh.  Oh, and interesting exception: you can walk up right next to the person and since you’re super-close with your feet in another direction, they’re unlikely to notice you as observing them.  Have a dual motive — something else you’re also paying attention to, as a reason for being so close.  It’s a psychology thing.

3) Eyes.  There’s usually no need to stare.  A roving gaze, taking in a good view of whatever’s in front of you, usually does the trick.  Unless you stand like Secret Service, no one’s likely to notice.

Bonus tip: Fixed-point.  I was once taught a style of negotiation where you focus on a fixed point on the table in front of you and don’t look at anyone.  Funny thing is, by absorbing in this way, I became far better at channeling everyone’s emotions and the dynamic in the room than usual, and was better at predicting the subtleties between my negotiation partners and the opposite team.  We discussed everything at the end.

[Credits: Feet - Thanks to Mrs. Williams who taught me psychology at Horace Greeley High School.  Fixed-point - thanks to Prof. Seth Freeman and his excellent MBA negotiation class at NYU’s Stern School of Business ]

Which one are you drawn to?

These are models of ways we make decisions.  Most people have a model they’re attracted to or feel best around.  And most people have another model which represents when they feel stepped on, their dark side. 

I’m drawn to the model of the overlapping circles.  I like to make decisions by consensus.  My dark side is the rules-and-roles, command-and-control pyramid.

Models can be combined like DNA.  Every time a decision is made, it’s made with one of these models.

Here’s how some folks named these diagrams:

“I intuited the other three drawings, but wasn’t quite sure what that last one was.  So I was attracted to what I did not know, which I guess turned out to be a thread of myself, maybe the thread that all the beads are strung on.”

 ”I’m drawn to this one.  This is ‘rules.’  I’m training to be a lawyer.”

“This one speaks to me, because everything is inside it.  This is space — the Earth, the stars, they contain everything.  These others… [pointing at the other models]  This [bottom-right] is fucking yes/no, yes or no.  This [pointing top-left] is mechanical — a wheel.  This [draws a fourth circle over the overlapping circles top-right] is an embryo.”

“This is me, with overlapping consensus, a Venn diagram of democracy.  [pointing to the others]  This [top-left] is an oligarchy, a meritocracy, chairs-in-a-circle, following the in-group, ethics.  This [bottom-left] is anarchy, chaos, individualism.  This [bottom-right] is totalitarian, typical corporate or old-school royalty structure, hierarchy, ancestry.” 

I interview a lot of people to help them tell stories about what they want at work.  One interesting use for these models is, when someone chooses the overlapping circles, they are great at naming three actions they’re great at and also excite them.  But when someone chooses the pyramid, they want to start by talking about one thing.  Then they’ll spread out from there, naming the VP’s to their CEO.  The space model will want to focus on one thing at a time, and jump around.  The circle-of-chairs model will want to start with one thing, then go around the circle to the others, one by one.  Order doesn’t matter so much with the circle of chairs.

Lately I’ve used these models to see and avoid disagreements.  Maybe you even disagree with one of the descriptions above.

My desire to find ‘overlapping circles’ in everything, when I pull too hard, can tangle up the ‘thread-of-beads.’  The beads are meant to be touched one at a time, not pulled together into a pretzel from three corners as I would do.  When I try to bring all the points in a conversation together, that can frustrate the ’space’ model.  With my central gravity, I would try to pull all the stars together, which would collapse into a bottomless black hole.  With the ‘command-and-control’ model, I would mesh up the order, which would leave the command-and-control turning in circles, wondering where the next decision would come from.

Likewise (using different metaphors here), when the ‘circle-of-chairs’ tries to get me in their circle, I can feel trapped and confined.  When ‘anarchy’ tries to get me to focus on one point at a time, jumping around, never finding common ground, I can feel as if pricks of needles are pushing into my skin, each a separate point with no overlap.  When ‘ancestry’ tries to get me to stay in my place, I can feel boxed in and separated from the other branches of the tree.

Instead of conforming other people to my model, or needing to agree with theirs, I’ve started showing them this diagram.  “This is our real difference,” I say.  Then, we visually see why we are disagreeing, and we realize we can each stay in our own model.  We can both have our own way.

Think of someone you’ve disagreed with.  Which is their model?  Which is yours?  Draw what you’re trying to do to their model, or they’re trying to do with yours.

For a great party trick, draw the models on a napkin.  Ask, “Which one are you drawn to?”

Each of these ways of decision-making has its side effects.  Most people who choose the circle-of-chairs tend to frequently wish they were “better” at something, or “a better person.”  Most people who choose the anarchy model tend to have a hard time sticking with one thing for very long.  Most people who choose the rules-pyramid model tend to notice they sometimes rebel against or sabotage themselves.  Most people who choose the overlapping circles model tend to spend a lot of time reaching consensus within themselves.

As long as you feel attracted to your model, each of these side-effects is okay for you.  I used to worry because I heard some management consultants and bosses say that I should fire people who disagreed with me.  But that’s not my style.  My style is to get consensus.  That’s what’s great for me.  Seeing my style has helped me be okay with being myself.

[Special thanks to Karen Dunlap for phrasing the question, “Which one are you drawn to?”  Thanks to Michael Weitz for questioning my core assumptions, Jennifer Burch for the “thread of beads” and Heiko for the “space” images.  Thanks to many other people for their questions, suggestions and interpretations, including: Jeffrey Warren, Stephen Lee, Matt Cooperrider, Kirk Reardon, Sanford Dickert, Zohar Adner, Robert Sosinski, and my father and brother.]

Please feel free to copy and paste the diagram at the top of the page onto your own website.  I’ll appreciate your linking back to this website.]