Informal -- Formal

Long ago, my graduate work focused on ways of creating agreement and forward action between groups needing to work together. That work became a dissertation that launched what has become a long career in organizational and executive leadership development. One important insight regarding this kind of organized discernment showed up in the formal and informal processes that happen.

• Formal - e.g., scheduled meetings to do and govern the work between and among people appointed to their roles.
  
  
• Informal - e.g., conversations in parking lots, homes, group chats, and diners - often after formal meetings take place, and often among a mixture of people whose voices were minor or absent in the formal process.

When I later wrote a training manual for discernment methods that grew from my research and then began facilitating training workshops across Canada and the US, I often said that "informal and formal dynamics will always show up when we have important decisions to make. The trick is for the informal to inform the formal ahead of time."  This is how we gain insight, alignment, and ownership for what we decide to do. Otherwise, informal dynamics breed undermining, resistance, and passive aggression among those not considered, heard, and understood.

Let's say we've mastered this soft power approach as we build organizations, foster movements, and sustain a heart for the world to flourish. What do we need to stay aware of?

We are naïve if we believe listening thoroughly ahead of time clears the field of all resistance. It could be that a normally cynical person is surprised by an honest and consistent leadership group that seeks input to inform and plan. Perhaps they actually warm up and participate. Their long-used muscles of complaint and resistance, however, may well kick in again after the fact. We are also naïve to think that no other players or dynamics will emerge even after thorough attempts to build broad alignment and ownership.

• Be prepared for cynical behaviors even among those who stand most to benefit.
• Understand that all of the good that could come might not come quickly, because others will decide not to participate.
• Decide that an imperfect step on a longer journey and with fewer companions is far better than expecting a perfect community of perfect democracy in every organization that touches us.

Acting nimbly, kindly, and persistently brings a tempering to us, a strong and burnished wisdom, as opposed to the weak and flaccid futility of  powering up in order to bully others, to hide, or to cast blame.

Maestro- level leaders learn to lead from the rich soil underneath. Along the way, significant and derailing distractions arise such as

• pressure to believe the false myth of rising to the top when in Turn One of their journey, while learning the Artisanship of self-leadership
• a strong sense that they need to lead from out in front as a competent top performer during Turn Two Artistry, while learning to lead others and an organization

Now, in this Third Turn that turns away from siren call of dominance toward future value (which will eventually be guided by others), the Maestro-level leader works from the root structure of their organizational ecosystem, making good use of informal dynamics to inform the formal ones.

Practically speaking, what does this look like?

Would you like some good news? Someone with a strong leadership capacity can grow their ability to see and nurture their organization as an ecosystem even in their First or Second Turn of executive leadership. Even now, they can commit to appreciating informal conversation mixed well with formal process. Even now, they can grow their talent of being wide-awake, wise contributors to a deeper and longer mission that blesses the world for generations.

Let's help each other along!

-mark l vincent

Learn more about Maestro-level leaders cohorts here.
Access the Third Turn Podcast here.