By André Clements
No soap-opera comes close to the spaghetti-bolognaise of intrigue and dissonance rampant in many offices, both private and public – political turmoil, financial volatility and socio-economic instability, in the shadow of spectres of looming crisis in health and critical resources. These are just some of the potent ingredients in the melting-pot of our day and seem to be demanding attention in a great many aspects of life. How do we address all of this and come out ahead? Is there a strategy for success?
Adam Kahane has spent the better part of two decades helping leaders and communities deal with such questions in very demanding multi-stakeholder situations ranging from our own transition to democracy in South Africa to flash-points including Israel, Guatemala and other less sensational but no less challenging problems across the world.
“There was a joke at the time in South Africa that, faced with our overwhelmingly complex problems, we have two options: a practical option and a miraculous option. The practical option is that we all get out of our chairs and down on our knees and pray for a band of angels to come down and solve our problems for us. The miraculous option is that we stay in our chairs, talk with one another, and work through our problems together.
In the event, South Africans, much to their own and the world’s surprise, chose and implemented the miraculous option. They found a way to live together in a world that is full. They found a way to co-create a new social reality.
Through his many successes and some self-professed failures, he has come to compelling conclusions about what works and what does not in these kinds of situations.
Kahane shared some of these at an event hosted by the newly re-launched South African chapter, or ‘fractal’, of the Society for Organisational Learning (SoL SA) – an organisation founded by Peter Senge, who famously introduced and made accessible the until then arguably esoteric notions of systems theory into mainstream business thinking.
Kahane’s thesis is embodied in a paper that outlines his next book, and revolves around the apparent dilemma of reconciling the principles of power with those of love. Of course these two words could easily be used in superficial sentimentality but Kahane contextualises them in his hypothesis with rigorous academic diligence – yet what is perhaps most compelling about his approach is that it is first and foremost based on actual experience, which is then substantiated by theory and discourse – in contrast to many fashionable management and leadership memes.
Kahane refers to definitions formulated by Paul Tillich that basically holds that:
Most problems arise out of situations that, when grossly simplified, entail either power without love or love without power.
Kahane illustrates his point by employing two metaphors:
The first metaphor portrays Love and Power as two different languages, that cannot be translated into each other. But to achieve a happy and healthy state of affairs in most situations requires being fluent in both these languages, being bilingual so to speak. Imagine that the big picture is a play on stage that involves two actors each speaking their own language. Some of the ideas that crystallise out of this analogy implies that both actors need to play their full parts, speak their entire scripts, but not simultaneously – balance is the key.
The second, and startlingly evocative metaphor, has us seeing Power and Love as two legs we have to walk on. We have to be bi-pedal to get where we would like to go to and the metaphor elegantly extends to allow defining five stages, or statuses of integration of these legs. (What would management theory be without memorable bullet-point lists?)
Kahane argues that we should aim to employ 100% of our capacity to use both power and love. The challenge is achieving, or at least aiming towards the 100% in final sum, in the net result, but allowing the motion between the poles in a coordinated way.
Kahane’s metaphors are very powerful – you cannot walk while keeping both feet on the ground all the time. While you place your weight on one leg you need to simultaneously repositioning the other and perhaps that holds the key – when you are invested in force you also need to be replenishing your capacity for compassion, when you are engaged in nurturing rapport you also have to prepare to define necessary boundaries.
If two actors, each speaking a different language, each speaks their entire script simultaneously nobody will be able to make much sense of it all.
Power properly understood is nothing but the ability to achieve purpose. It is the strength required to bring about social, political, and economic change … And one of the great problems of history is that the concepts of love and power have usually been contrasted as opposites – polar opposites – so that love is identified with the resignation of power, and power with the denial of love. Now we’ve got to get this thing right. What [we need to realise is] that power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anaemic … It is precisely this collision of immoral power with powerless morality which constitutes the major crisis of our time.
- Quoted from a speech by Dr Martin Luther King, Jr. that Kahane referred to.
It seems clear that complex situations are so incredibly demanding, not only because of the direct problems they pose, but because of the degree to which they require coordination of sometimes apparently irreconcilable issues, needs and drives. Whether it is marketing versus accounting or civil society versus government versus commerce, true leadership entails both brutal strength and impeccable sensitivity, forcefulness and compassion or – if you will – balancing love and power.
This of course leads to a new question: “Is achieving this balance something that only comes with years of practice, is it an intuitive thing only available to a lucky few, or is it something that can be formalised, communicated, even measured, managed and maintained?”
References
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sir,your book on Solving tough problems is very useful one
regards,
parameswar