There's a Lot of Space For Us to Shift with Dr. Randal Joy Thompson

Dr. Randal Joy Thompson is a scholar-practitioner and global citizen who has assumed leadership positions and led teams in countries around the world including Cameroon, Morocco, Romania, Ukraine, Moldova, and Belarus, Iraq, Afghanistan, Morocco, Liberia, Nigeria, Ghana, Myanmar, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and El Salvador, initially as a Commissioned US Foreign Service Officer and then as independent contractor. Her scholarship has focused primarily on leadership, focusing on women, teams, and the commons. She works with organizations to help facilitate the establishment of autonomous self-led teams as well as to help build relationships among existing team members by creating the environment where they experience the socio-emotional forces connecting them.

In addition to her PhD and MA in Human and Organizational Systems from Fielding Graduate University, she earned an MBA from the Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago, an MA in Political Philosophy from the University of Chicago, an MA in Biblical Exposition from Capitol Bible and Graduate School, and a BA in Philosophy from the University of California, Berkeley.

A Few Quotes From This Episode

• "Relationships, not structure, are what create stability now in organizations.” 
• “The team itself is a leader.” 
• “What binds them together are relationships. 

Resources

• Book: The Four Forces: Igniting Emergent Generative Team Leadership in a Complex Perennial World Inspired by Nature and the Dao

About The International Leadership Association (ILA)

• The ILA was created in 1999 to bring together professionals interested in studying, practicing, and teaching leadership. Attend The Global Conference in Toronto, October 28-31.

About  Scott J. Allen

• Website
• Weekly Newsletter: Practical Wisdom for Leaders

My Approach to Hosting

• The views of my guests do not constitute "truth." Nor do they reflect my personal views in some instances. However, they are views to consider, and I hope they help you clarify your perspective. Nothing can replace your reflection, research, and exploration of the topic.

♻️ Please share with others and follow/subscribe to the podcast!
⭐️ Please leave a review on Apple, Spotify, or your platform of choice.
➡️ Follow me on LinkedIn for more on leadership, communication, and tech.
📜 Subscribe to my weekly newsletter featuring four hand-picked articles.
🌎 You can learn more about my work on my Website.

Transcript

Scott Allen: [00:00:00] Okay, everybody. Welcome to Phronesis: Practical Wisdom for Leaders. Thank you so much for checking in wherever you are in the world. I have a returning guest today, Dr. Randal Thompson, and she is going to talk about her latest book that she has co-authored with others, The Four Forces: Igniting Emergent Generative Team Leadership in a Complex Penential World Inspired by Nature and the Dao.

Now, Randal, we might need a whole session just to unpack that title. That is awesome. I know.

Randal Joy Thompson: It sounds... It is a mouthful.

Scott Allen: I love it. I love it. I imagine there's some really cool things going on here. So first of all, thank you so much for coming back onto the podcast.

Randal Joy Thompson: Thank you for having me.

It's always a joy to talk to you.

Scott Allen: Yes. And so talk to listeners about, I'm not going to read [00:01:00] Randall's bio. It's in the show notes, so please check that out. Very accomplished individual who has done some pretty incredible things out there in the world. But I would love to know the impetus of the project, and then what are three or four things that you want leaders to know?

Obviously, they can go click on a link in the show notes and buy the book, but what are three or four things you want people to know? So impetus and then three or four things. What do you think?

Randal Joy Thompson: The emphasis emergent generative team leadership really emerged during the pandemic when we noticed that because there was a lack of leadership and they didn't really know how to solve the problems, that a lot of people just joined together.

They self-organized to meet the needs that were not being met.

And that's where we got the four forces of intent, hope, care, and love. But then now we notice that the world is so complex and so malleable and [00:02:00] so changing, and now that we are entering an inflection point, the age of AI, it's now organizations are adapting and becoming more agile.

So the... What I think is important to note, that relationships, not structure, are what create stability now in organizations.

And more and more companies are establishing self-managed or autonomous teams. They're taking out all the rigid structure, especially of middle management. And once you know that a team is being built, relationships are undergirded by a socio-emotional forces, something that we don't often talk about in business, but these are key, and we have to note them and build on their importance.

And then the notion that teams lead [00:03:00] themselves-

...

Randal Joy Thompson: That the team itself is a leader. So those, I think, are the most important points that I would like to bring out during our discussion, and I think they are This whole movement of value creation in business, I think we are part of that, but I think we go further in really emphasizing socio-emotional forces- Okay

and the importance of relationships

Scott Allen: Okay, so let's go there with relationships. I wholeheartedly agree. I think when it comes down to business development, when it comes down to leadership, when it comes down to teaching and coaching, what is the level of relationship, authentic relationships that we have with others?

We know that it is a significant force when it comes to leader effectiveness, relationships. And talk about how you guys are thinking about that realm. Super interested

Randal Joy Thompson: Okay. in the traditional organizational structure, it's [00:04:00] the hierarchy. And that what creates the stability in organization is everyone knows where they fit in that hierarchy, what they do.

But somehow... I can't hear you.

Scott Allen: No, I am, we'll edit this out. Oh. But I was just telling my family, who are walking into the house, that I was recording a podcast. Oh,

Randal Joy Thompson: I'm sorry.

Scott Allen: They're making a big lot of noise.

Randal Joy Thompson: Okay.

Scott Allen: Go ahead and start the beginning of that sentence, if you would.

Randal Joy Thompson: Okay. The reason that we think relationships are so important is that the new agile organizations and the business, the value created business, is focusing more on the client as the driver of the organization.

And leaders are devolving their positional power down to people on the teams. [00:05:00] And what binds them together are relationships. No longer the rigid structure of hierarchy, but how they relate to each other and how the traditional leader opens up space for everyone to be a leader.

And in order to work together, you have to focus on those relationships. We don't really like to talk about it too much, but what is it that holds us together? It is those socio-emotional forces. Do we care for each other? Even love now has become part of and parcel of the vocabulary even of business.

The fact of hoping that we can achieve our goal, and then that intent, the will to achieve it. Those are what bind people together, and those are so important for what they call now self-managed teams, which we call self-led [00:06:00] teams. That's why relationships take a center in our book and in our thinking now in organizations.

Scott Allen: And talk a little bit more about the socio-emotional forces. I think it makes sense to me, but I want to make sure I'm thinking about it in the same way that you are. What are the elements that kind of fuel the social and emotional or socio-emotional forces?

Randal Joy Thompson: Okay, so we talk about emergence and generativity. Emergence is, it comes from, these come from nature. Emergence is the something new comes out that's surprising and it's not really determined by the processes. And then generativity is an innovation, something that innovates and responds both to the internal and external environment.[00:07:00]

So if you have an organization like that, you need to have people that share the intent. The shared intent is not only the vision of where they want to go, but the will to achieve it. And then hope is it's an active, it's not a wishy-washy kind of I, I hope so. It's goes along with intent that you really have in place the processes by which that hope can be realized.

And care is, how you feel towards your team members and how you feel toward your leaders, the higher level leaders. And then love is power. It's the power of the universe, and it powers intelligence also. So we found that these were the most important. And it's interesting 'cause if you read the management literature, certainly intent, the purpose-driven organization [00:08:00] has been talked about.

Now also the importance of care, Is being talked about in the literature. Even love more recently is being talked about. And in one of the recent management surveys, people said that hope was the number one thing they wanted in an organization because people are feel disenfranchised. The dropout rate in organizations has become astronomical, I think like 30%, and people are seeking a new type of workforce that's more humane.

So by looking at the socioemotion forces and helping to in- ignite those and helping to get people in touch with those we are really helping to create a more... We're bringing more humanity into an organization, and I think that's our [00:09:00] ultimate goal. And also in terms of leadership, everyone's a leader, right?

It's no longer just positional leaders. So in teams, the way that they operate as a self-led teams is everyone is contributing to how that team as the ultimate leader is functioning

Scott Allen: Yeah, that's super interesting. The levels. So the team is the leader. That's super interesting phrasing, and I've certainly at times worked on teams where I would kind of suggest that the team was almost of one mind, not in a groupthink type way, but there, the relationships were there, the intent was there, the care was there, the love, to your point.

You also had hope here. And that team can become a really interesting force and I don't know, to your point, that we needed to be managed in many [00:10:00] ways. We had our marching orders, and we were very excited to put into place what we were... the vision of what had been handed to us.

And so that's so interesting. I think, what I'm experiencing in organizations right now, Randall, and what I'm seeing oftentimes every week is that we've ... it feels like organizational life has moved ... if it's a tension, task and relationships, right? That's a classic Blake and Mouton-

Yes ... 1970s- It is ... managerial grid, blah, blah, blah. They were onto something. The, the kind of master tension getting stuff done and progressing, getting, the work, and then the people and the relationships. And- ... what I'm experiencing right now is a heavy focus on task.

And- Oh ... I think a part of that is that a number of organizations have not really figured out how to [00:11:00] design for a either virtual or design for relationships in a hybrid. So everything feels very transactional. People are not going to lunch together. They are not necessarily just popping into the other person's office and having a quick conversation, catching up in the break room.

Whatever it is, I think that they can be designed for, but I don't think organizations have been intentionally designing culture or designing for relationships in this post-COVID era, at least a number that I'm coming across. And so then it starts to feel very transactional. It feels very teams meeting to teams meeting.

And so I couldn't agree more, and this is at least how I'm understanding it, is that those relationships are the glue, and if we are not designing for that, then, a lot of this other stuff falls by the wayside. It becomes transactional. We struggle with retention. We struggle with engagement, [00:12:00] productivity, down the list.

So respond to that, everything I just said. Does that resonate?

Randal Joy Thompson: Oh, absolutely. Unfortunately. And when we talk to groups, sometimes they say, "Oh no, we can't talk about care or love in our organization, and we have to follow direction." But there's a lot ... There's a movement afoot. The Corporate Rebels, for example, they buy small companies and they focus on relationships.

And then the teal, Teal Organizations, Frederic Laloux, his book also mentions 50 organizations that have taken this turn, and they are all over the world. So there are- I guess early adopters, we would say, all over the world that are seeing the light, that see that when they focus on relationship and when they give teams more autonomy, and when they [00:13:00] realize that everyone's a leader that they are doing much better.

And then from Lisbon, the Management Summit in Lisbon, and they have the Lisbon Principles, they talk about the value creation movement. And again, it's the same thing, that value is created by relationships- ... more than task, being task-oriented.

Scott Allen: Yes.

Randal Joy Thompson: And certainly as a team leader, 'cause I've been a team leader for many years, and I started out being very task-oriented.

And I realized over time that wasn't the way to build that community and to to even excel, so I shifted. I guess my teams pushed me to shift- ... to be more relation oriented. Because I was a team leader in many different countries with different cultures.

Scott Allen: Yes.

Randal Joy Thompson: So that, they taught me [00:14:00] that relationships are definitely important to emphasize.

Scott Allen: Maybe the Beatles were correct. All you need is love.

Randal Joy Thompson: Yeah, I agree. That should be theme song of every organization.

Scott Allen: You can define love in different ways, but I think one way I would think about the word love is that there's a genuine and authentic care for the other.

And so it does not have to be like a relationship love in the sense of a marriage or something like that, or I forget the different types of love. There's different ways and different ways-

Randal Joy Thompson: ... Of

Scott Allen: communicating that. But if we were to say a platonic, "I care for you, I care about you, I have your best interests at heart," and if we, to the best of our ability, spend time prioritizing that care, we could use different words, but if we spend time really facilitating an [00:15:00] environment where those relationships can emerge, creating that space I do believe...

Now, that does not mean we don't have, that does not mean we don't have objectives and goals and standards and accountability. I think, again, there is that tension, but gosh, as a starting point, focusing on those relationships and really ensuring that's a part of our DNA as an organization it feels critical to me.

It just does.

Randal Joy Thompson: And Amy Edmondson's work on psychological safety as key. You're not going to feel safe unless you feel that people care enough for you that they are not going to judge you if you express your opinion and so forth. Yep. And I think she's come out recently with a book that stresses more the relationship side of creating psychological safety.

And then trust also. Those have always been highlighted as [00:16:00] key issues in organizational and team dynamics. Yes. And I think if you really focus on building and feeding those socio-emotional forces, that trust and psychological safety are guaranteed.

Scott Allen: Yep. Yep. What else do you want people to know about the book?

Randal Joy Thompson: In the title we say we are inspired by nature and the Tao. Th- nature certainly as we talk more about, Ecosystems, right? And organizations as ecosystems, that they are more open, they are more responsive to their environment. And so we get that from nature that whole image, and also the emergence in generativity because that's how nature functions.

And so the more we can mimic those in organizations, then we create the context for the [00:17:00] freedom for people to relate to each other and be innovative and be open. So that's where we got the inspiration from nature. From the Tao, it's similar because Taoism is focused on nature. Again, it, that everything is changing, and that's what we are facing right now.

Before we had ... We were able to pretend that things were more stable, right? And we had, the industrial model where you had everything laid out and structured. But more and more organizations have to realize that they have to adapt to change, and that's where Tao comes in. And some of the mindsets of Taoism are very helpful for us to look at.

We're certainly not proposing that anybody embrace Taoism. It's just that some of the mindsets there Wu Wei, of letting things happen. [00:18:00] See what's happening. Be more aware of the environment, both internally and externally, as signals of, where you should focus, where your hope and intent should focus.

And so we looked at some of the mindsets that just might be useful for people that are on self-led teams to look at and even maybe practice because it's, it requires people to really have a kind of a different outlook, And again, it's part of being relationship rather than just task-oriented.

Scott Allen: Yes.

Randal Joy Thompson: And so those are why we had those as inspirations just as places to look and give you insights on how perhaps an organization and a team might usefully [00:19:00] be able to look at the world.

Scott Allen: I love... there's obviously a great deal of wisdom in some of that ancient thinking.

I did another podcast today with a gentleman who was highlighting three of the phrases at in Delphi that were on one of the temples. Know thyself.

Everything in moderation, right? And there's wisdom that I think, and it's just fascinating to me wisdom in nature- It's fascinating to me that as humans, as a part of our human condition, we struggle to, whether it's some of the sacred texts, whether it's some of the ancient philosophers, whether it's the aboriginals in Australia, or whether it's just wisdom that has been present over the centuries.

I don't know. Is it something within us as humans that we struggle to, to figure those things out? [00:20:00] To actually- I know. Isn't it

Randal Joy Thompson: true? ...

Scott Allen: I said to a friend today, I said, just take Christianity," and you could have whatever flavor you would like to, for this conversation, but in the lens of Christianity, and this is an oversimplification, but, God said, "Do these 10 things."

And if you approach the average Christian, can they tell you what those 10 things are? And, B how are they doing at living them? And when the eternal damnation and hell and heaven, eternal paradise is in balance, many of us struggle still.

Randal Joy Thompson: Absolutely.

Scott Allen: It'

Randal Joy Thompson: I think it's, yeah-somehow the way society's organized and the capitalist push for profit and also the American obsession with work and activity and individualism. Sometimes it, it keeps us from stopping and reflecting and- Yeah ... looking at what true wisdom is.

Scott Allen: Yes. I think [00:21:00] there's a lot of wisdom in that statement.

I think when capitalism drives a lot of the story and the narrative and the environment, Henry Mintzberg was on the podcast a few years ago and he talked about his thinking that we were out of balance. And I just finished the book Dopamine Nation, and that would suggest, billions of dollars are being spent on marketing some of these, what are to be known as unhealthy elements of society that humans will easily become addicted to, social media or whatever else you want to kind of go down the list.

The, sometimes the waters we are swimming in are polluted and takes us off of our game, or takes us, our attention off of some of these time-tested ways of trying to navigate life, right?

Randal Joy Thompson: That is true.

Scott Allen: Yes.

Randal Joy Thompson: And then, yeah, you can go to a little village in Africa and talk to the chief, and you get all this ancient wisdom.

They don't have [00:22:00] access to all of the modern technology that somehow seems to bring out sometimes the worst in people-

Scott Allen: Yes ...

Randal Joy Thompson: not the best,

Scott Allen: well, Randall, as we wind down our time together I'm ending the podcast these days by just asking guests: What's the practical wisdom in this conversation?

What stands out for you, and what do you want listeners to walk away with?

Randal Joy Thompson: The practical wisdom, I think, is to be aware of your relationships and those socio-emotional forces that are binding you together, and are they positive, are they negative, and how we can create a context where we can really care for each other and mutually look for ways to improve our organizations, our society and our lives.

Because I think that now is the [00:23:00] time. They, we always talk about the age of AI. It's a huge inflection point. Who are we now as humans going to be?

Scott Allen: Yep.

Randal Joy Thompson: AI can't steal everything about our humanness. And I think those socio-emotional forces are definitely huge, and they become more important now.

Scott Allen: I think relationships definitely, both in business development, relationships in work, I think it's a differentiator for a lot of organizations. Because we know, according to Gallup at least, that two-thirds of individuals are going to work today, and this is around the world, and they are disengaged or actively disengaged.

Randal Joy Thompson: Right.

Scott Allen: 1% are roughly engaged, so the system has... There's some opportunity for us to try some things a little-

Randal Joy Thompson: I think so too. I think there's a lot of space for us- ... to shift. To shift. So

Scott Allen: Oh.

Randal Joy Thompson: [00:24:00] Imagine where we love to go to work, and we are so engaged with each other, and-

Scott Allen: Yes. Oh ...

Randal Joy Thompson: wow, that's like a new world.

Scott Allen: Dr. Thompson, thank you so much. I appreciate you, appreciate the work you're doing. And for listeners, there's a lot of links in the show notes, so check those out. Purchase the book. And you know what? Until next time.

Randal Joy Thompson: Okay, thank you so much.

Scott Allen: Be well. Bye-bye.

Randal Joy Thompson: Bye.