Let the power flow

It's generally accepted in most businesses that power flows from the top. But what would happen if you asked your staff how they'd improve communication in the office? 

Late in September I gave one of my irregular lectures at Sydney University. I have always lectured at the front of the room while the class sits before me. I've always plugged my computer into the projector and gone through my slides.

I always believed this was the way things should be.

I was wrong.

The classroom is a modern invention, born in an industrialising 19th-century Prussia. The idea spread and eventually became the accepted wisdom of the ages: classrooms work this way because they've always worked this way.

But why should they? Times have changed, shouldn't our classrooms?

That much I'd decided before I walked through the door. But how should things change? That I left up to the students.

I pointed out that the architecture of the room itself implied a certain way that education was meant to work - knowledge and wisdom flowing from the all-powerful instructor to the lowly and ignorant students. I posed them an in-class assignment: how might they change this classroom (without using dynamite or any fancy technology) to reflect a different power relationship between the instructor and themselves?

“The end of the year is a great time to step back and reconsider all the business processes and organisational forms we believe are heaven sent” 

I gave them 90 seconds and they came up with some answers that surprised and astounded me.

First off, they said: "Turn the projector off. We've seen enough slides to last a lifetime."

So I turned the projector off - only to feel a bit naked without the cover of my presentation.

Next, they said: "Come and sit in the midst of us, in the middle of the room."

That I did, even though it meant that some students had to crane their necks for the next 90 minutes.

Finally, they said: "Share with us. Don't lecture. Share. And invite us to share with you."

That hour and a half was among the most rewarding I've ever spent in a classroom.

I learned as much as they did, and when another instructor objected to some of my arguments, these students leapt to my defense.

I'd won them over to my side, because I invited them to participate as equals in a learning process.

The end of the year is a great time to step back and reconsider all the business processes and organisational forms we believe are heaven sent. Often they're just hoary and tired traditions, well past their use-by-dates.

We live in our little hierarchies, invested in our org charts and processes, all power flowing from the top to the bottom. That's not the way it need be.

What would happen if you called a pause to all of that, sat down with your employees and asked them: "What would you do to improve communication in the organisation?"

Give them 90 seconds to answer - I guarantee they'll surprise you.

They'll engage you, they'll share and, if you take their suggestions on board, they'll even defend you.

That's the kind of relationship you want to build for 2010 - bonded by trust, sharing
and respect. #

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