[Translation] Advice for Software Development Managers
Note: A few days ago I wrote a rant about the bad behavior of a project manager. In this translation, we’ll look at solutions and the correct scenarios. Here’s the translation:
In 2004, Software Development Magazine interviewed Gerald Weinberg. Here are some of his answers (the complete interview is on his site):
What was the best management-related advice you’ve ever given?
If you blame your employees, you are a bad manager. You hired them, accepted them, supervised them, and directed their training. You are responsible. If you don’t like what’s happening, look at your own behavior. But if there’s credit to be given, it’s theirs.
What about managers who were hired into a group where some or all of the employees were already hired by someone else?
You don’t take on a management job passively. Before you accept the position, you interview everyone in your group, and you get their buy-in, or you get rid of them — or you don’t accept the position. I don’t know why managers don’t understand this. They take on new responsibilities like teenagers on their first blind date.
What if an employee starts showing bad behavior after he or she hired them — behavior that wasn’t apparent in the interview phase?
Well, that happens, and that’s what managers are paid for. It might be a setback, but it’s your job to deal with it and finish the job. Unfortunately, few technical managers have any preparation for this — it’s something I’ve been trying to remedy for years — so on one hand I’m to blame, because I’ve only succeeded in some cases. Hey, if everything worked out all the time, you wouldn’t need managers.
What Is Blame?
Note: Read the full article Beyond Blaming on Jerry’s official site.
In a congruent organization, your manager asks, “How is your project going?” and your response is, “I’m a little worried I’m going to be late on the schedule.” This initiates a discussion to solve the problem, from which you both make new plans to get the project back on track. In a blame organization, however, your manager might tell you that only inferior people have little confidence. In that case, problem-solving will be replaced by blame-avoidance.
From a writer’s point of view, congruent interactions aren’t very dramatic; people just act sensibly, have consideration for each other, finish their work, and have fun doing what they do. That kind of behavior might not make good soap opera material, like your manager screaming in rage and you cowering in a corner, but it definitely results in better projects.
Not that a blame culture conducts every interaction in a blaming, dramatic way. Under ordinary circumstances, congruent resolutions are the rule, but if circumstances were always ordinary, we wouldn’t need managers. When feelings of self-esteem are low, they manifest in more dramatic ways in characteristic incongruent resolutions: blaming, placating, being super-reasonable, amiable or odious and acting irrelevantly. We can’t deal with all of this in one short article, so let’s discuss ‘blaming,’ perhaps the most common and most directly destructive form of resolution style.
Under stress, people tend to lose their balance, and one or more of the three essential components can be ignored, leading to the characteristic incongruent resolution style. For example, when people fail to take other people into consideration, they fall into a posture of blaming others. Here is a typical blaming action you see in software organizations (italicized words are emphasized in this style of speaking — because multiple emphasized words in a linguistic sentence are signs of blaming):
Manager, when the programmer arrives late for a meeting: “You are always late. You never show any consideration for other people.”
Why is this incongruent? If the manager is really feeling and thinking that the programmer is always late and has no consideration, isn’t he being congruent by saying this? Yes, but that’s not what this manager said. He didn’t say, “It’s my impression that you are always late to my meetings.” Instead, he pronounced his impression of lateness as if it were a scientific fact, never offering the possibility that the programmer might have a different impression. He generalized from his meeting experience as if it necessarily applied to all meetings, never allowing for the possibility that his experience might not be the only one that counts.
If the manager is really feeling and thinking that the programmer is always late and has no consideration, he should say, “I think you are always late, and I think you are not being considerate of me and others. Is that your perception too?” (and leaving out the stressed words). Even better management style would be to give the programmer the chance to offer a different perception before launching into any interpretation. At minimum, this avoids embarrassment in situations like the following:
Manager, when the programmer arrives late for a meeting: “It seems to me that you are always late. Is that your perception too?” Programmer: “Yes, and I feel bad about it. The reason I am always late is that I have to donate blood for my 9-year-old son, who is dying of leukemia, and the only time for donations is right before this meeting.” Manager: “I’m sorry about your son. I didn’t know that. Let’s schedule the meeting at a different time so you don’t have to be late.”
In general, this allows for the possibility that there might be other considerations that count besides those of this single manager. For example, perhaps the programmer is coming from a meeting with clients — a meeting that happens to overlap with the manager’s meeting.
But what if the programmer really is always late, without a reasonable explanation? Isn’t the manager within their right to blame the programmer? In reality no, because this situation is not about “being right,” but about getting the project done. For that purpose, the problem is solved more effectively by confronting without blaming; with facts about the unacceptable behavior. By skipping blame, the manager keeps communication clear and open, maximizing the chance of the programmer receiving the intended message. And of course, receiving the intended message maximizes the chance (though doesn’t guarantee) that the problem will be resolved.
When you assign blame, problem resolution is less likely to happen because the facts of the case have become a minor factor — the major factor in blaming is “who is important and who is insignificant.” When blaming, the person is saying, “I am everything, you are nothing.” Of course, this doesn’t come from actually thinking “I am everything,” but from the opposite. Directing attention toward someone else — and blaming is normally accompanied by finger-pointing — is a self-protective device to distract others from the discomfort the inquisitor feels.
Like all incongruent resolutions, blaming is reinforced by feelings of low self-esteem. When you blame, you try to put yourself on top by pulling the rug out from under others, because you don’t have the security that you can stand — or even survive — in any other way.
Blaming others fools the unsophisticated, or those whose own self-esteem is quite low. The intelligent observer, however, sees the amount of blaming as a reliable measure of how inadequate the inquisitor feels. More than that, if blaming is the preferred project communication style, it then becomes a measure of how much an environment has degraded — how little communication is directed at project matters, compared to how much is directed at propping up the communicator’s low self-esteem.
In a blame organization, it’s not just the manager who does it, as illustrated by these examples:
Programmer, when the manager asks them to interview a job candidate: “Why don’t you do that yourself? I’m not going to do your job for you. If you were more organized, you wouldn’t need to ask me these things.”
Client, when the project manager asks about the possibility of revising requirements: “You never get the requirements right the first time. If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times. Do the job right the first time, then you won’t have to bother me with revisions.”
How Blaming Hurts a Project
Of course, people aren’t perfect, so it’s impossible to run a large project without occasions where people are incongruent. Normal project management can handle these situations — when they’re exceptional. But when the entire environment encourages blaming, each new situation further complicates the incongruence. Fred Brooks once asked, “How does a project get to be a year late?” His answer was “One day at a time.” Our answer is “One incongruent communication at a time,” as the following example illustrates:
One of the programmers was developing a module that produced printed reports when tested. The manager put a lot of pressure on the programmer to have it done on time, no excuses allowed. The programmer produced a report and the manager was pleased (though he hadn’t demonstrated it, of course — it was “only an expected part of the job” in the blame culture). A month later, another person tried to use that module and discovered it hadn’t been completed at all. The programmer had used Word to produce a fake report that looked exactly like a test report should. He thought this would give him more time (it took a month, after all, for anyone to discover this) to finish the module. Unfortunately, since it was a lot of work, a month hadn’t been enough.
The manager blamed the programmer. The programmer said nothing, because in this blame culture, saying something only brings more accusations down on your head. The person who reported the incident said that in that organization, failure is not permitted under any circumstances. People who have problems on a project and can foresee delays can’t cry out for HELP! and receive appropriate assistance. According to the managers, each programmer is responsible for meeting the deadlines they agreed to. Inaccurate estimates “were not allowed” and perfection must be achieved on day one — otherwise you’re put in the blame column. In that situation, fake reports are the rule, not the exception (Akita’s note: to be clearer, replace ‘fake report’ with any of those ‘hacks’ we commonly see in code.)
Blaming is the dark secret behind many project failures. A blame culture hurts a project in at least six major ways:
- People commit to plans they know they can’t meet, at least to delay receiving blame. (Akita’s note: have you heard that programmer who always seems to have “too much to do, so I can’t even do things right, let alone help others” — the paradox: how can they “have too much” if they themselves agreed, every time, to what to do?)
- People hide facts that managers need to control the project, as in the example above. (Akita’s note: remember, “having no problems is a problem” — it means things are being swept under the rug.)
- When problems are finally revealed, people avoid coming up with creative solution ideas, for fear of taking the blame if they don’t work, or simply play dumb.
- In routine operations, a large portion of everyone’s efforts is devoted to positioning themselves to not take the blame when the time comes. (Akita’s note: example: “the other team is to blame, it’s not my responsibility, or not just mine.”)
- People who feel secure enough to focus on the work find themselves spending considerable time checking the reliability of others’ communications.
- People feel bad most of the time, and spend a lot of time on unproductive tasks or simply staring at walls.
The Look and Feel of Incongruence
Organizations can change from a blame culture to a congruence culture. To make this change, the first step is to measure, or at least detect — but how do you measure blaming? In reality, an experienced consultant can detect a blame organization within minutes of contact, because the symptoms are everywhere. In fact, the people of the organization already know it’s a blame culture — but of course, in such a culture, blaming is non-discussable and, moreover, the non-discussability is also non-discussable. Paradoxically, the existence of non-discussability makes blaming easier to detect. The project manager sends an email saying there will be no more discussion about project morale, and that he will no longer pay attention to questions on the subject because everyone should be grateful to be working on such a great project. That kind of thing could only happen in a blame organization.
Executives
A blame culture starts at the top. Upper management members are accustomed to seeing other people in the organization as sources of problems. Employees are seen as “ungrateful” for their jobs, salaries, benefits, and opportunities given to them. They’re seen as having “lack of appropriate work ethic,” “not knowing how to be grateful,” “having authority problems,” and “resisting change.” These perceptions leave senior management in a dilemma: “Should I fire them, or fire whoever hired them?”
This type of manager feels they’re trying to realize a vision without the necessary support, which leaves them in limbo. The internal experience of inertia these executives have is normally a continuous, chronic headache — unless profit margins are very low. In that case, they have sharper feelings, like chest pain and stomach burning. Their low self-esteem is reflected forward in the form of frequent downsizings, re-engineerings (Akita’s note: those who, instead of facing problems, keep finding the next fashionable “methodology” to implement, thinking that will solve something), avoiding more serious problems, futile emails, and of course, humiliating subordinates (Akita’s note: those who left their sub-manager working, thinking they were doing the right thing, and only receive negative feedback months later when it’s convenient — which is a form of humiliation). For themselves, they normally practice addictive and self-destructive behaviors (which can’t be discussed but tend to be gossip fodder.)
Middle Management
While the top leadership is incongruent, middle managers constantly receive mixed messages. They’re told about their importance and then discover their seniors have “bypassed” them to intervene directly in projects or changed the rules without consulting them. They feel like they’re living on a rollercoaster — unable to predict whether a given day or week will be good or bad. After being publicly humiliated a few times, they decide that their best strategy is to try to stay out of trouble, without drawing attention (Akita’s note: and here begins the routine of the conformist clock-puncher).
In a blame organization, senior management tries (perhaps unconsciously) to teach middle managers their own blame attitudes. When a project manager complained of his inability to make programmers work faster, the VP of Development said, “If your dogs won’t jump higher, find a longer stick to beat them with.” Living in a hell of incongruence from above, the survival problems of middle management emerge. Like they did as children, they discover how to appease, please, or avoid those with power. In doing so they ensure their survival — and pass the blame down to lower levels.
Employees
At the bottom of a blame organization, employees are normally looking for another place to work unless the company is in a stable condition with little competition — or if their pensions are close. The way to survive is to hide and only show up to collect a paycheck (Akita’s note: and in times of automatic deposits, not even that).
Employees are discouraged from thinking creatively — new ideas are interpreted as blaming management or trying to usurp their power and prerogatives. Employees are not rewarded for competence — but are frequently punished for perceived “carelessness.” Employees don’t seek out their managers — except when there are problems. So most effort is spent trying to assign blame rather than solving the problem.
The blaming style varies from organization to organization. It can be hard, vindictive, direct or indirect — but it’s always contagious. Some organizations have refined their way of blaming to a high degree of subtlety — no shouting, merely a look, or an email, or a phone call, or a little visit if things are really bad. In other organizations, blaming is loud, angry, and frequently done in front of an audience — to ensure everyone understood the message about who is right, who is the “good guy,” who is in charge, and who should remain invisible.
In that kind of environment, self-defense becomes common. For those without formal power or authority, it seems that those with power don’t care about them — and would banish them without remorse. So they feel entitled to retaliate (in advance, and in secret), and to avoid their managers and their problems.
Regardless of the style, blaming from the top always generates fear, discomfort, errors, accidents, and passive-aggressive responses from below. Those at the bottom feel small and act from a place of powerlessness. The lack of emotional security effectively erodes trust levels and makes any attempt at congruence extremely risky. Their environment sounds frightening — and it is — both for the person who has regressed to emotional immaturity and, sadly, for the person at the top who is doing the blaming.
Those at the bottom layer of any large organization can easily come to feel a sense of dependence on those above them in the hierarchy. When blaming is the primary mode of dealing with people, this dependence is exacerbated (Akita’s note: almost like Stockholm Syndrome). From a feeling of dependence, people easily generate a feeling of hostility. As this hostility increases, so does the debilitating experience of shame — that overly critical judge that lies latent in all of us humans.
The Look and Feel of Congruence
Most people who have experienced a congruent organization won’t tolerate the misery of working in a blame organization. But many people have never had that experience, and have difficulty believing in congruence. Let’s see what would happen if a healthy dose of congruence could be magically applied on a large scale to an incongruent project organization.
Executives
If we could magically install congruence in the internal programs of these blame-playing executives, their style would change dramatically. For example, if they truly considered the others involved in their communication, they would likely believe in people’s intentions to contribute, to be productive, to belong and to learn — and would interpret deviations from that ideal as evidence of ineffective management. Their belief in the inherent value of all people with healthy respect for the limitations of the work context would bring energy, hope, appreciation, understanding and gratitude among their employees.
A congruent executive who truly didn’t believe in employees’ good intentions might say “No excuses! You’ll have this done in October.” But with employees whose intentions are bad, that style (or any other) wouldn’t work anyway.
When senior management maintains its commitment to congruence, they see that most workers appreciate the opportunity the business provides them to develop their capacities, sense of meaning, relationships, and financial rewards. They also know how to act when the occasional worker doesn’t seem to appreciate or be productive. Managers who know how to use their power congruently generally get the results they seek — not perfection, which they know they shouldn’t expect.
These leaders know they have a special kind of power — power they use with consciousness and sensitivity. They don’t stop holding people accountable, but they demonstrate the same level of integrity they seek in others. And if they can’t find the levels of commitment they require from others, they’re open about it. They know that from time to time they’ll be weak and vulnerable and need support — perhaps even to see the value of their own visions. They use their awareness of this human reality to cultivate their capacity to empathize and have compassion for themselves and for others.
Congruent executives know that their primary job is to develop the capabilities of their organization, not just push the same old products and services out the door. They engage seriously in organizational improvement efforts and simultaneously involve others in the organization to bring these efforts into real, practical operations and decision-making. They know that synergy is necessary for organizational development, and they know that synergy comes from high-quality connections between people — regardless of level.
Middle Management
When people at the top begin to operate with congruence, middle managers receive clear, direct messages — not mixed messages with double meanings. Communications are more open, making it easier to know more about what’s happening. Given high-quality information, they better understand how they can be useful, more easily aligning themselves with their leaders’ visions. Knowing more clearly the desired strategic directions, and feeling that they count in that process, frees them to contribute more generously and consciously — instead of merely playing it safe. Success becomes an objective everyone can share.
Given their unique vantage point, middle people have more useful data to help them predict problems, design realistic timelines, and predict trends. What they see, hear, think, and feel is valued, and they’re in a position to initiate behaviors that prevent project weaknesses from growing into failure. They know the need for interdependence, so when bigger problems occur, they can be counted on to offer — and also to seek — important information. They’re neither ashamed nor afraid of those who hired them. In fact, they take pride in their commitments to the organization — and they know these are not merely commitments like deadlines and budgets, but about the truth about those deadlines and budgets.
And as congruence that comes from the top also flows down, middle managers notice the difference in their leaders. They respond to the model by passing it on to their constituents. Everyone in the organization knows what’s at stake in each job well done, so everyone feels safe to say what’s wrong, what’s getting in the way, and what needs to be fixed. Honest reports of facts and feelings are genuinely appreciated and don’t put people at risk of being humiliated or losing their jobs. That’s why congruent organizations deliver their projects as promised.
Congruent middle managers encourage high-quality communication. Their belief in people’s ability to learn and move toward more congruence makes those around them more responsive. With congruence radiating from the center of the organization, everyone can have a place, position, and function of importance and value — so things happen the right way.
Employees
Working at the front lines of a business where leadership above is congruent is an entirely different experience from working in a blame organization. Commitment and energy are the norm, not the exception practiced by new employees until they “learn how things work around here.”
Congruent organizations support an ideology that doing right in the market is linked to dealing rightly with employees as well as with customers. The leadership perspective includes global awareness of the existence of multiple non-linear factors, the importance of connections between the various parts of the whole, and the need for all parts to know their value. Employees feel that this is a company going somewhere, where growth is a natural state and everyone’s efforts count. (Akita’s note: this is the seed for self-managing teams.)
Workers in a congruent organization tend to have a broad view and can normally maneuver as necessary to achieve the changes demanded by customers. Employees trust that what they see and hear is real. They share in the enthusiasm of creating the future. They may not like everything that happens — for example, they may not always feel adequately rewarded for what they give — but they don’t feel in a chronic pattern of diminishment, discrediting, and devaluing of what they do. They can risk congruence knowing that it will act as a catalyst for optimizing success outcomes that benefit everyone.
Congruence is the great secret behind the success of many projects. A culture of congruence helps a project in at least six major ways:
- People commit to plans only after open negotiations, so plans are more likely to be realistic from the start. (Akita’s note: the team commits only to what they genuinely believe they can deliver — “I have too much to do” doesn’t exist.)
- People come forward quickly with facts that managers need to control the project, as soon as they become known, so managers can act more quickly with small moves to correct problems. (Akita’s note: agile culture that embraces change.)
- When problems are revealed, people quickly come forward with creative solution ideas, increasing the chances of quick and effective solutions.
- A good portion of everyone’s efforts is devoted to finishing the work and helping others finish their work.
- Because human fallibility is considered normal, an appropriate — but small — amount of time is spent ensuring the reliability of communications.
- People feel good most of the time, and are therefore productive most of the time.
Congruence in Large Systems Development Efforts
In the course of systems development, people engage in numerous acts of communication — about requirements, deadlines, interpersonal problems, designs, progress and more. That’s why effective individual communication is important in all projects, large and small. Having said that, it becomes even more important as development efforts grow. The amount of communication necessary rises non-linearly with project size, so the effect of imperfect communication style is magnified. Therefore, if individual communication quality stays constant as the project grows, the overall quality of communication decays. (Akita’s note: the number of connections between pairs grows according to a Power Law.)
For example, a certain level of communication congruence may be adequate for producing a product with 25 thousand lines of code, but totally inadequate for a product with 2.5 million lines of code. To develop large or complex systems, therefore, it’s not sufficient to pay attention to technical problems — accepting that the existing communication style will be adequate. Managers also need to improve the communication culture of the project and therefore need to pay attention to congruence.
To make things worse, if not managed properly, difficult projects tend to decrease congruence — because stress tends to rise as the expectation of quality falls. We are not highly logical creatures all the time, but have feelings, as well as thoughts, in response to difficult responsibilities. When those inner feelings are strong enough, they translate into characteristic resolution styles under stress. If our characteristic style is incongruent, communications become less effective and work becomes even harder, creating a vicious cycle.
Congruence, of course, is just one of the factors in effective communication — other factors include things like timing, memory, appropriate audience, and accurate data. But without congruence, your efforts to improve those “logical” factors will always be seriously sabotaged, along with your ability to build larger, more complex, or more reliable systems.
Achieving Congruence
When Deming said, “Drive fear out of the workplace,” we believe he was talking about changing the blame organization to a congruent organization. This kind of change is presented to one person at a time — preferably starting at the top — one step at a time. The steps can be broken into six parts: Awareness, Acceptance, Authorship, Articulation, Application, Activism. Let’s look at how each of them shows up in the context of an individual trying to change the blame organization.
Awareness
Awareness says, “This is happening. This is real.” Awareness comes from experience, when I allow myself to experience the world around me as it is — not as it should be, or as I think it should be, or as someone tells me it should be.
Awareness is always the first step and probably the hardest, because usually we’re not aware that we’re not aware. Here’s a personal example of how lack of awareness stops the change process before it even begins:
Jerry was attending a project meeting at a software company — a meeting called by the president of the company to find out what was happening with a late project. After some persuasion, one of the programmers said he was afraid to go to Nat, the Development Manager, with problems, because of the reception he’d gotten. Nat turned red, stood up and nervously screamed “How can you say that? My door was always open to hear your problems! The only thing I won’t tolerate is you coming in all tense, or if you don’t have a solution to propose!”
In the calmest voice he could manage (it’s hard to stay calm when someone is that agitated, even if not directly at you), Jerry turned to the President and asked if Nat had ever come to him with problems. When the President said yes, Jerry asked if Nat was always calm and carrying a proposed solution. Before the President could respond, Nat interrupted: “Why would I come with a problem if it wasn’t important enough to get excited about? And if I had a solution, why would I go to him?”
Although it was clear to everyone in the room that Nat was demanding that others “do as I say, not as I do,” he was unable to see the incongruence. Lacking awareness, there was no way Nat could change — and in fact he never did, until the day the President fired him so he could go seek greener pastures.
The Nat case is quite typical. Since incongruence is a defense, incongruent people raise all kinds of shields that close off information about congruence. Their own incongruence and that of others is invisible — it’s accepted, especially if it’s normal in the organization. This invisibility makes it very hard to reach them with any kind of information on the subject.
In other words, when you’re being incongruent, you’re losing your ability to see what’s happening in the world (inside and outside). So you don’t know you need to change. And even if you do know, you have no idea what to change to. No wonder it’s so hard to transform an incongruent culture, when the first step — awareness — is already so hard to achieve.
Awareness comes from experience, when you allow yourself to experience the world around you — not as it should be, or as you’d like it to be, or as someone tells you they’d like it to be. But in a blame organization, where people protect themselves from that experience, becoming aware usually requires help. Helping others become aware demands skills for creating safe environments and building relationships. It demands patience and care to watch for signs of awareness and help build it. It also demands faith and a commitment that “part of my job is to help the people on my team develop — the most important part.” If you don’t believe that, then certainly don’t try to help. Otherwise, you’ll find yourself saying “You’re not aware of how bad you are, but I’ll make you aware!”
But awareness of the general situation isn’t enough — you also need self-awareness. “This is me. This is mine.” You might be aware of the blaming, but as long as you merely say “This is a blame organization,” you’re not doing anything to change it. When you say, “I am part of this blame organization,” you’re taking a step. You need to see blaming as a part of yourself and your behavior — not just something “they” do (to you).
Self-awareness is normally followed by either shame or guilt. Some people react with anger, at themselves or at some convenient target. Still, self-awareness gives a sense of power — the thought that since it belongs to me, it’s mine to do something about.
Acceptance
Acceptance moves the change process beyond self-blame and says, “I am not a bad person because I do this. My intentions are good, even though my actions may not be effective.”
Acceptance means you understand that taking responsibility is not the same as blaming yourself. Therefore, you have mercy on yourself and your human imperfections. You stop being angry. You forgive yourself for not having done better in the past, based on your present understanding and standards. And as you forgive and accept yourself, you gain compassion for others involved — increasing the chances of being able to communicate with them and effect changes.
At the point when you’re trying to reach acceptance, it’s critical that you not be punished or humiliated by someone. You need help supporting your back, otherwise you think so little of yourself that you couldn’t do anything about the situation. Of course, in a blame organization, it can be difficult for a while to avoid that kind of punishment — which is why authorship and acceptance usually happen internally, and remain internal for some time.
Authorship
Authorship is the first decision point, when you say, “I have choices. I can do something about this.” With some encouragement, you accept that you’re responsible for choices in your life. You understand that you don’t have to react, but that you can choose your responses — that you can create, in large part, your own interpersonal context. You know that there are some parts of the context you can control and some you can’t; and you know precisely which is which.
Articulation
Articulation is the public commitment to change and says, “I’m going public with this (to take responsibility and get support).” Articulation isn’t effective if attempted before the prerequisites are in place. If you can’t accept yourself or how you came across to the world, or if you don’t know you have choices or feel you can get support with those choices, then speaking out is merely ineffective bravado.
But when the prerequisites are in place, you can’t be effective by staying silent — you need to decide to speak. In the process of speaking you transform your inner awareness into another kind of experience. You hear yourself and notice the response you get from others. You make public, to yourself, your mental and emotional position.
Initially, of course, you need to seek places to open up your true and honest expressions of your thoughts and feelings. As you become more comfortable with the power of your true self, you can then seek the kind of support that challenges and confronts you, instead of the kind that protects or consoles you.
Initial steps of congruent articulation are often awkward. That’s why a responsive and receptive listener satisfies one of the requirements for promoting development and congruence.
Application
Application says, “These are my choices (my new ways of resolving).” You can learn to be congruent, first in the most immediate, safe, and encouraging context. Then expand the contexts in which you can respond congruently. Don’t try to “not be incongruent.” That paradoxical command only involves incongruence and perfectionism. (“If I can’t be perfectly congruent all the time, I’m worthless.”) Focus on congruence, practice congruence, and the “muscles” of incongruence will simply atrophy.
With support and practice you can begin to use and test congruence in your immediate relationships. We suggest that you continue to draw for success, so that these initial tests of your new skill are done within environments where it is most feasible that you be given the benefit of the doubt. As you experience success, you can then center yourself even in more turbulent and conflictual arenas. In other words, once you “get the hang of it,” don’t march into the president’s office and announce that from now on all blaming parties must stop blaming, or else.
Activism
Activism says, “Now that I can make a difference in myself and my more familiar world, I’ll help spread this throughout the organization.” Activism is leadership applied, starting from the point where you have enough competence in being congruent to reach out and be proactive — anticipating, initiating, instigating — but not inflicting. You can’t operate from a position of incongruence and force other people to be congruent. (“I need to blame them, because they blame so much too (Akita’s note: ‘sabotage’). When they change, then I’ll be able to change.”)
In any case, you must not inflict congruence on anyone. Congruence is contagious — when directed consciously to create a safe, nurturing, productive environment. It may spread more slowly than you’d like, but once it starts moving, it’s hard to stop.