By Scott Arbuthnot

Special To Smart Business Supersite

What is it about working in large, modern organizations that teaches people to think
small? Where and how are we accidentally teaching people to learn helplessness so they
actually believe they cannot influence their environment?

Could it be the now constant threat of restructuring and other sophisticated euphemisms
for short-sighted and inhumane management fads?

Most middle managers have, in the last 10 years, experienced at least one personal
example of industrial-age management methodologies being inappropriately applied in the
information age. There are now many textbooks narrating middle managers’ global
discontent. The author has, in the last two years, suggested to participants in government
and private-sector leadership development programs, "You can make a difference,"
only to be answered, "No I can’t."

Put simply, if middle managers do not believe they can make a difference, they give in.
At best, they leave. At worst, they retire on the job. They give new initiatives lip
service and passively sabotage organizational recovery from change. This is what they
perceive to be, their best available choice.

There is something very seductive and comfortable about this organizational-learned
helplessness. It shelters people from their own sense of responsibility and personal
accountability for positively participating in change.

As Nelson Mandela said in his presidential acceptance speech: "Our worst fear is
not that we are inadequate, our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is
our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. As we are liberated from our own fear
our presence automatically liberates others."

Admitting you have the power to influence your environment makes you immediately
responsible for how you apply this influence. Proving your ability to the world will
always partly mean the world now expects even more from you. The reward for a job well
done is a bigger job! Not everyone wants to prove themselves worthy of a bigger job, so
they manufacture powerless beliefs and behaviors to stay comfortable.

Imagine how differently middle managers will behave when they fully accept
responsibility for the power of their example. If organizational leaders (middle managers)
admit to themselves their everyday behaviors are the most influential organizational
change tools in existence, how differently would they use these tools?

Think of the differences. They are not always obvious. For example, you may do
something considerate and empathetic for a senior executive without knowing they are about
to participate in discussions about working conditions. Your simple empathetic gesture
will help the senior executive choose to approach discussions from a more empathetic
viewpoint. Hundreds of staff members will benefit without them, or you, ever knowing of
your key involvement.

Your behavior cannot NOT make a difference to how others behave. As De La Roche
Foucauld wrote, "Nothing is so contagious as an example. We never do great good or
great evil without bringing about more of the same on the part of others."

Being deliberate about your daily example is a demanding and challenging process. Your
greatest critics may well be peers who do not welcome being compared to you. G.W.F. Hegel
said: "To be independent of public opinion is the first formal condition to achieve
anything great"

Being responsible for your influence will mean you often question your actions. Martin
Luther’s advice might help you along, as he said: "Cowardice asks the question, is it
safe? Expediency asks the question, is it politics? Vanity asks the question, is it
popular? Conscience asks the question, is it right? There comes a time when you must take
a position that is not safe, nor politics, nor popular, but you must take it because your
conscience tells you it is right."

You may be surprised to learn your random acts of conscience and kindness are more
influential than all your memos combined – not to mention the ineffectiveness of
well-documented and undemonstrated organizational values.

Authors Margaret Wheatley and Myron Kelner-Rogers list some more obvious, but often
ignored organizational influences:

* If we ignore relationships, we create anger and resentment.

* If we allow incoherence, we create withdrawal and paralysis.

* If we impose structure, we create resistance.

* If we deny participation, we create irresponsibility.

* If we ignore meaning, we create selfishness.

* If we impose traits and behaviors, we create lifeless performance.

In addition to the influence of individuals, there is often intelligent debate about
the "critical mass" required to begin organizational transformation. No
consensus has been reached. This is probably a good thing.

If an authoritative group of organizational change experts was to decide that a known
fraction of an organization’s population is required to initiate transformation, we might
be in danger of actually believing them and be discouraged from taking our own
initiatives, no matter how small and bold.

Small groups of middle managers may also discover their organizational influence.
Margaret Mead, who studied social systems and cultural change all over the world, wrote:
"Never doubt that small groups of committee people can change the world. In fact, it
is the only thing that ever has." Margaret Mead is proved right, again and again, by
the small groups that have changed the world, including tribes people around camp fires,
the committees of correspondence who began the American Republic, idealists in cafes and
salons before the French Revolution, study circles who contributed to the economic and
social renewal of Sweden in the early 1900s, and workers’ quality circles that revitalized
the Japanese industry after the second world war.

Managers who take responsibility for their organizational influence will quickly
"unlearn" their helplessness. Knowing they are making a difference helps these
leaders realize they are not mere participants in their organizations, but that they are,
in fact, the co-creators of their organizations. In organizational change terms, the power
of one and the power of groups comes from individuals realizing they are making a
difference.

Accepting responsibility for the difference you make is a giant step from "mere
manager" to leadership.