The Organizational Zoo: Understanding Human Behavior Agility Through Metaphoric Constructive Conversations (based on the works of Arthur Shelley, Ph.D)

DEFINITION: Behavioral Adaptability

An individual's ability to adjust one’s behavior in response to changing circumstances, environments, or people. It is a crucial skill in both personal and professional contexts, as it allows individuals to navigate complex and changing social environments and respond effectively to new challenges.

It involves being flexible and open-minded in one's approach to different situations and being able to modify one's behavior to fit the specific demands of a given context.

Can take many forms, such as altering communication style, changing problem-solving strategies, or adjusting one's emotional response

Transcript

1. The Organizational Zoo Understanding Human Behavior Agility Through Metaphoric Constructive Conversations (Shelley, 2021)
2. Finite and Infinite Games
3. The Finite Game Leading experts claim that this technology, autonomous vehicles, will “disrupt or revolutionize the future of transportation as we know it” (Campanella, 2018: para. 2).
4. The Infinite Game : Increasing Adaptivity!! …Decreasing Transaction Costs …Decreasing Cycle Times Increasing Behavioral Adaptivity …Decreasing Switching Costs …By
5. DEFINTION: Behavioral Adaptability • An individual's ability to adjust one’s behavior in response to changing circumstances, environments, or people. It is a crucial skill in both personal and professional contexts, as it allows individuals to navigate complex and changing social environments and respond effectively to new challenges. • It involves being flexible and open-minded in one's approach to different situations and being able to modify one's behavior to fit the specific demands of a given context. • Can take many forms, such as altering communication style, changing problem-solving strategies, or adjusting one's emotional response.
6. Behavioral Adaptability (Shelley, 2021)
7. CHARACTER BEHAVIOR TAGLINE IS IS NOT Ant Basic hard worker Hardworking, loyal, dedicated, territorial, instinctive Sensitive, thinking, logical, decisive, individualistic Bee Knowledge workers Hardworking, collaborative, communicative, territorial, knowledgeable Self-aware, Individualistic, gullible, political, reflective Chameleon Two-faced ‘yes person’ Cunning, manipulative, weak, political, intelligent Loyal, trustworthy, consistent, confident, challenging Dog Loyal follower Loyal, trusting, enthusiastic, boisterous, gullible Careful, serious, reflective, thinking, streetwise Eagle Inspirational leader Visionary, strong, focused, inspiring, confident Procrastinating, shy, weak, reclusive, emotional Feline Look at me Individualistic, agile, aloof, vain, selfish Sociable, friendly, communal, caring, collaborative Gibbon Centre of fun Happy, playful, energetic, highly sociable, cool Careful, serious, productive, forward-thinking, focused Hyena Pack task ambushers Aggressive, scheming, controlling, manipulative, communal Trustworthy, caring, considerate, intuitive, shy Insect (beneficial) yucca moth Insect (pestiferous) Trusted Advisor Outside intruders Helpful, resourceful, positive, forward-thinking, collaborative Arrogant, ubiquitous, ravenous, self-interested, costly Selfish, arrogant, ubiquitous, procrastinating, slow Beneficial, trustworthy, caring, productive, shy Jackal Elite guards Territorial, zealous, social, aggressive, controlling Patient, tolerant, shy, reclusive, caring Kid New recruit Naïve, playful, energetic, motivated, expendable Experienced, reliable, knowledgeable, tough, streetwise Lion Aggressive leader Strong, powerful, aggressive, controlling, territorial Dedicated, hardworking, caring, shy, emotional Mouse Productive back-office worker Agile, productive, economical, reliable, adaptable Lazy, extroverted, self-centered, aggressive, emotional Nematode Lazy parasite Dependent, invisible, lazy, self-centered, parasitic Productive, friendly, considerate, communal, beneficial Owl External mentor Wise, dedicated, helpful, intelligent, respected Lazy, extroverted, self-centered, ambitious, aggressive Piranha Aggressive gossipers Aggressive, ravenous, dangerous, selfish, frustrating Friendly, trustworthy, approachable, happy, trusting Quercus robur (oak) Endangered philanthropist Knowledgeable, decisive, intelligent, experienced, stimulation Selfish, disinterested, lazy, emotional, aggressive Rattlesnake Noisy politician Political, sharp, defensive, reactive, insecure Sincere, trustworthy, loyal, trusting, pleasant Sloth Sleep hermit Slow, weary, minimalist, submissive, lazy Sociable, agile, enthusiastic, productive, busy Triceratops Resistant dinosaur Weary, pessimistic, change averse, xenophobic, reclusive Visionary, adaptable, collaborative, open, opportunistic Unicorn Mythical perfect manager (not real) Believe they are: perfect, visionary, open, honest, collaborative Project they are not: arrogant, aloof, ambitious, frustrating, insecure Vulture Gleeful undertaker Nasty, opportunistic, scavenging, self-centered, dangerous Benevolent, trustworthy, happy, collaborative, brave Whale Cool techno dude Intelligent, inspirational, knowledge, powerful, social (with whales) Adaptable, aggressive, lazy, arrogant, competitive X-Breed Multi-talented Arrogant, ambitious, busy, extroverted, educated Experienced, trustworthy, tolerant, patient, caring Yak Bull at a gate Boisterous, enthusiastic, tactical, friendly, diverse, open, inspiring, playful, pleasant, productive, respected, balanced, social, stimulating Careful, patient, experienced, considerate, modest Zoo positive Great organization Welcoming, friendly, diverse, open, inspiring, playful, pleasant, productive, respected, balanced, social, stimulating A place you want to leave (typically workplace, but can be any environment where people interact) Zoo negative Disengaging organization Political, territorial, negative, backward, divisive, frustrating, change averse, manipulative, nasty, procrastinating, Dangerous, draining A place you want to stay (typically workplace, but can be any environment where people interact) (Shelley, 2021)
8. “FUN” – DAMENTALS https://miro.com/app/board/uXjVMbxuSuA=/?share_link_id=793600997139 Question? What Zoo Character Best Describes You? (Shelley, 2021)
10. Brown, J.S. (2015). The Endless Possibilities of the Whitewater World. The Aspen Institute. https://www.aspeninstitute.org/blog-posts/endless-possibilities-whitewater-world/ Campanella, E. (2018). The future of self-driving cars, explained. Global News Shelley, A. (2016). Creative metaphor as a tool for stakeholder influence. In Advising Upwards (pp. 289-314). Routledge. Shelley, A., & Goodwin, D. (2018). Optimizing learning outcomes through social co-creation of new knowledge in real-life client challenges. Journal of Applied Learning and Teaching, 1(2), 26-37. Shelley, A. W. (2020b, April 13). Creative metaphor to stimulate behavioral adaptability. https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=DfYNo0eMe4s Shelley, A.. (2021). Becoming Adaptable: Creative facilitation to develop yourself and transform cultures Shelley, A. (2021). The Organizational Zoo: A Survival Guide to Workplace Behavior, 2nd Edition, Intelligent Answers, Melbourne, Australia Turner, J. R., Thurlow, N., & Rivera, B. (2020). The flow system: The evolution of agile and lean thinking in an age of complexity. Aquiline Books/UNT. References (Shelley, 2021)
11. Why is behavioral adaptability important? • World leaders increasingly see behavior, and the ability to deeply understand your own and that of others, as critical to future prosperity (Shelley, 2021) • The best way to learn how to become adaptable and develop your behavioral capabilities is through conversations. • Behavior is an asset that is required to enable a flow of knowledge between people that stimulates open conversations, accelerates creativity, and ultimately drives innovation. • If you can enable people to become more adaptable in their behavioral choices, you create a lever to accelerate knowledge flow and culture change. These are essential ingredients for success in our volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (VUCA) world (Deaton 2018). • Being adaptable and open-minded enables us to make better choices about when to compete and when to collaborate. • The first benefit to Becoming Adaptable is that you get to decide and manage your own behavior • This allows for better behavioral choices in the moment, rather than trying to recover from poor behavior later. • A more significant benefit is being able to influence the behavior of others — albeit carefully, ethically and respectfully. • When you excel at being adaptable, you can lead others to become adaptable too. This has important ethical implications. If you choose to influence others, you accept the responsibility of helping them for their benefit and not controlling them for your own benefit. • Behavioral adaptability reduces the gap between motivation and power. It gives you resilience to deal with the uncertainty of modern living. Knowing you have choices, and having confidence in your decisions, enables you to interact better in a range of situations. • We just need to become adaptable and focus on optimal long-term outcomes • The first benefit to Becoming Adaptable is that you get to decide and manage your own behavior • Influencing behavior has consequences. Others may not agree with you about what’s right. There is diversity within and across cultures as to what behavior is appropriate and when. This is why facilitating such discussions works best in an inclusive way, leading with questions rather than instructions. (Shelley, 2021)
12. The way you behave depends on how you perceive the situations you face. If you accept a situation as fair and reasonable, you engage with the flow of events and feel a sense of identity in the society. If you perceive that the situation is not acceptable, you reject the system and try to make changes. Responding to this kind of situation is not about who is right and who is wrong. Both parties may have points of justification for their perspective. It is a matter of approaching the differences in a way that generates understanding rather than conflict. Understanding what others think about you and your motives is challenging to assess objectively. It takes a lot of inquiry and open conversation to understand where a person with vastly different life experiences is coming from. The way you behave, ideally the way you choose to behave, influences everything in your life. This includes who is drawn to you and who chooses to disconnect, the opportunities you attract and the challenges you face The more we can understand behavior and learn to make conscious choices about how to behave across a range of contexts, the more likely we are to achieve our goals. Being adaptable builds resilience and sustainability, reduces stress and enhances performance (McKeown 2012). Research into adaptability has significantly increased in the last decade, largely as it has become recognized as a positive characteristic for dealing with the complexities of the modern world (Chan 2014). (Shelley, 2021)
13. DEFINITION: Metaphor transfers a meaning between one party and another by highlighting a similarity with something more familiar or more easily understood. (Shelley, 2021)
14. Adaptability has long been acknowledged as a survival mechanism. This is highlighted in the quote widely attributed to Charles Darwin: “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one most adaptable to change.” It was actually a professor of management who said this in 1963 when explaining the importance of Darwin’s work. Although Darwin never said it, the truism remains valid in personal and professional life. (Anonymous 2016, 2020) We are subconsciously wired to preserve our safe steady state. The normal brain is naturally risk-averse and pattern- oriented, and this is reinforced by the structures embedded in society and culture. This reduces our adaptability over time, to the point that behaving differently seems like a risk. Significant momentum and social pressure are needed to persuade someone to change their behavior. In a constantly changing world, staying the same soon makes you irrelevant. You can develop your own behavioral adaptability, enabling you to change in a way that you determine is your best way forward. This requires effort, but you are in charge of your own destiny The so-called four A’s (Shelley 2017) provide a sequential process for achieving this: 1. Awareness: a shift in your ‘knowing’ 2. Attitude: a shift in your mindset, intent and behavior 3. Ability: a shift in your capability to implement actions to achieve the desired outcomes 4. Action: the effective implementation of the actions to realize the benefits (Shelley, 2021)
15. CREATIVE METAPHORIC MODEL The Organizational Zoo • This model consists of 26 metaphoric characters; each character represents a behavior, not a person. • Collectively, the characters represent most of the common behaviors observed in organizational contexts. • The more we understand our own preferred styles and the styles of others, the more effectively we can improve our own performance and positively influence others. (Shelley, 2021)
16. PHILOSOPHY OF THE ORGANIZATIONAL ZOO The philosophy of the Organizational Zoo is that the culture of your zoo (organization, team, club, or home) is dependent on which animals inhabit it, where they are in your hierarchy and how they interact (Shelley, 2021). (Shelley, 2021)
17. Finite Game Infinite Game Finite games are played by known players. Infinite games, in contrast, are played by known and unknown players. They have fixed rules There are no exact or agreed-upon rules And there is an agreed-upon objective that, when reached, ends the game Though there may be conventions or laws that govern how the players conduct themselves, within those broad boundaries, the players can operate however they want. e.g., Football, is a finite game. In finite games, there is always a beginning, a middle and an end In finite games, there’s a single, agreed-upon metric that separates the winner from the loser, things like goals scored, speed or strength. In infinite games, there are multiple metrics, which is why we can never declare a winner. In a finite game, the game ends when its time is up and the players live on to play another day (unless it was a duel, of course). • In an infinite game, it’s the opposite. • It is the game that lives on, and it is the players whose time runs out. • Because there is no such thing as winning or losing in an infinite game, the players simply drop out of the game when they run out of the will and resources to keep playing. • In business we call this bankruptcy or sometimes merger or acquisition. (Shelley, 2021)
18. Living in a "Whitewater World” (Shelley, 2021)
19. DEFINITION: Metaphor (ChatGPT) • A metaphor is a figure of speech that describes a concept or an object by comparing it to something else, which is usually unrelated or dissimilar but shares some characteristics with the original concept or object. • In a metaphor, the comparison is implied rather than explicitly stated, and the listener or reader is left to infer the meaning based on the context and the similarity between the two things being compared. • Metaphors can be powerful tools for communicating complex or abstract ideas in a more concrete and relatable way, and they are commonly used in literature, poetry, and everyday language. (Shelley, 2021)
20. To survive in this radically different environment, you must be more like a whitewater kayaker who skillfully reads the currents and disruptions of the context around you. You need to feel, gauge, and interact with the flow of information passing all around you, living in an ongoing conversation with the flow. You must interpret the flows, the ripples, the rapids, and understand what they reveal about what lies beneath the surface. You must operate with both body and mind, living totally in the moment, experiencing the immediate at-hand circumstances, and quickly analyzing information from all your senses — sight, sound, touch and force feedback from the paddles — to understand the environment and how it is responding to you. What keeps the whitewater kayaker afloat? What keeps him right-side-up for the run? What helps him roll right when he flips over? Well, it’s the way he uses his center of gravity in terms of the line of balance. It is the axis of balance that gives him the confidence to take on the whitewater and increase his levels of risk-taking. In this metaphor, this line of balance is analogous to authenticity and integrity. Authenticity is simply the capacity to know yourself, your core strengths, weaknesses, values and motivations, and to work from them and for them. In a radically contingent whitewater world, decisions and actions need critically an authentic place to work from. That is your base of operation. This is a different world — a world where skills matter, tools matter, but expertise and authenticity are also required. It’s a world with powerful tools galore and immense opportunities available only if you are willing to unleash your imagination and invoke your skills. According to JOHN SEELY BROWN, “the environment is radically different.” According to JOHN SEELY BROWN, “You are in the living in a whitewater world.” (Shelley, 2021)
21. Applying Metaphor to Build and Maintain Relationships Understanding how and why metaphor works in theory does not mean that we know how to apply it in an effective way in the real world. To achieve our desired outcomes – that is, to positively engage and influence others, especially those above us in an organization – we need to design and implement interactions that work in practice How can a metaphor be applied in practice to achieve desired outcomes such as developing trust, enhancing relationships, understanding behavioral dynamics (especially in teams), and targeting behaviors of stakeholders to influence them? Presenting theories to business leaders is not usually a productive approach! You will often be seen as patronizing, impractical or irrelevant. Almost invariably, approaches involving poorly constructed or shallow metaphors disengages stakeholders. At best you might be asked ‘So what?’ (Shelley, 2021)
22. The philosophy of the Organizational Zoo is that the culture of your zoo (organization, team, club or home) is dependent on which animals inhabit it, where they arc in your hierarchy and how they interact. Too much dominance of any type is likely to lead to an unbalanced environment and like the real-world environment, unlikely to be sustainable Organizations, as with individual people, that have a diversity of animals and manage to display them in the right settings in balance with the surroundings arc more likely to be successful. That is, the more adaptable the behaviors a person or organization can employ, the more likely they are to succeed. (Shelley, 2021)
23. Rather than tell people what their stereotypical culture is, the approach allows workshop participants co- create their own assessment through conversation and card games that make it easier to visualize behaviors and their impacts on interactions. Concept of the Organizational Zoo This unique and creative approach engages people to represent each behavior as an animal character and to explore the impacts each has on the other animals (behaviors) in the zoo. The Organizational Zoo concept focuses on which “animals” are most appropriate for the given context, highlighting that people choose behavior proactively instead of being forced to react in defined ways. Once participants understand that they can create the behavioral environment that is most likely to generate their desired outcomes, their own behavior and actions change through heightened awareness and self-reflection (Shelley, 2021)
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