Interview with Joan Wangler - The Power of Groups to Change Business Culture

As you know from previous posts, I have been wondering if anyone has used the power of groups to change organizational culture. Yes they have, with simple protocols that have proven effective!

Joan Wangler has been building resilience into the fabric of society in a little corner near Washington – the Goddard Space Center. For 8 years, she has been leading creative learning groups and coaching young leaders. She since began the Civility Collaborative, which meets regularly at Goddard and has improved the business culture from the inside out.

"We share observations about our own civility, make recommendations about what we are reading on civility, we reach out to the schools and other government agencies. There is a whole movement afoot in Howard County on raising civility – there are even bumper stickers.”

“When we meet, we have speakers – like P.M. Forni, who has a book called Choosing Civility. His message is that civility is a form of gracious goodness and benevolent awareness. When we are civil and exercise restraint and
respect, we have a whole different appreciation of life."

"So what has been happening in the Collaborative is that we are supporting each other in getting more emotionally intelligent. Social intelligence is a more accurate predictor of being successful in life than your intellectual competence. So this is a focus on relational competence, from a different point of view. This is a whole other way of appreciating diversity."

"In the Collaborative, we structure learning conversations around the topic of civility. First, someone tells their story, something they captured from their life in their little notebook, and no one interrupts. At first we were talking more about road rage types of stories, but now we are talking more about our encounters with people at work and how we have chosen to be more civil or requested a way of moving forward that is civil.”

“Then we have a speaker – last week we had someone from Alternative Dispute Resolution who talked about how civility would avoid conflict. Then we also discuss Forni's book. He has a number of rules of civility, and stories to illustrate each. So in the group someone will take responsibility to lead the discussion on that particular chapter, and take it way beyond."

"We run the Collaborative like a "World Café" – a red and white checkered table cloth, food, and people who are willing to talk about what matters. We do a lot of coaching, and we use the ‘feed forward’ process."

"Marshall Goldsmith has a book about feed forward. In feed forward, someone shares a story about an issue they want to accomplish something on. They tell the story. Then we stand up. They say what they want to achieve, and different people popcorn ideas. The person just says ‘thank you’ not ‘that won't work.’ People come back the next time and say here's what I tried. People have had breakthroughs in their relationships as a result of this process."

"I always feel a lot of love and appreciation in that group." There are plenty of bottom-line financial reasons to implement this brand of leadership development, but the other bottom line is just as important. Joan is authentically committed to bringing civility not only to one organization, but beyond, to the world. The social technologies that have worked at Goddard can be applied elsewhere to foster resilient communities. The word is civility, but the secret mission I hear is "love and appreciation." Who wouldn't want to show up to work in that kind of environment?