rotmanmagazine.ca / 95Brian Golden is the Sandra Rotman Chair in Health Sector Strategy at
the University of Toronto and the University Health Network; Academic
Director of the Sandra Rotman Centre for Health Sector Strategy;
Professor of Strategic Management; Co-Academic Director of the Global
Executive MBA for Healthcare and the Life Sciences program; and Vice
Dean of MBA Programs at the Rotman School of Management.Rotman faculty research is ranked #16 worldwide by the Financial
Times.Having influence demands that you put yourself
in other peoples’ shoes.never cross your own ethical line. You must be comfort-
able in your purpose and ensure you are not hurting others
through your persuasive tactics.
As we strive to observe people more closely, what should
we be looking out for?
Many readers of this magazine are likely very action-orient-
ed — and that’s a bit of a problem if you’re trying to read a
group. One of the most important skills you can work on is
listening — just shutting up and listening in the early stag-
es of a group interaction, so you know who you’re dealing
with, what is important to them, and how to frame the issue
at hand. Influence is all about the interpersonal. It is about
putting yourself in other peoples’ shoes.
If you watch the film, you see that the jury was there
that day to convict someone — not to determine the truth.
Fonda reframes their task as ‘understanding all the informa-
tion we have, making sense of it, and then determining the
truth’ — as opposed to selectively picking information that
confirms peoples’ prior beliefs. One thing we know about
mental models is that we give far more attention to informa-
tion that confirms our beliefs, and we often discount other
information. We need to be aware of this bias and innocu-
late ourselves so we can open our minds to information that
contradicts our beliefs.
Stage Three of your model for change (see Figure One)
involves organizational redesign. Could you talk a bit
about the role of the leader as architect and how to bring
that to life?
Too often, when organizations or groups are not performing
at the level we expect, the default is to think there is some-
thing wrong with the people — that they’re not motivated,
or they’re not sufficiently skilled. But that is often an easy,
but wrong attribution. In my experience — and this is sup-
ported by decades of research — people respond in large part
to their social setting. If you start out with that assumption,
the question becomes, ‘What levers are available to me as
a leader to create an environment that is conducive to high
performance?’
For example, there is a classic article by Steve Kerr
called “The Folly of Rewarding A While Hoping for B.” The
idea is that our incentive systems often encourage behaviour
contrary to what we would like. Then we get upset with peo-
ple — when we really ought to be looking at ourselves and
asking, ‘Have we designed a reward system that encourages
people to do what we want them to do?’ A classic example
is rewarding for individual performance and wondering
why some people act like mercenaries and are unwilling to
help others.
As another example of poor design, we may inadver-
tently create an environment where people lack sufficient
information about why they are doing what they are do-
ing and how it impacts others. If people don’t understand
the purpose of their work, they are very likely to underper-
form and act in ways that frustrate their colleagues. But
they shouldn’t be blamed for that, because leaders haven’t
properly designed the environment. In my view, the leader’s
job is to very clearly articulate the strategy and the goals of
the organization; and then, to design an environment that
makes it easy for people to know what the right thing to do
is, to have the skills and tools to do it, and to benefit in some
way — whether it be intrinsically or extrinsically.
I always tell my students, when someone isn’t perform-
ing in the way you want them to, it usually comes down to
three things: One, they don’t know what you want from
them; two, there is nothing in it for them; or three, they’re
unable to do it, either because of a skill deficit or organiza-
tional impediments. If you address these three things, you
will create an environment where you get what you need
from people.