Innovating Leadership:
Co-Creating Our Future

Maureen: [00:00:00] We are at the International Leadership Association Conference and my guest is Rens van Loon. He’s a professor and a consultant specializing in leadership and organizational change and transformation. In 2015, he was appointed the world’s first professor of Dialogical Leadership at Tilburg University in the Netherlands.

Rens, thank you for being here.

Rens: Thank you. You are welcome. I love to be here.

Maureen: Do you wanna tell us any more about your background before we go into dialogical leadership?

Rens: I started as a philosopher studying philosophy, particular ethics. After that, I started to do research into the role that symbolism plays in yourself narrative.

So there are people who say, I am like a tree. Or I love to be in an environment where you have the flow of a river. It’s the narrative that you [00:01:00] construct and reconstruct over time about yourself. You develop and redevelop, construct and reconstruct, define and redefine over time

Maureen: from developmental theory at the later stages.

Most people believe everything is constructed. There is no truth. There is my observation of what happened, what I’ve experienced and the meaning I attach to it is true for me.

Rens: I would add one word to that. Everything we think about truth is relationally constructed. Like I showed you the photo of my youngest grandchild, there is no concept of truth in her yet.

It’ll be over time, relationally constructed and reconstructed between her and her environment. Primarily the mother, the father, the grandmother, grandfather, and so on in the family. Uh, when you become older, like when you are at our age, for instance, you can also decide to [00:02:00] really change something.

So to really acknowledge that you can’t know the truth, but that truth is always a relational construct between individuals and culturally and in society is a huge shift in thinking and also in how you feel. I’ve

Maureen: presented this to grad students, this idea that there is no absolute truth. And I remember one student being very angry with me.

He was so offended by the idea that there’s biblical truth. And if that’s true, it’s not socially constructed. It’s not relative. It’s true. I imagine. That this thinking can create some pushback for some of your clients.

Rens: Yeah, absolutely. So for instance, this morning when I did the session on, um, big data, I referred to a conversation that I had with CFO and I said, data don’t exist.

Then I refer to the same thing. So data are always relationally, co-constructed over time. Mm-hmm. So data are human [00:03:00] produced, eh, a human product. And he said, res, please stop. You can leave now. Yeah. Oh, no, no, but let’s say he had difficulty or to really, to deeply understand what I meant by that. But and this is a question I think also for the student that you refer to.

People want to have a point somewhere in themselves or in their environment where they can rely on. So the moment you say there is no truth, what happens if I look at how you work with students, but also with little children? Children want to have, let’s say, a point of view that they say, okay, this is the point of view that we are holding now.

And if you just take that away and say, every time we have to reconstruct and rethink. And maybe that’s another level,

Maureen: uh, for little kids. The truth is you don’t play in the street, period. There is no relativity about that. My children don’t play in the street. As we get more sophisticated in our thinking, they need to be more [00:04:00] nuanced and it can’t be.

In these situations, we don’t do, and I continually reevaluate, but I have to have the level of maturity to be able to hold the fact that it’s a relative truth.

Rens: You are born into a culture. Mm-hmm. So you are born step by step. That’s where you take in are the truth or the rules. The rules in terms of how you think and feel.

Your data thing. Once you are. A mature leader or a mature person, a grownup person, then you might be able to add something to that. Many people don’t do that, and that’s essentially the core of my work. I, uh, work with individuals and teams to rethink or reconstruct their self narrative. Looking to the past.

Exploring the present, looking to the future and rethinking what is truly important in my life. Where am I now? Who am I? And for instance, if somebody says, I am the CO of this [00:05:00] organization, if someone identifies with that 100% and is, has a very direct authoritative style, but the same guy is at the same time a coach with one of his children in the hockey team, or he is a bird watcher.

In his free time as a hobby, he’s sitting behind the bush or watching birds for hours without doing anything, just watching the birds. What I do with people, with leaders is I ask them, could you please elaborate a little bit? How does the CEO or the CFO role, your leadership role, relate to the coach role and relate to the birdwatcher role?

Then I ask, how can I see as one of your team members that the coach is present in your CEO role and that the bird watcher is present in your CEO role? So by asking these questions, and that’s essentially the core of the dialogical self theory and also the dialogical leadership theory is [00:06:00] that we try to reconcile different positions within yourself that you have very often unintentionally constructed over time and how you are able to bring them together.

And that’s an act of reflection. That’s an act of relational reflection. So you do that. Together with somebody who asks you these questions. So I ask him or her the question, if you look from this perspective, how is this present? And I also ask, are you colleagues able to observe this in you? So I worked with the CEO, who was a very straightforward, rational, cost cutting and very pushing boss to me.

He said, “When I’m retired, I will be a teacher because I love to teach people.” Then I ask him the question, “suppose I’m in your team. How can I observe the teacher in the CEO?” He didn’t have an answer. So what he did actually in his [00:07:00] thinking, he divorced, he separated the two. He said, “first of all, I am a CEO and I will do my job.

When I get ready with that, I will do something else, which is more for my heart and what I did and what you also could do.” Mm-hmm. Because it’s not because I’m so good, but it is because I’m not him. I’m not him. I’m not his self. I can look at. Is this what you want to reach after your retirement already present in your current behavior?

And by asking that question, what you do, the impact is that in his mind, two different aspects are recombined. Mm-hmm. That he normally try to separate. And by asking the question. He started thinking about what is the relation between the two by asking this question, the trust raised so high because I did not push him to an answer, but I said, think about it.

Maureen: Let’s talk about the starting point. The kinds of [00:08:00] questions leaders ask themselves to disclose to themselves their inner dialogue, and these are also the questions you ask clients, right?

Rens: Yes. What we always want to reach when I work with clients is that there is a, an atmosphere for dialogue. Mm-hmm. So first of all, what we do is we create a sense of trust.

Eh, I’m trained as a philosopher. As a psychologist. Most people, if they think about a psychologist, is that they first of all start to do a diagnosis. So first of all, people have to get the feeling. That you allow them to be authentic, to open up. That’s the reason why I always myself, that I’m too open in the relations.

So it in this sense is that I also share parts of my own history functioning in my own organization. I’ve been a leader for many years too. I’ve been an owner of a company or for many years too. So I also share [00:09:00] these insights during the conversation if appropriate. For instance, that I have children and grandchildren and all these topics.

So for instance, in my book, after each chapter, I give a short review reflection on my own life, integrating the different aspects of myself over time from when I was mid 20 till now, for instance, I’m trained as a rational scientist. And I’m very good at rational analysis. That’s why my professors at the time, they really wanted me to not go into practice because it’s, it’s more doing it in a theoretical way.

Mm-hmm. But, and I use the word but here with purpose, is that I’m also a very intuitive relational man. As a consultant for the first 15 years in my life, it was very difficult in my professional life there it was very difficult to integrate the two, [00:10:00] and so not to identify that there was this part of me, how to bring that together.

How to bring that together so that it is not too artificially brought in a conversation or in an interaction with a client, but really truly that they merged together. It took me until mid fifties. Oh,

Maureen: really? It took that long to integrate.

Rens: Yeah, because when I was 45 I thought I was already quite far, but I had to be realistic. I sense after many years, it’s not really integrated. It’s, let’s say for 40 or 50%, but now it’s truly integrated.

Maureen: I wonder if I talked to you in 10 years, if you’d say even, well, I thought it was integrated.

Rens: Let’s say in 10 years it’ll be changed again. Of course. Mm-hmm.

Of course, of course, of course. But the, let’s say the fundamental. A discrepancy that I sensed when I was 28. Mm-hmm. 35, 45, 55. That’s really changed. Unless [00:11:00] something terrible happens in my life, you don’t know. But normally when my life continues as it is doing now, let’s say it’s fairly stabilized. Mm-hmm.

And fairly integrated

Maureen: and I would say being also over 50, that there’s something that happened around 50 for me that did allow me to shift and my. Vision of myself changed that has rippled through every facet of who I am, how I show up, and certainly how I lead. And

Rens: that’s the same with me. So it’s after 50 that I, for instance, also realized that I only live one life.

And the birth of grandchildren was very special for me. Mm-hmm. So I described it often as it’s a gift of life where you can sense that your love, how I love my children and the grandchildren is at the same level. So my family is now, it’s a big family and I feel very much love for them. And I realized that, [00:12:00] and I also realized that I cannot.

Walk away from what is my destiny or what is my course of my life? Agreeing that your life has a direction. Mm-hmm. That there is a sense of purpose, that there are values that I want to follow, and they were integrated. Let’s somewhere between 50 and 55. How does

Maureen: that integration then connect back with organizational leadership?

Rens: Many leaders in modern organizations are not well integrated in these different aspects. In their, technically we call a different, I position different facets of their self. And very often with people between 45 and 60 for the first time, they talk about this for the first time in their life and for the first time in their life, they start thinking about, for instance, what I said, the hockey coach and the CEO role.

How they are related and how they could. [00:13:00] Introduce the hockey coach into the CEO role. Mm-hmm. And that this would make them more effective, but also more authentic. Because very often they say, when I am at the field with my children, then I feel myself. When I am bullying, uh, when I am pushing my employees, it doesn’t feel good.

It’s good that it doesn’t feel good to be bullying your employees. It doesn’t feel good, because they also, when they are talking with me, they understand that it is not the right style to work and may, maybe it works, but it is not the right style. Let’s say to positively influence your people. So this is what we very often see is that people become aware how they might integrate these quite easily.

Why? Because are not coming from a list that is not you. They are coming from somewhere in your system, but they have a position and then I make a hand movement. And you can see that, but the [00:14:00] listeners can see that, but it is behind the other hand. So bring it to this position. So that they’re side by side, side by side instead of hidden behind the other one because it is there like when A CEO has been a sportsman for 20 years. You can see it in his nonverbal behavior. I mentioned here an example of one of the managers who always has been a black belt karate teacher. So if you meet with the black belt karate teacher, you meet with someone who is physically very, very present.

While a technical engineer might be somebody who is rationally present, but not non-verbally present. Mm-hmm. Not physically present. Mm-hmm. But people very often don’t know what they observe. Because they meet with you as a rational engineer, as the manager of the organization. So the only thing is that they subconsciously get a little bit confused because the two images do not match.

But also internally, uh, we see that people struggle with this and by having a dialogue [00:15:00] with somebody else. Who ask them questions about these different positions, how to relate them. That’s the internal dialogue. And also how they make that visible for the outer world.

Maureen: I did a voice dialogue practice where we were to identify different parts and almost as if they were sitting in the room and thank the different parts.

So I’ve got the controller who makes sure I get up out of bed in the morning when the alarm goes off. I don’t always like that voice, but it makes sure that my day starts relatively functional. I’ve got the one who makes sure my clothes get put on. I get in the shower and all of those voices, and then there’s someone who’s kind and compassionate, and each of those voices seem important if overused damaging.

Rens: So there is a lot of similarity with voice dialogue and there is a difference. There is no fixed or deeper or higher. Ah, got it. Okay. So there [00:16:00] is a process of reconciling or there’s a process of polarizing? Of a process of complementing. So the, the fundamental view is that self is relationally co-created over time.

Mm-hmm. And it is internalized and very often it is made static so that you say, this is how I am. Yeah. I’m rational. No, I, the little child just born, she can go in all different directions. Mm-hmm. Of course there is a, a genetic influence. So also, and that’s the risk of foist dialogue, that there is something like a higher integrating force in you.

When I go to the Dialogical self theory and the dialogical leadership theory, it is you have to create space. In my book, I use the word ma, the Japanese word- concept, ma. Right. Written as M-A for that. What we try to do in our, in [00:17:00] our work both internally conversation as in the external conversations, is to create space in your mind, in your heart, and in your behavior space in a sense of ma, which is time, space, relation, and silence.

Are you able to take the time? Masayoshi Morioka, who introduced the concept of Ma in one of his studies, he said, are you able to take a pause? So when you are identifying yourself with your role of being an interviewer? Mm-hmm. Or being an innovator, or are you able to build in a pause? To take a pause and to just look at yourself being silent.

In space and in time, staying in relation with yourself and staying in relation with the outer world. So that’s why I chose to use this word as a core concept. Many leaders [00:18:00] I work with, they don’t take the time to just sit and reflect and not reflect internally alone, but reflect relation. Because the questions that you ask me or the questions that I ask my clients are for them new questions and nobody asks always the same question unless I read questions from my questionnaire.

In the conversation, people start thinking. About, for instance, what I said, where is the teacher in the CEO? Nobody ever asked him this question, and no questionnaire could have this question. And if this question is in a questionnaire, it’s the wrong question because people say, oh, I’m not the teacher. So it’s only once that you can ask that question.

And that created this space in his mind. This mind in his mind. And he could open. And people were able to observe it because he didn’t want to work with his team at all. And after [00:19:00] this he opened up and he worked with his team for many sessions.

Maureen: And we talk about good coaching, being, having the right questions, but this seems to take it a much greater step.

Rens: Yeah. So, and this is what we call creating conditions for generative dialogue. Okay. The word I use very often in the book and generative dialogue is a concept introduced by Ken Gurgen. Okay. The social constructionist. You could say what happens in a generative dialogue is new, meaning arises in the relation between two people.

Maureen: Is that like David Bo’s dialogue where we do a circular?

Rens: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So David Baum, so I start with David Baum. Okay. Then I go to Ken Gurgen, Hubert Hermans and the Masayoshi Morioka. So these four. But I like about Ken Gergen theory and also the theory of Baum is that Baum uses the words “thoughts” and “thinking” as distinctly different.

Yeah, because thoughts are patterns in my head that [00:20:00] are already fought while thinking is relationally emerging while we are talking. So most of our concepts are what I said. The little child is just born. There are no concepts, there are no thoughts in her head. While in you as in me, we have lots of concepts, we have lots of thoughts, and the moment you start, like what I did, I start talking about dialogue in your mind pops up voice dialogue.

What you did is you brought it in our conversation. So by doing that, we were able to, let’s say, talk about what does the concept mean. Most people don’t do that. So most people, there is a thought coming up, popping up in their mind, and they start defending that or pushing that through. So generative dialogue is suspending your thoughts.

First of all, listening, suspending your thoughts, showing respect, and only in the next process, in the conversation voicing [00:21:00] what is on your mind, but not like what many people do you make a statement? I say, yes, but, and then I verbalize my thoughts, which is an old thought. What I

Maureen: like about that dialogue concept is by inquiring, I then open myself to shift how I see.

And so now I’m left with the question, what do I think?

Rens: So when we meet with a team first, and we always start with the leader of the team, the CEO mostly, is that he or she start sharing his insights based on the dialog leadership conversation.

Maureen: Mm-hmm. So the, this is made more public.

Rens: Yes. And he or she is always free to share whatever he or she wants.

So it’s not scripted. They have a list that they share. They share that list, but he or she is free. But what we want is that they share some insights with the people who listen and ask questions. [00:22:00]Fascinating.

Maureen: You talked about interviewing the CEO in front of his team, his or her team, and talking about them integrating and sharing their process with.

Their team. So could you say a little more about

Rens: that? Yes. I’ve had a conversation with each of the individuals in the team, and as a result of that, they have a more clearer view on, let’s say, the organization of their own self in different aspects. And what I do is I invite them to share this with their team and what they want to share.

They are allowed of freedom to choose that themselves, but the most important. Technique that we use is based on Baumb’s dialogue technique is that they have to ask open questions without an assumption.

Maureen: Without an assumption. How do I remove assumptions from my

Rens: head? Uh, you or

Maureen: just the questioning

Rens: process?

Yeah, so it’s, you cannot remove assumptions from your head because they are in your head, your thought [00:23:00] pedals. Uh, what you can do is, for instance, I can ask, how did you experience the last half hour? Or I can say how, or I saw you non-verbally being a little bit nervous. Uh, is it an expression of that you became angry yourself?

Maureen: Ah, okay.

Rens: So the second form of question is that I start interpreting what you’re doing. Mm-hmm. That I can say, what did it mean? What did your nonverbal behavior mean? Or what is the meaning of your expression? Of the expression of your face? So it’s by asking this question, you are free to answer whatever you want there.

For instance, when I’m sitting like this, you can think, why are you in that close position? But it also might be, you can say, what does it mean for you? I’m cold, or I have pain in my back. And the reason why I’m sitting like this is that it gives me a little bit feeling of strength or of comfort. So what we do over there is we invite people to ask open [00:24:00] questions, to suspend the judgment and to visibly show respect and if they deviate from that rule.

That we agreed upon. There is a time out and there is a reset. Then you ask the question again or you make the remark again. So normally it takes a little bit of exercising and then people understand perfectly how this works. The fourth phase is that we invite people to voice what they want to say, what is on their heart, and so the.

Voicing from the heart or voicing from the heart, but that they are able to rationally and from the heart expressing what they want to say. And this process is a fascinating process because the questions that normally are not asked will be asked in the process if it’s not in the first time, because everybody of the team will be in front of the group.

I will go through that process.

Maureen: For listeners who don’t know Baum and don’t know [00:25:00] dialogue, you go around the room and everyone speaks. So I may say the same thing that you’ve said, but I don’t say ditto to Res. I say I observe you being courageous in this moment.

Rens: The reason why we do this is not because of the technique, but to prepare leaders to more effectively deal with what we call wicked issues.

Because if there is a wicked issue at your table, you have to be able to suspend what you are already thinking about. That wicked issue and wicked issues are. Problems you cannot solve by just using your rationality. Okay? So it’s, you have to dive deep into your values individually, and as a group, as an organization, you have to think and rethink what is our purpose?

Why are we here? So when you are confronted with wicked issues, like for instance, terrorism or like for instance. A change in the culture of the organization. You have to fundamentally [00:26:00] rethink what is automatically programmed in your mind, in your heart, and in your nonverbal behavior. That’s why we practice this.

So like what I described with the client is that the first four sessions, 24 hour sessions, starting at five until next day five. And we are

Maureen: really, they worked for straight through the night.

Rens: Yeah. Let’s say, so we, we have dinner till 10, then sleep, and then we start at eight. Oh, okay. So they don’t, this 24 hour, hey, it’s a cycle of 20, cycle of 24 hours.

But of course there must be sleep. Okay. I’ve been in events where we didn’t sleep and I didn’t know that’s was intended to No, no, no. But it is 24 hour evening, a day and afternoon. Okay. And after the fourth session, the only thing that we did was having conversations, discussions, or dialogues. So debates on wicked issues.

Each session was about a wicked issue. And this could be communication with other departments. This could be developing software. [00:27:00] So this could be because developing software might be a technical issue, but if you talk about something that is a taboo in an organization it is a wicked issue. And for a wicked issue, you have to start opening your mind and sharing and synchronizing or leveling.

And based on that. You start working towards a solution and you don’t start the first session with a wicked issue because people,

Maureen: it’s too much and people are not able to do that. Well. We started with Christmas cards, I think, which took for stinking ever, but the point wasn’t with the Christmas cards.

The point was building the acumen. To do this so that when we had other issues we could do it.

Rens: So, and that’s the reason why you have to prepare the mindset of people individually for being intervened while they are in that session. That’s the reason why you have to build trust and security. So if I block a CEO, who is never blocked, if I block a CFO, [00:28:00] if I do an intervention, a timeout who is never timed out, normally this does not happen, and you cannot do that after the session.

You cannot after the session get feedback because people don’t remember exactly what happened while if you do the, the timeout real time, you say, now stop. After the third word in the sentence, then people feel immediately, okay, something is happening. This is the impact of what we are doing. So it’s for individuals.

They start realizing that there is no one, we call that container self as a leader. That is the same over, uh, the whole time of their career. But it is developing and evolving. And very often unintentionally. So they do not by intention know what was or what would be the next step. So they reconstruct this afterwards, but there is more, and this is what we add in these conversations, is that we brought these different elements [00:29:00] together.

I use the word reconciling or integration.

Maureen: Then let’s talk about the impact. These are your most expensive employees. They’re investing. A lot of time and energy in this process so that they can solve wicked problems. How would you wanna explain the impact?

Rens: So the impact is huge in this sense that they are very well paid and by spending this time, they act differently with one another.

And in relation to the organization. So because a characteristic of strong leaders. In an organization that they dare to open their mind and suspend their judgment rationally, emotionally and non-verbally, while being in relation with people directly around them and in the, the whole organization. The payback is that they invest time and if they are able and how they are able to interject [00:30:00] ma to create MA in their thinking, feeling, and acting when they are directly interacting with their people.

That is absolutely the advantage of these programs. These, uh, I should not say programs, but journeys, steps that we can. Take step by step because we work with other groups and we have only one or two sessions, and then they can continue. So it depends what is the level of the group, what is the level of clearence in the group?

And so for each organization that is different.

Maureen: Why I think this is so valuable, and I really appreciate the interview, is we talk about wicked problems and we talk about stepping on the balcony and we talk about these conceptual ideas. But what I haven’t heard, and I haven’t done interviews on this, is what does the actual technique look like that allows leaders.

To deal with the intractable problems where they need to change their mindset or their thinking or their nonverbals, but often the framework and the construct that are in their [00:31:00] heads are outdated for the challenge they’re facing.

Rens: In the book, I call this new challenges and old habits. So there are old habits in your mind and your behavior and your feeling.

And you have new challenges. So you have to readjust. You have to rethink, which is not easy. It’s painful. It’s, it’s difficult. So that’s why you have to do that together. And the reason why I do not use the word interview, I use the word conversation and dialogue. So start a conversation and the dialogue, a generative dialogue where there is new meaning emerging in the relation while in an interview you try enable to facilitate the other.

Person to talk and to gather information, and this is about new meaning making, and it’s about new meaning making. That is what we fundamentally call generative dialogue.

Maureen: Rez. Thank you. This is brilliant and I so appreciate your time. To make sure our listeners can follow up, can you give the [00:32:00] name of your book and any kind of contact information beyond what’s on the website?

Rens: Yes. I recently published a book with Springer, which is, uh, that entitled, “Creating Organizational Value Through Dialogical Leadership.” The subtitle is “Boiling Rice and still water,” and you can already think a little bit about the meaning of this subtitle after what you have heard in this interview. And of course, you can contact me via email if you are interested in, uh, working with us.

Brilliant. Thank you.