FOUR
The Opportunist and the Diplomat: Action-logics you probably resort to, but don’t want to be circumscribed by

So far in this book, in Chapters 1 and 2 we described examples of action inquiry that beginners may try in relation to particular incidents at particular moments of time (and we are all in some sense beginners in each new situation!). We illustrated with Steve Thompson’s and Anthony’s action inquiries. Then, in Chapter 3, we introduced a far more complex sense of action inquiry that embraces a highly nuanced sense of how time horizons and types of power may interweave to help persons, groups, and organizations transform. Obviously, there is a huge gap between the elementary action inquiry of asking a question at a useful moment, and the advanced action inquiry of crafting the entire mission, strategy, performance, and assessment processes of the socially responsible investing movement over 20 years.

The Overall Developmental Process

Now, in the next several chapters, we wish to illustrate how challenging it is to transform ourselves and help others to transform toward an advanced capacity for action inquiry. There is no step-by-step procedure to follow that will accomplish this mission in a month or a year. Self-transformation toward fully and regularly enacting the values of integrity, mutuality, and sustainability is a long, lifetime path that most of us follow as we grow toward adulthood, but that very few continue traveling intentionally once we become adults. Each major step along this path can be described as developing a new action-logic: an overall strategy that so thoroughly informs our experience that we cannot see it.66

We cannot see our own action-logics, especially not at the moment of action when we most need to see them, unless and until we ourselves reach the point along the developmental path where we recognize that the different action-logics that different people hold are among the chief causes of conflict at work and at home. Only then do some of us become dedicated to appreciating our own and others’ action-logics, especially in the midst of action. Only then can we invite ourselves and our partners to notice, to name, and to transform our action-logics, at moments when they may be inhibiting good working together, good loving together, or good inquiring together.

Over the next four chapters, we will illustrate each of the central and usually implicit, unquestioned action-logics by which each of us is usually bounded during any particular period of our lives. We will also discuss how we can help others transform beyond a given current action-logic. It is this implicit, unexamined action-logic that most severely limits our effectiveness. We will make the greatest leaps in quality improvement in our own actions when we become aware of these limits and begin to experiment beyond them. If we can become aware of these overarching action-logics in others and in ourselves, we can reduce unintentional conflict and misunderstanding. Indeed, we can even help ourselves and others transform beyond the limits of our present assumptions.

In this and the next chapter, we will describe four different and successive developmental action-logics: the Opportunist, the Diplomat, the Expert, and the Achiever. Any one of these four may characterize your overall approach to managing. Developmental theory and research (see the References for citations) offer strong cross-cultural support for the notion that if we transform at all, we progress sequentially through these four action-logics and then on to other action-logics described in later chapters.

We will describe and illustrate each of the first four action-logics in more detail in the following pages, but here we will orient you to them in brief:

1. The Opportunist treats the physical or outside world territory of experience as the primary reality and concentrates on gaining control of things there. This action-logic views unilateral power as the only effectual type of power and works within a very short time horizon of discretion, from hours to days, grasping opportunities and firefighting emergencies to the virtual exclusion of the other three leadership tasks and time horizons. The Opportunist views timely action as occurring when “I win.”67
2. The Diplomat treats his or her own sensed performance territory of experience as what really matters and concentrates on gaining self-control in order to act effectively. To do so, he or she imitates organizational routines and the behavior patterns of high-status group members. This action-logic experiences referent power and the current norms that such power generates most strongly. This action-logic generally focuses on routine tasks and works within a one-week to three-month time horizon. For the Diplomat, timely action occurs when “I” am “on time” for work, for meetings, and in terms of completing routine tasks.
3. The Expert treats the strategic territory of experience as the primary reality and concentrates on mastering his or her cognitive grasp of one or more particular disciplines (e.g., accounting, engineering, marketing, etc.). This action-logic treats logistical power as most meaningful and most happily works in a six-month to one-year time horizon to accomplish particular projects. For the Expert, timely action occurs when “I” accomplish tasks as efficiently as possible.
4. After the strategy, performance, and outcome territories of experience have been mastered one by one (usually between the ages of six and twenty-six), most people never again transform their action-logic. But a solid minority (about 40 percent) of highly educated, professional adults do transform once more, to the Achiever baction-logic, which works within a one- to three-year time horizon, juggling the shorter time horizons creatively, treating the interplay among planning, performing, and assessing the outcomes as what is really real. The Achiever concentrates on making incremental, single-loop changes in behavior to eventually reach the planned results. Timely action occurs when “I” successfully juggle the need for occasional immediate wins, observance of agreed-on deadlines, efficient work, and effective outcomes as judged by the market or other constituency.

Developing a hypothesis about your own predominant action-logic and those of your colleagues can help you to relate more effectively to them. It can also challenge you and them to experiment with thinking and acting outside your and their current “box.” Here it is important to understand that we are never altogether locked into one implicit way of framing reality. In fact, “locked in” is not the right metaphor for our relationship to our predominant action-logic.

First, each successive action-logic we describe includes all the possibilities of the prior action-logics and a whole new set of alternatives as well. Thus, at each later action-logic we have more degrees of freedom about which action-logic we use when.68

Second, the more we come to appreciate our own and others’ ongoing experience as evidencing different action-logics, the more we will notice times, usually brief and not yet sustainable, when we are actually experiencing ourselves and the situation in terms of a later action-logic. We will also notice more and more times when we can intervene to help the situation transform toward a later action-logic. These real-life action inquiries have the added benefit of helping us ourselves transform to a later action-logic.

Third, in addition to our primary action-logic, we each tend to have one particular secondary or fallback action-logic to which we retreat when we are under duress—when we feel insecure, ill, angry, or exhausted or when visiting our parents in our childhood home. This fallback position is well worth knowing and remembering at the moment of action in order to avert ineffectiveness and bad feeling. For example, one of the authors has come to realize that he slips into the Diplomat action-logic when tired and tends to give away the store, so to speak, to avoid conflict, rather than hold his position. Learning to ask for a night to sleep on the question before making a decision may seem like a simple matter to you, but for this writer it took years of struggle and feels like a major victory.

Fourth, and finally, if we increasingly exercise our attention through action inquiry, we can evolve beyond these four action-logics. Whereas these four action-logics more or less have us, the later action-logics are ones that, more or less, we have—because the later action-logics are increasingly self-aware and self-transforming. By practicing action inquiry more and more and recognizing that we are operating within changing action-logics, we increase our freedom to choose which action-logic is currently timely.

Diagnosing Our Own and Other’s Developmental Action-Logics

But so far these first four developmental action-logics are mere abstractions to you. We think you are most likely to enjoy learning about them by listening in as business colleagues tell stories about diagnosing their colleagues and themselves. Of course, as you read these stories, you can also begin diagnosing members of your own work group or colleagues from other departments with whom you interact most often in order to get your work done (or different members of your family may come to mind). By the time you reach the end of this chapter, you may have an initial diagnosis of your own current developmental action-logic as well.69

We suggest that you take three separate pages of your journal and at the top of each list the three work associates (peers, superiors, or subordinates) with whom you would most benefit from a more effective working relationship. Write your own name at the top of a fourth page. As you read this and the following chapters, note which characteristics from each action-logic you associate with each person, with a few words about a particular occasion when he or she displayed that characteristic. You should find that each person displays one particular action-logic predominantly. Although that person will occasionally act in ways characteristic of the earlier action-logics, he or she will rarely show signs of the next action-logic (unless he or she happens to be in developmental transition toward that action-logic) and will almost never exhibit characteristics of the action-logic two beyond. But remember, you are not making a scientific judgment here, only an estimate. And the point of your estimate is not to be right or to pigeonhole yourself or your colleagues. Rather, the point is to test whether your hypotheses about your own or another person’s developmental action-logic lead you to choose more effective actions as you work with them. Through your ongoing action inquiry with them, you will gradually become more confident about your diagnostic ability.

Our storytellers are managers or professionals who are learning about action-logics and developmental theory at the time they write their diagnostic stories.

Charles, an Opportunist

Kathy, an independent contributor at a large firm gradually diagnoses one difficult co-worker, Charles, as an Opportunist:

From this story, what assumptions do you infer Charles is making about himself and others and about how to relate to them? What does he assume about how to be effective? How does he assume an ethical person should behave? What other patterns do you see in Charles based on Kathy’s description? (You may also want to ask yourself whether Kathy’s description provides any clues about what Kathy’s predominant action-logic currently is.)

Usually, people pass through the Opportunist action-logic between about the ages of six and twelve. Through bike riding, knitting, puzzle-solving, and a thousand other activities, they are learning to gain control of the outside world territory of experience. But a certain percentage of adults continue to hold this perspective. They try to make things and people work by manipulating them unilaterally or by making the most advantageous trades possible. Charles flattered Kathy by asking her for advice in exchange for her time and technical help. The Opportunist manager is sometimes a tactful manipulator, who may even use courtesy as a ploy, but, who still views the world as a one-against-all jungle fight. Charles’s approach to the jungle is to go to the person who will give him the most for the least cost. He drops that person as soon as the exchange proves unprofitable in the short run. He gives little regard to what others may think of him or to the damage his immediate actions may be doing to longer-term relationships, until something he wants (such as a promotion) is denied him.71

As a basis for a management style, the Opportunist action-logic has bright sides, especially in the short-term: it can cut to the chase in an emergency, it can open unstructured sales territories, and it can courageously embark on paths to adventure. But in the longer term, the dark side tends to show up. The deception and manipulation it will use to gain short-term wins will have longer-term costs in terms of others’ low trust. Responsibility for error or misjudgment is a short-term cost that the Opportunist will typically avoid by not accepting responsibility and externalizing blame.

This action-logic appreciates only the financial and unilateral power aspects of organizations, not the structural and spiritual aspects. It does not value helping managers and organizations to transform and develop. For the Opportunist manager, it is axiomatic that one must “play one’s cards close to the vest,” since others are assumed to be doing the same. The Hobbesian equation “might makes right” holds, and the Golden Rule is recast as “He Who Has the Gold Rules.” Although in the short run this approach will seem to give him or her an unfair advantage over others, the Opportunist’s career development opportunities are, in fact, severely limited by this action-logic. Whereas managers at later stages can choose to act opportunistically on particular occasions, a manager who is bounded by the Opportunist action-logic has no choice but to act opportunistically on every occasion. Studies of managers in different industries have found that less than 5 percent hold this action-logic (Torbert 1991).

Think of occasions when the three colleagues that you are wondering about, or you yourself, exhibit Opportunist qualities. To what degree is this a fallback action-logic for you? Or, are you so appalled by this action-logic that you have not learned how to manage someone who exhibits it?

Phil, a Diplomat

A supervisor in the parts department of a large manufacturing company gives the following description of his superior:

What do Phil’s guiding assumptions appear to be? The Diplomat action-logic focuses attention on controlling one’s own social performance and making sure it meets the approval of some or all of one’s significant reference groups (family, work team, etc.). Many persons transition to the Diplomat action-logic in their early teenage years, and a larger proportion of adult managers are found at this action-logic than at the Opportunistaction-logic. Studies of managers have found that 24 percent of the first-line supervisors, 9 percent of the junior managers, and less than 5 percent of senior managers hold the Diplomat action-logic (Torbert 1991).73

For the Diplomat, the values of significant others are the highest good. Some thing or some action has value if it is fashionable, if it sells, if it influences others, or if high-status persons treat it as valuable. Behavioral skills—the right moves or words at the right times—are seen as critical for gaining membership, meeting others’ standards, and observing the correct protocol.

Like the Opportunist action-logic, the Diplomat action-logic has its bright side and its dark side. In a positive vein, the Diplomat manager can provide qualities of reliability, loyalty, and good will that raise morale and function as organizational glue. And sometimes calling someone a “diplomat” implies that he or she has the exquisite sense of tact that permits both honesty and agreement about the most difficult issues, enhancing the self-esteem and dignity of all parties in the process. But at other times, the implication of calling someone a “diplomat” is that he or she avoids and smooths over all potential conflict, masking both true feelings and objective data in an effort to maintain harmony at all costs. Thus the Diplomat can become alienated from associates who, like Phil’s subordinate, are put off by the Diplomat’s dismissal of their concerns and suggestions. (It is a harrowing irony that the Diplomat often cannot quite see or comprehend that he or she sometimes creates conflict by the very act of trying to avoid it.)

Diplomat managers do not seek out negative feedback about themselves. Quite to the contrary, they attempt to deflect it. They equate negative feedback with loss of face and loss of status. To tell them that it is constructive because it can help them achieve their goals does not make sense to them. No goal is as compelling to them as the implicit rule against losing face. This aversion to feedback helps explain why the Diplomat, like the Opportunist, becomes relatively more locked into his or her action-logic in adulthood, as well as more blind to the possibility of other ways of behaving, than persons at later action-logics.

The Diplomat manager is as unable to criticize others and to question group norms as he or she is to engage in self-criticism. We see this in Phil, who will not try to correct the apparently unjust handling of so-called political appointees. An organization led by a Diplomat will be inhibited from adapting to changing competitive realities or to discovering and creating new strategic opportunities. Subordinates will feel a sense of stagnation and disillusion. They are likely to lower their aims and effort and may even falsify information such as sales or production records in order to “look good.”74

Challenging and Supporting Opportunists and Diplomats to Transform

Let us ask, by way of concluding this chapter, what can a leader or coach do to help persons at these two action-logics to become increasingly competent leaders who are increasingly useful to their organization? Refer to Table 4-1 for a summary of the characteristics of the Opportunist and the Diplomat.

In dealing with Opportunist managers and helping them develop, an organization must develop clear, well-defined, relatively just systems both for doing the work in the first place and for evaluating managers’ performance. (If these are not in fact clear, the Opportunist will likely be the first to notice and try to take advantage.) In particular, the Opportunist’s annual goals and associated concrete incentives (raise, bonus, promotion) must be tightly linked to performance, and the performance goals must include social process goals (how colleagues are to be treated, etc.), since the Opportunist has not yet internalized such norms.75

Table 4-1 Managerial Style Characteristics Associated with Opportunist and Diplomat Developmental Action-Logics

The Opportunist’s manager must not blanch at the possibility of imposing real unilateral penalties for poor performance, including termination, since the Opportunist tends to disregard or actively reject verbal negative feedback. Using unilateral strategies to influence someone else to reduce his or her unilateral, nonresponsive behavior is the action inquiry strategy of choice when experience shows that more subtle forms of power (reference power, logistical power, and so on) aren’t communicating. Moreover, prior to the first overt move, the manager is well advised to align colleagues with the strategy, for the Opportunist often adopts a “take no hostages” attitude about conflict, trying to face the disciplinarian down by quickly recruiting bystanders to his or her banner on the basis of a carefully designed version of events.

This overall strategy may sound heartless and nondevelopmental. However, having experienced how much havoc the Opportunist action-logic can wreak within an organization, how well-sealed this action-logic is from transformation, and what has worked in the few instances we are aware of when further development has been elicited, we offer it as the most loving way we know. It may be helpful to think of it as the kind of so-called tough love often recommended for difficult teenagers, alcoholics, or drug addicts.

Organizations interested in creating environments that challenge Diplomats to continue developing will do well to structure management development activities around real-time projects in small teams, providing regular practice in specific skills such as framing, advocating, illustrating, and inquiring. Diplomats feel more at home in small work groups than in formal management meetings. They will reveal more of themselves and form friendships through which they can later potentially be influenced to accept the vulnerability necessary for transformation. Every member in such a team can hold different and rotating leadership responsibilities, with regular peer assessment and feedback guided by a team mentor who does not hold direct authority over the team. This approach may initially sound like an unrealistically large investment by the organization. But such arrangements also lead to reliable high performance in autonomous or semiautonomous project groups, so the investment has multiple payoffs.

Because each of the early action-logics focuses primarily and explicitly on only one of the four territories of social experience, real tensions inevitably arise in project teams with multiple leaders, such as those suggested above. The Diplomat’s skills in avoiding conflict are sure to be exceeded, if not by the tangible, physical specifics, then certainly by the conflicting action-logics of the participants. This situation can become a transformational experience for the Diplomat, if he or she perceives high-status members of the organization as supportive of personal experimentation and transformation, and if he or she is receiving week-by-week assessment feedback and guidance from a team mentor.76

Practice Noticing Patterns

As you continue through this book, you will gradually discern which action-logic seems to be primary at this time in your life (perhaps inviting others to help you). We think it is important to emphasize a dynamic we pointed out in this chapter, that we each tend to have a particular fallback action-logic we act out of when we are under duress. These tend to be unconscious patterns. Whether or not you come to diagnose your current primary action-logic as Opportunist or Diplomat, it is worth examining the following exercises as opportunities to transform ineffective actions.

• Practice noticing if you have a habit or a pattern of feeling rushed to move into action or speech opportunistically.
  1. Start with just noticing if you make rushed or impulsive actions.
  2. Then, notice what feelings accompany such impulses, using the formula we provided earlier.
  3. Then start paying attention to the situations that evoke such impulsive responses in you. When you do the check-ins, begin to inquire of yourself, “What seems to be ‘at risk’ for me at those times I want to rush in?”
  4. Then start paying attention to the chain of events immediately following any of your “rushing-in” behaviors. Begin to inquire of yourself, “What is the worst that could happen if I put myself ‘on pause’ next time?” Imagine a chain of events that might follow such a pause.
  5. When you have exercised this self-awareness for a while, you will be able to choose when to pause, and timely action inquiry will help you decide a strategy, instead of an unconscious strategy deciding itself for you.77
• Practice noticing if you have a habit or a pattern of “stuffing it” (disregarding your own feelings) diplomatically in reaction to external events that affect you, especially if they represent possible conflicts between what you and others want or do.
  1. When you do your daily check-ins and identify unsatisfying moments you have had, explore your experience for moments you may have “stuffed it.”
  2. Review the event and identify what you did or said immediately before the other person(s)’ unwelcome behavior. What were you actually hoping for instead? How would you have felt if you got what you wanted?
  3. What feeling did you “stuff” on getting the response you didn’t want? Use the formula we provided earlier if it helps name the feeling.
  4. Next, try to notice when something affects you in a way you do not welcome. Beware: These reactions can go underground so quickly we don’t know they are happening. Be vigilant!
  5. Our diplomacy can be a mask for fear, hurt, or anger we do not healthily express at the time it is aroused. We first need practice unmasking the feelings to ourselves. Privately practice the formula for naming feelings each time you do your check-ins, and every time you notice yourself playing the diplomat.
  6. When you have exercised this self-awareness for a while, you will be able to choose when and how to voice your reactions to external events, and timely action inquiry will help you decide on a strategy, instead of an unconscious strategy deciding itself for you.

Let us turn next to an examination of the two action-logics where the majority of managers and professionals are found: the Expert and Achiever action-logics.