Sue Annis Hammond and Andrea Mayfield, The Thin Book of Naming Elephants: How to Surface Undiscussables for Greater Organizational Success. Thin Book Publishing, 2004.
Referenced in: Church Conflict – Criticism, Difficult People, Difficult Conversations
LifeandLeadership.com Summary
One of the authors of this text, Sue Hammond, is a widely recognized expert on Appreciative Inquiry (AI), author of The Thin Book of Appreciative Inquiry, which has sold over 150,000 copies. Typical of AI resources, it seeks to act upon the existing strengths of an organization or relationship as the greatest resource for positive change. Discovering and acting on these strengths requires enabling an open, non-hierarchical, and creative discussion environment that allows the collective genius to arise.
Here Hammond teams with Andrea Mayfield to address a piece of the AI process as it relates to conflict – equipping leaders to identify, surface, acknowledge, discuss and act on the “elephants,” or subjects everyone recognizes but no one acknowledges. These “elephants” can also be the untapped brilliance that resides in those who for one reason or another choose not to share what is on their mind. The authors contend:
Enabling people to speak up, making choices about which topics to pursue and which ones to leave for another time as well as listening to controversial views can all be part of reframing conflict from negative to positive.
Through their research and consulting experience, they discovered most organizations do this poorly, and actually create climates of fear, retribution, and humiliation. This is especially true if they have rigidly cordoned off certain topics as “undiscussables.” The people in these environments consistently ask two questions, “How do I have the courage to speak up?” and “How do I say it?” They want to speak and do so in a respectful way. And this is not only in cases of conflict, but even when groups are dreaming and designing through healthy dialogue and encounter competing ideas as to what the future should be. In order for the needful topics to surface, people and organizations must “reframe” conflict by opening up the environment to respectful battles or “good fights.” This requires not only “naming the elephants” but also “getting the elephants to dance,” by recognizing undiscussables exist, finding a way to talk about them, and framing the conversation as a celebration. (From AI Practitioner, August 2005, 8-11).
Naming Elephants can help church leaders learn how to bring difficult subjects out in the open. I often say that one of the biggest contributors to conflict is the anxious avoidance of conflict. Naming Elephants addresses a major piece of this anxiety.
From the Publisher
There’s an elephant in the room that everyone knows about but no one is acknowledging. The elephant is implicit and undiscussable and lurks in every organization. Everyone talks around the elephant and thinks that everyone else knows about the elephant. But, until the elephant’s presence is made explicit, the level of dialogue and therefore the quality of decision-making is limited. Sound familiar?
Using NASA’s tragic accidents and Enron’s bankruptcy as examples of the price of not having open, constructive dialogue, the book shows how great companies create an environment that encourages and listens to input from all levels of the organization.
After reading this book, you’ll understand:
- The role of assumptions and multiple realities
- Why surfacing assumptions is so important
- How to have constructive dialogue
- Why arrogance, hubris and smart talk gets in the way of constructive dialogue
- What strategies you can use to name the elephants in your organization
About the Author
Sue Annis Hammond is a Change Management Consultant with a unique combination of extensive consulting and entrepreneurial experience. She has more than 20 years of consulting experience, including 10 years of internal work at Meredith Corporation and Principal Financial Group, 12 years of external consulting, and six years as an entrepreneur.
Andrea B. Mayfield is an Organization Development Consultant focused on leadership strategy work. With proven skills in leadership development, change management, and executive meeting facilitation, her principal focus is working with leaders to identify, plan and pursue development needs for themselves and their organizations. Her broad experience was developed through internal consulting work with NASA, American Airlines and Mary Kay Cosmetics as well as her external consulting practice. This combination of experiences has equipped her with an understanding of very large, complex organizations as well as fast-paced entrepreneurial settings.
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