Leading Change Through Self-Transformation: An Interview with Ann McGee-Cooper
by Kali Saposnick

from Leverage Points Issue 47

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Ann McGee-Cooper and Associates, Inc. (AMCA) is a creative problem-solving consulting team that works with clients to create extraordinary lives and organizations through self-transformation and servant-leadership. In the following interview, cofounder Ann McGee-Cooper describes some of the ways that leaders can create profound results in their organizations by making a commitment to personal change.

Think of a time when you worked on an exciting project with a group of people whose creative, collaborative energy unleashed powerful solutions to stubborn problems and identified new business opportunities. Now think of what happened after your group achieved these remarkable results. Were you able to sustain your success and infuse that creative approach into other projects and the larger organization? Or was your enthusiasm scorned and ultimately quelled?

Many of us have puzzled (even agonized) over why people who call for innovation retreat to the status quo when the actual change starts being implemented—sometimes even sabotaging or belittling the innovators they initially admired. Ann McGee-Cooper, who has focused on creative problem solving and the politics of change for more than 36 years, offers a key insight into this phenomenon. She says, "The deep gap between the need for innovation and people's resistance to it exists because creativity always challenges our present assumptions. While we might be open to new ideas, the threat of having to actually alter how we think and behave because of them often triggers an 'immune response'—a negative reaction—to those who can, for example, cultivate wildly successful teams that love coming to work."

Having personally experienced the backlash in response to change efforts early in her career, Ann has seen what can happen in organizations when people resist implementing fundamental change. They might feel excluded from the excitement of effective working groups, or worry about looking bad in comparison to others who can improve performance while enjoying themselves, and they scheme to undermine the project's success. That dynamic is perhaps why she became attracted to the philosophy and practice of servant-leadership, in which leaders learn to lead through inspiration and mutual trust rather than top-down control. This open, welcoming style of managing circumvents the immune response by inviting people at all levels of the organization to take responsibility for making the business prosper. It also resonates with Ann's own vision to help organizations solve business problems, improve thinking, and make people's professional and personal lives more productive, fulfilling, and successful.

Providing Value to the Client
Ann and business partner Duane Trammell founded Ann McGee-Cooper and Associates in 1982 to work with organizations that wanted to be on the leading edge of change. She and her partners help clients transform their organizations by modeling change themselves, including the design of their own consulting business. Everyone at AMCA is a partner, not an employee; everyone has a voice in how the company operates; and everyone feels a strong commitment to learn and grow by applying the basic lessons of servant-leadership, including:

• Learn to listen at a deeper level through your eyes and your heart. Listen to others' ideas, especially when they might not agree with your own, and find ways to engage the talents of others.
• Become aware of your motives. Question whether you're simply trying to get ahead and get credit or whether you want to achieve the best for all stakeholders.
• Look for patterns. Rather than just employing strategies and tactics to deal with short-term problems, explore how decisions you make now might play out over the longer term.
• Focus on developing those around you. Instead of dictating change, model change. Invite and consistently listen for feedback, and hear it without being defensive. People will appreciate your behavior and may follow your lead.
• Assume goodwill. Suspend judgment and assume the best intentions of the other party until you have a chance to check in with them.
• Ask interesting, sincere questions instead of directing and controlling. Avoid interrogation techniques that steer people in the direction you think they should go, and ask questions that allow them to discover generative solutions and uncover new opportunities.
• Learn to slow down and connect with people. Become self-aware and learn to be fully present when you listen to people, delegate, or interact in any way. The investment in developing trusting relationships can radically improve results.

By applying and modeling these basic lessons, Ann and her partners have managed to stay in relationships with clients over long periods of time, sometimes decades. For example, the company has worked with TDIndustries since 1976, TXU since 1985, and Southwest Airlines since 1991. Each organization has become a long-standing leader in its industry, in large part by developing cultures based on mutual trust and servant-leadership.

"We choose our client partners carefully, for their integrity and understanding that change is a long-term commitment that leaders must be willing to model, and we become invested in them for the long run," says Ann. "So, for example, we don't always charge money for the work we do. We pick up ideas and best practices from other industries and share them with clients; we regularly convey the long-term trends we see; and we sometimes recruit personnel for them. That's when you win real loyalty: When their budget can't pay you, yet you know they need your help and you find a way to keep bringing value. Or they don't need you for a while, so you step back."

The clients appreciate that the relationship with AMCA is not always about money. "We treat clients the way we want to be treated," McGee-Cooper explains. "We respect their bottom line, and they in turn refer business to us. So with every year we become more valuable and they become more valuable. I will say, even though we didn't do it for that reason, that all the free work we've given to any of our clients has been paid for many times over, for example, from a referral that led to a major contract."

New Challenges for Today's Leaders
To continue adding value, Ann has increasingly shifted her focus to studying brain research and then applying these findings to help others think more broadly, live more creatively, and contribute more effectively to whatever challenges they are facing. Studies of the human brain confirm her belief that the key challenge for today's leaders is to continue to grow as people and to tap into our personal genius and intuition. As Ann says, "If we become trapped within our current paradigms, we become victims of our current reality. The secret is to stay curious about totally new ways of thinking, being, and partnering."

For example, she points to a recent finding that 60 percent of cells in the heart and gut are neural cells. The implication? We think all over our bodies, not just in our brains. We might call this "intuition," a skill that remains underdeveloped in many business leaders because tapping into it requires a different tool set than they're accustomed to using. Leaders who learn how to tune into their intuition can not only achieve breakthroughs in their own thinking, but can tap into the intuition of other team members as well.

Finally, Ann teaches leaders to follow their passion first and foremost, and prosperity will follow. She says, "You're making a big mistake if you invest your talents in making a profit at the expense of what really matters to you. Instead of asking, 'Who will pay the biggest salary?' start with the question, 'Where and how can I best invest my life energy in service of a calling for which I have great passion?' Then live into that question. Daring to take this leap of faith often brings great sacrifice initially, yet over time the money and all the other resources seem to come naturally. When one's spirit becomes reunited with daily choices, a powerful energy is released that transforms one's life, makes work pregnant with meaning and fun, and attracts fellow pioneers. This is truly 'spirit at work' and also very much the path of the servant-leader."

Kali Saposnick is publications editor at Pegasus Communications.