For each of the Partners of Schuitema, the onward life journey towards maturation and clarification has been a wonderful experience worth documenting. We are carrying their profiles on the blog subsequently for those who understand the thematic and wish to know more about how it evolved along with the people working on it.
Etsko Schuitema
Etsko Schuitema devised the Care and Growth Leadership™ and the Intent frameworks after he conducted a groundbreaking research at the gold mines of South Africa during the apartheid. Since then, he has helped organisations and individuals around the world in the fields of human excellence and business growth. He founded an organisation called Schuitema (from his family name literally meaning to be ‘ship builders’) that helps people and businesses figure out how to excel. Over the past 30 years, Schuitema has helped more than a 100 companies across 5 continents with its researched interventions that form a complete toolkit to help with every aspect of the organisation.
The thematic has been taught at the University of Cambridge UK and currently a part of the curriculum at the GIBS, South Africa.
How did your journey into the issue of exploration of Intent start?
It started with my work in the Chamber of Gold Mines, South Africa where we were asked as young researchers to study employee discontent. I observed that the behaviour of managers on the mine did not account for the employee discontent. They could be behaving very nicely and yet the level of trust was low and vice versa. There was something deeper than the obvious. This was the starting point.
What were the key milestones on the journey?
The first major step was being asked to develop an instrument to investigate the issue of trust on the mines. That led to the realisation that the intent of the leader is the key variable that accounts for trust.
The second major step was discovering how a surrogate management can bring in employee discontent. We found that the more sophisticated a company’s HR department was, the higher was employee mistrust. It was paradoxical. A surrogate management is when a company uses a proxy function as a stand-in to mind the people so the management do their own thing like make strategy to maximize profits etc. People in the company did not want surrogates looking after them, they wanted real people to look after them.
The next major milestone was the Three Attentions framework after I had left the Chamber of Mines Research Organisation. In the late nineties, I suggested to Graham Edwards; Managing Director of African Explosives Ltd that we develop a Personal Excellence Model to give a toolage to people to measure themselves. That’s how the Personal Excellence Programme came about with Graham Edwards subsidising its development.
Subsequently the next break was the Transactional Correctness Model which was a natural corollary of the Three Attentions. The benevolent and malevolent intent have been a highly useful development.
Each time a model was developed it was a milestone. The 3 Attentions, the 4 Concerns, the 6 Aspirations and the 8 Stations all have been like that.
How did the Transactional Correctness Model evolve?
It didn’t evolve over a period of time. One day I sat with a piece of paper and it just came in an hour. In fact, the 8 stations also became apparent all at once. All the links in the chain have been like that. It was an inspiration that I cannot quite account for rationally.
How is the Transactional Correctness Model linked to both Intent and Attention?
Transactional Correctness is concerned with the intent to do what is appropriate in the situation that you are in. However, what is appropriate in the moment is only appropriate if you have appraised the situation appropriately. In other words, if you have ‘seen things as they are’. You need a certain attention to see things as they are and then engage with them appropriately. So this issue of intention and attention are related matters.
What have been the key insights of the Care and Growth Leadership Model?
The 4 axioms have been the key insights. Firstly, relationships at work (between a leader and subordinate) are not made by defining the price of the labour but by the legitimacy of the leader’s power. Secondly, the relationship of power is legitimate only if it intends to empower the subordinate. Thirdly that Care and Growth is about an incremental suspension of control which is what empowerment is. And fourthly that giving and maturation is linked.
So the 4 axioms are the very core that ties the Care and Growth Model.
Tell us about the issue of unconditionality, how did it become apparent?
The degree to which we want to manage the outcome of a situation is the degree to which we are being conditional in dealing with the situation.
If ‘being here to take’ is the point of birth where everything is handed over to you and ‘being here to give’ is the point of death where you have to give it all up with or without a choice then these two ways of being can be a continuum and along this continuum are degrees in which you want to manage the outcome.
To me, if being ‘here to take’ is possible then being ‘here to give’ is also possible.
Is there a link between your personal journey and your professional work?
The model solidified whenever I found a key for myself. In other words, each step with work was my own inner journey. Whenever I came up with a framework, it was the result of my own struggle with something. That does not mean that I perfected the personal struggle with the answers I got but that’s how the model has evolved.
The 3 Attentions came up at a time when a number of my relationships were failing and I realized that I couldn’t make people happy, it was like I couldn’t manage the outcome but all I could do was to try my best at making them work.
So yes, there’s definitely a connection between my work and my spiritual journey.
What have been the challenges in taking to the work to corporations?
You see corporations are run by people who fundamentally feel that they are answerable to the shareholders. They do not see that they are there to serve either the customers or their employees. The care and growth is not a key objective with managements. There is the rare executive that understands that the shareholder benefits are automatically taken care of, if the subordinate is enabled.
So yes, making corporations see this is a big challenge.
Does that mean that Schuitema’s work is more easily understood by smaller organisations?
Yes, applying Care & Growth Leadership™ is easier in organisations where the owner is personally involved in the affairs of the organization. Smaller or larger is not the criterion, because some very large organisations are run personally by the owners.
What has been your most fulfilling achievement regarding your work?
In truth, I experience a lot more failure than successes. Nevertheless, the achievement is that I can work with these ideas. It’s always a high when I am working on the thematic. It was fulfilling when the Transactional Correctness Model and the 8 Stations or the postulates flowed.
It’s also a highlight experience when you see that your content is really helpful to someone. I still struggle with a lot otherwise!
How has Schuitema grown since its initial beginnings?
I started out when I left the Chamber of Mines. In the beginning, I used to sit with a telephone in my hand and make random calls for hours to people in companies telling them that I am not selling anything but I have interesting research to share. Our first lucky break was the contract of a colliery for 6 months and subsequently I started as Schuitema with a partner Eben Meets who left later in 1991. Wendy Lambourne joined us in the early nineties and has been a partner since then.
By the middle of the first year we were bankrupt and my brother Jerry Schuitema rescued us when we amalgamated his business with ours. He brought some communications work to the business from his previous experience. Our first major breakthrough was Safripol; a plastic manufacturing company in South Africa.
Since our first breakthrough, we’ve seen an incremental growth by following up leads, working up on our reputation and it’s a one step forward and two step back journey really. Things have been better since we got a contract with a major bank in South Africa. In 2005, I met Fakhir Shah and we got along well regarding the Schuitema philosophy. Fakhir subsequently took over the business in Pakistan. In 2010, Bob Tucker and Miles Crisp joined us as partners to expand our business.
The Care and Growth Leadership™ work has been done around the world, but the personal excellence work has only been done in South Africa, Pakistan and the United Kingdom.
What do you see on the horizon for Schuitema?
The Care and Growth™ Leadership and the Intent frameworks have such a phenomenal potential that after 30 years of working across the globe, I still believe that Schuitema is still on the ground. Perhaps several lifetimes will be enough to explore the implications of this work. This work which involves the maturation of human beings, is perennial in nature… it never bores one.
What is the one thing you’d like to tell a business leader today?
Understand that the only reason you exist is to serve anyone but yourself.