Beware Context Canyon When It Comes to Leading Change
Filed under: Leadership, Leading Change, Management Education, Middle Management, Organizational Transformation, Professional Growth, Talent Management, Your Professional Development "To Do" List
We invest a great deal of time talking and writing and preaching about change. We discuss resistance to change, fear of change, our own need for personal change and the challenges that organizations face when it comes to embracing change.
We’re not very good at changing, but we sure like to talk about it.
Spend a few sleepless nights channel surfing the infomercials (a discomfiting experience in more ways than one), and you’ll realize that there’s a tremendous amount of energy that goes into selling us stuff to help us change in all area of our lives.
In my non-scientific polling and personal leadership anthropological meanderings, I’m comfortable generalizing that most change initiatives fail. From diets and fitness programs to resolutions and new corporate directions, failure to change is epidemic.
While I suspect that our failure to change our own individual habits is a close cousin to change failures in business, I’ll focus on the latter here.
We Create Our Own Context Canyons:
Most managers and management teams spend a great deal of time processing on the drivers of change. By the time they start discussing or announcing changes, the issues and often the approaches are well-baked in their minds, while the rest of us on the receiving end are left with the deep thoughts of, “Huh?” or, “Why?” or, “Huh?”
The result is a gaping hole that I call the “Context Canyon” between managers suggesting change and employees processing on the implications of change. Depending upon the culture, resistance will range from loud and overt to quiet and passively aggressive. Nonetheless, resistance will reign supreme until the “Context Canyon” is filled-in not just by the managers, but also by the rest of the organization taking the time to internalize the case for change.
5 Common-Sense Ideas to Help with Change:
1. Recognize the Context Canyon. You and your peers may have worked through the case for change for months. You’ve had time to process on the rationale and think through and even debate options and alternatives. Mentally, you’ve long since accepted the need to change. Remember that if the first time that your employees hear about the change is when you announce it, they are just starting their mental processing journey. Your springing it on them has put them on the defensive from the beginning.
2. Involve People in Change Discussion Early and Often. People typically want to contribute to the discussions on change. They want to do their part to facilitate changes that will better serve customers and improve value for stakeholders. Treat them as an extended team of advisors. You show remarkable leadership courage and you show your respect for your employees by engaging them up-front on discussions about change.
3. Get the Why? Right! Again, beware the Context Canyon. People might hear your rationale on Why change is required, but that does not mean that they agree with your logic and your case. A pronouncement from on high typically does not equate to agreement or acceptance. Create safe opportunities for individuals and teams to ask questions, offer their thoughts and process on the case for change.
4. Ask for Help on the What? After awhile, the discussions on “Why Change?” need to move towards “What to do?” You’ll gain stronger organizational support by inviting and listening to active input, than you will dictating changes. Additionally, the shift in discussion from “Why?” to “What?” actually serves to strengthen the case for change. Remember, your organization requires the same amount of time that you do to process-on and internalize the case.
5. Address the WIIFM. Don’t fool yourself. People might be expressing concern about the organization, but everyone is thinking about, “What’s In it for Me?” (The less selfish sounding version is: “What does this mean for me in my job?”) This is the 600-pound gorilla on the back of the elephant in the room. The more time that you put into spanning Context Canyon, and the more that you allow your employees to help you “design the way forward,” the easier it is to deal with WIIFM. Your willingness to allow people to define how they have to change puts a great deal of individual and organizational angst to rest.
The Bottom-Line for Now:
While watching the various infomercials and pitch-people offering all manner of goods to improve our lives in the kitchen, the bedroom and the bank account, it occurred to me that we needed an offering to help us successfully navigate changes in our organizations and jobs. For only three installments of $39.95, I’ll help you navigate Context Canyon. And for the first 20 organizations to order, I’ll throw in the knife set.
There are no silver bullets or magic products that promote change. Use good old-fashioned common-sense based on human psychology. Context is King and involvement promotes engagement.
Improving Your Odds of Success in Driving Change
Filed under: Leadership, Leadership Skills, Leading Change, Organizational Transformation, Strategy
There is a fascinating article on Change Management in a recent issue (Issue 2/2009) of the McKinsey Quarterly (subscription required) by Carolyn Aiken and Scott Keller, entitled: “The Irrational Side of Change Management.”
And while much has been written over the years on this important and vexing topic, the authors offer some insights and ideas that they describe as counter-intuitive, but potentially helpful in improving your odds of success with these initiatives. This article alone was for me worth the hefty annual subscription price.
On a depressing, but not surprising note, the article cites a 2008 study of over 3,000 executives that found that 1 in 3 change-management initiatives fail. These low success rates have been well documented by Kotter as well as other researchers in the field of change management.
Art’s Observations on the Failure Rate: We all know that most change management initiatives fail miserably. Recall your own reaction to the latest program or makeover handed down from on high. The majority are met with emotions ranging from curiosity to outright cynicism. On the other hand, think of the rare initiative that stuck. Why did this one work? My unscientific guess is that the leaders worked hard to create an environment ripe for change.
The authors cite the 4 basic conditions necessary for change according to the theories around the psychology of change management:
- A compelling story-employees must see the point and agree
- Role modeling-employees must see management and other colleagues behaving in the new way.
- Reinforcing mechanisms-systems, processes and incentives must be in line with the new behavior
- Capability building-employees must have the skills required to make desired changes
Their thoughts on how these 4 conditions are applied: “The prescription is right, but rational managers who attempt to put the four conditions in place by applying common sense typically misdirect time and energy, create messages that miss the mark, and experience frustrating and unintended consequences from their efforts to influence change.”
The authors go on to share nine insights into application of the 4 conditions that explain why change initiatives might fail and how to improve the odds. My focus in this post is on two of the insights related to the “compelling story” condition for change.
First: “What motivates you doesn’t motivate most of your employees.”
While we tend to focus on telling stories about what has changed and why we have to change in kind, or what we want to accomplish, research shows that people respond best to stories that address five forms of impact:
- Impact on society
- Impact on the customer
- Impact on the company
- Impact on the working team (environment)
- Impact on “me”
The money quote here: “This finding has profound implications for leaders. What the leader cares about (and typically bases at least 80 percent of his or her message to others on) does not tap into roughly 80 percent of the workforce’s primary motivators for putting extra energy into the change program. Change leaders need to be able to tell a change story that covers all five things that motivate employees.”
Second: “You’re better off letting them write their own story.”
We as executives and leaders go to great lengths to tell our change stories. We call special meetings, conduct town halls, run webinars, write blog posts and often walk away feeling like we’ve done our job. We’ve spoken, the message is clear and everyone must agree or we’ll single them out as resistors.
The authors suggest that while the stories about the need to change (told in ways that address the five forms of impact) have to get out there, we would be better off listening more and telling less.
“This reveals something about human nature: when we choose for ourselves, we are far more committed to the outcome (almost by a factor of five to one). Conventional approaches to change management underestimate this impact. The rational thinker sees it as a waste of time to let others discover for themselves what he or she already knows—why not just tell them and be done with it? Unfortunately this approach steals from others the energy needed to drive change that comes through a sense of ownership of the answer.”
Art’s Observations: While there is much more to the article than I am highlighting here, just the lessons from the first two points alone are worth the price of admission. My robust translation of these points includes:
- Leaders, you’re going to have to recognize that just because you say that we need to change doesn’t make it so. Frankly, there are a lot of reasons why people will distrust or ignore your calls for change. If you don’t carry leadership credibility (beyond the title), you are likely spewing hot air.
- I love linking the 5 Impact points to the story-telling process on why change is needed. Several of these are very personal and as the authors highlight, those things that we choose and value for ourselves are much more powerful than those given to us.
- Last and not least, the idea of setting the stage and then shutting up and letting people ferret out for themselves why change is needed and what it means is something you can put in place today. Quit talking, start listening and if you do have to talk, mind your Questions to Comments ratio.
The Bottom-Line for Now:
Like so many things in leading and managing, there are no silver bullets for success. A lot of really smart people try and drive change and fail. Those that succeed seem to have intuited that change is intensely personal and that their role is to create an environment where the need for change can be processed and where individuals can take control of defining the terms of change. While it seems that just when the leader thinks that he/she should be hands on, is precisely the time when he/she should step back and let go.
More soon on this compelling topic.
That Seismic Shift You Are About To Hear is Management Revolution
Filed under: Crisis Leadership, Current Affairs, Innovation, Leadership, Leading Change, Leading the Generations, Management Innovation, Surviving Lousy Leaders
Author’s Note: This post moves from fun to management revolution in a hurry. Hold on!
One of the things that I absolutely love about this time that we are living through is the constant and accelerating rewriting of the rules. How much fun is it to be engaged in a set of activities where what used to define success now defines failure and where your experience may be your own worst enemy? Someone should charge admission to this surreal game we are living!
It’s like playing my favorite board game, Monopoly, where the long-established rules of buy, build, rent and bankrupt your opponent shift ahead of your turn. Thought that Boardwalk was a good investment? Not anymore…by the time you land on it, it’s been sold off to a foreign player to raise funds to support infrastructure. Driving the car around the board. Sorry, your car company went bankrupt and unless you can bail it out, you’ll need to walk. Draw a Chance card and expect to advance to the nearest railroad? Forget it. The government now owns 80% of this industry and they can’t get the trains running. Bankrupt your partner. Heck no, that would be anti-competitive, so your partner just pulled off an interest free loan under the “too big to fail” act. (Hey Parker Bros, I’ve got dibs on the new “Ever Shifting Rules” version of your board game.)
One of my favorite business writers, Gary Hamel is back this week with his very relevant message that it is high time that we reinvented management and shed some of the late 19th century practices that persist. His focus this week is: The Three Forces Disrupting Management.
Hamel’s Three Discontinuities:
1. A wildly accelerating pace of change, an onslaught of new, ultra low-cost competitors, the commoditization of knowledge, rapidly increasing customer power and an ever-lengthening menu of social demands.
2. The invention of new, Web-based collaboration tools
3. The mash-up of new expectations that Generation Facebook will bring to work in the years ahead.
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Yep. In this case, we didn’t need one of the world’s foremost management writers and thinkers to tell us what those of us running businesses have been painfully aware of for the past few years. Things are changing in front of us, even if our approaches are not changing to embrace and leverage the new dynamics.
Something’s gone horribly wrong with our pre-established convictions and our comfortable understanding of the old rules. There was no memo. The new rules are not written in stone anywhere, and in fact they are changing so quickly, that by the time you understand and write them down, they’ve changed yet again. Heck, a good number of firms and leaders never optimized under the old rules, and now look at what they are facing!
I work constantly with professionals and teams desperately trying to break free of the shackles of the old rules, the archaic premises and obsolete leadership practices that govern so many businesses. A good number of professionals get the fact that the game has shifted, yet organizations and leaders tend to hang onto the old premises. The obsolete and dangerous practices that still predominate, include:
- Rigid hierarchical leadership-it’s time to end the royal leadership model
- Silo structures-maybe the single most value destroying approach to organization
- Dysfunctional matrix approaches dominated by functional interests
- Ad hoc leadership identification and development practices (if any)
- Farenheit 451 type thinking about access to the internet and adoption of new methods of working and communicating
- Traditional strategic planning models that fail to take into account systems, constant change, the need to adapt, the difference between adapting and proacting etc.
- 1950’s HR practices (in many cases) that emphasize compliance and fail to focus on enabling performance
- An accountability paradox…those in charge are the least accountable
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The Bottom Line:
Instead of a more traditional passing of the baton from one generation of business leaders to the next, I get the feeling that this period will be characterized by social and cultural revolution in business. It’s needed and in my opinion, appropriate.
The current situation will see record numbers of firms fail, and in many cases, they should and must. This painful cleansing will be just that a cleansing. The only way it doesn’t create a better landscape is if we through our governmental institutions destroy the ability to regenerate. That is an unfortunate but real possibility.
Jefferson’s perspective on the appropriateness and need for the French revolution shocked many of his contemporaries. I am right there with him. Forward progress will require significant business casualties and some shocking restructuring of what we view as conventional approaches to business.
I like Hamel’s thinking on management innovation and even revolution. I do think that his message is too soft. It’s time to rise up against the tyranny of hubris and the post Civil War management approaches that many leaders still cling to as their hold on power. There are many great people inside of even the most dysfunctional organizations that have some valid ideas on embracing the new rules. If you are a leader, its time to listen or beware the march of time and the villagers lighting torches!
The Pain and Promise of Collaborative Management on Display at Cisco
Filed under: Leadership, Leadership Skills, Leading Change, Making Decisions, Management Innovation, Organizational Transformation, Project Management
Author and consultant Gary Hamel writes in the preface to his latest book, The Future of Management, that, “Management is out of date. Like the combustion engine, it’s a technology that has largely stopped evolving and that’s not good.”
Hamel challenges leaders and managers to eliminate the toxic effects of legacy management practices and innovate in ways that create “organizations that are capable of spontaneous renewal” and “companies that actually deserve the passion and creativity of the folks who work there, and naturally elicit the very best that people have to give.”
Noble thoughts that I agree with and that I espouse at every available opportunity. Unfortunately, many firms and many top leaders are still stuck in the Managers Manager and Workers Work era that Frederick Taylor ushered in over 100 years ago. The number of teams and ideas that I see held hostage to adjudication by these out-of-date, out-of-touch and hopefully, out-of-time command and control leaders is shocking. Please, set your people free.
One organization and leader that has gained a great deal of coverage for ushering in new approaches to managing is Cisco Systems and its CEO, John Chambers. The interview with Chambers, “Cisco Sees the Future” in the November, 2008 issue of Harvard Business Review is must-read material for anyone interested in the cutting edge of management innovation as well as some profound thoughts on identifying and exploiting market transitions and disruptions.
Cisco has effectively flattened its organization and now operates with a small executive team and manages its priorities by cross-functional, collaborative councils and boards. Chambers indicates that the impact is: “This companywide council-based leadership model has allowed us to move from taking only one or two cross-functional priorities a year in the past to addressing 22 this year.” He goes on to add, “We think this is what organizations of the future will look like and that this 21st century leadership style will be a major competitive advantage for us over the next decade.”
At this point, I’ll stop quoting the article…it’s worth taking a look at on your own. However, what I found most interesting aside from the insights into the structure, management and results of the many cross functional teams, was the fortitude that Cisco and Chambers showed in adopting this new management model. You get the impression that the gains did not come without considerable pain. Over 20% of the executives washed out of the new collaborative model, and in essence, the entire culture had to change. Chambers even confesses to the challenges that he had in changing his own style from one of command and control, provide the answers and direct the troops to one of letting teams solve problems and then execute.
The Bottom-Line for Now:
Seven years in the making, the results of this new management model at Cisco are encouraging. Of course, time will tell if Cisco has truly changed, as well as defined and implemented what can truly be called a management innovation.
I suspect that Chambers and Cisco are closer to right than wrong on their approach. It’s an exciting time to be leading as the pendulum seems to be swinging away from a style of leading and working that minimized the value of the individual to one that emphasizes empowerment, creativity and the freedom for groups and individuals to think and act. It’s hard to imagine a future where this formula does not produce winners. Of course, the proof as they say is in the pudding.
The Counterintuitive Nature of Management Excellence
Filed under: Crisis Leadership, Current Affairs, Leadership, Leadership Skills, Leading Change, Life and Business, Marketing, Organizational Transformation, Product Management, Project Management
I suspect that most readers will agree that examples of management excellence, high performance and great leadership are not the topics dominating the news in this emerging “we’ve never seen anything like this before” economy. Instead, we are fed a constant stream of downward revisions, requests for bailout and examples of management failure of “someone should go to jail” Whole sectors are crashing, great old brands are on the brink of fading into the history books and recently great businesses are floundering.
Contrast this current phase with the other extreme of recent memory, the dotcom bubble of the late 90’s, when the laws of physics were upturned, profits didn’t count, and it was all about clicks and eyeballs. Everyone knew someone that was a gazillionaire and massive amounts of paper wealth came into existence overnight. And then disappeared. A few firms like Amazon, eBay and Google ultimately emerged from the carnage following the bust, to play major roles in a changed world. Ironically, this changed world looked more like what we knew than what had been professed by temporary pundits feasting on the momentary gullibility of the masses.
The point. It’s easy to ride with the herd in boom and bust periods. It takes no management skill whatsoever to spend a fortune building up clicks and it definitely takes no skill to slash budgets, cut headcount, freeze programs and hunker down and wait out the storm.
It does take remarkable management courage and skill to run against the crowd and conventional wisdom by investing in strategic initiatives and talent during tough times and resisting the temptation to chase mythical fortunes during boom times. Leveraging adversity to stimulate creativity and rethink business models, refocus on customers and look everywhere for innovation that will create value is counter-intuitive to the “flight” response that so many firms are exhibiting. This counter-intuitive nature is also the hallmark of great management and great managers.
Deming dared to call U.S. manufacturing on the carpet and predict their ultimate suicide if they ignored quality during a time when quality got in the way of volume and profits. Drucker spent a lifetime teaching managers the rules of management excellence. Based on recent news, most of us forgot to listen.
You face the choice everyday to stay with the herd or dare to do something different in pursuit of management excellence. In case you are looking for some thought-starters on counter-intuitive ideas, consider these:
- Resist the temptation during tough times to make all of the “hard calls” by yourself. Talk with and involve your employees in decision-making and idea generation. They are just as concerned as you are about their survival and they want to help.
- Don’t shred your strategic plan because “everything has changed.” It’s great to challenge your assumptions or as Ayn Rand often said, “Check your premises.” There may be new or more opportunity than you imagined, and the plan may need revision, but don’t scuttle it based on fear.
- Invest in your talent now. While you may be culling the herd of poor performers, you should also be investing in building the leadership and strategic thinking skills of your workforce. If this ends, they will propel you to new heights, and if this economic environment lingers, they will save your skin. Either way, you need to invest.
- Your customers are as perplexed and worried as you. It’s time to seek nontraditional relationships with key customers and partners. These relationships include joint-strategic planning, joint brainstorming and true partnering solutions that transcend the traditional press-release relationship.
- Take a sledgehammer to internal silo walls. The dysfunction inherent in most sales and marketing or marketing and engineering relationships is significant enough to sink your ship.
The bottom-line for now:
It’s an outstanding time for great leaders to stand up and be heard, and it is an outstanding time to focus on excellence in management. It starts by checking your conventional wisdom at the door. Go visit a customer, ask questions and listen. Do the same with your employees. And then do something that creates value versus something that reduces your chances of creating value. Your actions may just start a revolution.
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