Stop convincing yourself of what may not be true
July 28, 2008
One of the common perceptions of organizational change is that you need to convince people to do something that they don’t want to do. Quite a bit of doubt can arise from this perspective: you may feel that you don’t have enough influence in the organization, or perhaps it feels like you are manipulating people. The common response: determine all of the arguments people might have against the recommended change and come up with responses for each one. Convince yourself first that the change is necessary, and that you have all the arguments you need to combat any resistance.
But even having a ready list of responses may not quell your own doubts and fears. I offer that there is another way to approach the situation. If you believe that transformation is necessary and would make the organization better, enough that you are willing to step out and do something about it, then it’s possible that others feel the same way. If you have doubts that people will do what you propose, then you may be making assumptions, either about yourself or others, that may not be true.
Inquiry: What have you convinced yourself of that may not be true?
Who what when where how and sometimes why
July 22, 2008
My three-year-old son recently started bombarding me with “Why?”
In the Toyota Production System (think lean manufacturing) and Six Sigma, the “5 Whys” method is used to determine the root cause of a problem. My car won’t start. Why1? Because the battery is dead. Why2? Because I left my headlights on last night. Why3? Because I didn’t hear it buzzing when I got out of the car. Why4? Because my toddler was screaming. Why5? Because he didn’t take his nap. So the root cause of the problem “my car won’t start today” is “my toddler didn’t take his nap yesterday.” Eliminate the root cause and you are less likely to have the same problem in the future.
In coaching, we’re taught not to ask Why, at least not very often. The reason? It is often perceived as an accusation. Even in the benign example above, why didn’t the car start? Because I was a dummy and forgot to turn the headlights off. If someone is feeling at all defensive about something, asking Why can be a conversation-stopper. Why is also such a wide-open question that it doesn’t focus the person’s thinking.
Any of the other question starters can be used as an alternative. Especially useful are What and How, although Who Where and When can be used when applicable.
“What drained the battery?”
“What stopped you from turning the lights off?”
“How were you distracted?”
“How was your normal car routine interrupted?”
“When you turned off the car, what happened next?”
Asking Why is easy – even my three-year-old can do it. Instead, be creative and curious, and find an alternative to Why.
What is “Enclaria?”
July 17, 2008
The name is totally fictitious, as indicated by the first time I googled it, zero entries came up. When I was brainstorming names for my company, I searched online for the basic building blocks of language, namely Latin and Greek roots and prefixes. I knew I wanted the name to include some form of “clar” as in clarify or clarity. Several years ago it became clear to me and still resonates today that bringing clarity is what I do and what coaching is all about. “En” is a prefix meaning “into,” “cover with,” or “cause.” I added “ia” to the end because I liked the way it sounded and it has a slight but not overt feminine flair to it. So, the name “Enclaria” is meant to conjure a sense of giving clarity to leadership.
Plus, “Enclaria Leadership” sounds like something Harry Potter might say while waving his wand, and instantaneously the object of the spell would illuminate with a sudden knowledge of who they need to be and what they need to do next. Sometimes, coaching happens that way.
What drives you to lead?
July 14, 2008
First, a quick poll, based on the top definitions of “to lead”:
Next, an inquiry: Based on your poll response, what drives you to lead?
Source: lead. Dictionary.com. Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1). Random House, Inc. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/lead (accessed: July 13, 2008).
Common challenges of organizational change
July 7, 2008
In my conversations with organizational change practitioners, I’ve noticed there are at least seven common challenges they face:
- Leadership buy-in - how do we get the leadership team, especially the CEO, to take on ownership of the changes?
- Communication – how do we move beyond the prescribed speeches by leadership and get everyday managers and employees talking about this every day?
- Motivation – what are the best incentives to use to motivate people to change?
- Overcoming skepticism – how do we make people understand this is not “flavor of the month?”
- Project justification – how can we quantify intangibles so we can justify key change projects?
- Subjugating the urgent – how do we keep transformation from taking a back seat to firefighting?
- Longevity - once we build momentum and change starts to happen, how do we ensure it survives turnover in key positions (especially the chief executive)?
What are other challenges you face?
The memorylessness of change
July 3, 2008
Yesterday, I was doing some preliminary thinking about creating an assessment to help clients determine where they are in their change process, and what options they have going forward. One thought I had was that the survey, or at least the analysis, might depend on where the client is on their change journey. And that’s when I remembered about memorylessness.
Every now and then my brain will dig up a factoid that I was taught back as an undergraduate in industrial engineering at Northwestern. It must have been in stochastic modeling class (a fancy way to describe systems that contain variability) in which we learned about the memoryless property of the exponential probability distribution describing the time between events.
Let’s say, for example, that there is a bus stop where the bus arrives on average once per hour (not on a fixed schedule). The memoryless property means that the probability that you will have to wait more than 15 minutes for the bus is the same regardless of how long you have already been waiting at the bus stop. In other words, how long you will be waiting for the next bus does not depend on when the last bus was there. There is no memory of it. I don’t recall the exact day I learned that, but I do remember being rather amazed. (For more, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memorylessness.)
Probability and engineering aside, the concept of memorylessness fits well with the Change Starts Here theme, that you can’t go back and change what has already happened, you can only act in the present and plan for the future. So, that makes me lean toward a one-size-fits-all assessment, regardless of how far the client is into the change program.
Inquiry: In what ways might change be memoryless?
A definition of Enterprise Transformation
July 1, 2008
On Friday, I attended a meeting of the Atlanta chapter of the Association for Strategic Planning, featuring a presentation by Dr. Bill Rouse of the Tennenbaum Institute for Enterprise Transformation at Georgia Tech. The presentation encompassed enterprise challenges that lead to change, a theory of transformation, and the ends, means and scope of transformation. While each person at the meeting probably considered different pieces of the presentation useful, what stuck out to me was the definition of Enterprise Transformation:
“Enterprise transformation is driven by experienced and/or anticipated value deficiencies that result in significantly redesigned and/or new work processes as determined by management’s decision making abilities, limitations, and inclinations, all in the context of the social networks of management in particular, and the enterprise in general.” (original emphasis)
Here’s my interpretation:
Value Deficiencies: Your burning platform creates the urgency to change.
Work Processes: Value is created through work, so transformation happens at the process level.
Decision Making: Change happens based on management’s decisions (read: actions).
Social Networks: The enterprise’s system of influence will determine where transformation occurs. (Dr. Rouse described the social networks as an immune system.)
If you would like to learn more, there are links to books, articles and working papers at the Tennenbaum Institute website.
Case Study: A Roundabout Path to Increasing Employee Suggestions
July 1, 2008
Many companies try to fill their employee suggestion box. The Jel Sert Company, at the time a 700-employee manufacturing company headquartered in West Chicago, was no different. Over the course of four years, the company tried many initiatives to increase the number of ideas collected from employees, with some success. Read more
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