Book Recommendation: Noble Enterprise
January 27, 2009
I’ve written about the amazing turnaround of AT&T Canada Long Distance Services by Bill Catucci and his team in Tips for Leading a Successful Transformation. In a short article I was only able to skim the surface of lessons to be learned. Luckily, there is a new book that contains Catucci’s case study as its cornerstone: NOBLE ENTERPRISE: The Commonsense Guide to Uplifting People and Profits
Besides a more detailed story of AT&T Canada LDS, the author provides more insight into how to create a Noble Enterprise – one that achieves great business results and also (and really because it) makes the world a better place, honors people and fosters the human spirit. The book includes not only a “to do” list for leaders but also a “to be” list. The author provides a fresh perspective on what a company can and should be and specific examples for how to make it happen. A must read for anyone who has higher hopes for how their company does business.
Shampoo lather and other leading indicators
January 19, 2009
My friend Candace said to me one day, “Did you know that shampoo doesn’t need to lather in order to do its job?” She told me that when she was growing up in South Africa, shampoo there did not lather. When she moved to the U.S., she was surprised at the foaming action exhibited by all shampoos.
Evidently, we need some kind of proof that the shampoo is working. We need reassurance that a product is doing its job when outcome indicators are not immediately available – in other words, we need leading indicators to tell us that we are on track to attain the outcome we expect. The more lather, the cleaner the hair, right?
I’ve always had trouble with the concept of leading indicators, because the logical, literal side of my brain tells me that all measures are lagging because some event has to occur before something can be measured. However, the leading or lagging description does not tell us the timing of the measure to the event; it tells us the timing relative to each other. Leading indicators are predictions of future lagging measures. If something is a leading indicator, it shows whether you are progressing toward the end result – the lagging measure. So, for example, if the lagging (outcome) measure is the amount of weight you’ve lost, then the leading (process) indicator may be the number of times you go to the gym, or how many calories you consume per day.
When implementing organizational change, it is important to have and communicate short term wins. One way to do this is with leading indicators. By making the shampoo lather, you can see it is working without having to wait for the final evidence.
Inquiry: What is your shampoo lather?
A personal lesson about impersonal email
January 16, 2009
I learned a lesson today, and like most good lessons, it was learned the hard way.
If you are a subscriber, you’ve probably figured out that I use a few autoresponders – canned email sent at preset intervals to try to get you to take some action, in my case, to call me and set up a sample coaching session. And like a good citizen of 2009, you’ve put up with it because in today’s world it’s expected that you will get these messages when you sign up for a mailing list.
So I was playing with my autoresponders today, trying to make them sound more sincere and somehow more salesy at the same time, and something I did made a few of my subscribers receive up to four separate emails at once. I did not realize it until one of these recipients immediately sent me a note with a four-letter word and also called and left me a message on my phone to unsubscribe her. Deservedly so. If you were also a recipient of an email deluge from me today, please accept my apology.
The experience today confirmed something that had been nagging me about using the autoresponders. You can’t really connect with people with an impersonal email. Even though I wrote it, I don’t even know when it is sent or who it is sent to. That’s not communication!
Although I’ve been tempted to reach out personally to email subscribers, I’ve hesitated because it seemed like I would be violating some internet norm if I actually tried to contact you in person. My perception was that if you sign up for a mailing list, you expect to receive impersonal marketing emails, but if a real person contacted you, it would somehow freak you out. Could that be true? Have we come to the point where we prefer to receive impersonal messages from computers instead of real communication from a living person? I hope not.
For now, I have turned the autoresponders off. If I use your email address to send you an original message intended just for you, I hope you are not offended. I’m not trying to be a pest or a pushy sales person. I’m just genuinely curious about what you’re up to that brought you to my organizational change website.
And I do hope that you will take me up on the offer of the free coaching session. It’ll be half an hour of focused attention on you and your change initiative with an objective point of view. Call me to schedule a time to talk.
Irreversible change
January 13, 2009
Inspiration can come from anywhere: I was watching Sid the Science Kid on PBS with my 3-year-old son, and the lesson from the episode was how when you cook most foods, they can’t be uncooked. You can’t uncook an egg or a pancake, you can’t unsauce apples, and you can’t unroast marshmallows. The show even included a song called “Cooking is Chemistry” that featured the lyrics, “It’s irreversible change!” As usual, it got me thinking…
One of the common challenges to change is making it stick. Sometimes it’s easy to get people to try something new, but it’s difficult to get them to keep doing it. How do you make the new way “the way we do things around here?”
I’ve seen two ways this happens:
Someone with authority decides it will be so.
I don’t mean that someone waves his fist and makes it happen. It’s not about force but about focus. Someone whose attention is wanted focuses their attention on the new way of doing things. For example, if the transformation includes making more data-driven decisions, then the CEO (or equivalent authority figure) should insist on having the data when someone asks for a decision, and should constantly ask about and talk about the data that decisions are based on.
This method will take some time, but with increased awareness and focus and a willingness to make corrections when someone goes off course, change will happen.
The old way is eliminated.
The easiest example I have for this is a software implementation where the old software is removed from service and can no longer be accessed. You need a self-imposed Y2K to keep people from going back to the old way. For something other than an IT implementation, the old way might be a procedure, or a regular meeting, a policy, an Excel file, etc. It is tempting to keep the old way just in case – but it also allows for going backward when the going gets tough.
Eliminate the last vestiges of the old way so the focus and energy is on making the new way work. As I learned on Sid the Science Kid, you can’t uncook it if it is fundamentally altered.
Inquiry: What would it mean to cook your change?
Podcast #1: A new intrapreneur reflects on large-scale transformation
January 6, 2009
The Enclaria podcast series features interviews with change agents. Hear how others break through obstacles while they pass along lessons learned from their organizational change endeavors.
Nine months ago, Jim Ryan, Manager of Strategic Planning at Embarq Corporation, changed roles within the Fortune 500 telecommunications company. Although he kept his job title, his role morphed from implementing strategy – developing strategy, creating measures and scorecards, and rolling out the plan to the organization – to implementing one of the strategic initiatives – creating an entirely new business from scratch within the same organization. From his new vantage point as an intrapreneur, he describes the differences between implementing change within an existing large company and building a new internal venture.
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