Lessons from a Rose
July 30, 2009
A few weeks ago, this beautiful rose bloomed from an otherwise untended, ignored and practically dead rose bush in our backyard. It surprised me one day. Glancing out the back window I caught the glimpse of the most glorious red against the backdrop of a dreary weathered fence.
That’s when this post was about succeeding through adversity. And about how something that is meant to be will just happen if you let it.
That stem behind it mysteriously grew straight upward until it was four feet long. Into a tree. That’s when I decided to get involved, to help nature out a little by getting the rosebuds out of the tree and into the sun. I found a plastic bucket (the kids’ kind that comes with a matching shovel) and discovered it I could hang it on the stem to make it bend just so. A day or two later the buds started to turn red and maneuver toward the sun.
That’s when this post was about knowing when something needs a nudge in the right direction. And about how you can set someone up to succeed and they will take it from there.
Then it rained a little bit. And the bucket collected some water. And the stem mostly snapped under the additional weight. And the rosebuds ended up in the dirt.
That’s when this post became about unintended consequences.
Make your organization road-ready
July 26, 2009
I saw an antique car in a parking lot today. Just quickly browsing on the internet, it looked like an American model from the early 1930’s (like this 1933 Dodge photo I found on carnut.com).
I started to wonder what it would take to make a car like that road-ready based on today’s standards. How much of the car was original, and how much was reconstructed using today’s technology and materials? Had there been any upgrades to the engine or exhaust, and did it have any hidden but modern features such as air conditioning or a CD player? Did it even have seat belts or any other more modern safety features?
When building an existing organization for the future, we can ask ourselves similar questions.
- What features of the improved organization should be recognizable as the same organization?
- Which aspects do we need to retain to stay true to our purpose and values?
- What parts can we rebuild with new technology and new ideas?
- How do we remain flexible with an eye toward the future?
- What should be overhauled, replaced or augmented based on what we now know works?
- What is required based on new or foreseen standards?
- Do you need to do maintenance, or restoration?
The 76-year-old car I saw was well-kept and shiny. When the owner arrived, it started right up and he drove away.
How might you make your organization road-ready for the future?
Here’s another exercise, because metaphors are incredibly useful for thinking about your organization (or anything else) in new ways, and discovering ideas and insights that might otherwise be left undiscovered.
Take a look at the picture of the antique car and ascribe parts of the car to features of your organization, department, process, etc. Then use that association to consider the questions above. Take the headlamps as an example:
What do the headlamps represent? Our strategic planning process.
What is required based on new or foreseen standards? The lights need to be brighter than before. So we can see the road clearly, plus what is not on the road but headed straight for us.
What parts can we rebuild with new technology and new ideas? The amount of information available to us is increasing. We need a better way to process it all and make sense of it.
You get the idea.
New Free Gift: Change Starts Here Workbook
July 23, 2009
After about six months of giving away the Beyond Buy-in article as the free gift with the newsletter subscription, I recently changed it back to the Change Starts Here Workbook, which it had been until February this year.
The 30-page Change Starts Here Workbook walks you through four steps to clarify your organizational change initiative: assess the current state, define the future state, identify the gap between them, and determine the actions that will move the organization forward.
If you subscribed since then, just send me a note and I’ll send you a link to the workbook. If you want a preview or more detail about the workbook, you can find it here.
A change agent by any other name
July 22, 2009
Even as I start an internet radio show on BlogTalkRadio called The Change Agent’s Dilemma, at times I think we need a new, less jargon-y term for “change agent.”
I don’t know about you, but I’ve never seen someone with a job title of “Change Agent.” I’ve seen Manager of Change Management (isn’t that really just a Change Manager?) and Change Management Consultant among others, but never Change Agent.
I’m searching for a general term for someone who is implementing organizational change without being the one in authority. (Because there is already a term for someone in a position of authority who is implementing change => Leader.)
Here are a few ideas:
Change Facilitator
According to the dictionary, a facilitator is a person (or thing) that facilitates. And facilitates is “to make easier or less difficult; help forward (an action, a process, etc.).”
Change Practitioner
I’m on the board for Organization Change Alliance, whose vision is to be “the learning community of choice for organization development practitioners in metro Atlanta.” The dictionary lists practitioner as “a person engaged in the practice of a profession, occupation, etc.”
Change Stylist
I recently passed by a TV showing Food Network, and they showed a chef’s title as “Food Stylist.” So why not “Change Stylist?”
Change Agent
Just to keep it in the running – an agent is “one that acts or has the power or authority to act, or one empowered to act for or represent another.” Another definition (perhaps the one intended) is “a means by which something is done or caused.”
What do you think? Do we need a new title? What would you like to be called?
Influence Change Without Authority
July 15, 2009
I’m excited to announce that I have signed up to host my very own internet radio show on BlogTalkRadio!
The show is called The Change Agent’s Dilemma: How to Influence Change Without Authority. The first episode is coming up on Tuesday, July 21 at 11:00 a.m. Eastern, and will run for 30 minutes. The first topic will set the stage for the show:
The Roles and Relationships of Change
The success rate of organizational change projects is a dismal 30%. Did you know that for projects that use someone other than the boss as the project manager that success is even more rare? The reason: mismanaged roles and relationships. Learn the common roles within an organizational change initiative, and hear tips for managing the relationships between them.
You can tune in to listen to the live call, and you will even have the opportunity to call in to share your story or ask questions. If not, you will be able to listen to past episodes when it’s convenient for you.
My hope is that the radio show will become a resource for people to hear ideas about how to influence organizational change from the position of internal change agent.
Avoid Scattershot Change: Plan Communication
July 14, 2009
No change initiative can occur successfully without proper organizational communication. When communicating for change, messages are conveyed to audiences with the purposes of keeping people informed and mobilizing the organization. Communication is the means to gain attention, educate, and get individuals and groups to take action to move the change initiative forward.
As an internal change advocate for your organization, communication is one of the main tools you use to reach your goal and desired outcome. Yet, we frequently see people who are responsible for implementing change who use communication in a haphazard fashion, without a solid plan. The resulting hodgepodge of newsletters, posters and meetings tells a less-than-compelling story of change. Read more
Guest Blog Post: Poached Frogs and the Capacity for Change
July 7, 2009
By Robert Gold
If you drop a frog in a pot of boiling water, it will of course frantically try to clamber out. But if you place it gently in a pot of tepid water and turn the heat on low, it will float there quite placidly. As the water gradually heats up, the frog will sink into a tranquil stupor, exactly like one of us in a hot bath, and before long, with a smile on its face, it will unresistingly allow itself to be boiled to death.
So goes the often cited and vividly unfortunate metaphor of the poached frog, which is used so often in business settings that it has become a tired cliché. James Fallows of the Atlantic Monthly has even devoted an entire series of blog posts devoted to the worthy cause of banishing its use, and the myth has been busted by scientists and journalists alike, notably in Issue 1 of Fast Company. I confess to having succumbed to the lure of using the poached frog story myself, but I have since foresworn using it, and encourage you to do the same.
The metaphor is appealing because it can be applied to support opposing arguments. ‘Don’t change too slowly,’ one conclusion tends to go, ‘because people won’t engage with gradual change before it’s too late.’ The opposite conclusion says, ‘Don’t try to change everything all at once, because people are simply unable to handle the shock.’ One (or even both!) of these arguments have been used at times by many of our consulting brethren; to support a recommended fast pace of change in a client organization, or to incite a response to a threat that has grown too gradually to notice. But there is no universal truth about the pace of change.
Despite the weakness of the metaphor, understanding and managing the pace of change is really important. Excess caution in driving change enable skeptics and resistors to simply ‘ride out’ the change program while saying, ‘this too shall pass.’ Excess appetite for change risks distracting the organization from its legitimate efforts to deliver on the current value proposition, and exceeding what I call the organization’s capacity for change.
I believe that each organization’s unique capacity for change changes from time to time like the weather. Separate from the organization’s capacity for change is its necessity for change, a variable which is driven by threat and opportunity in the organization’s environment. All too often, periods of low capacity and high necessity coincide to doom a previously healthy organization to failure.
The objective of successful strategic management is not to simply drive a specific change, but to increase the organization’s overall capacity for change, While change is absolutely essential for the long-term survival of every organization, attempting to drive a degree of change in excess of the current capacity will have devastating results. The ability to change is an asset; the nimble enterprise with reserve capacity has an advantage over less-prepared competitors. But successful strategic management also requires an explicit awareness of the necessity for change through an ongoing process of monitoring, discussion, and hypothesis testing to enable good decisions about when and how much change to ask of the organization.
Does your organization have the capacity to change that it needs? Is your leadership constantly aware of the necessity to change? What steps have been taken to make your organization more capable to change? Please respond below with your insights and comments.
Guest Blog Author: Robert Gold
Robert S. Gold brings over three decades of professional experience to his role as founder and thought leader of Tenacious Tortoise, LLC.
In twenty years of executive-level management consulting, Bob has advised and enabled hundreds of organizations in such disciplines as strategic planning, business performance improvement, and information technology management. Prior to Tenacious Tortoise, Bob was Vice President and Practice Leader for Strategic Information Technology Management with Balanced Scorecard Collaborative, working directly with Robert S. Kaplan and David P. Norton, authors of the Balanced Scorecard discipline for strategic management.
Bob earned his MBA (with distinction) in Management Strategy and Organization Behavior at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management.
This post was originally published at the Tenacious Tortoise blog. Reprinted with permission.
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