Overcome resistance with fancy purple shoes
January 28, 2010
My almost-2-year-old daughter is obsessed with shoes. She will just sit in our shoe corner and try on everyone’s shoes and walk around in them for fun. Her favorite ones, though, are her own pink shiny ones.
The trouble started when inevitably, her favorite pink shoes became too small – or rather her feet grew too large. I took her to the store to pick out some new ones. She chose the purple ones with flowers on them.
Given her love of shoes, I was surprised when she refused to wear them. Even though she had picked them out, she would run away whenever we even picked them up. If we were able to put them on, she would immediately pull them off her feet and toss them as far as she could. She would then scurry around to find her shiny pink shoes that by now were scrunching her toes.
This morning we hid the pink shoes. I fully expected the morning to end with tears and a barefoot daughter on the way to school.
Then her Daddy had a stroke of genius. “Let’s put on your FANCY shoes!” he said.
Every night at bedtime my daughter insists that we read Fancy Nancy, a story about a girl who enhances everything she wears and owns with accessories. It’s a fairly long book for someone who’s not quite two, but she follows along with the story intently.
Catching on to his idea, I pointed out how the flowers made her new shoes fancy, like Nancy’s.
With a little bit of a struggle (but not the usual all-out wrestling match), she let him put them on. And then they stayed on her feet.
Tonight, before leaving for dinner, she fussed a bit when he tried to put her shoes on again. This time, it was because she wanted to put them on by herself.
When faced with resistance, how might you make the change “fancy?”
Get your step-by-step change guides before prices increase!
January 26, 2010
I first created my line of step-by-step change guides in order to provide organizational change agents with practical workbooks to help work through common challenges.
Since I wanted everyone to have access to them, I priced them to be very affordable. Upon reflection, the current prices do not mirror the value of the workbooks, and do not adequately convey how much these workbooks can help you influence change in your organization. So, I have decided to raise the prices on the workbooks.
I am giving valued blog readers like you the opportunity to purchase the workbooks at the current low prices before I raise them on February 1, 2010.
So far, I have published three titles:
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The Beyond Buy-in workbook walks you through five straight-forward steps to figure out how to gain the most important ingredient for change success: the support of leadership. More than just how to get to “yes,” Beyond Buy-in answers the question, “How do I get leaders to do what they need to do to drive the change forward?” | Old Price: $14.95 New Price: |
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The Pinpoint Communication Kit, which includes customizable PowerPoint templates, provides a practical step-by-step process for creating a communication plan for your change initiative. Pinpoint Communication answers the question, “How do I get the appropriate message to the right people?” | Old Price: $24.95 New Price: |
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The Change Starts Here workbook guides you through four steps to clarify your change initiative. Change Starts Here answers the question, “What am I really trying to change, and how am I going to do it?”
(The Change Starts Here workbook is available free with a newsletter subscription.) |
Old Price: $14.95 New Price: |
Take advantage of this opportunity to grab some practical step-by-step guides before prices go up on Monday, February 1, 2010. Visit www.enclaria.com/publications to acquire these valuable resources.
Everyone else is doing it
January 23, 2010
I ran a red light today. Actually, a blinking red light, the kind that indicate that you are supposed to treat it like a stop sign. It was on a multi-lane one-way street in a long string of working stop lights.
Approaching it, I thought, “I should stop,” especially since there was a car waiting to cross a somewhat busy street.
There were no cars especially close in the rear view mirror, so it would have been safe to stop.
I glanced around for a police car, because surely it was against the law not to stop. (There wasn’t one.)
But everyone else in front of me was running it. I kept on driving right through the intersection as if it were green.
In the few seconds that I had to make the decision of whether or not to stop, I observed that I should stop, and I assessed that I could stop. In the end, the priority factor that influenced my decision was that everyone else kept going.
This phenomenon of human behavior was documented in the classic Asch Conformity Experiments, in which most subjects provided an obviously wrong answer to a question if everyone who answered before him answered it incorrectly.
The power of conformity, even in the anonymous scenario of driving down the street, is very strong. It’s the primary force that builds and maintains organizational culture and locks us in the status quo.
In follow-up studies to the Asch Experiments, it was found that if even one person in the group provides a different answer than the rest of the crowd, the subjects were much more likely to provide the answer they knew was right.
One person, by doing something different than what everyone else is doing, has the power to free everyone else from conformity.
What might you do?
Change agents are leaders
January 21, 2010
Yesterday I talked about how leaders are not change agents, pointing out a difference in roles between individuals who have authority within a change initiative, and those who don’t.
While people who are in leadership positions are not the same as the people who are change agents, change agents themselves must demonstrate leadership qualities to be effective. In that sense, change agents are leaders.
Because trust is essential for change agents, the same standards of integrity and credibility apply.
To gain buy-in, change agents consistently communicate the vision and purpose of the initiative.
Change agents frequently gain their own tribe of followers who also believe in the vision and want to be involved.
Savvy change agents may even be leading the leaders!
The tagline for Enclaria is “Equipping individuals to lead organizational change.” I frequently add “from the middle” in conversations, because my focus is building up the capability of change agents to influence their organizations. To that end, I believe it is important to distinguish between the leadership position in a change initiative, and the leadership characteristics that change agents must have to increase their power and influence.
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Leaders are not change agents
January 20, 2010
Leaders are not change agents. They are leaders! Leaders and change agents hold two separate positions within an organizational change initiative.
Leaders have power and authority within their organizations primarily due to their position. They are able to hold people accountable for changing their behaviors and activities. The organization watches and listens to leaders to see what is true and what is expected.
Change agents, on the other hand, need to enlist leaders to help them make change happen. As a change agent, you do not have the same authority to get things done as leaders. Instead you rely on your ability to influence the organization indirectly. Leaders look to change agents to do the legwork.
This difference does not mean that a senior manager or executive cannot be the change agent for an initiative. The change agent role is not defined by position, but by the relationships to the leader of the change initiative and to those going through the change. You can be a leader within your own department and still be a change agent for a broader initiative (think IT, Strategic Planning, Lean Six Sigma, Communications, Organization Development, etc.).
With which role do you identify the most?
Stay tuned for tomorrow’s post: Change agents are leaders.
Interview: Creating Alignment with Four Questions
January 19, 2010
This morning I hosted an interview with Jeff Lebow, Co-founder and Principal Consultant of Alignment at Work, LLC, on my biweekly radio show, The Change Agent’s Dilemma. The topic was “Create Alignment with Four Questions.”
During the show, Jeff shared what alignment is, how it relates to accountability, and how you achieve it. The key is to gain agreement on the answers to The Four Pull QuestionsSM.
Among my favorite quotes from our discussion is “What goes without saying doesn’t always go.”
Listen here (30 minutes):
If you are a podcast listener, you may also subscribe to The Change Agent’s Dilemma on iTunes.
The first step toward change
January 13, 2010
When you want something to change, the first thing you need to do is stop complaining about it.
You may not truly whine about it; complaining takes many forms. Perhaps you lament about it with your colleagues at lunch, or even work yourself into a loathsome frenzy about who is to blame. You might lead an educated discussion in a meeting about why the current way doesn’t work. If all you do is point out the problem or the thing that needs changing, you’re complaining.
Complaining is passive. It assumes no responsibility, and seeks blame. Complaining means it’s someone else’s job to fix it.
Complaining about wanting something to change usually involves criticizing other people (especially leadership): their inability to change, or their cluelessness about the problem, or their unwillingness to do something about it. While popular and cathartic, complaining about others does nothing to solve the problem. In fact it contributes to your becoming known as someone who talks behind others’ backs – leading to a serious erosion of integrity.
Complaining also locks you into a specific mindset that affects your own willingness to act. A lot of time and energy is spent watching for confirmation of your complaint and seeking acknowledgment from others that they agree with your assessment. You stop noticing evidence that change is possible and ignore opportunities to make a difference.
When you stop complaining a marvelous thing happens. Without an outlet for all the negative information, you stop collecting it. All the attention spent on proving the problem can now be focused on something infinitely more effective: finding a path to the solution.
If you truly want to see something change, choose to view the situation as changeable. Make the conscious decision to stop complaining about what is. Open yourself up to the possibility that it doesn’t have to be that way, and that you can have a hand in making it better.
Three Myths About Organizational Change
January 5, 2010
Our beliefs about what change is and how it works can influence our willingness to take on the challenge appropriately. Change agents who believe these three myths might find their initiatives stuck in a rut.
Myth #1: The goal is change.
Perhaps we are victims of language. Organizational change practitioners commonly talk as though the end goal is change itself. It is common to say “implement change” as if the change itself is the goal. It’s not! Change is the process of bringing about the desired future state. Read more
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