Well, technically no.  The word mavens and official time keepers (whoever they are) will tell you that the decade does not officially begin until 2011.  2010 is the last year of the 00’s.  Just like the first year of the millennium was 2001, not 2000.

It’s these same word mavens that maintain that everyone else improperly uses the words “ironic” and “moot.”

Which is entirely my point.  If everyone ascribes new meaning to a word, then effectively, that word holds that meaning, regardless of whether it is in the dictionary.  We are choosing to end the decade now, whether or not the people who count time agree.

This phenomenon is something to keep in mind when you are selecting language to communicate your change initiative.  Just because you decide on words and their meaning doesn’t mean everyone else will choose to use the same words, or give them the same meaning.

Once I was facilitating an executive team on creating a strategy map (a la Balanced Scorecard).  Technically, the oblong bubbles on the map are called objectives, but the team started calling them “footballs” due to their shape.  “Footballs” does not mean much in the context of strategy, but for some reason it stuck.

When the organization starts using your language improperly or choosing their own words to help them assimilate what it going on, it’s not necessarily a bad thing.  After all, it’s better than ignoring it altogether.  However, you will have to decide whether the official language is worth fighting for – or whether you can adopt their words as the new official ones.

What language has your team or organization distorted from the original meaning?  What is the effect on your initiative?

For an inanimate object resilience is like elasticity: the ability to return to its original form after being bent, compressed, or stretched.  A rubber band is resilient; a coffee cup that is dropped, spilled and broken is not.

Similarly, for a person resilience is the ability to grasp, assimilate and move forward from a disruption or change.  Instead of returning to the original form like the rubber band, a resilient person is his same self but with the new information incorporated into the way he is and works.   

The place you bounce back to when you are resilient is called your “Center.”  Similar to a center of gravity, the Center is grounded and balanced.  It is a state of calmness and clear thought that influences how you handle change, emotionally and behaviorally.  Getting back to Center can occur naturally over time, but is achieved more rapidly when taken on as a deliberate activity.

The speed at which this re-centering occurs is the measure of resilience. Developing this ability and speed is the critical factor in bouncing back after a downturn or setback.

Your personal resilience determines how well you handle changes in your life and also how well you yourself change.  The greater your resilience, the higher your threshold for ambiguity and stress. As you increase your resilience you are able to handle more and more change at the same time.

Growing resilience in others and in your organization will determine the organization’s ability to handle change, and the employees’ ability to take on your change initiative. As a change agent, the ability to cope with change yourself is crucial.  Once you have mastered resilience, you can help those around you build their capacity to re-center and improve their own resilience.

There are five avenues for mastering resilience that you can develop:

Mental Resilience includes the psychology of perception and reactions.  One way to build mental resilience is by shifting your thoughts from non-productive thinking patterns to patterns that generate success.

Physical Resilience is a little used resource in the workplace.  Like a dashboard on a car, the body gives you information and data about what’s happening in your environment. It can also be used as a guidance system, or you can reprogram this guidance system for a different outcome. There are also certain body positions, as used in martial arts, that produce and make available certain thoughts and feelings.

Emotional Resilience means building your capacity to manage your emotions as well as the emotions of others.  Since fear and other strong emotions are common in uncertain situations, emotional resilience is key to being effective in managing and influencing change.

Social Resilience includes your ability to build and utilize your support systems, networks and relationships as a resource.  One of the greatest challenges facing change agents is having high-stakes conversations that move change forward.

Talents and Skills Resilience means knowing your own unique talents and skills and how they complement other skills sets.  With talents and skills resilience, you are able to confidently describe your talents, to recognize those who need them and to share your value with tact and effectiveness.

Mastering these five avenues for building your resilience to handle and manage change will not only set you apart, it will allow you to be more influential and seen as a resource for others who are experiencing change.  You will become invaluable in supporting the fulfillment of the change initiative.

For more on resilience, check out:

• The Mastering Resilience episode on The Change Agent’s Dilemma radio show
• The Mastering Resilience Workshop coming up in October:  www.masteringresilience.com

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?

On Sunday, Andy Stanley at North Point Community Church defined Culture as the collective conscience of a group: The ought to’s and the ought not’s.  In other words, the culture is the collection of behaviors that the members of a group generally believe you should and shouldn’t do.

The new definition provides a way to measure a culture as the aggregation of acceptable and unacceptable behaviors.  When you can measure something, then you are able to deliberately change it.

Consider whether the following behaviors are acceptable or unacceptable (or ought to or ought not) within your organization:

• Sharing ideas or feedback outside the “chain of command”
• Holding peers accountable to deadlines or performance
• Celebrating team successes
• Bringing your kids to work when no one can watch them
• Playing practical jokes
• Working on a team outside your area of expertise
• Texting or typing during meetings
• Letting a female coworker have the last seat at the table
• Hosting competitions between employees
• Deference to titles
• Lending a helping hand when a coworker suffers a hardship
• Showing up late to meetings
• Working independently on a project

Of course, these are just the tip of the iceberg.  Each organization has its own quirks and implied necessary behaviors.

Inquiry:  What ought members of your organization do or not do?

For a useful assessment, check out the Organizational Culture Inventory (OCI).  I haven’t used it in practice, but I remember using it for an exercise during my MBA program years ago.

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.

“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.

Accountability is rarely explicitly defined, whether for the organization as a whole, or for the departments and teams that work within them. While a well-designed performance management system may hint at the underlying accountability philosophy, rarely does an organization define the daily act of accountability, even for its leadership team for whom it is most important.

What is accountability? A quick search at Dictionary.com reveals the following definition: “ac·count·a·bil·i·ty [uh-koun-tuh-bil-i-tee]: the state of being accountable, liable, or answerable.” Certainly, it is an obvious answer to the question, but it does not shed much light on what it means for people in organizations to be accountable.

Intuitively, everyone has a sense of what accountability means to them. A warehouse clerk is accountable for accurate parts inventory every month. A human resources director is accountable for ensuring the company heeds employment laws. A CEO is accountable for business results. For each of these examples, the word “accountable” could be replaced by “responsible.” Each person is responsible for achieving a result.

Yet, accountability means more than responsibility. There is a sense that other people are involved. The same CEO is accountable to shareholders. The warehouse clerk is accountable to his manager. The human resources director is accountable to the employees. Accountability requires that someone has a stake in whether or not the desired result is achieved.

In fact, the person who is responsible for the result also must have a stake in achieving the outcome. There must be a consequence – positive or negative – based on whether or not the outcome is achieved.

The basic definition of accountability, then is:

Accountability is a promise to yourself and others to deliver specific, defined results, with consequences.

The process for assigning accountability asks four questions. Answer the questions within the following guidelines.

Accountable for what?
Accountability starts with an outcome, a result that needs to be accomplished. It is important to distinguish between responsibility for activities and accountability for results. Micro-managers define the activities that are expected and then hold employees responsible for performing those activities. However, accountability for results requires room for judgment and decision-making. Someone can’t be accountable for an end result if someone else tells him what to do and how to do it. Ultimately, it is the end result that forms the expectation upon which accountability is based.

Who is accountable?
Next, assign who holds the responsibility for the result. Ultimately, accountability is not shared. A manager who has taken on responsibility for a result may delegate that responsibility to an employee, however the manager does not give up the accountability for that result, nor does she truly share the accountability with that employee, since they are accountable to different people.

Accountable to whom?
Everyone is accountable first to himself. The result must be achieved within the scope of one’s own personal values, ethics and abilities.

Identify the party or parties who have a stake in the outcome. If there is more than one stakeholder, determine if the expected outcomes are the same. If the expectations are different, then an agreement should be made between the stakeholders on how those outcomes are related.

What are the consequences?
Accountability is meaningless without consequences, positive or negative. The concept of holding someone accountable comes in here. If someone accomplishes the results they promised to achieve, then he should be recognized for that. If someone misses his target, then he should at best not receive the recognition, and at worst he should be penalized. It is important to define the consequence up front.

Accountability is not conditional. Accepting unconditional responsibility means there are no excuses and no one to blame, even if events are beyond one’s control. Also, accountability for results means activities are not enough. It is not enough to execute activities perfectly if the desired outcome is not achieved. If people receive the expected reward for trying hard, then accountability will not work. If the organization wants to reward risk-taking or trying hard, then it should be done outside of the original accountability agreement.

How accountability is assigned and followed up in your organization defines how results-oriented your organization is. Explicitly defining accountability and setting clear guidelines for holding people accountable can go a long way toward achieving results.

If you enjoyed this article, you may also like:

• How to Get Beyond Leadership Buy-in
• Eight Fundamental Ingredients of a Successful Change Initiative
• Four Ways to Boost Your Organizational Power