Link: http://www.gaian.com

During every change effort, at some point people seem to revert to old ways.   In fact, some cases people never seem to change at all?  I can't count the times I have heard leaders say, "I can't believe that people are still doing that!  We've have already approved the new system and announced the changes!"

Understanding why changes can vanish in the midst of large organizations is a study in human and organization dynamics.  The simple part is that it happens the same way whether it is one person or a thousand.  It gets more complex when you put an organization into the mix.

One way that I like to think of this is that people are always committed.  They are either committed to a desired state, or to a current state.  Most of the people with whom I have worked have been very responsible in doing what they saw as "their job", and delivering to the best of their ability.  This is where leaders often miss.  When we describe a new desired state for the organization, we only create a glimmer of how that will work, and leave all the details to the organization to work out.  In the meantime the work world people experience does not change significantly, and the result is that there is no overall change in the work output.

Organizations are designed to create a focus on a few things.  This is how we build stability and predictability into a group of people.  However, most leaders are not organization designers, and don't understand how this is created.  More importantly, they don't know how organizations are designed to dampen forces for change.  That creates a tendency to miss the actions they need to take to change the focus of an organization.

One rule that I learned early in my career is that if you want to know what an organization is designed to do, look at what it delivers.  All organizations are designed perfectly to do exactly what they are doing.  Simple and straightforward.  If you want it to do something different, you have to change the design.  Now, one more clarification.  This is the organization design, not the org chart.  Over the years, organization reporting structures have been confused with the organization design.  They are not the same, and in fact, need to jointly optimized to deliver the best results.

This is a key skill of our new generation of transformational leaders.  They understand the basic mechanics of creating sustainable change inside of organizations.  You only need to know a few things to do this, and learn subtlety different ways of engaging people.  Once you see it, you'll wonder why you hadn't done it all along.

You can learn more about this in The Ten Tasks of Change (Jossey/Bass:Pfeiffer, 2001) or Inspirational Presence (Morgan James, 2009).

Link: http://www.gaian.com

Link: http://www.gaian.com

Recently one of my past clients told me that his business has encountered a sudden increase in demand. So much so that it exceeded the organizations capacity to deliver. Additionally, the demand is from a different (basically new) market sector than before the downturn, it seems to be sustainable, and it is inexplicable based on what they know about the current market. Additionally, his existing long-standing customer base is still operating on reduced demand, but based on what they think, is expected to return at some point and also deliver some pent-up demand. Sounds good, right?

To complicate this, add that his production capacity is fixed partly by physical capacity, partly by organizational structure (regional focus), partly by organization size and capability, and partly by operating model. Hmmm, starting to sound a bit more complex. Well, let’s add a bit more. His organization is part of a larger corporate structure and he is subject to expectations to support an enterprise direction. The larger organization is not seeing increases in demand, and in fact is still creating pressure to reduce costs and downturn in response to other market and financial factors. To further expand, this leader, and his organization, is accountable for individual and organizational performance as a business unit, and at the same time overall corporate performance at the enterprise level.

His choices are these:

• Respond to demand as possible within the existing structure. Stay opportunistic, allow room to back out, and keep organization costs down. Basically, Stay hunkered down, but do everything possible to capture what is there. The major downside risk here is that he could be missing a new market sector that could vastly increase his business. Someone is going to get it, right?
• Ramp up and take the risk to capture this new market. Major downside risk here is that this might not be sustainable, or he might miss contractually, and he would end up in a high cost situation that is completely off the mark with the enterprise. Additionally, it is possible that demand could return in his existing customer base before expansion plans are completed. He would then not be able to meet demand on existing customer contracts.

Those of us who work in the world of developing leaders are commonly faced with this sort of scenario. Very often the leader wants help in knowing which direction to go and which choice to make. But the real question is, if you were in his situation, what would you do to lead this organization? The test of leadership is in how you create an organization of people who can handle the complex questions and issues on a daily basis, and make real progress towards a common goal, not how well you personally know which choice to make. The most successful leaders focus on the relationships of people who bring together collaborative technical responses, not those who have the answer on their own.

This event offers an opportunity to the business to transform. Every time the environment shifts, organizations have that opportunity. The key to leadership is in creating the organization’s ability to respond rather than being caught in the details of what the response is.

Link: http://www.gaian.com

To those of you who are living through transformations, and especially those who are leading them, here are some thoughts directly to you. Real transformation means that we change the rules of how we engage, how we make decisions, and how we do business. Transformation means seeing the world through a different set of lenses and using a different set of responses than we have used before. It is a culture change. Anyone who has spent immersion time in another culture knows the feeling of uncertainty associated with not really understanding all of the unspoken rules and customs that others are exhibiting naturally. I can remember the feelings of outright desperation just in trying to do the most basic tasks of life, like get food, or return safely to my room. I also remember the feeling of stepping back into my own culture, and how I suddenly felt like I entered warp speed of being able to get things done, as I deeply understood how my culture worked. It was like a huge sigh of relief. Times like that make it easy to see the transformation at play.
However, leading a organizational transformation is the opposite side of that scenario. It requires that you change the rules of culture in place, within the same environment where they were learned and perfected, and across all of the people. That is a very different story. The leader of transformation is now the odd one out, even though they are very successful and powerful in their position. It can be lonely and frustration at times.

Creating a new culture is an experiment in which you only have an idea of what your desired state is like. Because of this, there is a lot of uncertainty in how people actually behave. You see, culture is a shared social construct. It is a complicated set of interactions that exist in the subconscious mind of each of us. In fact, it is often so deeply buried that people don't even know they are using it. Because of that, the only way that we can understand culture is to literally pull it up and work with it though dialogues. These can be in person (best) or virtual, as long as people actually engage the underlying reasons that drive their behaviors.

So here are some things to remember that may make it easier.

* Even the people who lead a transformation only have a partial idea of what the end result will look like. This can be a real issue for some, as many people want certainty and definitive answers.
* In order to make the change fully, you have to disrupt the old patterns of thinking. In learning theory, these are called "deconstructive events". The brain is amazingly efficient, and will continue to deliver the old culture until it is rewired to the new.
* The hardest group to work with in transformation (and often the biggest) are those who really support the notion, believe they are working in alignment, and all the while do not get what the change really means. They often look at it and say "Right! Great! Love it! Been doing it for years! We'll just keep doing what we've been doing!"
* Because of these issues, here are some things you can do to live through this.
* Stay open and curious about how the desired state will look.
* Spend time in conversation with people who are really open to the ideas of the change and are willing to explore and offer different perspectives. These people are often outside of the system you are trying to change.
* Be simple and sparing in defining new behaviors and metrics for you transformation. Think of them as experiments that help to define the new system. They will become more clear as the change emerges.
* Take it one day at a time and trust the process of collective learning.

Now, one more specific message. Some people are placed abruptly in the role of leading a transformation before they have had an opportunity to have any of the experience of deeply understanding the cultural intent. These people have to simultaneously learn, plan, and act. What a challenge! The balance in that role is having enough structure to keep movement towards the desired state and enough openness to keep learning and developing. It is in diligently insisting that the organization learns what the change means and is enabled to live it out. It is very easy for organizations to pass off the work of change to one person. Unfortunately, that is a recipe for failure. A person leading transformation is responsible to the organization for keeping the conversation and the process of change going. These leaders stand for the process, and ensure that the organization delivers.

Transformation takes consistent intents and focused energy. To those leading, it can seem isolating and at times futile. The last suggestion I have for you today is to remember to notice the small things that happen, and ensure that they feel like the big victories that they really are. Stay focused on the goal, stay optimistic, and you will get there. If you'd like more ideas, feel free to give me a call.

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Link: http://www.gaian.com

Last weekend I opened my news page and noticed two different headlines for the same event listed side-by-side. Here’s what they said.

Headline 1: Philippines ferry passengers rescued
Headline 2: Philippine Ferry Sinks; Five Dead, 63 Still Missing

I looked at both articles and found that they both presented the same descriptions of the facts, but each had a decidedly different slant on the story. The first one described the events, and talked about what things contributed to being able to rescue over 900 passengers from the sinking ferry. The second focused on the tragedy of the event, the loss of lives, and the uncertain fate of those who were still missing. I noticed after reading the first, I felt thankful for the people who used their time and energy to rescue others. After reading the second, I felt more sad and depressed. Interesting comparison as to how the same events can be cast into a different story just by the headline you choose to place on it. I also wonder how each story might impact a reader’s likelihood to ride a ferry in the future. My hypothesis is that the disaster story might reduce the likelihood more than the story of rescues, even though both versions talk about the loss of life.

Each of us has some story about what we are trying to accomplish, particularly if working in some sort of change effort. How do you cast it? In leadership, there is a difference between leading from inspiration and leading from desperation. Marketers will tell you that bad news sells. However, they are trying to sell the medium, not the message. In leadership and change, the message is the medium, and vice-versa. Given that opportunity, what headline do you want to place on your special story?

In the Tasks of Change, Chuck Schaefer used “Appreciating the Situation” as the heading for Task One. He meant it in the sense of building a thorough understanding of all the aspects of a given situation. That meant the positive and the negative, the full description of things that are going on. As a leader, you are not out to spin the story so that things only look and feel good or to minimize the negatives. You are there to build understanding and a compelling direction for people to go. Your headline needs to align with the spirit of that direction. The most successful stories for change outline all of the facts of the current state. This is coupled with a compelling desired state, and is headlined in a way that speaks to the value set of the population.