How to implement innovation was the topic of the day for us at Liquid Learning'sTertiary Education Teaching and Learning Innovation Conference 2013.
I was fully stoked to have a group of about 30 switched-on, participative and smart people taking part. Wish you all every success in using the tips 'n' tools from today's session to Make Some SHIFT Happen!
Here's a reminder of the highlights from today's talk:
And here's a link to the paper that I'd offered with a more in-depth exploration of using the HOW to bring people along on your project implementation and innovative practices: People Engagement That Works
If you enjoyed today's session and want to keep in touch I'd be delighted to connect with you on LinkedIn.
And there's a tmconsultancy page on facebook - pop by and give it a like, if you like!
Four years ago I penned my first post to launch both this blog and my journey here in Australia, re-establishing the consulting business I'd successfully run in London and before that in Montreal.
I'm very grateful that during the past four years I've had the chance to work with some great companies, make so many connections with terrific people, learn a lot and spread the word about how bringing out the best in your people produces better results, faster, with longer-lasting impact.
Who knows what the next four years will have in store... for the moment, to mark this anniversary I'll be diving into the archives over the next few weeks to find some of the best and well-discussed posts, which I'll repost with updated content and insights.
I'll also begin sharing details of the project that I'll launch in 2012 to increasingly be the vehicle for my work, building a community and a movement around the concept of promoting Positive Change.
So as usual, watch this space - to make that a little easier, subscribe to this blog! Just enter your email address in the "Get blog updates sent to your email" box in the top-right side of this page, Or, you can click on the "Get blog updates by RSS feed" button (Wondering how RSS works? Watch this video.) That way you can be sure to hear about upcoming posts as they're published.
Celebrating Story: Bringing People and Work to Life
My friends at Babelfish Group have once again organized a two-day conference this 7th-8th October in Melbourne to explore the use of story and narrative approaches to change across the areas of business, government and community.
Happening in Melbourne, 07-08 October 2010
At last year's inaugural conference I ran an interactive session called"Shifting the narrative in organizations - why change is NOT like riding a bike" that covered some the brain-based aspects of story, narrative and meaning-making - particularly the neuroscientific reasons why it's so challenging to shift people's narrative in organizations and why change programs often fall apart or fail to take hold as a result (see the full workshop write-up here).
I really enjoyed people's active participation and discussion, the other workshops I attended were interesting and engaging and of course it was great to meet - and talk! - with other participants.
The program for 2010 looks to be equally diverse and rich with potential insights, so I encourage you to check it out! In addition, this year's conference will once again feature the work of Melbourne Playback Theatre and you can get to know your fellow participants in advance join the Ning community.
For full details and to register, check out the Celebrating Story conference brochure and contact conference organizer Andrew Rixon directly at +61 400 352 809.
And tell him Todd sent ya to enjoy a special discount of about 15% off the going rate!
In which your Author makes an impassioned Plea to help people to promote Positive CHANGE and end the trauma-inducing, ineffective practices of traditional "change management".
Change is a funny thing
It's happening all the time, all around us.
The desire to change things for the better awakens creativity and innovation. It inspires and dazzles and delights and stimulates progress, evolution, learning and development.
So how did change become such a traumatic experience for so many people?
In many organizations, "change management" practices often do far more harm than good as they:
cause chaos and reduce productivity without getting the desired results
provoke powerful emotions ("resistance") that are not channeled into useful outcomes
get only short-term compliance and lip-service but not enduring meaningful change
use jargon-filled, confusing messages that aren't matched by real action
concentrate on what's wrong, broken, deficient and the obstacles, barriers, problems
rely on grand change plans that look great on paper but don't account for real people
So what if, instead of these unrealistic and trauma-inducing change practices, there was another way?
Positive CHANGE
In order to make constructive progress towards an outcome that you have identified and want to achieve, it makes good sense to follow the path of least resistance and greatest efficacy. That involves thinking about change in a different way.
Choose positive over negative Highlight what's better, use what's working Appreciate differences Nothing happens 'til the ball is in play Generate possibilities Everyday language
Choose positive over negative
Quite simply: given a certain amount of time available, you are much likely to move closer to your desired outcome if you spend more time discussing what you want than what you don’t want. You have a choice where you put your focus, so focus on what's working (instead of what isn’t) progress (not blame), influence (not control),collaboration (not expert input), resources (not deficits), simplicity (not complication) and practical actions (not problem-definitions).
Highlight what's better, use what's working
Often solutions are right there in front of you, if you only have eyes to see them. Notice the times when things had happened a little better - after all, it makes no sense to focus on what’s absent! Having a “use what's working” attitude means finding what's working well and doing more of it. By default, that gives less energy to the things that aren't working well and moves you more quickly toward positive outcomes.
Appreciate differences
Every new situation is different - beware of ill-fitting theory, don’t come to the party with preconceived notions, instead ask about things that helped in this case and encourage people to do more of that. Also, when tracking progress use the questions “What’s better? What do you notice that's different from last time?" and help make needed course-corrections by asking "What will you do differently next time to get closer to your goal?”
Nothing happens 'til the ball is in play
Whenever people come together to effect change, the real action is in the interaction. It's like a game of tennis - each player has a game-plan in mind, but nothing interesting happens ‘til the ball’s in play - and no one could have predicted what direction things take from there. By addressing the interaction, we avoid focus on which side is the cause, or who is to blame, and instead make good use of the change that's already taking place. People are co-constructing their experience, all day, every day. They are creating all kinds of great things between them - how can you help by collaborating and drawing attention to the ways they do it?
Generate possibilities (past, present and future)
We often think of possibilities only in terms of the future, what about possibilities based on the best of what’s happened in the past and right now, today?
Everyday language
Notice what words are used and how, prefer simple words to avoid misunderstanding
The difference that makes a difference
When you adopt a Positive CHANGE mentality, lots of great things happen.
You find yourself interacting better with other people and can often influence situations more effectively. Conversations lead to progress instead of awkward dead-ends. You're able to have difficult conversations with confidence and resolve differences more successfully. Things that used to trigger your knee-jerk emotional reactions can be put into perspective when you simply ask yourself, "if my objective is positive change, what's the smart move here...?"
So, what's your next smart move? To be sure you hear about the next post in this series on change, click on the "Get blog updates by RSS feed" button or enter your email address in the "Get blog updates sent to your email" box in the top-right side of this page. (Wondering how RSS works? Watch this video.)
Kudos to @Wellcoaches and "Coach Meg" for this little gem I found today. (It's more fun if your speakers are turned on!)
I like the way it briefly and cleverly highlights a couple key concepts about good coaching:
the need to start by defining a solvable problem (one for which you can define a solution in crisp, everyday terms and is subject to your influence)
for you to experience a "growth-promoting relationship" with a coach, you need to be in the driver's seat with the autonomy to feel like you are master of your own fate
along the way, the coach provides different tools to help you explore your options and make choices as you begin to map your personal change journey
a good coach will also offer needed external perspective, reframing your experience and serving as a sounding board for you "think out loud" and test your ideas
if at first you don't succeed...your coach is there to help you rebound and then try something different that's more likely to get you closer to your goals
Just wrapped up the Melbourne Employee Engagement conference and a couple of clear themes emerged:
There's great value to be gained in giving your people access to the senior leaders in your organization - if that's not possible, remember that it's your people managers who will need to carry your engagement efforts.
High salaries and a great safety record only get you so far in engaging your people. If they have to "park their brain at the gate" and get their intrinsic satisfaction (i.e. happiness and real engagement, a.k.a. "flow" experiences) from activities outside work, you've still got your work cut out for you as an organization.
Acquisitions and mergers are a fast way to grow a company and gain needed technology and market share. M&A's attract lots of "bean counters" looking to realize efficiencies...equally important (and too-often forgotten) is the need for people-positive engagement practices. No company ever cut its way to greatness and in the final analysis it's people who make the competitive difference. Great to hear about practical ways to demonstrate the value of the intangible people dimension.
A compelling presentation reminded us all of the power of stories to engage and motivate people. In the same vein, you'll find a tmc-related example of practical application of storytelling in an organizational setting (combined with the solution-focused technique The Affirm) here.
One of my favourite quotes of the conference was from Michael Specht: It's not a social media problem, it's a management problem. If you don't trust your people, if they're already wasting time in other ways, and you give them social media tools - they're just going to go play. Highlights the role of technology as not only an enabler but an accelerator of what's already happening in the organization - hence also an amplifier. If you're disconnected from your people no amount of social media will reverse that trend.
My equally favourite quote of the conference: Change programs [to improve people engagement] are not a sprint. They're a marathon.Enjoyed the insight offered that when leaders and manages fail to communicate using "formal channels," the result is not silence; instead the "informal" communication channels (i.e. the rumour mill) move in to fill the vacuum. For me the interesting question becomes: given that conversations in your organization are happening all the time - what can you do to get positive conversations working for you?
Those are my highlights from the Melbourne conference - tune in next week for an overview of both conferences.
Summary: This second post in the People and the Change Journeyseries tells you how to assess people's level of awareness, involvement and readiness to engage with change. Learn the differences in how Visitors, Complainers and Customers view change and how to "pace" your interactions with each to produce success.
What is "resistance" to change?
One time a senior executive I was coaching recounted how a change initiative had manifestly failed to take root among this team.
Punctuating the end of his story, he threw his hands up and said, "I don't get it! I TOLDthem exactly what I wanted from them. What went wrong??"
I'm not trying to be tough on the guy. Faced with a need for action and urgent deadlines, he was just trying to get his point across ASAP. His choice of technique was, however, not very likely to produce success - a bit like the English-speaking tourist in Paris who SPEAKS EVEN LOUDER when the waiter doesn't understand the food order, or an exhausted mother who screams harder so her child will finally do as it's told.
When you're frustrated it's easy to conclude that the other person is being willfully stupid, rebellious and is intent on resisting you. But what if, like the French-speaking waiter in Paris, the other person literally doesn't understand what you're saying because you each have a widely different view of the situation?
Three views of change: VISITORS, COMPLAINERS, CUSTOMERS
Visitor
Someone who does not see any need for change
A Visitor believes things are fine just as they are and does not recognize that any problem exists. On the surface, Visitors can seem rather naive and may be in denial about the need for change: nope, everything's just fine here, thanks! Their agreeable nature is easy to mistake for engagement, when it may be just compliance, paying lip-service with no real understanding of the situation or what's required and expected of them.
Another class of Visitors are sometimes labelled as lacking in motivation, willingness and desire to cooperate. These employees are largely content to "just show up" and do the minimum required; disengaged and disenchanted staff also fall into this camp: well it's not down to me, is it?
Whichever the class of Visitor you encounter, they are united in one thing. In behavioural terms, Visitors are quite wary of the possibility that they might have to change something about themselves, most often because they simply don't see any reason for such change.
Complainer
Someone with a problem but who does not (yet) feel the desire to take action
Complainers are impossible to miss: they are definitely aware that a problem exists...and seem determined that everyone else should know too. Given half a chance they will describe in excruciating detail just how bad it is, how they are suffering, moan, moan, moan, etc.
When offered suggestions on how to remedy their dire situations, a Complainer will reply: Wellll...I can't do THAT because of X and that other idea won't work either and I tried that already but those stupid people in (insert: accounts, marketing, engineering, senior management) never cooperate...Yes, but I can't...Yeah, but...Yeah, but....Yeaaahhh, BUT!
In behavioural terms, Complainers do not see any need to change their own behaviour. It's always someone or something else's fault and the need for change is located externally to themselves. They are great finger-pointers, masters of the "blame-storm."
What Complainers fundamentally lack is awareness that they themselves need to DO something about the situation they're complaining about. Though they clearly feel frustrated by their difficulties, they aren't (yet) ready to change. They will instead adopt the role of helpless victim. As a result Complainers are often labelled "resistant to change." In fact, they are not so much resistant as powerless: they actually feel they can do nothing, lacking the resources, skills, talents and attributes required to act.
Customer
Someone who knows there is a problem AND is ready to do something about it
Customers for change are a delight to work with. A Customer for change sees there is a need for change, recognizes that he/she has a part to play in it and wants to do something about it. Customers, in short, are ready to roll up their sleeves and get down to creating solutions. You may safely give them direct tasks to complete and have confidence that they will accept the task and will find it useful.
In behavioural terms, Customers are clearly motivated to change their own behavior. They understand what's required of them, know what they want and accept that they need to work to get it.
Turning Visitors and Complainers into Customers
As a change agent it's useful to assume that people are doing the best they can with the resources and level of awareness that they have available to them at the time. The Change Journey often involves going to where people are in order to bring them along to where they need to be in order to succeed. To achieve this, try "pacing" people - meeting each different view of change according to its speed of moving forward.
VISITORS - Walking pace
Imagine a Visitor meandering along at an ambling pace with little awareness of any need for change and no urgency. If you meet them with a running pace and urge them to move faster, they're likely to ask, "Why?! What's the rush...?" If you grab an arm and try to pull them along to move faster, they're likely to respond by moving even more slowly. So when interacting with Visitors, it pays to remember the old adage: When it comes to people: fast is slow, and slow is fast.
Or put another way, Resistance leads to Persistence: the more you resist accepting the Visitor's reality (moving at a walking pace) the more that person will persist in the behaviour. Rather than being disappointed, impatient or frustrated with Visitors, you'll need to modify your pace and find ways to engage with them at their own speed.
A useful technique is to highlight the strengths and positive characteristics that you notice the Visitor exhibiting. Remembering that your goal is to create an awareness of the need for change, you'll find positive feedback is far more likely to elicit an interested response than will criticism.
COMPLAINERS - Jogging pace
Complainers move faster than Visitors, however they often don't expend that extra energy in productive ways. The goal at this stage is to transition a Complainer into a Customer who knows there's a problem AND that they need to do something about it.
With Visitors your choice of language is important. See if you can reframe the Visitor's complaints about the negatives, barriers and obstacles they face into positive statements about things that they actually want to have happen - as goals for change and requests that can be acted upon. To be clear: do not give a Complainer any tasks to complete. A Complainer's self-concept is often that of helpless, passive victim. The suggestion that he or she should act will often elicit a long explanation of why it's impossible to act, with lots of "Yeah, but" statements.
Rather than telling Complainers they need to act, enable them come to the conclusion for themselves. Use very passive, indirect language, "what needs to happen to improve the situation?" and assign them observation tasks: "what is happening that you want to continue to happen? What else?"
CUSTOMERS - Running (even Sprinting!) pace It's worth mentioning as well that among Visitors and Complainers you may find "hidden Customers." Hidden Customers have goals that they want but may not be well-versed at expressing them or are simply stuck in the rut of avoidance and ineffectual whingeing about their situation. Again, pace yourself to the person's reality and help them to frame a goal that meets their preferences, helping them to become a Customer for change.
People will shift back and forth between the three states of Visitor, Complainer and Customer over time and in different contexts. Working with Customers is the ideal - then your task as change agent is to agree on the race, then point them in the right direction and just get out of their way!
Follow these tips to achieve success with your team and remember that sometimes when it comes to change: slow down in order to speed up!
The people process is more important than either the strategy or operations processes. After all, it's the people of an organization who make judgements about how markets are changing, create strategies based on those judgements and translate the strategies into operational realities. To put it simply and starkly: If you don't get the people process right, you will never fulfill the potential of your business. [p 141]
People and the Change Journey
In a series of posts over the next two weeks I'll share some insights into how you can help people through the Change Journey - by assessing their awareness and readiness to tackle change, their competence to learn new behaviours, and how your interactions with them can set them up for success or cause them to stall out and disengage from the change process. Watch this space!
Summary: 2010 is the UN's International Year of Biodiversity and a great moment to learn from supposedly "dumb" animals, forget our arrogance, and remember our connection to everything that happens around us. Read why thinking holistically will help your organization in 2010 and how, paradoxically, leaders who change as little as possible in what people are doing are more likely to meet with success in their overall change initiatives.
Human beings are profoundly out of touch with the world we live in and that sustains our very existence. We act as though we're above and separate from it. We even act surprised and almost personally offended when natural disasters demonstrate our vulnerability and how dependent we really are on our environment and planet.
Who's the "dumb animal"?
Human beings can be over-fond of the label "unique" as relates to our species. And nowhere is our arrogance better demonstrated than in our attitude towards other animals. Ever since Aristotle put humans at the top of what became the Judeo-Christian "Great Chain of Being" we've regarded ourselves as not just different from all other creatures, but superior.
Consider for a moment that we commonly say bird-brain to describe someone's stupidity or lack of thought. Similarly, we use the word parroting to indicate simply repeating after someone else without understanding what they've said.
Yet this non-primate, non-mammalian creature with a walnut-sized brain learned elements of communication at least as well as a chimp (our nearest animal cousins). And Alex certainly possessed what you would call a personality, as the book repeatedly and hilariously describes.
His obituary in The Economist (no less!) summarized his many accomplishments:
By the end, Alex had the intelligence of a five-year-old child and had yet to reach his full potential. He had a vocabulary of 150 words. He knew the names of 50 objects and could, in addition, describe their colours, shapes and the materials they were made from. He could answer questions about objects' properties, even when he had not seen that particular combination of properties before. He could ask for things—and would reject a proffered item and ask again if it was not what he wanted. He understood, and could discuss, the concepts of “bigger”, “smaller”, “same” and “different”. And he could count up to six, including the number zero (and was grappling with the concept of “seven” when he died). He even knew when and how to apologize if he annoyed Dr Pepperberg or her collaborators.*
Dr Pepperberg summarized Alex's legacy as follows:
Clearly, animals know more than we think, and think a great deal more than we know. Alex taught us that our vanity had blinded us to the true nature of minds, animal and human. [...] Alex taught me to believe that his little bird brain was conscious in some manner, that is, capable of intention. By extrapolation, Alex taught me that we live in a world of thinking, conscious creatures. Not human thinking. Not human consciousness. But not mindless automatons sleepwalking through their lives, either.
How much more disgusting and shameful it is, then, that we treat animals so badly. We have long known of the intelligence of marine mammals, yet Japan secretly slaughters dolphins at Taiji and whales in the Antarctic with its illegal hunting program. Graphic videos of Chinese fur farming and the Canadian seal hunt depict sickening cruelty that can only be inflicted by those with the callous view that animals are things, not thinking, feeling beings.
The Big Picture - it's all connected
The reductionist scientific approach has traditionally sought to understand the world by looking at it from outside, breaking it down into composite parts to see how it works. Despite our arrogance in viewing humans as unique and apart from the world, the work with Alex and other similar research shows that we are not superior to all other creatures and the idea of humans' separateness from the rest of nature is no longer tenable.
Remember the Butterly Effect? This metaphor suggested that small effects in one part of an interconnected ecosystem (say, the movement of a butterfly's wings in Brazil) can produce large effects elsewhere in that system (for example, a tornado in Texas).
Chaos/complexity theory and quantum mechanics have similarly challenged the reductionist scientific view by demonstrating the interdependence of multiple forces and undermining the notion of an objective outside observer.
In short, we are a part of nature, not apart from nature. If we reckon we're the smartest of the animals, it's about time we started acting that way and pay attention to the state of our planet and fellow furry/feathered/fishy residents.
New thinking for the workplace
The lesson in 2010 for people in organizations: think holistically. Changes in one part of an organization will have knock-on and ripple effects elsewhere. Everyone is part of something bigger, and in a company you're all in the same boat - so it makes good sense to communicate with each other to ensure that boat stays afloat and on course.
With change initiatives, some leaders adopt a "change everything" approach to organizational development, seeking radical and widespread change in very short order. These leaders quickly face predictable reactions and resistance. These are the "fight/flight/freeze" responses as follows: with FIGHT people exhibit outright hostility and seek to sabotage the change efforts; FLIGHT means people pay lip-service and seem hyper-compliant but are not engaged and have effectively disconnected from the process; and in FREEZE people are overwhelmed and paralyzed, hoping it will all just go away.
By contrast, there's a positive application of the Butterfly Effect that you can use to your advantage. Since small changes can produce quite large results elsewhere over time, if you can find the right place to make a change it can often create the desired results.
So paradoxically, the leader who changes as little as possible in what people are doing is more likely to meet with success. Small changes are less scary and much less likely to evoke a fight/flight/freeze response. Successfully making a few small changes in key areas will, in turn, actually make a big difference to the organization - and do so without unleashing debilitating anger/insecurity/fear.
To find out more about how tmc can help you identify your key areas ripe for successful small changes, contact me directly.
*-On the subject of parrots, coincidentally over the holidays I also watched the documentary film The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill and was moved by its story of "An uncommon bond between man and nature." A great follow-on to Alex and Me, highly recommended. .
There have been great societies that did not use the wheel, but there have been no societies that did not tell stories. ~ Ursula K. LeGuin
This is a quick update about the two-day Celebrating Story conference happening next Thu-Fri (8-9 October) in Melbourne.
There are still spots available!
Organized by my friends at Babelfish Group, the conference will feature five sets of five parallel sessions (25 sessions in all, plus an Open Space session) to explore the use of story and narrative approaches to change across the areas of business, government and community.
For full details check out the latest conference brochure or contact conference organizer Andrew Rixon directly at +61 400 352 809.
And - tell him Todd sent you!
Shifting the narrative in organizations - why change is NOT like riding a bike
Here's additional information on the session that I'll be presenting at the conference, bright and early on day two (Friday 9AM):
You are invited to a conversation that explores some brain-based aspects of story, narrative and meaning-making. Change invites people to shift their habitual narrative and in most cases provokes a (limbic) survival response, part of the ongoing Battle inside your Brain. The practical challenge is therefore to channel the resulting emotional energy into productive cognitive action and away from reactivity/resistance.
After Todd talks about the latest research in social cognitive neuroscience that explains why it can be so hard to effect behavioural change in organizations and why change programs fail to take hold, we will share an interactive discussion of what works well in practice and what we can do differently to get the results we want.
The best of the session: • Gain insights into the hard science behind the soft skills in the areas of story, narrative and meaning-making • Learn practical ways to help people manage the inevitable emotional reaction to change • Leaders will learn how to communicate in a way that speaks to each person in his/her own "language" and invites people along on the change journey
Hope to see you there - do come up and say hello! .
It turns out that managing "Millennials" (a.k.a. Generation Y) isn't so different from managing everybody else...they're just more forthright in asking for - and in some cases expecting - well-balanced and people-centred management practice.
A 6-step process will help you to manage Gen Y - and everyone else in your team - to get the results you want.
At the risk of generalizing (and with a hat-tip to this useful Fast Company blog post) here are a few popular perceptions about Gen Y attitudes towards the world of work:
Strong parental links (some would say: being fawned and doted upon by Boomer parents) means this cohort is accustomed to having a strong sense of place, origin and position.
They have also been pumped up by their folks to believe they're "special" and can achieve anything. This ego-inflation has been compounded by the "you get a trophy just for participating" ethic in schools and sports, implemented for fear of stigmatizing underachievers. As a result: they expect that same kind of approval from bosses, preferably on a daily basis.
Facility with all sorts of technology that connects people means they have widespread social networks and an ability and willingness to engage in self-expression in any number of online forums (facebook, MySpace, twitter, blogs, You Tube, et al.).
Riding the wave of a boom economy and sheltered from the harsh realities of the world by their over-protective parents, young adults expect, even demand, that their jobs be fun and fulfilling.
Now before this generational portrait starts to look too much like a mob of clueless spoiled-brats and self-esteem junkies who won't deign to set foot in the workplace on anything but their own terms - let's take a step back and look at the long view.
Historically, every new generation has reaped the benefits of what's come before - better tools, improved nutrition and health and (particularly over the past century or so) techniques for developing greater self-knowledge and insight into human behaviour.
Could it be that Gen X and the Boomers are simply envious - both of the ready availability of these advantages and of Gen Y's unwillingness to settle for outdated management practice that's not much advanced from 19th-century Taylorism?
A better way of management
For years now the argument in favour of "soft skills" has been: if you treat people well, they will perform better. Command-and-control management style (a.k.a. scaring the crap out of people) admittedly gets results in the short-term...and over time produces disengagement, dissatisfaction, health problems and burnout - with all the attendant negative effects on performance and results. And forget about using C&C with Gen Y, who will simply walk.
Today the insights of neuroscience and brain research provide the hard science to back up the "soft skills" message. Below is a six-step* management process, one that will meet Gen Y demands for a more engaging management style and that will work equally well with the Gen X-ers and Boomers in your workplace.
In this brief overview I'll simply describe the function of each step. In future posts I'll offer more details on practical application to manage individuals and teams.
STEP 1- ROLE Role starts things off on the right foot by A) establishing a sense of community (with shared values, a code of conduct, and understanding of how the group adds value in a wider context), and B) letting people know how and where each individual fits into the larger group.
Clarify the roles, goals and expectations so that each person's individual efforts are contributing to the group objectives and goals. Build a solid, agreed-upon foundation at the outset to provide an underlying source of enduring continuity in the face of transition, change and even crisis periods to come.
STEP 2 - VOICE Voice is about expression and creativity. People are going to have thoughts and feelings about the content discussed in the previous step. It's therefore vital to now acknowledge the emotional component with dialogue and an environment that promotes the free expression of thoughts and emotional reactions. Something need not be done about every comment that is made, but people must have the chance to say what they think and feel.
Free expression like this may well cause conflict. That's normal and necessary. What is required is an agreed way to deal constructively with such conflict. This step can be quite confronting (Gen Y is not shy about self-expression!) but skip it at your peril: unexpressed emotional reactions do not go away but instead go underground to fester and bubble up in unproductive ways at inopportune moments.
When team members feel secure in freely expressing themselves, emotional reactivity is minimized and the emotional energy can be productively channeled into creative output. The advantage to doing this step well is that expression results in better understanding, clarity, enhanced creativity and group collaboration.
STEP 3 - REWARD Reward is about motivation, action and reward - the drive to achievement that comes from the healthy expression of ego. With the emotional energy released in the previous step now ready to be put to practical use, this step answers the question "what's in it for me?" to tap into the passion and drive of each team member. It is results-focused and promotes action over words, performance over process.
"Fortune favours the bold" could be the motto...which can also mean that people "leap without looking". Therefore when describing goals make clear both the consequences of non-achievement and the benefits of achievement. Frame the task in terms of each person's self-interest - but also how achievement will benefit the team collectively. To keep people on track and productive, phrase performance measures in positive language that motivates, rather than coercive language that triggers emotional reactivity and fearful anxiety. This step is about getting things done, the achievement of aspirations.
STEP 4 - HEART Heart is about empathy, inclusion and relationships. The previous step unleashed each person's self-interested passion and drive for results. Now is the time to ensure there is a personal connection so that internal competition does not tear the team apart.
Being smart about connecting with your people will help foster a sense of belonging for each team member. Active listening helps managers to be aware of both the explicit and implicit messages in what team members are saying, to know when something just doesn't feel right and take action to head off potential trouble before it becomes disruptive. People don't work for companies or money - they work for people. Offering a sense of personal commitment will build authentic relationships between team members, who gladly go the extra mile for you...and for each other.
STEP 5 - HEAD Head is about data, tasks and learning. There's an old saying: "People don't care what you know, until they know that you care." In the previous step you got people to care, now you can apply the strength of those relationships to a strong task-focus.
Get clear on the step-by-step actions, make resources available, allocate them efficiently and leverage them to move forward. Ensure good information flow, analyze data for patterns to apply and exploit. Learn from experience and apply that learning to make necessary changes to strategy on-the-fly. Develop skillsets and expertise through training and encourage curiosity about how things work - and could work even better.
STEP 6 - VISION Vision is about conceptualization, the big-picture and long-term, seeing things as they could be rather than how they are. The previous step's task-focus went right down into the weeds of details and data; now it's time to zoom back up to the 30,000-ft. perspective. Reconnect the purpose and actions of the team to the wider vision of organization and, wider still, to the trends of the industry, economy, regulatory bodies, and marketplace to consider future plans.
This final step has two important components: A) it pulls together and aligns all the previous ones by focusing on a positive future state toward which everyone can strive, and B) by celebrating what's been achieved so far, it sets the stage for reinvention, for a new foundation and the renewal of the 6-step process.
All 6 steps, every time
Regardless of our generational cohort, each of us has a preference for some of the 6 steps over others, whether Role or Reward, Voice or Vision,Heart or Head. This preference means we favour some steps and want to skip over or quickly rush through the others. As a manager, the advantage of following the 6-step format is that it ensures you address the areas that are of greatest interest to each different team member. The result: much higher levels of understanding, quality communication and better team engagement.
To find out more about how tmc works with leaders and their teams to get results by applying the 6-step process just described, send an email today!
On a train journey from Toronto to Montreal one time, a woman from England turned to me and politely inquired, "What's the name of that lake?" I replied, "That's Lake Ontario, one of the five Great Lakes." Over an hour later, our train's route once again took us alongside a vast body of water and she turned to me, wide-eyed, and exclaimed, "Surely that's not the same lake?! It must be absolutely enormous!"
She was right, of course, it is physically enormous (although it's the smallest of the Great Lakes - the largest is more than 4 times the size and nearly 7.5 times its volume) but it's the environmental significance of the Great Lakes that is larger still.
In this Sunday's post I want to highlight a documentary film about the Great Lakes from Canada's National Film Board that I believe is well worth seeing. It's called Waterlife and below is the blurb for the film, plus a link to the interactive website.
No matter where we live, the North American Great Lakes - the last great supply of fresh drinking water on Earth - affect us all. As species of fish disappear and rates of birth defects and cancer rise, it seems something's not quite right with the water....
Fascinating characters tackle the big environmental issues surrounding water and explore the dangers of taking water for granted, in a film which is also an epic cinematic poem for the senses.
Filmed over a year with a variety of specialty cameras and innovative techniques, Waterlife is a documentary experience like no other. Narrated by Gord Downie, lead vocalist of The Tragically Hip, the film feature hypnotic, jaw-dropping imagery and features an ace soundtrack by Sam Roberts, Sufjan Stevens, Sigur Rós, Robbie Robertson and Brian Eno.
Winner Special Jury Award, Hot Docs Film Festival 2009
What's the difference between resistance to change that's driven by emotional reactivity - and resistance that's actually useful feedback?
One of the greatest challenges we all face is to manage our emotional reactions better, so the energy they produce is directed in more useful and productive ways. When we're able to do this, we function better - not just at work but in all our interactions across the board. And chances are we can be more contented in life, equipped to deal with setbacks and celebrate successes.
My previous post was about the nine predictable reactive states that people enter when faced with what their brain's fast emotional limbic system perceives as a threat.
Today I want to expand that concept to talk about how managing those states (in ourselves and in others) can help bring people along on the change journey by enabling them to act in more productive ways. An article in this month's Harvard Business Review offers useful context to this discussion. The following excerpt is quoted from Jeffrey D. Ford and Laurie W. Ford's "Decoding Resistance to Change - Strong leaders can hear and learn from their critics" (added emphasis is mine, numbers added for reference and addressed in order below).
When change initiatives run aground—as they so often do—change agents can be quick to point a finger at the people who never got on board. The assumption is that they resisted a perfectly logical move, so it fell apart.
However, blaming resisters not only is pointless but can actually lead to destructive managerial behaviors. When managers perceive resistance as a threat, they may become competitive, defensive, or uncommunicative. They are sometimes so concerned with being right—and not looking bad—that they lose sight of their original goals (3). In stubbornly pushing things through without understanding the resistance, they sacrifice goodwill, put valuable relationships in jeopardy, and squander the opportunity to engage skeptics in service of a better plan. They don’t hear about missing pieces and faulty assumptions. And, in true us-versus-them fashion, they presume that only the other folks—the resisters—need to alter their behavior and that the change would succeed if not for the resisters’ irrational and self-serving actions.
It’s true that resistance can be irrational and self-serving (2). But like it or not, it is an important form of feedback. Dismissing it robs you of a powerful tool as you implement change. It takes a strong leader to step up and engage when a change effort meets with pushback. If you can gain perspective by paying attention to, understanding, and learning from behaviors you perceive as threatening (1), you will ultimately deliver better results.
Taking these highlighted parts in the numeric order I've assigned:
(1) The lattermost comment makes the useful point that reactive behaviour can easily provoke reactive behaviour and produce an escalating emotional chain reaction that undermines any chance at a productive outcome. Leaders of a change initiative therefore need to carefully monitor their own reaction to the (potentially hostile) behaviour of team members. Unmanaged, such a reactive spiral may throw the leader off kilter just at the moment when clear thinking and a level head are most urgently needed.
(2) Yes these strongly emotional reactions are irrational and self-serving - and, I would add, for good reason! They are irrational because they're driven by the emotional limbic brain, not the rational neocortex, and furthermore are geared the the ultimate self-serving purpose: one's own survival. Leaders should therefore not be surprised that emotion-fuelled resistance is both tenacious and enduring.
(3) So what would it look like if that powerful emotion-fuelled response was channelled into more productive, rational responses? And what might those responses look like?
Taking the second question first, in a team setting these more productive, rational responses take the form of eight key team roles:
Explorer / Motivator
Inspirational Coach / Facilitator
Promoter / Strategist
Practical Problem Solver
Creative Change Agent
Visionary Planner
Auditor / Organizer
Driver / Completer
Limbic vs. Rational - Reactive vs. Productive
Now how can you tell if someone is being, to put it bluntly, a pain in the ass, or is genuinely engaged in the role of "practical problem solver"? Well, it pays to be able to identify whether that person is being emotionally reactive or rationally productive.
In other words, are they working from their emotional limbic brain response or from their cognitive, rational brain.
Here the comment I've numbered (3) about people who are "so concerned with being right" is instructive. When you find yourself absolutely convinced that you are right about something, there's an excellent chance you're operating from a limbic space.
This is because the limbic brain's function (to ensure your survival) dictates that it must act fast - that is to say, before all the facts are considered. This makes sense: if you stopped to take a long look at the thing that might just be a snake and it turned out in fact to be a snake, it could well have bitten you and you'd be dead before you could say, "My word! Is that a...eurk!!"
Clearly in these situations there's not a lot of room for considering alternatives and taking the time to be open to different points of view. What this looks like in an interpersonal conflict situation is there are one or more people's limbic brains screaming at them (via hormones and neurotransmitters), "Your survival is at stake! This needs to happen MY way, Right Now!!"
Does that sound like any conversation you've been involved in recently...?
The rational brain, meanwhile, evolved later and makes up the majority of our grey matter. It's the bit that distinguishes we humans from other creatures and does the tremendous cognitive heavy-lifting - the sort that allows for playing the violin, designing hybrid cars, calculating your tax return, and thinking of clever things to say in 140 characters of less on twitter. :)
By design, then, the limbic response is the classic knee-jerk reaction - act first, then consider.
Meanwhile, the rational brain is capable of weighing options and alternatives, gathering data and information - consider first, then act.
How this applies to "resistance to change"
Having made this distinction between the two sorts of behaviour (and the associated forms of resistance to change - i.e. reactive vs. productive) I hasten to add: there's no point trying to disconnect the emotional reaction to change. It WILL happen, no matter any leader's well-meaning efforts at avoidance and minimization.
The change leader's task is therefore as follows: (1) First and foremost: manage your own reaction. Like the air hosties tell you, make sure your own oxygen mask is in place before you attempt to engage with others.
(2) Assess the most likely limbic responses of the members in your team and incorporate active measures to address the underlying survival concerns that produce these fight-flight-freeze limbic responses.
(3) Their knee-jerk reactions thus calmed, team members are now better placed to activate their rational brains and channel that emotional energy into productive action.
NB - the bonus step: engage in a facilitated process to help identify team members' particular talents. Everyone can naturally manifest at least two of the eight roles listed above - and when you have all eight covered, your team's extremely well placed to achieve extraordinary results.
tmconsultancy offers focused training programs to help you identify the emotional reactive behaviour patterns and the productive rational styles that manifest in every team. To find out more, email me.
Last week's Inauguration address by President Obama once again showcased his extraordinary speaking talents. My impression is that the delivery of his speech deftly weaved together the threads of Presidents Kennedy and Clinton, of Lincoln and Martin Luther King Jr., and reaffirmed the role we have come to see as a cornerstone of his identity: statesman and orator.
Yet this time, there was something more. It was his moment to offer a first glimpse of the course he intends to set for the world's most powerful nation over the next four years. He's given us the agenda that will drive his behaviour as President and that will guide the staff of his administration.
NeuroPower Leadership: the Compassionate Leader
I've written previously that Obama is frequently able to embody what within the NeuroPower framework (as developed by author and strategist Peter Burow) is called a NeuroPower Leader.
Specifically, he is able to manifest the characteristics of what is termed the Compassionate Leader, which is the result of integrating the two NeuroPower archetypes of Chancellor and Navigator. Before we go on, I'll give you some detail on how NeuroPower suggests these archetypes are formed.
Archetypes and the 6 Intelligence Centres
Each of our individual personalities comprises two archetypes. An archetype is formed through the combination of three of the six thinking functions that NeuroPower suggests make up the majority of our brain's activity.
These six thinking functions (also called Intelligence Centres, or ICs for short) may be grouped in their three respective pairs under the following headings:
Innovation and Vision Logic and Passion Data and Empathy
Note that there isn't a stark divide between each pair, so it's not "Data versus Empathy," rather (following the Jungian conception of behaviour) they are the respective endpoints along a continuum of possible behaviours.
Master/Mirror Archetype and Integration
As we each tend more toward one or the other end of these three continua, we'll each come to prefer or rely on one set of three thinking functions as our "default" mode of operating. The combination of these three preferred modes of thinking results in our Master archetype. Meanwhile the other three thinking functions that represent our less-preferred ways of operating combine to form our Mirror archetype.
To take President Obama as an example, I would argue that his default mode - that is, the three ICs that he tends to favours in the first instance - are the Innovation, Passion and Empathy ICs. The archetype that results when these three are combined is the Chancellorarchetype and, since these are his preferred three ICs, the Chancellor is his Master archetype profile. The corresponding three ICs (Vision, Logic and Data respectively) therefore combine to form the Navigator archetype and this is his Mirror archetype profile.
The two key concepts to grasp here are that:
We all have access to all six of these thinking functions or Intelligence Centres. Reintegrating your Master profile (made up of your "preferred" three ICs) and your Mirror profile (made up of the other three ICs) is the central developmental challenge each of us faces in our efforts to express our fullest capacity as people - hence that's also the primary developmental focus of the NeuroPower framework.
The Master profile tells us what we want out of life, the Mirror profile reminds us of what we need. How this plays out is that our Master archetype forms our self-identity (i.e. where we place our focus and how we communicate with others; to that degree it also determines how others view and value us as individuals) while the Mirror archetype influences our behaviour.*
Up to the Inauguration we've seen a good deal of Obama's Master archetype, the Chancellor, and this has determined our sense of his identity. In this speech we begin to see the integration of his Mirror archetype, the Navigator, and get a sense of how that is likely to guide his behaviour.
Here is the video of his speech and below that are two short descriptions of the Chancellor and Navigator archetypes. I invite you to use these archetypes as a lens through which to view the content and delivery of his message, to see how seamlessly he has integrated the best aspects of each and how he brings them to the service of his purposes.
Chancellors are charming, enthusiastic, energetic and ambitious. They like competition, negotiation, promoting ideas and people and rising to the top. Chancellors are found among some of the most senior leaders and officials in society. They live to work and rise to challenges, particularly those complex people issues that others cannot seem to sort out.
Chancellors are passionate about projects with which they are involved; they are highly adept at getting team members to achieve their respective objectives, each for their own reasons. Indeed they are the ultimate diplomats: they strive to build bridges both externally, between groups and people and internally, within the sometimes conflicted breast of an individual with whom they may be interacting. They are altruistic at heart and dedicated to authenticity and bringing out the best in others.
At their best, Chancellors are genuinely charming, excellent negotiators, diplomatic, strive for esprit de corps to foster high-performing team environments, and have a warmth and kindness about them, even a sort of venerability as they put us in touch with our own better natures.
The Navigator***
A Navigator’s mind is structured and visionary. These traits combine to produce a person with a clear vision and the discipline and structure to achieve it. They are super-dependable and like to be a respected contributor to the community and a pillar of society.
Very emotionally detached, Navigators are inflexible when discussing plans, directions, approaches and logistics. If they are given no advance warning, however, they can cope with flexibility and ambiguity and perform brilliantly ‘on the hop’.
Navigators are very focused when there is a clear vision, executing enormous mind over matter, suppressing unwanted emotions and disciplining themselves and the people around them.
At their best, Navigators are the embodiment of faith, exhibiting complete confidence in the achievement of their goals and never, ever giving up hope. They are protective, almost patriarchal figures. They excel at visionary planning, holding responsibly to the agreed course of action, reaffirming the guiding principles that underlay their plans, and encouraging role excellence in themselves and others. They love to explore and conquer new realms, leading themselves or a group into uncharted territory or experiences - and to do so with honour and respect for others.
Reaffirming the principles of hope
For me, Obama's message was an inspirational reaffirmation of American ideals, principles and the responsibility that comes with power and leadership.
Looking outward to the world and (re)building bridges, he has set his stake in the ground to say clearly and confidently:
...we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals. Our founding fathers faced with perils we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience's sake. And so to all the other peoples and governments who are watching today, from the grandest capitals to the small village where my father was born: know that America is a friend of each nation and every man, woman, and child who seeks a future of peace and dignity, and that we are ready to lead once more. [my emphasis]
Welcome back, America. The world has missed your leadership and your culture's deep, abiding belief in the power that ideas can have in shaping the world. As anthropologist Margaret Mead reminds us:
Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.
TM
*adapted from the NeuroPower handbook, edition 1.0.5 (2008), p 746 **adapted from the NeuroPower handbook, edition 1.0.5 (2008), pp 270-271 ***adapted from the NeuroPower handbook, edition 1.0.5 (2008), pp 364-65, 375, 562
Well what a fun bunch at today's workshop! 
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