Change Management - Executive Workshop for Hong Kong McGill University Alumni

This week I had a great time with an intimate group of my fellow McGill University Alumni at an after-work networking drinks session in Hong Kong.

I gave a short talk on the subject of Change Management at the invitation of Alvin Chung, Director of the McGill University Hong Kong & China office and the venue was the boardroom of Ascent Partners generously made available for our use by Ascent CEO Simon Mak.

The talk was well-received, with a lively discussion about the What, Why and especially the How of making change happen in organizations. I was particularly impressed by the willingness of the people in the room to share their stories, experiences and insights with each other. Many of the attendees took away practical actions and next steps from the conversation to try out in the coming days, which is always a gratifying outcome.

Equally gratifying was the chance to enjoy a fabulous tapas dinner with Alvin, Simon and Andrew Work, Executive Director of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong - which I learned is the largest Canadian business association outside Canada. I'm already looking forward to my next visit!

Chair of Change Comms & Dialogue Conference in Sydney

What does it take to create employee engagement, promote dialogue, enhance communication, and achieve sustainable change? Find out at next week's Change Communication and Dialogue Development conference in Sydney.

Next Wednesday and Thursday (08-09 September) speakers from organizations as diverse as Sanofi-Aventis, Energy Australia, Bankwest, Australia Post, ANZ, Microsoft Australia, Kraft Foods ANZ, NAB, Sydney Water, and Suncorp will share their stories and practical tips at the Change Communication and Dialogue Development conference, being held this year at the Citigate Central Hotel.

I'll attend both days and will be Chair for Day Two of the event. Be sure to ask about the special promotion that tmc is offering to conference participants!

How to promote Positive CHANGE

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.)

Story conference: habits, corporate culture & stories for change

Summary: An article based on content presented at the Celebrating Story conference held last week in Melbourne, Australia. The post talks about how individual habits form, how organizational habits are the corporate culture or "the way we do things around here" and how, during culture change projects, stories can be used to mediate the tension between individual survival responses and participation in the larger (organizational) group.
NB: This post is an abridged version of an article on transformational culture change in organizations due to be available later this month - to request a copy of the article upon its publication, email the author.

Habits are handy

Remember when you first learned how to drive a car or ride a bike?

In the beginning it took a whole lot of conscious, focused attention to learn this new task. Quite soon, though, the movements needed for that activity became more or less automatic. So much so, that sometimes you (like most people) will drive somewhere you've been to many times before and, upon arrival, have no recollection at all of having made the trip.

Similarly, if you try to explain in words to someone how to ride a bike, it's a really hard thing to do. Your long repetition of bike-riding behaviour has turned it into a habit and actually put it outside your conscious awareness, into an automatic set of movements.

The mechanics behind this process work like this. When you first sat astride that bike or buckled up in the driver's seat of a car you engaged in some pretty serious and focused attention, so as not to either scuff your knees or wrap your dad's car around a tree. At times like this, you're consciously engaging your cortical brain - that's the part which engages in complex tasks by weighing different options, considering evidence and laying down the new neural pathways required for learning and skill acquisition.

This is the "heavy-lifting" part of your brain; a processing powerhouse, the possession of which separates we humans from other species. It's hugely expensive to operate in caloric energy terms: it takes about 25-30% of the body's available energy to engage in sustained cognitive activity, like that required to learn a new complex task. That's why after a long period of intense concentration like studying for a test you're exhausted. Even though you were not very physically active, you probably demolished a big meal soon after and had a nice long sleep.

In order to manage your body's resources most efficiently the brain automates as many cognitive activities as possible. New learning is swiftly turned into automatic patterns of behaviour. They become habits and, as you have probably experienced, they can be very tricky things to try to change. As they become simply "the way you do things," they drop out of your conscious awareness. You find you have "imperfect introspective access" to your habits, making them hard to shift and a very powerful force for the maintenance of the status quo.


Vive la différence

Eating the same evening meal day in, day out can be comforting habit. It's efficient, no thought is required and it probably saves time and effort that you can expend on other things.

However, it also means you'll miss other experiences and culinary opportunities. It leaves you exposed if the ingredients for your favourite meal are suddenly unavailable. Your body may rebel against this monotony and develop an intolerance for some of the foods. The point is: the efficiencies that habits can bring can also stand in the way of the flexibility needed to adapt to internal and outside changes.


Organizational habits: Corporate Culture

A similar process happens on a wider scale in organizations. They can be said to have "habits" too, ones that, taken together, form the corporate culture - a concept that is most often described simply as "the way we do things around here". Corporate culture can therefore also be a powerful force for the maintenance of the status quo and, as with the dinner example above, most of the time that's OK.

However for an organization to be flexibly adaptable (e.g. for the organization to move from where it is now to where it needs to be in order to deliver on its strategic goals) many of the habitual patterns wrapped up in the corporate culture will need to change as well.

Now mention “corporate culture” to people in an organization and most will return a blank look, an uncertain smile, or a tentative nod. Having a conversation about culture is a bit like trying to talk to a fish about water - the awareness level is just not very high, because everyone is so completely immersed in the culture.

Any organizational change initiative will very quickly run smack into habitual, automatic patterns of behaviour. The way that people are invited to take part in that change process will therefore determine from the very start how successful the shift will be, and what results will be achieved as the new strategy is executed.


Change can unbalance "The Battle inside your Brain"

Since the habits of corporate culture are powerful forces to maintain the status quo, you need equally powerful countervailing efforts to shift these habits. The thorny question is: will making a powerful case for culture change encourage people to rationally evaluate new ways of operating using their cortical brain networks, or will it represent a source of disruption, insecurity and distress that's seen as a threat and triggers a limbic survival response in each individual?

The way that a change initiative is launched and managed will determine how well you set people up to be on the productive side of The Battle inside their Brain.

Remember that the limbic emotional brain network is where you see the classic knee-jerk reaction - act first, then consider - as it makes decisions first, then seeks justification (or rationalization) for the decision after the fact.

Meanwhile the cortical rational brain network is built to weighing options and alternatives, gathering data and information and then make decisions based on careful analysis and thoughtful debate - consider first, then act. It's in this latter part of the brain that our better nature and true talents as functional adults is located. During a change, you want people to be spending lots of time there and as little time as possible in their limbic survival mode.

What's tricky is that the limbic survival reaction produces powerful emotions and reacts faster than the cortical rational brain. Here's why.


Survival strategies and the Individual

When any change happens in their environment, people will have an immediate response at a very basic level of the brain, the limbic system.

This is a survival response and one that is deeply hardwired - essentially it provides the motivation to focus your attention and assess the situation that you now face in terms of what threats may be present and whether there's action that needs to be taken to ensure your survival.

These survival responses are made up of something that you've no doubt heard of before: the "3 F's" of fight-flight-freeze response.

The limbic system is much older in evolutionary terms than the larger cortical brain, which means that these emotionally-fuelled fight-flight-freeze reactions happen even before we’re consciously aware of them. Now, these reactions have to be fast or they wouldn't be of much use to keep you alive in threatening situations where instant action is required.

The price you pay for the limbic system's speed is that it bypasses the rational cortical brain. Because your rational cortical brain is the part which enables you to consider evidence, weigh alternatives and make well-thought-through decisions, it means that pre-cortical, unconscious reactions can produce some really dumb decisions. Also because the limbic system is a critical part of our age-old, hardwired survival mechanism there's no way to "turn it off". That is to say, you can't NOT have a reaction to things.

The question is, what you do with the emotional energy that results.

Managing this energy requires that people know their most frequent survival strategy: fight-flight-freeze. To use less provocative terms, think of them as gears that you switch depending on whether you need to go forward, reverse, or just be in neutral.

• Forward (fight) is all about action, but it can't be your only survival mode; faced with something bigger and toothier than we are, it makes sense to have other reactions to fall back on.
• Reverse gear (flight) is the withdrawal mode, where you disengage to observe the surroundings for signs of danger and decide whether to re-engage or flee still further.
• Neutral (freeze) in this context is the in-between mode, staying put and being mostly non-threatening and compliant.

These reactions are reactive, not thoughtful. Fighters will unthinkingly attack a change initiative, Fleers will unthinkingly withdraw either mentally or sometimes even physically from the environment, while Freezers will unthinkingly agree and be compliant, but not have any capacity for real engagement with the change.

People in survival mode are in a emotionally high-strung state of limbic lock-down. They will be barely functional as rational adult individuals and even less inclined to participate in groups. Since each person's limbic behaviour tends to trigger a limbic response in others, teams devolve into an animalistic battle of each-against-all.

As each person's limbic response ricochets and intensifies that of others, the group's level of emotional reactivity rises and other team members come to be viewed one of two ways: as competition or food. In such a setting change becomes impossible and people long for the safety and familiarity of habitual patterns - hence why so often a few months after a change is introduced, people revert back to pre-change behaviour patterns.


We live in tribes and tell stories

This may all sound quite grim, a bit like an organizational Lord of the Flies (a.k.a. The Apprentice TV series). Thankfully, two characteristics of human beings offer a way to mediate this state of high tension between individual survival and group participation: 1) we are inherently social animals and 2) we are meaning-making machines.

1) Our social brains. There's something called the default mode network in the brain, which is "what the brain does when it is doing nothing in particular" and involves primarily two areas of the brain.

Researchers don’t agree on all the components of the default network, but consensus is growing that it has two major hubs: the posterior cingulate cortex, or PCC, with the precuneus, and the medial prefrontal cortex. The functions ascribed to those two areas may give clues to what the default network is good for. The medial prefrontal cortex is involved in imagining, thinking about yourself and “theory of mind,” which encompasses the ability to figure out what others think, feel or believe and to recognize that other people have different thoughts, feelings and beliefs from you. The precuneus and PCC are involved in pulling personal memories from the brain’s archives, visualizing yourself doing various activities and describing yourself. [...] Together, these hubs give you a sense of who you are. Their prominence in the network has led some researchers to propose that the function of the default mode is to allow you to internally explore the world and your place in it, so you can plot future actions, including contingency plans for various scenarios you might encounter.*

So it seems that when you're not thinking of anything else, you're thinking about yourself - as defined by your social relationship with others. In other words: as defined through interactions with the group.

2) Stories. A good deal of research has confirmed the human predilection to make characters and narratives out of whatever we see in the world around us. Put simply, we are meaning-making machines. In keeping with the above, it's also interesting to note the role that stories play to promote social cohesion among groups and serve as a valuable method for passing on information. Moreover, stories and narratives play a key role in persuasion: people accept ideas more readily when their minds are in story mode as opposed to when they are in an analytical mind-set.** (Hat-tip Shawn for this article.)


Practical takeaways

God turns you from one feeling to another
And teaches you by means of opposites
So that you will have two wings to fly
Not one. ~ Rumi

Illustration credit: Simon Kneebone, Cartoonist & Illustrator


Our default mode is to define our selves in social terms through relation to others and we tell ourselves stories to make sense of the world around us. We're naturally tribal, storytelling creatures. In this tension of opposites, between the individual's concern for survival and his/her desire to belong to a group, there can be found both the high energy of the emotional limbic survival response and the amazing human capacity for complex thought and meaning-making.

From the very start of a change process, leaders need to use stories and encourage people to channel their emotions into productive behaviours. This can be successfully done in two practical ways:

1. Help individuals to recognize and manage their own limbic emotional reactivity, through awareness of the nine predictable limbic types (see below, Workshop).
2. Engage the group with story, with a narrative journey of change that sets the context, lays out the strategy, invites participation, shows the benefits, engages at an emotional level, outlines the detailed plan, and finally looks forward to positive future state (see below, Consultancy).
   

Are you a slave to your emotions or is your emotional energy serving you?

Workshop: The 9 Survival Strategies - which ones you use and how to put them to work for you (as presented at Melcrum's Strategic Comms conference Sydney, and used by Deutsche Bank, Lloyds TSB Bank, AMP, and other organizations in Australia and the UK).

What's the story of your next organizational culture change project?

Consultancy: To learn more about how tmc helps leaders to effectively engage their teams through times of change, email Todd.



References:
Peter Burow. "The Art & Science of Transformational Leadership."
**Jeremy Hsu. "The Secrets of Storytelling: Why We Love a Good Yarn - Our love for telling tales reveals the workings of the mind," Scientific American Mind, August/September 2008, 46-51.
M.D. Lieberman, D. Schreiber & K.N. Ochsner. "Is Political Cognition like riding a bicycle? How cognitive neuroscience can inform research on political thinking," Political Psychology, 24(4) 2003, 681-704.
*Tina Hesman Saey, "You are who you are by default," Science News, 176(2) July 18th 2009, 16.
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tmc continues to expand and develop - latest update

And now we'll pause for these brief messages...

I've long advised my clients: in a time of change, even if you've nothing to say, you gotta say that there's nothing to say...

Rather than leave the tmc blog to languish, I am writing this post to let readers know that there will be a short interruption in regular posting over the next few weeks, so that the posts that do appear will do so on a more sporadic basis.

Ultimately, the blog will migrate to the soon-to-be-launched tmconsultancy website though it's not yet clear what will happen to the content already posted on this blog and the subscriber list that it's attracted. When those decisions have been made I will be sure to alert subscribers to any changes that will affect them.

In the meantime, a short reading list
To keep your nimble minds occupied, below are links to some recent stories that I've found to be of interest. Who knows, they may yet become blog posts as well but for the moment I offer them for your edification and amusement.

We learn more from success than failure - which supports a central tenet of solution-focused practice: it's important to emphasize when things go well and what people do right instaead of dwelling on what's wrong/barriers/obstacles/blamestorming, etc.: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2009/successes-0729.html

Old folks tend to be happier folks (see the original press release with a link to the research article here) - essentially as people grow older their experiences enable them to put things in perspective and de-dramatize things that might otherwise seem to be a Very Big Deal. This is similar to the process of how we accumulate the consolation prize of old age: wisdom. In a previous post (What are you thinking? Choose Wisely!) I talked about how people tend to become the way they consistently behave, or: momentary states can become enduring personality traits.

Finally, a recent paper by authors at the consultancy McKinsey & Co. entitled The Irrational Side of Change Management is, I think, a laudable effort at explaining why rational change management models fail to grasp the inherent complexity of human behavioural interaction. Or to put it plainly: people ain't machines. They don't have "levers" and "drivers" or even pumps and pistons, though they do have hearts and legs, and are happy to engage the latter if the former aren't (but that's another article). The McKinsey piece works because it acknowledges two systems at work in human decision-making...though rather than "irrational vs. rational" let's substitute emotional limbic and rational cortical - the two systems that run in parallel (or sometimes competitively) in the brain.

OK happy reading and more news as it develops!
(NB: You can also follow me on twitter for occasional updates on tmc doings.)
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Story conference in Melbourne, 8-9 October

Celebrating Story: Approaching Change One Story at a Time

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

Have you a passion or curiosity around story? Are you a coach, facilitator, change consultant, qualitative researcher, narrative therapist, OD professional, manager or leader? Are you interested in celebrating and sharing ways that you have worked with story? Are you interested in learning more on how others have used story and narrative in their work? Are you seeking inspiration and new ways forward?

My friends at Babelfish Group have organized a two-day conference this 8-9 October in Melbourne to explore the use of story and narrative approaches to change across the areas of business, government and community.

I will be there to run an interactive session on 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). Hope to see you there!

To find out more about presentations and other details, check out the conference brochure or contact conference organizer Andrew Rixon directly at +61 400 352 809.

And - tell him Todd sent you!




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Following tmconsultancy on twitter

Thanks for clicking! Here’s what’s on offer.

What you can expect as a tmconsultancy follower on twitter are posts with:

• links to practical and interesting articles and blog posts on (among others) the following topics:

• Positive Change
• human behaviour and interaction
• neuroscience & brain research
• limbic responses
• emotional reactivity
• psychology, philosophy, anthropology
• employee engagement
• negotiation, mediation, facilitation
• persuasion & influence
• creativity & innovation
• coaching
• strategy development & execution
• cross-cultural business
• marketing
• communications
• adult learning principles

• personal status/location updates – esp. while travelling to neat new places
• my own occasional musings, observations, insights or outbursts
• info about worthwhile causes – esp. animal welfare/rehabilitation, habitat protection and educational programs
• retweets, kudos and thanks – to show the love
• and, of course, questions to tap the collective knowledge/wisdom of the twitterverse

Who's Todd anyway?
I’m a Canadian living in Manly, Australia (part of Sydney’s “Northern Beaches”) and I divide my time among Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore, the UK and Canada.

Ich spreche sehr gerne Deutsch, je parle pas mal le français, ik spreek wel Nederlands, estoy aprendiendo lentamente español, och jag förstår lite svensk - so I enjoy connecting with people all over the world.

My non-work interests include surfing, scuba diving, sailing, wildlife, travel, photography, design, film, cooking and learning about wine (especially big Aussie reds...the "hard" way, glass by glass).

What I do
I consult, write and speak about the many aspects of human behaviour and interaction that can help (or hinder) organizations seeking practical business results. For my professional bio check out my LinkedIn profile and, if we share interests, send me an invitation to connect.

Thanks!
tm

Chair of Melcrum's "Change Communication conference" April 2009

Melcrum Australia has asked me to Chair their Change Communication conference to be held on April 1st & 2nd, 2009 in Melbourne.

Billed as an opportunity to "tap into the experience of your peers to learn how to create great change initiatives," the speakers will represent a diverse mix of industries and organizations, including: McDonalds, Microsoft, Qantas Group, Energex, St George Bank, Toyota, and Suncorp, to name just a few.

Some of the benefits of attending include learning how to:

• Understand the psychology of change
• Use innovative techniques to drive change in your organization
• Evaluate the most effective channels for communicating change
• Minimize employee uncertainty and resistance to change
• Encourage employees to use new processes and support new business objectives
• Communicate and deliver a sustained cultural change program

For more details and to register, check out the conference brochure.


Melcrum & tm

I'm happy to say that this opportunity represents the latest instance of a continued and growing association between Melcrum and tm. Over the past year, this association has included acting as Chair of their Employee Engagement conference in Sydney last May and presenting a workshop at their Strategic Communications Management Summit held in Sydney in September.

We are also in talks to produce case studies based on communication-related tm client work using the NeuroPower framework (as developed by author and strategist Peter Burow) and an article or series of articles on the useful connections to be made between neuroscience, brain research, culture change, communications and employee engagement, to potentially appear in Melcrum's bimonthly publication Strategic Communication Management magazine.
TM

What motivates you to grow…?

A colleague of mine once offered a line that’s stuck with me ever since: “In life, most of us turn our fundamental character flaws into careers.”

You may know someone who grew up in a dysfunctional home and later became a social worker, mediator or psychologist (or even a cop) in an effort to bring order and harmony to the world around him or her.

The kid who’s allergic to chlorine becomes a superhuman swimming champion while the painfully shy kid becomes class clown and then an internationally famous comedian and actor.

Or as my talented and insightful friend Andrew once exclaimed: “Sometimes I don’t know why I work in 'change management' – personally, I hate change!!”

Similarly, when I train teams and coach individuals on conflict resolution I often ask: “So…is there anyone here who likes conflict?” I can tell you, not many hands go shooting in the air.

That’s the point at which I feel comfortable admitting that I am frankly terrified of conflict – and that’s precisely why I’ve made a career out of learning about human interaction and offering that expertise in my work training and consulting.

Homeostasis

The human need to achieve homeostasis is hardwired into our brains, and so we strive to compensate for and correct perceived imbalances in ourselves and our surroundings.

In everyday language we have the metaphor of the swinging pendulum to describe how one extreme often produces a movement in the opposite direction. Newtonian physics tells us that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. In philosophical terms, think yin-yang and the eternal dance of counterbalancing opposites.

This tendency can also have pernicious effects, as the drive to compensate tumbles into pathos. Pacifists become militant, right-to-lifers commit murder, communists become fascists. Men of a certain age buy red sportscars or Hummers and women inflate some body parts while deflating or de-wrinkling others.

So how do you know if you’re on the track to a successful career or just kidding yourself?

Motivation and growth

Clearly the compensatory drive behind the quest for homeostasis is a powerful motivator. And as I’ve described above, it also needs a reality check to keep from becoming absurd and overshooting the mark into extreme compensation.

In a previous post I talked about the concepts of change vs. growth. Since then many people have told me how useful they’ve found that distinction, since there’s no quicker way to get someone’s back up than by telling them, “you really need to change,” while by contrast most people are interested in – indeed quite enthusiastic about – personal growth and development.

What I would therefore suggest as a useful corrective is to ask the question, “Am I heading away from something I don’t want, or toward something that I do want?”

"What do you want...?"

Put another way: answering the fundamental question “What do you want?” is a great way to develop insight and ensure you are on the path to positive growth rather than engaging in a dodgy process of resisting change.

This question encourages a frank assessment based on its four component parts:

What – be specific about exactly what you’re after

Do – think of what you do want as opposed to what you don’t; when you state your outcome in the positive it triggers the brain’s creativity and drive

You – ensure that your goal is something that you actually want, not what you think other people think that you should have/do/be

Want – as opposed to what you’d like, if someday maybe it were possible…this needs to be an act and expression of your will if you are going to successfully harness your willpower and motivation to get what you want

I invite you to take a moment today to think about whence you derive your motivation and whether its based on a desire to survive...or to be fully alive. Raw survival is driven by the fight-flight-freeze response of the emotional or limbic brain, while being true to yourself and creating the life that you actually want means you need to tap into everything that is best in yourself.

It's a challenge not everyone is willing to undertake; if you're going to be truly happy in this life, it's one you need seriously to consider.

TM

Joining Mercer M&A – Culture integration, strategic communications & corporate change management

After some months of negotiations and discussion, I am happy to now say that I have taken on an engagement with Mercer’s M&A practice in Australia/New Zealand as principal consultant specialized in cultural integration, strategic communications and corporate change management.

Several factors have made this opportunity an especially attractive one for me: Mercer’s research-based consulting approach, working as part of a global business area and having the chance to apply my knowledge and expertise on a larger scale than what would be possible as an independent consultant.

Thanks to the positive feedback and encouraging commentary that I’ve had about this blog, I plan to continue posting here in order to share the same insights, knowledge and connections that I have enjoyed writing about to date and I hope that it continues to inform and entertain.

TM

What would you rather do: change…or grow?

Last week I posed the following question as a poll: “Imagine you are asked the following question by someone significant in your life - a loved one, girl/boyfriend, spouse, colleague, or your boss: What would you rather do, change...or grow?” With thanks to poll respondents, 80% of people said they preferred the idea of growing to that of changing. Now I’d like to offer a few of my thoughts on this subject below.

You’ve heard the old saying, “people don’t change, not really”? Well, there's good reason why it's true. In neuroscience terms, we are creatures of habit. The parts of the brain that enable us to practice discernment and make complex compare-and-contrast decisions are very energy-hungry. So to free up vital resources, the brain automates as many cognitive processes as possible.

As an example, have you ever arrived at a place you’ve driven to many times, like your workplace or girlfriend’s house, and been totally unable to recall your drive over? That’s because your brain automated the series of actions required to drive there, to the point that you can do the drive with hardly any conscious (energy-consuming) attention. If something unexpected happened of course you’d react, but otherwise you’re largely on autopilot and your brain energy is devoted to other thoughts.

Problem is, sometimes our well-established habits no longer serve us very well. Since it’s futile to do the same thing over and over and expect different results, what’s sometimes required to achieve our desired goals is behaviour that’s different from what we have habitually done.

Now, whether it’s in a relationship or business setting, asking a person to “change” can easily be understood to imply that there is something “wrong” with him or her. On this view, our resistance to change stems from a belief that we’re somehow not “good enough” as we are.

So how can people get to do things differently in order to achieve a different outcome in their lives?

Recently as I struggled with a very troublesome issue and expressed impatience with my own efforts, a friend and mentor said to me, “You know, you’re more powerful than you realize.”

This bit of frank and direct feedback stopped me in my tracks. Notice he did not say, “You know, you really need to change your approach” and proceed to give (mostly unwelcome) advice on how I might go about doing so; rather I experienced this an invitation to tap into resources that I already possessed.

I mention this because one of the central axioms behind the work that I and my associates do with the NeuroPower framework (developed by author and strategist Peter Burow), particularly as it relates to this thorny area of change, is that people aren’t “broken.” This is a profoundly solution-focused and positive view of people that focuses on strengths, resources, skills and attributes – where they are already in evidence and how to bring out more of them in individuals and groups.

With this in mind, we no longer have to insist that people change who they have been up to now. They are not “broken” and must be doing something right to have gotten as far as they have in their lives already.

The value of the “people aren’t broken” approach is that it puts the focus on growing into something that you are already capable of being and in the process learning more about yourself and your interactions.

In other words, this is not about rejecting fundamental parts of oneself, including habits that have been years in the making, in a process of soul-wrenching change; it’s about getting beyond behaviours that no longer serve us well by realizing that we are currently only expressing a small part of our full human capability.

With this I am getting into the task of integrating personality and character - subjects that I touched upon in last Friday’s post and that I’ll surely return to in future posts.

Thanks for coming by, stay tuned for more!
TM

tm adds NeuroPower to consultancy model

Do you ever wonder what makes you tick?

Do you ever muse over what is going on inside your brain that gives you a sense of individuality both intellectually and emotionally?

When you see someone clearly performing at his or her personal best – a charismatic leader, a loving parent or an outstanding athlete – do you wonder: What does that person do differently from everybody else? What drives such people and how do they access resources that seem to give them an almost unlimited confidence and excellence in whatever they are doing?

Well, the good news is that we are beginning to understand the inner workings of the most mysterious organ in the body – the human brain. The application of fMRI brain imaging has provided neurobiologists with new insights into how the mind develops and operates. We are discovering NeuroPower.

NeuroPower is a paradigm-changing system which integrates recent scientific findings on the brain with the latest understanding of developmental psychology.

Intelligence centres in the brain combine to create very clear behavioural patterns associated with various manifestations of adult personality. These six intelligence centres form the basis of everything we communicate and everything we do.

NeuroPower is a profoundly simple, yet profoundly practical means of understanding of yourself and others, making it possible to improve the quality of the interactions you have in all kinds of life situations.

NeuroPower and organizations

toddmontgomery consultancy is pleased to add the NeuroPower framework (developed by author and strategist Peter Burow) to its consultancy toolkit. The NeuroPower learning development approach has practical application to creating strategically aligned high-performance teams and cultures. Broadly speaking, NeuroPower has application to any situation where people are working together and using their brains to achieve some outcome.

Its more specific applications include:

• sales training
• conflict resolution
• problem solving and creativity/innovation
• creating high performance teams
• executive coaching
• team performance coaching
• culture change
• strategic planning
• change management
• organizational transformation

TM

tm helps you get what you want

toddmontgomery consultancy (tmc) is an international consultancy in the areas of organizational change, leadership and people development.

In organizations, the focus is on "the people side of change" - leading people through change situations while effectively managing organizational and interpersonal complexity.

What kind of change?

Changes like mergers and acquisitions (M&As), strategic refocus, business transformation, restructuring, design changes, employee engagement initiatives, corporate culture and brand renewals, internal communication activities and a host of others - at both the organizational and individual level.

How does tmc work with clients? Well, a good indicator is the tmc corporate tagline:

This means working with leaders and teams so they are clear what they want (set the strategy and develop the vision). Then, based on what comes out of that, helping them define the things they need to do (individually and as a team) to get what they want. 

Together we diagnose, develop and deliver a program that helps leaders find practical, sustainable ways to get the best out of each individual team member. Particular focus is placed on effective communications, emotional self-management, integrating diverse talents and particular strengths within the team, and learning how to identify and positively influence patterns of behaviour in oneself and others.

Helping you achieve and sustain practical results
 
The work doesn't end there! In the next stage of our collaboration, tmc acts in an advisory role to offer guidance and assistance with the implementation - a key component of which is finding ways to embed change competencies in the organization to sustain the change in the long term.

The methodologies used to achieve these practical results may include: individual consultation, group facilitation, large group process, executive/group/performance coaching, and workshops to enhance skills development across the team. The ultimate objective is to not only develop skills but to create sustained behaviour change (where "behaviour" is simply a skill that is applied in real-life setting) for positive business results.

In larger organizations, internal facilitators and coaches can be certified in a combination of process, systems and group leadership methods to help carry out change initiatives and embed learning in the organization through practical application in the workplace setting.

The end result: a culture of engagement with motivated teams of people who get things done.

The tmc approach is based on the belief that there is no standardized, catch-all method that will suit every client. The focus is instead on responding to your particular reality and "making it fresh" every time - tailored to your reality and most importantly: enjoyable and engaging!

What about individuals?

tmc also helps individuals to identify and "get what they want." Here's how it works.

A short series of conversations help you to identify your desired outcomes and develop a practical action plan to achieve your goals. You'll experience greater clarity, a chance to "think out loud" and ways to use your particular skills, talents and abilities to get the tangible results you want. Each conversation builds on the last to promote accountability, highlight your progress, and encourage you to "have another go" - to go out and learn from each effort, adjusting course until you reach your destination.

To find out how tmc can help you get what you want, contact Todd at:

toddmontgomery
Mobile +61 431 989 434
Email toddm AT toddmontgomery.com.au
Skype ktoddmontgomery