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“Change on a Dime”

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Dime_Reverse_13“In this environment, we have to be able to change on a dime.” If you haven’t said it yourself, you’ve probably heard others saying it.

Whether in our personal lives or our work lives, it is clear that the volume, speed, and complexity of change continues to accelerate. Having the ability to “change on a dime” would clearly put you ahead of the competition in the marketplace, and keep you out “in front of the Joneses” in the neighborhood.

But is “changing on a dime” what you really want to strive for?

In order to answer this question, it’s necessary to look at the constraints that keep us from having–or exercising–this ability now. First and foremost are those things that stabilize our lives day-to-day. At work, we might refer to the organizational culture or the operating paradigm. At home, it is the family routines, lifestyle, or traditions.

I’ve written about these things extensively in past posts, most notably in Anchors, Aweigh. Much of the time, these anchors–whatever form they may take–are operating in the background. They provide us with the stability we need in order to focus on other things. We know which decisions to make on our own, which ones require consultation with others, and which ones are to be made by someone else. We know what behaviors are acceptable, and what behaviors are not. We know how to do what is expected of us, whether as the accountant, the CEO, the spouse, or the parent.

Our anchors, whatever they are, wherever they are, keep us in relative stasis. They keep us, our families, our organizations, and our communities (even our society) generally heading in what has been determined to be “the right direction.” The stronger the connection to any specific anchor, the more tightly it holds us in place.

Changing on a dime–if the change is significant–means changing our relationship to one or more of those tightly bound anchors. It means letting go of who we have been, what we have been doing, how we have been thinking, and becoming a different person or organization “in an instant.”

From this perspective, the best way to “change on a dime” is to be adrift, without anchors. Much like a leaf floating downstream, we can “go with the flow,” bobbing quickly through the rapids, and swirling slowly in the eddies.

Once you put even one anchor down, your ability to change instantly is at risk. It is not as easy to move across the country if you have a family, or own a house (or factory). But, having no anchors leaves us–quite literally–adrift.

Given that we as individuals, as well as our institutions, tend to be strongly anchored, changing intentionally requires us to reflect on our anchors. Which ones do we let go of; which ones do we realign our relationship to; which ones do we sustain? This reflection will slow us down–both as individuals and as organizations–at the same time as it helps us change wisely. And, this reflection, when done well, doesn’t happen “on a dime.”

So if changing on a dime is not, in fact, something to aspire to, how do we better position ourselves to be able to change more rapidly?

I have recently experienced a book that has proven to be a great tool for me in this regard. Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeon is a book that is intended to be experienced, not just read. While the author focuses his writing at the individual level, the lessons he shares can apply to our organizations as well.

Future blogs will, no doubt, contain references to McKeown’s work. For now, let me highlight a few elements that address how we and our institutions can become more quickly adaptable to change.

According to McKeown, the nonessentialist seeks to be all things to all people, engages in the undisciplined pursuit of more, and lives a life that does not satisfy. The essentialist thinks less is better, engages in the disciplined pursuit of less, and lives a life that really matters.

What really matters to you as an individual? What really matters to your organization? What can you not say “No” to without damaging the core of who you are and what you do? Once you know what that is, it is time to begin saying “No” to all those other things whose weight you are carrying. And, it’s time to begin saying “No” to the change opportunities that come your way, but do not move you forward on your essential path.

McKeown’s message is, in some ways, a familiar one. “You can’t be all things to all people” is the popular saying. Jim Collins addressed it with his hedgehog model in Good to Great. Writers, programmers, project managers, designers, and many others learn, “It’s not complete when you can’t put anything else in, it’s complete when you can’t take anything else out.”

Taking this essentialist approach will not enable you to “change on a dime.” But it will free you of many of the anchors that are slowing you down now. And, fewer of the changes that appear on your horizon will warrant a second thought. Those factors alone–knowing what is essential, letting go of unnecessary anchors, and letting nonessential changes pass by–will  significantly increase the speed by which you can change when the essential opportunities present themselves.

What are your thoughts?

 

 

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What’s In Your (Internal) Change Toolkit?

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Picture1When people think about change toolkits, they generally think about things like assessments, guides, white papers, and the like. Those may be important, especially when engaged in organizational change. But that is not what I am talking about here. I am addressing those things that are inside of you and help or hinder you as you navigate change.

In June 1990, I was laid off. It wasn’t the first–or last–time I was out of work. This instance stands out in my mind because of one particular question in a book that I found helpful at the time. The book was Fired for Success. The question was, What do you do like breathing?

What an important question to ask as you think about your change toolkit! What do you do like breathing? What is it that comes so naturally to you that you don’t even know that it is there? What do you do with such unconscious competence that you don’t even see it as a strength?

One challenge of unconscious competence is that you can’t call on it when you need it… Either it works, or it doesn’t. On a bad day, it doesn’t. If you raise it to the level of consciousness, you can intentionally apply it when it is needed.

Below are some of the most significant “tools” in a strong change toolkit. Some you may “do like breathing,” others you may be okay at, and others you may not do at all well. You definitely want to know your strengths, and be prepared to apply them. Use this as a checklist for determining what is in your toolkit, what you need to strengthen, and what you have to add. Remember the old adage, If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

(Note that it doesn’t matter whether the change is personal, organizational, or societal, and it doesn’t matter whether you are leading the change, or are playing another role in its execution, these tools are all important. The list is in alphabetical order.)

Accountable: Whether this is a personal change or a global transformation initiative, if you do not hold yourself personally accountable for how it unfolds–if the organization and/or the people around you do not do likewise–it is unlikely to go well.

Ambiguity: Whatever your change, if it is big, you will be dealing with a great deal of ambiguity. Get used to it. You need incredible clarity on where you are going. You need incredible clarity on how you will know you are making progress, and how you will know when you have achieved success. And along the way, you need the ability to move through ambiguity. If you need “all your ducks in a row,” or to “know what’s waiting around the corner,” undertaking major change is not for you.

Big Picture; Little Details:  You need to be able to see the big picture: Where is the change going? What will the journey be like? What is required to achieve success? How will we know when we have gotten there? And, you need to be able to define (and execute or have executed) all of the infinite number of steps required to successfully complete the change. You can fudge on the little details, if you have people that you can trust to fill in the gaps in your toolkit; if its an organizational change, you should step back from the details so you aren’t micro-managing. If you are in a leadership position, you can’t fudge on the big picture; you have to own that.

Boundaries: Know when to work, and when to step away.

Courage: Big changes are not for the timid; you will be stepping into the unknown over and over again. There are risks, many of which can be mitigated if you “know the patterns” (below); but they are real, and they can be scary!

Decisive: If the change is big, you need to be able to make decisions, and act on them. And, you need to be able to do so even when the information available to you is insufficient.

Hold On; Let Go: If you are to succeed, no matter what the change or what your role, you need to know what to hold onto, and what to let go of. And you need to know when to hold on, and when to let go. (also, see Mistakes)

Know the Patterns: This tool is fundamental to all the rest; in some ways it is “Tool # 1.” There is a clear set of patterns that underlie the human response to change. If you know the patterns, you can apply the other tools to help you successfully navigate your way through them. If you don’t, you are “flying blind.” You have tools, and you may be applying them…but you don’t really understand what is going on.

Mindful: Are you one of those people who remembers getting into the car in the driveway, and then finds yourself parking it at the office? Never assume anything about your change is so routine that you can do it on autopilot; you need to be mindfully attentive every time you touch it.

Mistakes: You will make mistakes along the way. Success requires recognizing them, admitting them (which may need to be a public process in some cases), learning from them, applying the lessons learned, and moving on.

Open to Diverse Perspectives: If you surround yourself with people who see the world through your eyes, they are going to miss the same things you miss. You need to be open to hearing a wide range of perspectives.

Pay the Price: Big change isn’t cheap, no matter what. There are some changes that may not cost a lot of money, but they still require an incredible investment of time, energy, personal power, etc. You cannot avoid paying the price, so it is better to pay it in prevention than in healing.

Reflective: Step back and think about your change periodically. Have things shifted in the environment that require adjustments to the plan, or even to the desired end state? What is going well, and what isn’t? How effectively are you executing your role(s) in the change, and what do you need to do differently?

Reframe: How many lenses do you have in your tool kit? Can you reframe how you see things? Can you reframe them so that others see them differently?

Resilience: How well, and how quickly, can you recalibrate to changes in expectations? For more details, see Resilience Is Critical When Facing Challenge.

Resolve: It may be that this is the best idea you ever had. It may be that you loose sleep every night over it. It may be that you “can’t afford to fail.” All of that may be, but in the absence of resolve, it will fail. Big change means a difficult journey; you will need resolve to get through it successfully.

Story Telling: You need to be able to move people’s hearts, and their guts, not just their heads. All the logic in the world cannot accomplish that. Story telling can.

Teamwork: You can’t do it alone. Even the most personal of changes, if it is major, requires skills and insights beyond what you possess. Day-to-day you may pride yourself on being an independent spirit. At work your people may love you because you protect them at any cost. But when it is time for change, you can’t be independent; you can’t be siloed.

Trust: You are not going to get through big change alone. It’s that simple. Even the most personal of big changes affects–and is affected by–others. You need to be able to trust, and you need to be trustworthy.

What You Need to Hear: Some people surround themselves with others who tell them what they want to hear; to some degree I guess we all like to have cheerleaders. But you also need to seek counsel from those who will tell you what you need to hear, even when you don’t want to hear it.

What do you do like breathing? What else do you have in your change toolkit? Comment below.

 

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Ready? Your Next Big Change Is Coming!

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iStock_000007574711verySmallI almost titled this post Death, Taxes, and Change. When Ben Franklin wrote that “in this world nothing can be said to be certain but death and taxes,” change generally came at a more leisurely pace. There were respites in between. The changes were for the most part far less complex. Though it might not have seemed so for those who were experiencing the changes back then, those were “the good old days.”

For you and me, a year or two from now (or perhaps sooner), today will be “the good old days.” There is another big change heading your way. It may be of your making, or not. It may be on your radar, or not. It may be business-related, or personal, or driven at the societal level. It’s unlikely that it will be the last.

Who knows what it will be. Who knows when it will get here. Who knows how it will disrupt your world, your worldview, your experience of life, of work, of… Who knows what its impact will be.

Get ready.

But how do you get ready for what is coming your way when you don’t know what it is?

That is one of the things that I love about change. As unknown as the change might be, how you respond to it is predictable. How I respond to it is predictable. How those around us respond to it is predictable. As I have written before, it doesn’t matter what the change is; it doesn’t matter where the change is; there are underlying patterns in the human response to change. Some of those patterns lead to success; others lead to failure.

The first thing you do to get ready is to learn those patterns. The good news is that in over four decades of this work, and close to three decades of intentionally learning the patterns, I have never had to “unlearn” any of them. Our understanding gets deeper, and broader. New patterns continue to emerge as we continue to research and experience change. But, even a fundamental understanding of the patterns is better than approaching each change like it is unique. Whatever that next change is that is heading your way, having an understanding of the human response patterns will stand you in good stead.

Next, ensure that those around you know the patterns.Those with whom you work should know them. Those to whom you report should know them. Those who report to you should know them.

But don’t stop there. your family, friends, and others in your communities should have an understanding of them. I am personally beginning to think about how to advocate for “change education” in school curricula. Perhaps your child is her high school valedictorian. She heads off to the Ivy League and suddenly finds herself in the middle of the pack…and unprepared for the change in status she experiences. Or, she is a state All Star in her sport and heads to college on an athletic scholarship only to sustain an injury that ends her ability to compete. Wouldn’t it be great if she knew how to navigate this difficult change journey, instead of being surprised and caught off guard by it? Our children, our families, our friends…none are immune to the disruption of change. Shouldn’t we all lessen the disruption by knowing what that experience will be like, and learning how to successfully navigate it?

Consciously develop your change skills. Understanding is necessary, but not sufficient. You understand that resistance is inevitable, even when people perceive a change as positive…but how do you respond to it? You understand that there is a difference between installing the components of a change and realizing its promised benefits…but how do you deliver realization? You understand that there is a replicable process for building commitment…but are you prepared to adhere to it?

Know that you will not succeed without courage and discipline. If big change were easy, everyone would be making it happen. They aren’t. Whether professional or personal, most big changes just don’t deliver what they have promised. The reasons are both simple to state, and challenging to address. First, those responsible for success don’t understand the underlying patterns. Second, even if they do, they don’t approach the change with the courage and the discipline necessary to do what is necessary, without exception, every time.

Learning the patterns of change doesn’t make you immune to the disruption change will cause in your life. By definition, that is what change does. However, it does decrease the level of that disruption by helping you know what to expect in terms of your own response and the response of others. And, it increases the odds that you will move through the change successfully.

What are you doing to prepare yourself and those around you for the next big change? Comment below.

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How Are You Showing Up?

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white room centeredHow did you show up today? What about yesterday? Is there any reason to expect that you will show up any differently tomorrow?

During change, how you show up makes a difference for the journey, and for the outcome. It makes a difference for you. And, it makes a difference for those who are influenced by you–whether formally or informally–along the way.

Super Hero: The super-hero is often a Type-A. He arrives with all of the answers, with the strength to do whatever it takes, and with no time to waste. If there is any emotion, it is generally anger: anger at mistakes others make (he doesn’t make mistakes); anger at things not going according to plan; anger at counsel he doesn’t want to hear.

Super-Heroes may make good protagonists in film and pulp fiction. They do not make good change leaders or facilitators. If you are engaged in a big change, you are not going to be able to anticipate everything; you won’t have all the answers. Others will make mistakes. So will you. Time is well spent in reflection, thoughtful consideration, and serious dialogue, not constantly racing forward. Sometimes the best advice you can get is absolutely what you wish you weren’t hearing. Real change can generate anger. But it also generates laughter, tears, joy, sorrow…the full gamut of emotions comes into play along the way.

Preacher: The preacher sees the change as affecting the rank-and-file. “You have to change,” she extols every chance she gets. “This isn’t going to work unless you get on board.” “We need you going all out to make the needed changes on time and within budget.”

People listen to preachers. Then, sometimes, they ask questions. They ask, “Don’t you have to change too, Preacher?” They ask, “Is this, ‘Do as I say, not as I do’?”  They ask, “Why does all the change roll downhill?” Big change isn’t just about everyone else. If it’s your change, it has to start with you.

Lackadaisical Leader: She’s sent out the word. This change is really big. It is really important. It is “make or break.” We all need to take it seriously. We all need to keep it at the forefront of our thinking, and our doing. Yes, we have to keep doing what we have been doing. And, we have to do whatever this change demands as well. There is no way around it.

Then she returns to running the business. “People will tell me if there’s a problem,” she thinks. “I get my weekly/bi-weekly/monthly updates; if an emergency pops up in-between, I’m sure I will know about it right away.”

If this change is genuinely important, act that way. Ask questions every time you see someone who is working on executing it. Make it a priority on every phone call, in every email, and on each meeting’s agenda. Know what is going on.

Teammate: He wants everyone to feel like they are part of the decisions, not just part of the execution. He huddles for hours, listening, exploring, questioning, waiting for a decision to emerge. When it doesn’t, he schedules the next huddle.

There is a role for the team in the change. And, there is a role for the leader. As a change leader, you need to listen, explore, and question. You need to seek out the counsel of the best and the brightest. And, you need to lead. You need to make tough decisions. You need to move the change forward.

Charismatic: People will follow her to the ends of the earth. She has that undefinable characteristic about her that draws people in and holds them there. She can lead them to a spectacular success, or to a devastating failure; they’ll follow her anywhere.

Unfortunately, that’s not what you need. Yes, you want people to follow your lead. But you don’t want them to do so blindly. You want them to question, to challenge, to voice their concerns so that you can address them. You want them to point out when you are about to make (or have made) a wrong turn. You want them committed first and foremost to the future, to the successful execution of the change, not to you.

Clearly, there are other ways to show up during change. Some will contribute to a successful journey; some will not. Here are some ways you might consider as you think about how you show up.

  • Courageous
  • Disciplined
  • Focused
  • Committed
  • Reflective
  • Engaged
  • Empathetic
  • In touch
  • Decisive
  • Positive
  • Equanimous
  • Passionate

    What other ways might you consider showing up? Add your thoughts below.

 

 

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Change Isn’t an Intellectual Exercise.

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Picture1Well of course not! Who would think that? After all, falling in love, or falling out of love… The loss of a loved one. Moving to a new home, whether across the city or around the world. A new job. A termination. All have an emotional component to them. They may touch the heart, the gut, the head, or any combination of the three.

Of course change isn’t an intellectual exercise. Who would think that?

Too often, we all do. We fail to recognize and honor the cathartic nature of the changes we are facing, or the changes we are driving into our organizations. If we do acknowledge that there is more than an intellectual component, it is generally about “the others going through the change.” Rarely (especially for men), are we honest about our own emotional roller coaster ride.

This post is not about the psychology behind the failure to acknowledge the need for–and allow–catharsis. That’s outside my area of expertise. What I do want to write about is why acknowledging and allowing catharsis–for ourselves as well as others–is so important.

Let’s go back for a moment to the definition of change that underlies all of my work and my writing. Change: a disruption in expectations. If change is a disruption in expectations, the bigger the disruption, the more challenging the change will be to successfully execute.

If I come to work in the morning and the coffee maker isn’t working, it may drive a change in my routine. I expected to have coffee when I sat down at my desk; now I need to run back out, or place an order to have some coffee delivered, or settle for water. Chances are, the disruption is not gong to last long; I may grumble about it at the water cooler, but even that is not likely in most situations.

On the other hand, what if I arrive back from vacation to find someone else’s name on what was my office door, someone else sitting in what was my Executive High-Back Pneumatic Leather Chair? Unless I’ve been promoted, the disruption is profound, and the reaction most likely visceral.

Why is it so important to–appropriately–address all aspects of that reaction? For the same reason that it is so important for organizational leaders to recognize and allow their own cathartic reaction. For the same reason it is so important for each of us to recognize and allow our own cathartic reaction to the major changes we experience.

It doesn’t matter the catalyst of the change…work or personal, or even societal; it doesn’t matter if you see the change as positive or negative. This is one of the incredible, fascinating things about change. It just matters how big the disruption is. The bigger the change, the more critical addressing the cathartic component of it will be.

For some people, the following is useful to help understand this.

Imagine that what you are letting go of is in a room. Now walk out of that room, and close the door behind you, but don’t let go of the doorknob. Are you able to move forward? It doesn’t matter how many new doors are open in front of you. It doesn’t matter what they offer. If you are unable or unwilling to let go–to experience catharsis–you have no chance of moving forward to those new possibilities.

Why is catharsis necessary to let go?

Whether in a healthy or dysfunctional environment, over time we settle into a set of expectations. We establish a relationship with the elements of the environment: the people; the behaviors; perhaps the sounds, the temperature, the smells. We may deeply engage with it, or find a way of being disconnected even when in its midst. We know the patterns, the pace, the rhythm.

Perhaps it is an environment of our own making. A relationship with a significant other, maybe a family. Or an organization that we have “grown up in,” advancing into a position of authority where we have spent decades shaping it into what it is today. We “know the drill;” it has our best insights, experiences, mistakes, and successes embedded in it.

And now it is going to change. Dramatically.

Letting go of any relationship that has these kinds of roots in us is not an intellectual exercise. Is there an intellectual component? Of course. But there is so much more.

The paradox that makes this so hard for business leaders is that they are called on to destroy that which they have created so that it can survive and thrive. “The old paradigm is dead. Long live the new paradigm.” Those who cannot make this transition–truly change the way in which they relate to the past so that they can fully invest themselves in creating the new–will not succeed. Nor will the change they are trying to drive. There is a reason they are called leaders. If they are unable or unwilling to transform themselves, they cannot lead the transformation of their organizations.

It’s no different for personal change. Often in working with clients who are going through a highly disruptive personal change, we will work to create a ritual of letting go. (I have also done this with a few organizational clients.) They find that they need to mourn the past–even if it contains a long and dysfunctional history–in order to embrace the journey into the future.

Often, the bright promise of the future–personal and/or organizational–offers a compelling pull. But we can only move so far toward it without letting go of what is behind us. And, at the end of the day, that letting go is never easy. If we are to truly let it go, there may be a physical component to what we have to release. It may or may not include a spiritual element. And, in that letting go there will always be catharsis.

What is your experience with catharsis and change? Comment on this blog. Share your experiences.

 

 

 

 

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When It Comes to Change, There Is No Immunity.

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vaccineChange: A Disruption in expectations. You think it’s going to be sunny, and get caught in a rain shower. You plan on retiring from the employer you have been with for twenty years, and find out they are closing their US operations. You are contacted by a recruiter who is asking you to apply for a position that would be a significant promotion.

Change…

What you see as a minor change may be significant to me. What I see as a positive change may be a negative change to you.

Change is an inherent part of life. There is no immunity. Whether it is a personal change or work-related, there are an almost infinite number of adjustments that are made just to maintain the status quo. You spend a little more than you had planned on your children’s back-to-school wardrobe, and cut back for a week or two on the grocery bill. Sales are up for the third quarter, and you treat your sales department to an unexpected night on the town. The old service delivery model is not working as well as it used to, but there is another tweak that can be made to help it last a bit longer. Sometimes the changes are that minor, and sometimes they are transformational.

Change…

Some people will tell you they avoid change as much as possible. Others will tell you that they embrace change.

I am one of the latter, so let me tell you what that really means to me. I look forward to the challenges of change. I look forward to the lessons that I will learn, the growth that I will experience, in going through my own change or guiding another through change. i look forward to the opportunity of sharing my forty years of change experience with others so that they can learn what I know, and I can continue to learn and grow. 

Let me tell you what else it means. I look forward to change selectively…Not coming at me from every direction, not thrust on me unexpectedly by others. I look forward to enough change to keep me challenged, but not so much change that it overwhelms me. I look forward to change when I am able to balance it with stability and equanimity at the same time.

Change…

There is no immunity.

There are, however, inoculations that will help reduce its impact.

First, no matter who initiated the change, don’t allow yourself to be victimized by it. You may not be able to call for the hand to be re-dealt. You can control how you respond to the hand that you get.

Next, learn the patterns of human response to change. Knowing how you and those around you will be responding as you travel through the life cycle of a change gives you back some sense of control. You can be prepared for the response. Perhaps you can even be doing something to accelerate it if doing so will help move the change forward more quickly. Or, you can take steps to mitigate it, if the next step in the pattern (left unaddressed) will disrupt the forward momentum of the change.

As an example of the former, knowing that “experimentation” follows “positive perception” when you are building commitment to a change, you might develop a means for your early adapters to begin to experiment with the new tablets before you roll them out across the organization. As an example of the latter, knowing that resistance is inevitable in the case of major change, and knowing that resistance is driven by either willingness or ability, you may focus early on communicating what will be done to help people develop the skills they will need to succeed with the change.

The third way that you can reduce the disruption of change is to strengthen your own resilience, the resilience of those around you, and–for organizational change–the resilience of those throughout the organization.

Resilience is the ability to re-calibrate to disruptions with minimal impact on your productivity or the quality of the work that you do. In essence, what this means is that the more resilient a person is, the more quickly they can be back to 100%, and the less what they are doing will suffer in the interim.

We will be covering more about resilience in future posts. In the meantime, know that: while each of us starts with a baseline of resilience, there are ways that it can be strengthened; when working with other people, it is possible to build on the resilience strengths that each of you brings; and it is possible to hire for resilience. This is always a good idea, since whatever skills the individual is bringing to the job will most likely become obsolete sooner rather than later; you want people who are able to re-calibrate to your changing needs.

If you want to find out more about resilience before I post on it again, feel free to contact me directly. Also, check out Dr. Linda Hoopes’ radio blog and her website.

What are you doing to help reduce the disruptive impact of change? Comment below. Share your experiences.

 

 

 

 

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