Leadership Lessons From a Broken Boat
The pressure of adversity does not affect the mind of the brave man…It is more powerful than the external circumstance. Seneca
Change is best led by those who have sailed in broken boats. Because the lessons learned from adversity are more powerful teachers than the lessons of success. Navigating change with the insight and preparation required to achieve broader and more satisfying results, requires the experience of fixing broken masts and torn sails with duct tape, chewing gum and a whole lot of adaptive ingenuity.
When searching for your program managers, change leaders or other key project resources ask them to tell you about their failures and mistakes. Those stories will tell you more than their academic or corporate pedigree. The deception of the perfect resume is that it doesn’t reveal the perfect knowledge required to lead change.
Seek change leaders who have weathered the storm and you will find leaders with the courage and spirit to stay the course.
Through the Eye of a Needle
Sometimes it’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a change leader to take on the full responsibility of change . . .
A couple weeks ago I completed an Accelerated Change Readiness workshop with a project team for a Fortune 500 company. They were preparing for a technology implementation and the workshop was designed to help them think through the change management issues for the initiative.
We spent three very active days understanding the project objectives, assessing the organization’s cultural and political context, and identifying methods and protocols for stakeholder engagement, communication, decision-making, and conflict resolution.
It was intense, but fun, and the group, who was from various functions throughout the company, did a terrific job working through the project risks and creating a roadmap for managing change.
At the end of the workshop I pulled the project leader aside and asked for her thoughts. I wanted to know whether she thought the project team identified the core issues and risks, gelled as a team, and were ready to manage change on the initiative.
She looked down at her feet, then out the conference room window. She forced a smile and said, “I understand all that happened over the past three days. So many of the risks we identified described exactly why these kinds of projects have fallen short of expectations in the past. I mean, it’s true, we need to address these risks if we want to meet stakeholder expectations. The problem is that to get there, we will have to take on more than the stated scope. The team is ready to do it, but I’m not sure that I am.”
“What makes you hesitant?” I asked.
“Listen,” she said. “I know the best sol . . . no, make that the right solution, the right thing to do for the company, is to add to our scope and complete the other elements of solution design. But that would mean extra work, and for me, extra risk. Getting other stakeholders involved to weigh-in on the solution will make this more complicated. My job is just to get this project done on time. It’s not to resolve political battles.”
“I can understand your feelings,” I consoled. “Will you be able to complete the project without navigating around or through a few of those battles?”
“I’m not sure, but isn’t it enough just to focus on the project alone? That’s doing my job, right?”
This project manager was staring straight into the eye of the needle and confronting the dilemma many project managers must face: Should she work around the more strategic change challenges and get the project done? Or should she take on the larger challenges to achieve the more impactful result?
In my mind, as well as the stakeholders interviewed and surveyed prior to the workshop, there is no choice. Achieving the narrowly focused, “practical” result would be worse than awful. The end-users would receive the technology with a yawn and the project team would know they compromised. Executives may well call it a success publicly, but privately confess that the end result was uninspiring.
One of the great fictions of modern business is that the 80% solution is acceptable. All the talk about moving from “Good to Great” or being “In Search of Excellence” or achieving the “Tipping Point” and too many businesses settle for “good enough.” Just fly in an airplane, eat at a fast food restaurant, shop at all but a few grocery or retail stores, call into a call center, or ask human resources for anything. Most change initiatives also fall into the same pattern.
It’s not that any of the above is all that bad, it’s just rare that they are exceptional.
How often in your projects are stakeholders saying, “Wow! That was really well done.”
So my challenge for change leaders is:
Do you want to put any amount of effort into an uninspired result? Or are you ready to stay on the straight and narrow path through the eye of the needle to extraordinary.
Listening to Global Voices
Ethan Zuckerman is the senior researcher at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University and he studies how the world uses new media to share information and moods across cultures, languages and platforms. In this talk he identifies a troubling challenge: While the internet connects the globe, most of us only listen to people just like ourselves.
“The world is, in fact, getting more global. It’s getting more connected. More of our problems are global in scale. More of our economics is global in scale. And our media is less global by the day.”
Our technological connectivity isn’t helping us understand the world. It’s helping us become more myopic. And at a time when the real problems of the world are global in scale and scope, we need to broaden our perspective and our sources of information.
That’s an effective practice even if our “world” is our own smaller workplace and community. Our ability to solve problems, to innovate and to build sustainable businesses, ecosystems and societies, is entirely dependent upon recognizing our interconnectedness.
Just as there are parts of the world are dark spots in terms of attention, there are parts of our smaller world that are blind spots for us. Our ability to learn and understand these dark spots and to discover how they are vital to us, depends not only on the recommendations of guides, but on our desire to seek to understand the full “width and wonder of the world.”
Listening to global voices requires rewiring our own data gathering systems and taking the time to translate, understand and embrace the richness outside our perspective.
Say What You Need to Say
The fastest way to learn is to discover a person or group which reaches totally different conclusions to your own when looking at the same reality. Robert Theobald
All too often, we suffer from an acceptance of ignorance. Whether we are talking about organizations, nations, political parties, religions, communities or individuals, the tension and conflict present in so many of our interactions does not represent differences between values and beliefs, cultures and civilizations. Instead, it is the result of the acceptance of ignorance and the unwillingness to learn and understand.
When understanding is not present, the ability to predict, anticipate, comprehend, empathize, and ultimately, connect becomes much more difficult. But then again, connection is a dirty word.
- “I don’t want to waste time talking with end-users about this technology. We understand what they need better than they do.”
- “I’m tired of listening to these damn employee complaints. We’ve given them too much already. What more do they want?”
- “If we include ‘them’ in our decision-making process, they will want something we might not be able to deliver.”
- “I know it’s better to include your employees to help them develop, but it just takes too much time. It’s more expedient to just tell them what to do.”
Companies treat suppliers like criminals who are determined to find holes in their contracts that help them steal us blind. Managers distance themselves from employees, so it is easier to fire them should there be a RIF. The company president lives in a town far removed from the community of his or her executive assistant . . . intentionally. Their kids don’t go to the same school, nor play on the same ball team.
Politicians refuse to walk across the party isle to create compromise, let alone improve a bill through dialog. Countries refuse to engage in talks. Diplomacy, and the ability to reach across ideological divides to solve pressing problems, has been replaced with a celebration of intractable ideology.
All this posturing. All this noise. All these opinions. All this desire to stand apart.
And nobody listens.
As John Mayer sings in his hit song, sometimes we have let people say what they need to say. We have to make sure they know that they can take out their wasted honor, their past frustrations, their so called problems and put them in quotations. Even if their hands are shakin’ and their faith is broken, we’ll let them say what they need to say.
As much as this song is about the power of sharing your true feelings, it’s also about giving the gift of listening as someone unloads. When we listen, we help others feel understood. We show them our heart’s wide open and give them space to communicate their needs, interests, and ideas – both what they know and what they may not yet understand.
The real gift, however, isn’t to them. It’s to us. We learn. We understand. Our own ignorance is replaced with the ability to connect.
Reality Check for Change “Managers”
Throw out all your change management books and methodologies and theories. Burn every PowerPoint presentation filled with diagrams and flow charts and tools and templates. Delete your change project plans. Forget agonizing over deliverables that your change work team must produce. Fire every project manager or internal auditor or procurement specialist who minimizes your change effort to a mind-numbing checklist of activities to be completed for a contract to be in compliance.
Change can’t be managed. It can only be led.
In the real world, neither logic, nor project management certification, nor executive authority, nor flashy communication will convince employees to embrace a new program with enthusiasm if it doesn’t feel right to them. And if it doesn’t feel right to them, it isn’t. You’ve lost them before you’ve started.
Let’s face it. Most organization initiatives are conceived and implemented by a small group trying to impose their preferences on all or a part of the larger organization. One department or manager makes a decision that will benefit themselves and then hopes to sell the idea to everyone else who was happy with the status quo.
They ask others to commit themselves to a new direction—spiritually, emotionally, physically, and even financially—without giving them a choice, without involving them and after the decision has already been made.
Fait accompli.
The problem isn’t the idea. The problem isn’t even in the planning. The problem is that no matter how “right” or well-planned an idea may be, it must be implemented well to be successful.
Implementation isn’t about a detailed project plan. Implementation is about knowing how to connect with people and gain their support. It’s about connecting emotionally and getting an emotional commitment.
And that’s why change can’t be managed. Because connecting and engaging and inspiring and listening and involving are the adaptive activities of leadership. So, instead of getting blinded by the details of the project plan, get focused on providing the leadership required for change success.
The Courage of Followers
Derek Sivers, the founder and former president of CD Baby, shows in this funny and revealing video that while a leader gets things started, it’s the courageous follower that transforms the “lone nut” into a leader. It’s the follower’s choice to follow and encourage others to follow that makes the difference between an isolated incident and a trend. New followers follow the follower as much as, if not more than, the leader.
So, what does this mean if you are the leader? And what does it mean even if your leadership role doesn’t require that you are a trend-setting innovator?
- Stay true to your convictions. It’s your strength and commitment that sets you apart and captures the attention of those around you. It may take time for your ideas to catch on, but keep at it.
- Embrace and nurture your followers. Show abundant appreciation for those with the guts to walk away from the safety of the tried and true to follow you. And then . . .
- Collaborate. Make it about the movement, not you. Make your followers co-conspirators. Give them space to shine.
If you really want to create something special—whether you are the leader, an early stage follower, or part of the in-crowd—be courageous. Step up, show the way and know that your fearless example teaches and inspires.
Mastering the Obvious
Sometimes the best solutions are the most obvious, and unfortunately, the ones least considered.
Organization change is hard because leaders and project teams forget to do the simple, but important things, while spending extraordinary amounts of effort in the glitzy and complex. Technology projects focus on the technology. Outsourcing focuses on cost analysis. Mergers focus on the synergies or the marketing, sales and finance strategy. Process reengineering projects focus on, well, the process models.
Yet, somehow, amidst all this great thinking, projects struggle . . . because we don’t do the obvious things that would help us be more successful.
In a recent workshop, a technology project team was discussing how they could test the technical design specifications for their tool. Should they survey what other companies have done? Should they complete a study of best practices (which they hoped the vendor would provide)? Should they build an online survey that contained screen shots and multiple choice questions?
After almost 30 minutes of this discussion, one of the less experienced members of the team finally asked, “Why don’t we just show the tool to some end-users and ask their opinions?” (Out of the mouths of babes!)
“That’s great,” said an experienced participant. “We could organize focus groups and build a questionnaire . . .”
“Does it have to be that formal?” asked the newbie. “Couldn’t we learn a lot just by talking with some people and listening to what they say?”
Simple, straightforward, and effective.
The best techniques to ensure project success are not fancy, but they are amazingly effective. Here are five that should be part of every project:
- Involve stakeholders. Successful projects involve stakeholders—end-users/customers, executives/steering committee members, functional experts and others—from the outset and throughout the initiative. Whether involved formally or informally, stakeholders shape the criteria for solutions, evaluate decisions along the way and help communicate to the organization. They will help create success and be champions for the project . . . if we let them.
- Listen to stakeholders. Listen to what they say and what they don’t say. Listen to their ideas and their emotions. See the world through their eyes and learn how your project impacts them. Understand their fears, concerns, needs, and desires, and let that understanding be part of the criteria for the decisions you make during your project.
- Include your vendors. Make vendors a part of your project team. Leverage their experience. Show them the real organization, warts and all, and so they will understand how to adapt their solutions and offer suggestions for navigating the challenges.
- Learn from past projects. Gather the project managers from the last few organization change efforts in a room and have them compare notes. Or spend time with them one-on-one and have them share their “inside secrets.” Learn what went wrong and make sure not to do it. Learn what went right and make sure to put that in your plan.
- Be transparent. Transparency helps get all the information out on the table for consideration. It makes the challenges, and our decisions about how to manage challenges, easier for others to understand and accept. All projects have trade-offs. When we increase our openness, it engages others, compels them to become our collaborators and enables us to create greater buy-in along the way.
Listening, Health and Employee Engagement
As Ed Roland and Collective Soul express so well, great results happen when you begin to listen.
In the late 1980’s, the economy in Japan was strong, and everyone was making money, trading stocks, investing in real estate, and busy buying assets throughout the world. Behind all the luxury and pleasures, however, lay the realities of a grueling corporate life that had employees constantly working and constantly stressed. Physicians in corporations started to worry about stress related disorders in the work force as their schedules became overrun with employees suffering from anxiety attacks, ulcers, headaches, insomnia, and depression.
The word “karoshi” (Karo= overwork, Shi= Death: Death from overwork) became a regular topic on the evening news, in the morning papers and in the conversations of union leaders, business executives, attorneys, statesmen, clergy and families.
With the mounting social pressure, Japan’s health and safety law was amended and made business owners responsible for the health and safety of their workforce, including mental health. A subcommittee of the Ministry of Labor decided that managers in corporations should have some knowledge of stress and stress related disorders as well as relaxation methods and listening skills. The government also gave out grants and other promotional measures so that businesses would implement a Total Health Promotion plan (THP).
During one of the promotional workshops Akira Ikemi, then a teacher and researcher at University of Occupational and Environmental Health, Japan (UOEH), met the health and safety staff form Daihatsu. As a result of this encounter, he went on to create a remarkable listening workshop that he taught for the next twenty years at Daihatsu and to other major Japanese corporations including Mitsubishi Chemicals, Sumitomo Steel, Nippon Steel, and NTT.
The real value the workshops came from the results of a study he conducted while teaching with his colleague Shinya Kubota. Using pre-training and post-training surveys, they discovered a strong link between managerial listening and the mental health and satisfaction of employees. Employees who perceived their supervisors as having strong person-centered attitudes—demonstrated significantly by active listening skills—exhibited less fatigue, depression and anxiety than those who did not. They also found that this same group of employees had higher levels of motivation, better relationships with coworkers, and increased levels of productivity.
Ikemi also found that listening skills are teachable. Managers who participated in listening training programs were able to develop the skills and techniques that create these positive effects.
So, listening isn’t just some touchy feely practice held up as an ideal by those trying to get managers to put away their iPhones. It’s hard-core capability that is proven to produce profound physical, emotional and cognitive results. It can take managers from “walking in the desert all alone” to having the capability to connect, engage and create higher levels of employee performance.
Hey you’re now thirsty
Walking in the desert all alone
Hey you’re now searching
Lost in isolation from your soul
The bullets you bite
From the pain you request
You’re finding harder to digest
And the answers you seek
Are the ones you destroy
Your anger’s well deployed
Hey why can’t you listen
Hey why can’t you hear
Hey why can’t you listen
As love screams everywhere
Hey you now hunger
Feeding your mind with selfishness
Hey you now wander
Aimlessly around your consciousness
Your prophecies fail
And your thoughts become weak
Silence creates necessity
You’re clothing yourself
In the shields of despair
Your courage now impaired
You crucify all honesty
No signs you see do you believe
And all your words just twist and turn
Reviving just to crash and burn
You’re fighting till the bitter end
If only your heart could open up
And listen
A Revolutionary Case for Change
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. –Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government.
There are few documents that have more clearly stated the case for change than the United States Declaration of Independence. There, also, are few better examples of the patient, persistent and collaborative process required to align an executive team around not only a document, but more importantly the full knowledge of the implications of their commitment. It was not without conflict and politics and compromise, and it took time to reach consensus. In the end, and with history as our proof, the painstaking process of building this revolutionary case for change was a key reason for the clear vision and commitment of a new nation.
Happy Independence Day!
The Optical Illusions of Change
Context is everything.
It affects how we see.
As demonstrated by Beau Lotto, founder of the hybrid art studio and science lab, Lottolab, color lets us see the similarities and differences between surfaces. But when you vary the parameters, when you change the context around which you see, you change the color that falls to your eye. As a result, the light that falls onto your eye is meaningless because it could mean literally anything.
This explains both the problem of change management as well as the solution because what’s true for sensory information is true for information more generally. There is no inherent meaning in information. It’s the context around that information and what we do with it that matters.
If we want to create behavior change, we have to first understand what people see, and second, change the context around what they see. This helps them see the same information differently.
After finishing the first day of a two-day change readiness workshop, the program manager for the project, a VP of human resources, came up to me and said, “I get it. I get it. I get it. But I have to tell you, I feel terrible right now.”
“Yeah, why’s that?” I asked.
“Every project I’ve ever done before just examined the project context only. That was the extent of our change readiness assessment. And when you started asking about our business goals and organization politics and personalities of executives and how our department operated, I thought you were headed into dangerous territory. It was stuff we couldn’t control.
“But now I see that by understanding the entire context–the project and how the project fits into the overall organization–we are better prepared to manage the unknown. It broadens our perspective.”
“So why do you feel terrible?”
“Because now that I can see this clearly, I can’t hide behind excuses. I have to do this additional work if we want the results we say we do. That’s a much tougher job because it’s about managing relationships, not producing PowerPoints.”
And that’s about navigating uncertainty because only through uncertainty do we listen closely enough to develop a deeper understanding of the perceptions of others.
