“When all else fails, read the instructions.”

That simple, seven-word warning ought to appear on the instruction manual for everything that comes unassembled.  It should appear in bold face, large font letters on every purchase from Ikea, every home theater system, every backyard play set, and every brightly-colored, multi-part plastic child’s toy packaged in an injection-molded, twist-tied, tape-enclosed box. 

If you are like me, you may have looked at a seemingly harmless collection of parts and tossed aside the manual thinking you could put it together using common sense.  “I’m intelligent and capable,” you thought.  “Who really needs to bother with the time-consuming process of reading the instructions?  How hard can it be?”

Right!                                                                                                                                    

That’s when we find ourselves, hours later, furiously picking through the rubble to find the discarded instructions.

It is part of our proud, achieving nature to try to do everything our way, and only when the prospects of failure become overwhelming do we begin to think about asking for help.  Even then, we do so not by recognizing our own shortcomings, but by asking for help with the failings of those who thwarted our success.  The product was designed poorly, the instructions were unintelligible, or the bystanders were making too much noise for us to concentrate on this ridiculous mess.

There aren’t many areas this applies better than managing change.  All too often I watch seasoned managers rush headlong into large change efforts with the idea that their own common sense will get them through.  Even those who have led change before think that the only help they need is with the execution of deliverables—that’s project jargon that translates to producing PowerPoints, emails and pdf’s.  Rarely do change execs look for help assessing the human risks or identifying actions for managing them.  That would be like admitting they couldn’t lead or their managerial skills were ineffective. 

“Our organization doesn’t have much patience for change assessment,” stated a senior executive for a financial services organization going through a post-TARP operational restructuring.  “We’re a smart group focused on the business of implementation.  People around here only need help making sure the work gets done.”

That sounds strong, business-like and efficient, except for the fact that two months into the three-year project, they were over budget, facing stiff internal resistance to the proposed solution and negotiating with project sponsors who were “losing confidence.”  To make matters worse, the corporate communications group was so nervous about the change communications work product that they inserted themselves by requiring approvals before the change team could send any communication to the employee population.

Maybe the change leaders should have read the instructions.

Amazon.com lists over 13,000 books about managing change.  I have only read a few dozen, but it’s enough to know the lessons learned are similar no matter the author and approach.  Save time, hassle and the pain of undoing the mess caused by applying common sense.  Instead, read the instructions.

Intolerance.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines intolerance as the unwillingness to accept views, beliefs or behaviors that differ from one’s own.

In American politics, we have seen a level of bipartisanship that has Washington divided into Red and Blue extremes, and as Todd Purdum, National Editor of Vanity Fair, described in his September 2010 article, “Washington , We Have a Problem,” “the partisan calumny and contempt in Washington are today all-consuming.” Around the world, we are seeing intolerance take many forms from the rise of religious fundamentalism in both the Christian and Muslim worlds to “the blatant bigotry of many mainstream political leaders, journalists and other elites” in Europe (Washington Post).

In the workplace, intolerance reveals itself in a variety of ways.  It may be as blatant as a racial slur or ridicule of sexual orientation.  More often, it is as seemingly innocuous as a manager silencing a naysayer, discouraging the introduction of a new idea or calling a person “a negative thinker.”  It might also be demonstrated in customer-vendor relationships when battle lines are drawn, demands are made and both sides compete to determine how many pounds of flesh can be extracted before an mutually unsatisfying agreement is reached.

As stated by a VP of client management for a well-known enterprise technology vendor, “I went into the meeting thinking this client was one of our best relationships.  They rated our work highly, appeared arm-in-arm with us at conferences, and were one of our frequent testimonials.  I knew we were in trouble, though, when I walked into the conference room and saw their purchasing director and two attorneys.  It was as if today was the day they decided to beat the crap out of someone and it was our turn.  There was no give and take discussion.  It was all about how they were right and we were wrong.”

Intolerance of any kind in organizations is a form of workplace violence.  Plain and simple.  It may not lead to physical violence per se, but it is not about connecting, partnering or collaborating.  It is about dominating and eliminating that which is different.

Intolerance is an ideological fundamentalism that insists there is only one right way and that all other ways are wrong.  A fundamentalist is one who says, “If you don’t think the way I think, then you are unworthy.  And if you say that my way is the wrong way, then you are against me.”

This is a form of violence because ideological fundamentalism is closely followed by rhetorical fundamentalism which becomes a gateway to physical fundamentalism.  The initial thought of “you don’t think like me” often is carried further in the minds of intolerants when they say, “People who don’t think like me (or us) should get in line or leave.  My, gosh, they are anti-company.  They don’t buy into our values or our culture.”

Then rhetorically the intolerant might start asking questions such as “What should we do with people that are anti-company?”  Pretty soon we are ready for the final stage that says, “Anyone who is against the company should be fired” or “any vendor who is unwilling to see things our way should be sued.”

There is a temptation within intolerant thinking to escalate any variation from a “difference” to a “danger.”  And by talking about anyone who thinks differently as wrong, inappropriate, unsuitable or anti-company, you are laying the foundation for somebody in power to do something about it.

Listen, I’ve been around technology for most of my career, so I understand the idea of binary constructs. One/Zero.  Right/wrong.  Black/white.  Us/Them.  In/Out. Red/Blue.  Conservative/Liberal.  Capitalist/Socialist.  Yin/Yang.

It is human nature to try to make sense of an uncertain world with the certainty of binary thinking.  We seek to find an answer, the one answer, to every question.  And if we don’t know it, we search the web or hire a consultant and expect a presentation of THE answer.  We want to skip the organization assessment, skip the contextual analysis, skip the frameworks and methodologies and go right to the answer.  And we want the answer to be clear, concise and presented quickly.

Leaders often make the mistake of thinking they must be prepared to give one answer, the only answer, to every challenge that comes their way.  This faulty thinking creates a problem.  It makes leaders think that their answer must not only be right, it must be followed or else it is a challenge to their authority.  It presents another problem because when a leader finds the “right way” it means all dissention must be shut out.  Now, they might manage to have genuine sympathy for others in their wrongness, but make no mistake about it, they are wrong.

Leadership based upon this thinking means the right way is about my thinking, my approach, my team, my function, my division, my region, my company, my culture, my tribe, my dogma.  Any deviation from that is substandard.

But here’s the rub.  Organization effectiveness and intolerance cannot coexist.

We live in a business world that is increasingly partnered, contracted, outsourced, off-shored, virtual, international and matrixed.  Our organizations and project teams are flat, without any real hierarchy and without direct reporting lines.  There are multiple business models that work in a variety of contexts.

Dare I say it?  There is no One Right Way.  In fact, teaming, collaboration, invention, innovation and creativity require the expansiveness of multiple right ways.  They also demand a new way of thinking and a new way of approaching our interactions with the differences we encounter along the way.

Over the next few posts, I will begin to share (in fewer words) what I have learned about how we hack the code of collaboration in these evolving organization forms.

Play is the highest form of research. Albert Einstein

When was the last time you played at work?  When was the last time you spent your workday having fun?  More importantly, if you are a leader, when was the last time you encouraged your employees to play?  If you are having trouble remembering, then you may want to give it a try because fun, play, and playmates are critical ingredients for generating creativity and innovation.

As Tim Brown, CEO of design firm IDEO, asserts, playfulness helps us get to better creative solutions.  When leaders establish an environment of trust where people feel secure enough to be vulnerable, employees will feel secure enough to explore something new, take risks and play.

This is not only critical in jobs where creativity is a primary focus, such as design jobs, it also is increasingly important in any job requiring continuous improvement, operational efficiency or collaborative problem-solving.  And the last time I checked, most jobs in the American economy fit this bill.

When play is connected to an employee’s organizational tasks it facilitates the cognitive, affective and motivational dimensions of the creative process.  But even when play is only a diversion, it fosters the important social dynamics that encourage creativity in the first place.  In other words, play helps people develop relationship skills that take them from their own individual points of view to creative and collaborative solutions.

The importance of this social component to creativity was highlighted recently by Adam Grant of the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and Jim Berry of the Kenan-Flagler School of Business at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  In a study appearing in the forthcoming Academy of Management Journal, they share that “managers who are interested in fueling creativity will find it advantageous to create conditions that support prosocial motivation and perspective-taking.”

Prosocial motivation is the desire to have a positive impact on others.  Perspective-taking is the ability to understand the emotions and experience of others, and when that interest in understanding others is driven by a desire to make a positive impact, employees develop ideas that are useful as well as novel.

Play helps us understand and empathize with one another, and that in turn, improves our ability to see the world through another’s eyes, or role play.   And as Tim Brown points out, our ability to role play helps us have empathy for what we are designing or improving.  It helps us create services and experiences that are authentic.  Play helps us think creatively about the perspectives of others and identify new, more effective strategies for helping them.

So, Ideo’s founder, David Kelley, is on to something when he said he wanted to work in a company where “all the employees are my best friends.”  Friendship is a shortcut to fun and play.  And our ability to play improves our ability to relate, connect, understand, and trust that we can take the creative risks needed to innovate and change.

A few weeks ago I was talking with a project manager who wanted an assessment of his team’s capability.  The project had been moving along without significant problems, but was approaching an intense period with several critical milestones.  The project manager felt unsettled because his team was not providing the analysis and insight he expected.

“I don’t think I have a team that has the right skill set,” the project manager confessed.  “We’re coming up on some very important milestones and they’re not sharing the usual level of detail.  I’m concerned they don’t know what they are doing and that I’ll have to make some decisions without their input.”

When I spoke with the project team, they expressed a similar frustration.  “I don’t feel like he trusts us,” the validation lead shared.  “Meetings feel more like an inquisition.  We’ve all worked on similar projects before, but he hasn’t recognized any of our experience.  We know he’s a good project manager, but he doesn’t seem to know we’re good, too.”

There have been a number of studies that examined the relationship between trust in management and the actual performance at the group or organizational level.  One study, for example, found that when basketball team members trust their coach, their performance is better.  Another study found that when restaurant employees trust their manager the restaurant’s sales and net profits increase.  The results of these studies demonstrate that when employees trust management, organizations have greater success.

More importantly, a study by Sabrina Deutsch Salamon (York University) and Sandra Robinson (University of British Columbia) found that when employees feel that they are trusted by management, organizational performance is improved.  This is significant because it shows that a sense of “felt trust” affects performance beyond the effect of employee trust in management.  It shows that when employees feel trusted by management it can have a direct impact on the top and bottom lines.

This is a very different picture than the leader standing on a pedestal waiting for employees to prove themselves and earn his or her trust.  These results suggest that successful leaders start the relationship by actively showing employees they trust them through words and deeds.

For many organizational leaders and human resources professionals, this study validates what they have known intuitively for years: the more you engage and involve your employees, the more you give them autonomy to perform their jobs, the better you tap their intrinsic motivation and drive employee performance skyward.

Unfortunately, many of the well-developed techniques of organizational management and control work directly against these findings.  This is especially true of rigorous project management methodologies.  They enable companies to organize people in different places with different skills to perform tasks with structure consistency, but at the risk of marginalizing the relationship building skills that build trust.

It’s a delicate, but important, balance.  To be a successful leader, especially under the demands of time-intensive projects, requires that you apply the formal structures and process needed for systematic execution AND that you show a willingness to be “emotionally vulnerable and human with one another.” (Patrick Lencioni)

It turns out that Douglas McGregor was on the right track about how to manage in the future with his concept of Theory Y managers:  People are more self-directed, committed and creative when managers develop a climate of trust by communicating openly, minimizing the relationship distance between themselves and their subordinates, and creating a comfortable environment where employees can develop and use their abilities.

Nobody likes to fail.  We think failure is the opposite of success.  In organization life, failure is unacceptable.  It demands action.  It requires a response.  It gets you fired.  It is better to maintain the status quo and achieve mediocre results than to take a risk and fail.

Unless you are an effective change leader.

If you are an effective change leader, failure is a part of the process of achieving success.  Failure is data.  It’s information that helps you understand more about what it will take, or not take, to create a successful outcome.  It’s a sign that it’s time to make a change.

Get low scores on stakeholder satisfaction surveys?  Maybe it’s time to do a needs analysis or review design specifications.

Continuing to miss project deadlines?  Maybe it’s time to rework the project plan or assess whether you have the right resources.

Project teams not performing?  Maybe it’s time to learn what makes each individual tick or adjust your management style to be more effective.

Failing again and again?  Maybe it’s time to understand the root causes and systemic challenges (rather than continuing to treat problems with band-aids).

Change agents, innovators, entrepreneurs, R&D professionals, athletes and high achievers of every kind see failure as part of the continuous process of improving.  Failure is the feedback we need to adapt our efforts in the direction of our objective.

If you are a change leader who cares about success, then you may want to rethink your response to failure.  Instead of irritation, try curiosity.  Instead of hiding it, highlight it.  Instead of scolding those who fail, embrace them and have them share what they learned.

Failure is achievement because it shows we are reaching for something far beyond our immediate capability.  Even when we falter, we learn, grow and are strengthened for the challenge ahead.

Sometimes I feel like Sisyphus, compelled for eternity to push a huge rock uphill only to watch it roll back down again.

“A couple of Power Point overviews, some manager talking points, and a few audience-focused launch messages and we should have what we need to complete this project,” the project director informed me.  ”We need to be really focused to get this project completed on time and within budget.  There’s no time or budget for stakeholder assessment or feedback, and besides, the technology is fairly intuitive.”

And the rock rolls back down . . .

I had been asked to join the implementation at the eleventh hour, one week before the kickoff meeting, and was listening to the project director clarify the scope of my assignment.  He had not planned to include a change resource until an executive wondered out loud during the previous week’s steering committee meeting whether someone was in charge of the “change management” for the implementation of the new travel and expense system.

A week later I was sitting with the project director wondering the best way to roll the rock back up the hill.

The project team was composed of highly skilled IT implementers who were effective people managers and driven to work Herculean hours to bring the project home under budget and in record time.  They had a laser sharp focus and the ability to ignore anything and everything that would prevent them from getting the job done.  Despite those factors, the warning signs were there:

• The budget and timeframe had no room for error,
• Change management was an afterthought for the project manager, but on the mind of an executive,
• Change management activities were added at the last minute to “check the box.”

Whenever a project leader minimizes the value of change management—especially when an executive expresses concern—there will be problems lurking.  It’s a variation of Murphy’s Law.

Initially, the problems may surface as technical glitches or insufficient system capabilities.  But the longer the problems persist, the more it becomes apparent the issues are something beyond the technical.  The requirements are incomplete or inaccurate.  The end-users are concerned about functionality or required changes to their work flow.  The tool doesn’t integrate with other technologies that support related work processes.  Managers or administrators feel threatened that the new tool will negatively impact their authority, expertise or job duties.

Even if there are no problems during the implementation, once a change is ready to “go live,” the organization usually needs more than superficial information about the changes they are about to experience.

Checking the box of change management means that the tail is wagging the dog.  Organizations initiate change to improve the business, not simply to complete a task.  This means that change always has a purpose.  But if the purpose is ignored in favor of the details of the task, then the risk—the likelihood—is that the purpose will not be achieved.

Change initiatives are understandably run as project management exercises.  It ensures that implementations are on time and within scope and budget.  The tools of project management provide a mechanism to manage the technical components of an initiative with comprehensive attention to detail.  But projects are about so much more than the technical.  Whether the project is a technology implementation, reorganization or merger, a new program or process, a change of strategy or a change of policy, change initiatives are by definition designed to change the way the business performs.

The discipline of change management provides the mechanism required to complete the business transformation.  Change management enables project leaders to identify how job roles will be impacted.   It defines the future skills and competencies required of employees.  It provides coaching, mentoring and communication strategies to support front-line supervisors.   It engages employees in the design process and it gathers feedback to make sure technicians create solutions that will work in reality.  And it also helps project leaders understand how to adapt the initial plans to increase the chance of delivering on time and within the budget.

Do project leaders need change management?  No.  Darwin was right.  People adapt.  But if you need to accelerate the pace of evolution and reduce the amount of turmoil along the way, then you must go beyond checking the change management box.

Dave Berzack loves his career.  Check out his website, www.daveberzack.com, and you will see more evidence of the passion, and talent, he has for his chosen profession.  (Shout out to Dan Schawbel for pointing me to this video.)

Droppin science (here’s the secret) for live (for a great) 9 to 5 (career):  It’s about finding your passion.

Said in geeky consultant language:  The key to high levels of performance and achievement is aligning your work with your sources of intrinsic motivation . . . It’s about finding your passion!

When you can get out of bed every morning with the same spirit and sense of fun that Dave shows, you have found your bliss.  And bliss leads to the biggest career reward of all:  satisfaction.  If your goal is to make millions of dollars, well, success will depend upon your career choice, your effort and a bit of luck.  But if your definition of success is to have a sense of purpose and meaning,  to thrive and to have a consistent source of satisfaction, then build your work around what you love.

A young student from my alma mater called me a few months ago to learn more about the consulting profession.  He did a nice job of providing a verbal resume outlining his well-chosen major, his proper corporate summer internship and the reasons why that prepared him for an entry level job in consulting.  Based upon the facts alone, he was a good candidate for a job in the field.  Based upon the level of excitement in his voice, however, I was compelled to ask another question.

“What do you do for fun?”

He responded by saying, “Since I was a little kid I’ve played hockey.”  And for the next ten minutes told me about playing in hockey leagues four seasons every year, reffing for younger leagues when he was in high school and during the summer, coaching hockey at summer camps and meeting his favorite players at various events.  His tone was entirely different.  You could hear the smile in his voice.

“What are you doing with that?”  I asked.  Silence.

Not everyone can be a professional hockey player.  Not everyone can get a job in the hockey industry on a team, a league office, or an equipment manufacturer.  Although the more we talked, the more he discovered his options were much greater than the “conventional” jobs found in the college placement office.  He realized there were countless careers in the hockey world that were not just about playing.

More importantly, the more we talked, the more he realized there were aspects about hockey that could be translated to other potential career choices.  He enjoyed the camaraderie.  He enjoyed the competition, but he really valued the learning and growing and hard work, whether winning or not.  He also really enjoyed the teaching and development of others when reffing and coaching.

We didn’t have to talk any more about consulting.  He was fired up to listen to his heart and think about options that were more closely aligned with his innate talents, interests and joy.  He may yet end up in consulting, but if he does, it will be when he discovers it is the best place to live his purpose.

Oh, yeah, and by the way . . . If you are on the other end of this and looking for the job candidates who are going to knock your socks off, remember that no matter how killa the resume, you have to listen to the heart of the candidate.  It’s the employees who work from a sense of purpose and passion that will always, always kick it.

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Randy Nelson knows something about how to build collaborative, innovative cultures.  Although currently the Head of Artistic Development and Training at DreamWorks Animation, two years ago when he did this piece, he was the Dean of Pixar University.  For twelve years, Randy was responsible designing curriculum and delivering classes and programs to continuously increase the skill and collaborative ability of Pixar’s mixed technical, artistic and management staff.

Pixar’s business model differs significantly from the standard Hollywood model in which there is a production organization that is set up in an ad hoc way for each film.  Pixar is an organization with regular, full-time employees that has sought to shift the center of focus from the ideas to the people who create the ideas.  Central to this strategy is Pixar University, a cross between an art and film academy that seeks to develop the skills of the employees, the learning curve of the organization and the collaborative spirit of the culture.

So, for those of you interested in improving the collaboration environment of your organizations or project teams, here are a few takeaways:

• Like a good improvisational actor, accept every offer to collaborate.
• Make your partners look good.  It’s not about judgment or saying “This is pretty good. How can I make it better?”  It’s about saying “Here’s where I’m starting. What can I do with this?”
• Focus on error recovery, not failure avoidance.  It’s about resiliency, adaptability and the ability to make something from failure.
• Be interested, not interesting.  Be a great listener who amplifies the person talking.  Seek to know what others want to know.
• Use communication as an opportunity for translation. If you just emit “techie speak,” nobody really hears you. The responsibility for translation gets pushed to the receiving end of the conversation, and as a result, gets garbled. Do the translation at the sending end so that it doesn’t have to be done at the receiving end and the listener can say, “I understand.”
• See collaboration as amplification.  This means connecting a group of individuals that are interested in each other, that bring separate depth to the problem and that bring a breadth that gives them interest in the entire solution.  This combination it allows them to communicate in ways that promote understanding and add to overall solutions.

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.

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.