Happy Monday!  I thought I would start the week with something fun.  It’s an innovative video from OK Go, an alternative rock band with a reputation for making catchy, viral videos.  The band’s video for “Here It Goes Again” won a Grammy Award for “Best Short-Form Music Video” in 2007, and features the band members dancing around on treadmills.  This song, “This Too Shall Pass,” captures a combination of emotion that should seem familiar to any change manager:  resigned to the inevitable, reluctantly optimistic, resistant (this too shall pass) and focused on moving forward.  Enjoy . . .

You know you can’t keep lettin’ it get you down
And you can’t keep draggin’ that dead weight around.
If there ain’t all that much to lug around,
Better run like hell when you hit the ground.

When the morning comes.
When the morning comes.

You can’t stop these kids from dancin’.
Why would you want to?
Especially when you’re already gettin’ yours.
‘Cause if your mind don’t move and your knees don’t bend,
well don’t go blamin’ the kids again.

When the morning comes.
When the morning comes.

Let it go, this too shall pass.

The new reality show Undercover Boss from CBS should be required viewing for every corporate executive and everyone who aspires to be one.  It follows CEO’s as they slip anonymously into the rank and file of their companies.  While working alongside their employees, they see the effects their decisions have on others, where the problems lie within their organization and they get an up-close look at both the good and the bad of work life in their organizations.

This show demonstrates the power of listening and the deeper understanding that comes from seeing a situation from the eyes of others. Years ago, Hewlett Packard introduced the concept of MBWA, Management By Walking Around.  This show takes the concept one step further and introduces MBDTJ, Management By Doing the Job.

Larry O’Donnell, President and COO of Waste Management, found the experiences painful and eye opening.  He had no idea that the corporate office’s demand to increase productivity would result in an employee having to run to a time clock so she wouldn’t get docked twice her rate of pay.  He was shocked that a woman working on one of the garbage trucks has to “pee in a can” so she can meet her daily average of 300 homes a day.

As he said at the end of his episode, “In my role there are a lot of policies that I put out there and you all have to live with them.  I feel more of a connection with the folks that do the really hard jobs of this company.  I’m going to be a different manager because now I have a whole new appreciation of the impact of some of my decisions can have on you folks.”

In another episode, Dave Rife, one of the owners of White Castle, can’t keep up with the pace of a bun production line, and as a result, shuts it down causing waste of almost 5,000 buns. He talks about going into the role with a procedural mindset hoping to identify ways of making the operation better.  What surprised him was the way he connected with the people.

Both of those comments show a very real leadership challenge.  The demands of executive roles disconnect leaders from the reality of the organizations they lead.  They risk being disconnected from employees, disconnected from customers, and disconnected from the realities of daily work life.    That causes them to make decisions that are analytically incomplete because they lack a critical element of contextual understanding.

There really was something to the old school concepts of starting in the mail room and working your way to the top.  Even in family owned businesses, offspring worked summers on the front lines and in the bowels of the factory before they graduated from college and were given an piece of the business to lead.  You learned.  You cultivated an appreciation of the heart and soul of the business.  You developed empathy.

Empathy is a cognitive skill.  It starts to develop by age two at the emotional level when kids begin to feel empathy for another’s pain.  Later in childhood, kids develop the more cognitive aspect of empathy which involves the ability to understand that other people may have beliefs that are different from one’s own.  Just because empathy is a natural stage of cognitive development, however, doesn’t mean that it ever develops fully.  And this has a real impact on leading and managing.

A couple weeks ago David Brooks of the New York Times wrote a terrific Op-Ed piece called “The Power Elite.” He suggested that the meritocracy of our current world has made society fairer, but has created huge gaps in leadership capability.  The modern era emphasizes technical knowledge over contextual understanding, encourages excessive dog-eat-dog competitiveness, and creates huge chasms between social and professional classes.  He doesn’t suggest that we return to the days of white shoe elitism, but he does question whether the pendulum has swung too far in the other direction where our leaders lack the breadth of understanding required of their roles.

The lessons of Undercover Boss suggest that leaders can develop some of this insight when they actively listen to their organizations.

Unfortunately, the show becomes a narcissistic publicity stunt at the end when the executives provide grandiose offerings to their working class coworkers and stand on a stage spouting clichés that seem overly scripted and anything but heartfelt.  That’s likely the result of unimaginative network producers wanting a tidy conclusion.

The ending aside, the undercover experience is powerful.  Maybe if this became part of the regular routine for executives we would see higher levels of employee engagement, more innovation, real—not paper—gains to productivity, fewer layoffs, and best of all, leaders with the wisdom required to serve their organizations.

Listening is an essential ingredient for innovation.

Eric Lewis listens to the world differently than the rest of us, and as a result, is creating the next evolution of jazz.  I had the joy of seeing him a number of years ago–before the hair–when he was playing with Wynton Marsalis.  Then, he was electric.  Now, he is unleashed!  His version of Evanescence’s “Going Under” is inspired.  He captures the raw energy of alternative rock, the spirit of classical jazz, and a plays with a passion that is transcendent.

Innovators, like all masterful change artists, understand the essence of things.  And that’s a level of listening that goes beyond just hearing.  Innovators get under the skin of things, not to control them, but to appreciate them and to empathize.  It’s that deep understanding, when combined with the same depth of perception in other areas, that opens up their ability to synthesize, make connections, morph and discover new possibilities.

In a panel at Wharton’s 125th anniversary celebration, C. Robert Henrikson, chairman and CEO of global insurer MetLife, said, “All parts of the organization must have a sense of the customers’ business to anticipate their needs and reach out with innovative ideas.”   In the same panel discussion, New York City developer Jeffrey Katz, CEO of Sherwood Equities, a major investor in Times Square, said business leaders must remain open to what comes their way in order to capitalize on opportunities.

Having a sense of; being open; empathizing.  That’s about listening.  Creating an innovation culture depends upon it.

After reading yesterday’s post, my good friend, Jerry D’Ascoli, sent me the above video set to Bowie’s original.  It’s from Hugh Atkin and I couldn’t resist sharing it with you.  Side-splitting cynicism aside, the video makes you realize the difficulty moving from talking about change to actually creating change, especially in the province of the political.  Hillary is right:  What we need is someone who can deliver change.  And that’s about more than just a good idea.  Happy weekend!

I’ve always loved David Bowie’s song “Changes” and its take that change is uncertain, sometimes regretful, but ultimately an inevitable part of growth.  But when I heard Seu Jorge’s interpretation, recorded for The Life Aquatic, I knew I’d found my favorite version.  In part, I’m a sucker for Brazilian music, and I was instantly taken by the rhythms and the alluring sound of Portuguese.  But now that I’ve seen the translation, I’m even more certain.  Jorge sees change as a positive, if not uplifting, step toward freedom and his destiny.  He suggests that change is not about turning to “face the strain,” as Bowie says.  Instead, change is the “train” we must board to take us to a destination that is “sublime.”  Poetry!

I’m not one to feel sorry about how things have passed
Time to leave, my time is up
Lots to still discover
Really sorry but gotta go
I’m on my way because nothing is left for me here
The show has ended
And don’t feel hurt because my time has come
That’s just the way I am

Changes… here comes my train
comes my train
I’m on my way and I’ll be ok
Changes… here comes my train
comes my train
I know it’s the right time and I’ll be alright
Moving forward, never looking back

It’s really no big deal; I’ll go have some fun
As much as life lets me
Time to wander; meet some good people if I need, give a hand
I see freedom on the horizon
You don’t really get it
New York, Ipanema and Hong Kong
That’s the wave I’m on

Changes… here comes my train
comes my train
I’m on my way and I’ll be ok
Changes… here comes my train
comes my train
I know it’s the right time and I’ll be alright
Moving forward, never looking back

I feel free, sublime
People here and there
The blue seas and sky

Changes… here comes my train
comes my train
I’m on my way and I’ll be ok
Changes… here comes my train
comes my train
I know it’s the right time and I’ll be alright
Moving forward, never looking back

Will Smith

I believe in the power of New Year’s resolutions.

New Year’s resolutions represent our desire to be better than we are, to grow, and to improve.  They represent our dreams, our hopes, and our aspirations.

No matter whether they are big goals like changing our life or career direction, or more focused objectives, like losing 5 pounds, New Year’s resolutions represent our desire to create change.  And just like all great change management, they require the ability to create a clear vision of the future and the desire to set out on a path to achieve it.  They require stretching beyond a comfort zone and dedicating ourselves, or our organizations, to continuous improvement.

So, for those of you who, like me, engage in the annual, if not ongoing process of creating personal and organizational change, I offer the above video as inspiration.

Will Smith shares his personal insights and suggests that greatness is much easier to achieve than it seems.  He talks about well-known, enduring, and yet often overlooked principles such as focus, hard work, dedication and above all, belief.  He shares his conviction that we have a spiritual responsibility to make everything we come into contact with better.

I especially like his example of spending 18 months with his brother rebuilding the wall on the front of his father’s business.  “You don’t set out to build a wall,” Smith states.  “You say I’m going to lay this brick as perfectly as a brick can be laid. And you do that every single day and soon you have a wall.”

In his book Good to Great, Jim Collins states, “Good is the enemy of great.  And that is one of the key reasons why we have so little that becomes great.”

Maybe if we thought a bit more like Will Smith and made the pursuit of one-brick-at-a-time greatness our spiritual responsibility, change would not be so hard to achieve.

Here’s to a great 2010!