One of the surest signs that change leaders don’t know what they are doing is the excessive use of jargon.  It’s easy to spot.  Just listen for words like strategic, alignment, partnering, values, sustained, vision, execution, branding, methodology, governance, scalable, global, integrated, empowerment, enablement, or any other intelligent-sounding, yet empty clichés that assume speakers have the right answers and listeners should feel assured.

Jargon epitomizes the use of karaoke leadership¹.  Dreary leaders without a shred of inspiration can have the false security of instant, plug-and-play success.  Here you go, pick up a microphone and read this script.  It’s safe and well produced and gets heads nodding and crowds whooping with lighters in the air.  You are a business genius.  You are a rock star.

Business leaders are not the only ones who are susceptible to the empty-headedness of jargon.  Listen to politicians talk about unemployment, for example.  The policy discussion on both sides of the Atlantic is filled with the rhetorical jargon of the policy extremes.  The conservatives talk of “fiscal responsibility,” “tax cuts,” and “deregulation.”  They say that the long-term unemployed “don’t want to work” or they “lack the necessary skills.”  The liberals, who have been noticeably silent of late, talk of “job creation,” “retraining,” and the need for “compassionate leadership.”  Meanwhile, 14 million Americans are jobless, and millions more are staying afloat with part-time work that fails to use their skills.  The situation is even worse in Europe where countries like Spain are experiencing 21% unemployment.²

The jargon on both ends of this debate gives the appearance of strong leaders taking proud, principled stands.  But that’s the problem.  They just keep standing.  And standing.  And there is never any action.  There is never any real change.

Jargon is a tool of dominance.  It creates distance.  It marginalizes.  It forms a barrier that blocks open communication.  It limits innovation and thwarts authentic, grass roots problem solving.

Worst of all it fools change leaders into thinking they can hide their ignorance, their uncertainty and their fear.   They can’t.  Listeners are smarter than that.  Whether employees, customers or citizens, they eventually see through the gibberish.  They know that complex, large scale change is imperfect and messy, and that’s okay.  That’s part of the deal.

Include others by speaking directly and in plain language.  Truth helps people get beyond the guesswork and confusion and on with the business of managing reality.

1. _{Karaoke leadership.  I borrowed this concept from Malcolm McLaren’s presentation “His Life, Authenticity vs. Karaoke Culture.”  McLaren was the designer, producer, and founder of the Sex Pistols who died in April 2010.}
2. From “Against Learned Helplessness,” by Paul Krugman, The New York Times, May 29, 2011.

At 7:51 am on January 12, 2007, a man wearing a baseball cap, T-shirt and faded jeans entered L’Enfant Plaza in Washington D.C. amid the morning rush of commuters and quietly removed his violin from its case. The violin was the rare Gibson ex-Huberman handcrafted in 1713 by Antonio Stradivari during the Italian master’s “golden period,” when his technique had been refined to its highest levels. After tossing some seed money into the case to encourage those passing by, the man lifted the violin to his chin and began to play the beautiful “Chaconne” from Johann Sebastian Bach’s Partita Number 2 in D Minor, considered one of the most difficult pieces to master.

On this particular morning, however, the violinist was not your ordinary street musician. It was Joshua Bell, thought by many to be one of the finest violinists in the world.

Of the nearly 1100 commuters that passed Bell that morning only seven stopped to listen and only twenty-seven gave money. Just three days earlier, Bell had played to a sold-out crowd at Boston’s Symphony Hall where mediocre seats cost $100. Bell usually earns around $1000 per minute, but his earnings that morning amounted to a little over $32.

“It was a strange feeling,” Bell said, “that people were actually, ah . . . ignoring me.”

Context is everything.

Bell’s performance was arranged by The Washington Post as an experiment in context, perception and priorities as well as an assessment of public taste. They wanted to answer the question, “In a banal setting at an inconvenient time, would beauty transcend?”

This is the same question we face every time we implement change. And the answer is a resounding “No!” If change is not framed in the right context then the organization will never see the beauty of the solution.

Researchers Achilles Armenakis, Jeremy Bernerth, Jennifer Pitts and Jack Walker identified five important precursors that determine the degree to which change recipients accept the context required for successful organization change. Assessment of these factors can help to gauge the degree of buy-in and determine the specific gaps in contextual understanding that may impact the success of your initiatives. In addition, these factors can serve as basis for planning and executing actions to enhance the understanding of change recipients.

As you manage your change efforts ask whether your stakeholders believe the following factors to be true:

• Discrepancy. The belief that a change is needed. The belief there is a significant gap between the current state of the organization and what it should be.
• Appropriateness. The belief that a specific change designed to address a discrepancy is the correct one for the situation.
• Efficacy. The belief that the change recipient and the organization can successfully implement a change.
• Leader Support. The belief that the formal leaders (vertical change agents) and opinion leaders (horizontal change agents) in an organization are committed to the success of the change and that it will not be another passing fad.
• Valence. The belief that the change is beneficial to the change recipient.

Earlier this week I was sitting in a town hall meeting held by the head of human resources for an organization going through a major overhaul of its HR function.  The audience was a collection of HR professionals from throughout the world gathered in person and via the web to hear about state of affairs with the massive change that had begun a few months earlier.

The audience waited anxiously expecting an announcement of inevitable job loss, but also hoping their leader would share a vision of a modern, effective department whose contributions were prized by the organization. 

Instead, the SVP droned for thirty unfulfilling minutes spouting meaningless clichés about tackling the “low hanging fruit” (eight times) on their way to having a “seat at the table” (five times) where they could be a “strategic partner with the business” (six times).  He stumbled through his too-detailed slides in a lifeless monotone with a stiff back and an empty facial expression.  Detached.  Distant.  Not revealing anything of substance.

The feedback from the audience after the meeting suggested he failed not only to provide any meaningful information, but more importantly to make the connection required to get anything more than dutiful compliance to the task ahead.  The comments after the presentation ranged from the politically correct (“I think his plan is still developing”) to the skeptical (“I’m not sure he fully understands what’s required”) to the confused (“I’m not really sure what the heck he said”) to the hostile (“He doesn’t have a clue”).

He will need much more than that to get the focus, energy and commitment required to complete the effort.

Now, imagine the difference if he stood at the front of the room, took off his jacket, sat on the edge of a table and said:

“Our business has changed a great deal over the past decade, and it’s clear that the HR function that brought us to this point needs to change to support our company in the coming years.  To help us identify the right steps to take, we hired some experienced advisors to share their insights and present us with recommendations.  I would like to say that I understand all that we need to do, but I’m still learning about these new tools, processes and structural changes and what they will mean for us.  What I do know is that with your help, we will be able to make the right decisions—even the tough decisions—that will take us in the best direction.  Now, let me share with you some of what I understand and where I am still learning.”

Our instinct during times of uncertainty is to domesticate reality.  We try to put life in a box where we can control it and we hide behind platitudes hoping that the appearance of certainty will bring comfort to those around us.  The result?  We appear inauthentic and we put distance between ourselves and those we are trying to lead.

Instead, we must learn to live with a robust and confident uncertainty.  Only by allowing ourselves to be seen, showing our own vulnerability, will we draw others close enough to engage in the creative, collaborative process of facing the unknown.

My view of organization effectiveness starts with two important assumptions:

1. We are interdependent, and as a result
2. We need to collaborate.

Interdependence implies that people need to cooperate in order to accomplish what they want.  In the workplace, managers need employees to accomplish results that lead to department or organization success.  Likewise, employees need managers to help clarify goals and objectives, give feedback about performance, and provide fair compensation for the work performed.  During change initiatives, technical resources, subject matter experts and stakeholders need each other to shape workable solutions.  In families and personal relationships, people rely on each other to enhance emotional satisfaction through mutual acceptance, support, encouragement, or love.

One of the most troubling and frustrating aspects of human existence, however, is this notion of interdependence.  We realize that our needs, wants, desires, goals and objectives involve the participation of others and getting their participation sometimes can be confounding.  We feel dependent upon them to satisfy our need, resolve the difference, or provide needed support.  On the other hand, we also feel the need to eliminate the obstacle—or the person—which stands in our way.  We want to get the desired results independent of them.  We wish we could get what we want through our own effort, or at least exist without this “problem” in our life.

So, we are faced with a dilemma.  Our desired outcomes require a degree of dependence on them. It requires their contribution, their input, and their feedback.  Our preferred way of obtaining the outcome requires independence of us.  It requires that I do it, I take responsibility, I become self-reliant, and I achieve the result.  We resent dependence because we are not in control and can be blocked from our goal or manipulated to a different outcome, yet we recognize that independence is unrealistic because others often have something we need.

The trouble with this binary thinking is that it leads to destructive conflict.  When getting what we want becomes challenging it triggers our fight or flight instincts, and as a result, we are tempted to either to try to dominate and control or to run away.  That’s why bosses become “bossy,” employees quit, business partners become litigious, and personal relationships crumble.

And that is our big clue:  Conflict occurs only between interdependent parties.  We would not be in conflict with someone unless we needed something from them.  But interdependence does not mean we must lose ourselves in order to get what we want.  Interdependence requires drawing out the value of we.  If I am independent, I can achieve a great deal because I am self-reliant and capable.  But when we work together, we can achieve much more than I could produce alone, especially if you have something that would enhance my success.  Interdependence requires that we create a better outcome by exchanging or creating something of value to each of us.

The first step is realizing the fact that we are interdependent.  That is Assumption #1.  Then, it is about embracing Assumption #2 by recognizing that interdependence requires collaboration.  And collaboration begins with understanding the needs, desires and goals of each party required to create mutually beneficial solutions.

The amazing result is that when we choose to work together to achieve our desired outcomes, we are more inclined to coordinate our efforts, attend to one another, and have increased levels of productivity.  We also tend to like one another more and participate in more constructive communication and exchange.

So, the key to hacking the buggy code of intolerance, and minimizing the The Dangers of Corporate Fundamentalism, is to make the shortcomings of independence more painful than the patience and discipline required of collaboration.  Only then will others come to the table ready to listen, learn and create.

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.

I’m sentimental

So I walk in the rain

I’ve got some habits

Even I can’t explain

I go to the corner

I end up in Spain

Why try to change me now

Whether voiced with the fragile anguish of Fiona Apple or the charming cockiness of Frank Sinatra, these Cy Coleman lyrics express the unapologetic resistance we often face when managing change.  Overcoming resistance is an essential capability required of change leaders. Here are a few techniques for gaining support as well as the pros and cons of using them.  An adaptive change leader may deploy multiple strategies throughout a project:

1. Education and communication are used when there is a lack of information or inaccurate information and analysis.  Advantage:  Once persuaded, people will help with the implementation of the change.  Disadvantage:  Education and communication can be very time-consuming if lots of people are involved.
2. Participation and involvement are used when the change leaders do not have all the information they need to design the change and when others have considerable power to resist.  Advantage:  People who participate will be committed to implementing change, and any relevant information they have will be integrated into the plan.  Disadvantage:  Involving others in the change process can be very time-consuming, especially if participants design an inappropriate approach to change.
3. Facilitation and support are best when people are resisting because of adjustment problems.  Advantage:  No other approach works as well with adjustment problems.  Disadvantage:  Facilitation and support can be time-consuming, expensive and still fail.
4. Negotiation and agreement are used when someone or some group will clearly lose out in a change, and when that group has considerable power to resist.  Advantage:  Negotiation has proven to be a relatively easy way to avoid major resistance.  Disadvantage:  It can be too expensive in many cases if it alerts others to negotiate.
5. Manipulation and co-optation are used when other tactics will not work or are too expensive.  Advantage:  It can be a quick and inexpensive solution to resistance problems.  Disadvantage:  It can lead to future problems if people feel manipulated.
6. Explicit and implicit coercion are best when speed is essential, and the change initiators possess considerable power.  Advantage:  Coercion is speedy and can overcome any kind of resistance.  Disadvantage:  It can be risky if it leaves people angry with those who initiate the 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.

Every time I hear Tom Chaplin’s delicate and vulnerable delivery of Tim Rice-Oxley’s lyrics, I imagine an executive choosing this song as the script for their change announcement.   The balance between an urgent necessity and a confusing transition strikes a note of truth that if only spoken more frequently would show an incredible regard for the feelings of employees.  An understanding of that depth creates the trust and emotional connection needed to get others engaged, collaboratively, in building the future.

So little time
Try to understand that I’m
Trying to make a move just to stay in the game
I try to stay awake and remember my name
But everybody’s changing
And I don’t feel the same.

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.

Change is a lot like going from Oz to Kansas.

On one hand, it’s as uncomplicated as closing your eyes, clicking the heels of your ruby slippers and willing yourself from one place to another.  Individuals and organizations have the ability to make change that simple—an uncomplicated choice, a straightforward decision, a path taken with no looking back.  And like Dorothy learns at the end of the movie, we always have the potential to instantly go home.

On the other hand, most of us need to follow a Yellow Brick Road.  Yellow Brick Roads provide clear paths, somewhere to place our attention, and the constants during times of turmoil when monkeys are flying toward us in attack.  We may not always stay on the path, in fact it may not even be needed to get to our destination, but it is there to provide a unifying sense of direction and purpose.  Even if it is not exactly the way home, it prompts the action required for us to achieve our objective.

In any successful change campaign, change leaders must present a clear, straightforward step that employees can take to help them move toward the destination.  Even if more complex action is required at some point in the future, a well-defined first step or two provides welcome reassurance.

After landing in a strange land where nothing looked familiar, Dorothy was quickly comforted to know that the Yellow Brick Road would lead her to someone who could get her home.  She had no idea of the challenges that she would find on the road ahead, but the road itself provided the comfort needed to get moving.

Resistance to change, much like the flying monkeys, is always lurking somewhere in the shadows waiting to wreak havoc on your efforts.  Even when employees buy into your change vision, they quickly develop cynicism, or resistance, if they don’t know how you plan to achieve the vision.  By showing them the first few bricks, you start them down the path required to move forward.  More importantly, once you have them focused and moving, they start to define the subsequent steps and can help identify additional requirements needed to achieve the goal.

Those first few steps are critical to get employees engaged.

George, the director of a government agency’s maintenance and utilities function, was trying in earnest to improve the operational effectiveness of his organization knowing that many jobs were at risk to outside contractors.  The organization’s labor costs had increased, and the agency they served was less satisfied with the quality of work and the time it took to complete projects.

George and his deputies knew that they were going to have to change the managerial and employee culture from a “government mindset” to a “business mindset.”  So, they started peppering their daily conversations with this message.  They would say things like “We have to start thinking like business people,” or “What are you doing to become more efficient?”

The response of the organization was a universal, “Huh?!”  Employees understood the objective—and they wanted to save their jobs—but they had operated a certain way for so long that they didn’t know how to get from Point A to Point B.  George was communicating, “We want to go home,” but he wasn’t showing employees the Yellow Brick Road that would lead them there.

When he and his leadership team pointed out the first few bricks, however, his organization got fully engaged.  One brick was to start measuring aspects of their performance, such as the cost per job or the days to completion.  Another brick was to provide outside benchmarks of cost and quality.  And the final brick was to “give permission” for employees to work outside the guidelines of policies and procedures if they could show it would lead to higher quality and better service.

Once those steps were identified and taken, employees at all levels found their brains, hearts and courage and skipped happily down the Yellow Brick Road toward Oz.