Leaders - Change Guides LLC - Guiding Organizations Through Change

The Dalai Lama on…. Organizational Change?

October 21, 2010/0 Comments/in Change Management, Communication, Leaders/by admin

I had the honor and priveledge to hear the 14th Dalai Lama speak yesterday as he was receiving the 2010 International Freedom Conductor Award. As you can imagine, he had lots of interesting things to say.

At one point, he was talking about censorship in China and spoke about how a lack of transparency has led to an absense of trust between China and other countries, as well as within Chinese society.

It struck me how this same dynamic happens within organizations during change. We have been advising leaders for years to open up, tell people what is going on, and be transparent… during business as usual and especially during major change. Keeping secrets and guarding information degrades trust and inhibits the ability to build trust in the future. It’s like pouring poison on the ground – it kills what is there, and keeps anything from growing there in the near future.

Change is not Death… So Long D-A-B-D-A

September 21, 2010/0 Comments/in Change Management, Communication, Leaders, The Change Management 101 Model/by admin

Many say that when people experience change, they experience it like they experience a death. But what if what people have said for years about how we experience a death was no longer accepted to be true? The “stages of grief” originally born in Elizabeth Kubler-Ross’s book On Death and Dying might actually not be as clear cut as some people believe.

Most consultants and many business people can recite the originally postulated stages… Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance (DABDA). I can’t even count the number of people talking about organizational change who have thrown out these stages as a way to get the ball rolling.

Sadly, most of that conversation is misguided. There are questions about the findings of the original research, there are questions about whether “stages” actually exist, and there are certainly questions about whether a change at work is equal to a death.

What we know for sure is that people experience a broad range of emotions when faced with change in their workplace. Some are excited, some are angry, some are sad, some are happy, some are anxious, some are combative, and the list goes on and on. Most of the time, there is really no way of knowing who will react in what way.

So much of how an individual actually feels about a change is based on things that a manager at work is oblivious to. How are things going in the employee’s marriage? (look at the hitachi magic wand review for couples) How is their child doing at school? Did they experience something like this in a former job that went horribly or wonderfully? Have they always wanted to move on to another opportunity that this change might afford them? Did they hope that this might happen so that they could move up/out/around?

When we work with organizations who are implementing change, we know that people in the organization will react emotionally as well as rationally. They do that because they are human. And that is perfectly fine. But those emotions are not neatly packaged into stages that we can watch pass before our eyes. As Forrest Gump would say – it’s like a box of chocolates… you never know what you’re gonna’ get.

Purpose during Change

September 7, 2010/0 Comments/in Leaders/by admin

I recieved this email today….

Subject: Dallas Business Journal article 9/3

Dear Kate ,

Your piece about leaders needing support in uncertainty is right on target. I especially enjoyed the sentence, “Those who define themselves as spouses, parents … do a much better job a maintaining their sense of purpose …” My leadership confidence comes from my God and family, not the work place. I would add that people who see work as a blessing and a means to provide for their family manage change better than others who cannot seem to separate their identity from their behavior, i.e., who they are versus what they do.

All the best,

Cole Whitney

—-

The article was about people’s need to maintain thier sense of purpose during times of change. Cole brought to light a source of purpose outside of work that I had not mentioned in the article. It was a really terrific catch. I had left it out… but it certainly is a biggie for many many people. Whatever your beliefs or your passions, look for ways to define yourself and your value beyond just want you do. It will build resiliency during times of change (and will probably make you a more fulfilled person overall!)

Outsourcing Means Big Changes for People Within an Organization

August 26, 2010/0 Comments/in Change Management, Change Readiness, Communication, Culture, Leaders, The Change Management 101 Model/by admin

Sure, go ahead and outsource. It makes good business sense sometimes to focus on your core competency and let someone else handle some of the necessary business functions (HR, IT, data entry services, etc…) that just have to get done. Hire dimensional signage printing company to make sure you will be at the forefront of people’s minds if they ever need one of the elements your company provides.

If you are considering outsourcing, then read the guidelines for outsourcing payroll first and don’t underestimate what it will take from the people within your organization.

We have a client who has been trying to work with an outsourced HR service provider for over a year. So far, the move has been a gigantic failure because the client completely underestimated the changes in mindset, attitude and behavior that would be necessary to make it work. When considering to hire a serviced to ease your job we recommend to consider look for the reviews of this payroll check solutions which now used by many big and small business.

We also have a client who outsourced most of their information technology work to an offshore provider. They knew they would have to lay people off, but they didn’t realize how much work would be involved with shifting the way they worked to match new processes and changing roles and structure to work in the new way.

If you decide to outsource work or hire UK human resources services, go in with your eyes wide open. Don’t forget about the people. Proactively manage the change to help people become ready, willing, and able to succeed in the new way of working.

Plan, Do, Sustain

August 13, 2010/0 Comments/in Communication, Leaders, The Change Management 101 Model/by admin

So how do you actually manage change? We see so many clients who talk about the difficulties of change and recognize that they have issues with awareness, adoption, or internalization of new work behaviors. But lots get stumped when it comes to actually doing anything about it. “It is the soft and fuzzy stuff”, “you can’t really change behavior”, “the people stuff will just work itself out”, or “a good leader is what we need to fix it all.”

But there is actually work that can be done to make the behavior changes happen. A simple model can take you step by step through the activities to manage business change: “Plan, Do, Sustain.” Each phase includes two specific stages necessary to the change process. As you move from one stage to the next, just take it step by step – gather information, establish milestones, measure progress.

Try it… you’ll like it. It doesn’t have to be rocket science to work.

Follow the Leader

July 8, 2010/0 Comments/in Leaders/by admin

There are more than a few leaders who expect different things of themselves than they do of those who follow them. To some extent, that makes sense – leaders are different… they may have more responsibilities competing for thier time, they are often over-booked and short on time, they have a level of experience that many don’t have. But, on the other hand, it can be problematic. In the end, leaders are part of the organization and what they do is seen by others as important, while what they don’t do somehow seems less important.

We have seen it often with eduction in organizations. Executives often aren’t exposed to the training that people get one level below them, creating a knowledge gap. Managers are told that certain training sessions are mandatory. But leaders often say “we already know how to do XYZ… we don’t need training on it.” Unfortunately, they don’t know what they don’t know.

That knowledge gap can lead to the demise of the learning that was intended. Without exposure to the same learning, sometimes leaders don’t ask the right questions to reinforce the learning, or they do things to undermine things that were taught – all unknowingly. And, without the interest and attention from leaders, many times the managers assume this must not be so important.

Leaders set the pace and the tone of an organization. Follow the leader was a game we all played in grade school… and to some extent, we still play it at work. If you are the boss, think about what you are doing and how those following will see it.

Changing Behavior Starts with Connecting the Dots

June 29, 2010/0 Comments/in Communication, Leaders, Uncategorized/by admin

“People need to play bigger!” This was something a leader announced to his organization about how they could transform their business. He had conviction and passion… but he also had everyone is his organization utterly confused. Play bigger? What did that mean? How on earth were several thousand people going to put such a vague directive into action?

When people are asked to change, we need to be specific about what is expected. Sometimes it might seem like we are stating the obvious and not giving people enough credit to think for themselves. But people need the dots connected for them when they are asked to change… and they need the dots drawn very close together and connected with a big fat marker.

What is expected of me? What should I do? It may seem obvious to leaders, but it is often times not to the people who need to shift the way they work.

Getting more specific eliminates confusion and misdirected efforts. Knowing very clearly what actions they should take helps people focus on conquering small concrete goals to build their confidence. And pride in even small accomplishments helps accelerate a person’s ability to absorb the change.

Once people pick up the behaviors, they will internalize them and make them their own. They will start to build on the new behaviors and improve on them. They will come up with ideas for how they can be even more accountable without being asked because this will be their new standard of behavior.

Leaders are People First

May 25, 2010/0 Comments/in Leaders/by admin

I can’t tell you the number of times I have heard someone complain that change is not happening in their organization because leaders are not saying or doing the right things. In fact, the most commonly cited reason for failure of organizational change is ineffective or insufficient sponsorship.

But leaders are people before they are sponsors. Just as we need to help people in the organization get ready, willing, and able to behave differently, we need to help leaders make that same transition. We can’t expect leaders to magically commit to a new set of ideas and behaviors before they themselves have fully thought through what it means for them, how they will be valued under the new environment, how supported they will be, and more.

Sometimes when people see leaders taking time to understand what is required and how they will fit in, they assume with snide cynicism that the leader is being “political.” But evaluating their own fate does not make a leader “political”… it makes them human. (Don’t get me wrong, there are overly ambitious leaders out there… but they are the exception, not the rule.)

Next time you want to blame the failure of a change on leaders, think about how you can help leaders make the transition to new behaviors and ideas. If we accept that leaders are people first, we can better position them to be sponsors.

Using new techology to tackle old problems

May 11, 2010/0 Comments/in Change Management, Communication, Leaders/by admin

We published our first app in the iTunes App Store a few weeks ago. It is a Change Readiness Audit that helps organizations assess how ready they are for any given change. After answering a few questions, the user gets some feedback about how well they are doing. Some poeple are really digging the format and the ease of use. But others are telling us that what is basically a 5 minute survey is far too simple to capture what is necessary for changes to succeeed.

I see both sides of it. I think the intention of something that is “quick and dirty” is really to just expose people to a new way of looking at change. An IT manager in charge of a system implementation in his company might not generally consider the fact that there needs to be a clear understanding of the need for change, that leaders need to be demonstrating commitment, etc…. An easy and non-threatening assessment like this audit might just open his eyes a little bit. At least that is what we hope.

Should someone assume that change is as simple as a few short questions? Absolutely not. But change is not really rocket science… we know there are certain things that MUST happen and be in place for change to be successful. Hopefully this is at least a start!