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"Managing at the Speed of Change" Review 4

2/6/2014

In Chapter 6 Conner continues by talking about the next support pattern, the Process of Change, or the mechanisms of human transition. He says that people who adapt more slowly than others have a low tolerance for ambiguity and see life in black and white or yes and no terms. Resilient people, however, realize that change is fluid and that much of their time will be spent in transitions.

Conner outlines a three phase transition state first outlined by Kurt Lewin in 1958 which says that there are three states: the present state, the transition state, and the desired state. The present state is the status quo. The transition state is that state of uncertainty where we develop new attitudes and behaviors. This can be a scary time and people often revert back to the old state due to the sense of ambiguity. The desired state is new state.

To get through the phases Conner refers back to Charles Darwins theory of survival of the fittest. He says more organizations initiate change than actually successfully sustain it. He says winners are those resilient individuals or organizations who manage change at a speed that allows them effectively implement transition on time and on budget. He says one of the biggest differences of winners compared to losers is tenacity. He says that a burning platform is often a reason that organizations have that tenacity as it is the resolve, or usually a business imperative, that requires them to make a change.

A burning platform situation often occurs as a result of already being in pain or due to anticipated pain. If a change is introduced due to anticipated pain then the organization often has more time to make strategic moves. Commitment comes with the resolve. Conner continues by saying that any change not only needs pain, but also a remedy to solve the problem. In order to sell the change it is often necessary to orchestrate pain messages (or messages that generate enough incentive to want to create commitment to the change) as well as approach the change from the hopes, fears, and perceptions of multiple different frames of reference within the organization (e.g. - honor their perceptions of reality).

Are you in enough pain to change? Are you approaching the change from the frame of reference of many different people within your organization in order to "sell" it appropriately?

"Managing at the Speed of Change" Review 2

1/20/2014

In Chapter Three Conner continues by saying that the rate of change has increased and yet people continue to operate as if this magnitude of change can be managed in the same way as it has in the past. He says that the volume, momentum, and complexity of change is accelerating at an increasing pace. He attributes this to seven fundamental issues:

Faster communication
A growing worldwide population
Increasing interdependence and competition
Limited resources
Diversifying political and religious ideologies
Constant transitions of power
Ecological distress

As a result of these and many changes going on in organizations, Conner says that to deal with all of this change "we have to shift our perceptions towards change and how it is managed." Managers are realizing that they are facing constant change and they are beginning to realize that managing change is a key skill that they need to have in order to flourish in this new environment.

In Chapter Four Conner says that managers are often not equipped to deal with the "future shock" or too much change in a short amount of time. He says that during this increased speed of change people don't stop changing, but they become less and less effective on both the job and personal fronts (e.g. - displaying dysfunctional behavior). This results in behaviors such as:

Reduced trust
Defensive behavior
Poor decision making
Increased conflict
Poor communication
Reduced propensity for risk taking
Inappropriate outbursts at the office
Venting job frustration at home

He says that the best way that managers and leaders can increase their success levels even with the increasing levels of change is to increase their level of resiliency and their understanding of human patterns of behavior that occur during change.

Do you ever see yourself and/or others in your organization displaying the behaviors above?

"Managing at the Speed of Change" Review

1/20/2014

"Managing at the Speed of Change: How Resilient Managers Succeed and Prosper Where Others Fail" by Daryl Conner is a book about resiliency and how to critical it is for managing changes in organizations. With the speed of change dramatically increasing these days it is imperative that leaders build of sense of resiliency within then to not only survive, but prosper.

So what is resilience? In Chapter One, Conner defines it as "the ability to demonstrate both strength and flexibility in the face of frightening disorder and the internal guidance system people use to reorient themselves when blown off course by the winds of change." He says that resilience is a key skill that can be learned in organizations since we spend so much of our time at work and that leaders can guide their organizations through changes by helping them focus on the change being achievable.

Finally, he concludes the first chapter by saying that we each are designed to move effectively and efficiently through change at a unique pace that will allow us to absorb the major changes and this is referred to as the Speed of Change. He says that "when we assimilate less change than our optimum speed would allow then we fail to live up to our potential."

So what happens when change happens at a speed that is more than we can handle? Conner says that when people can no longer successfully face change, they begin to display dysfunctional behavior, or what he calls the Beast. The Beast is subconscious behaviors that manifest as a result of perceived negative or positive changes (e.g. - reality not meeting expectations) such as becoming distant, irritability, preoccupation, and lack of productivity. It also decreased our speed of change. The focus of this book therefore, is to offer specific information about the patterns of change and what successful (e.g. - resilient) people do to achieve their change objectives and to move past the Beast.

Are you assimilating change at the speed that you are capable of? Are you living up to your potential?

The Four Cs of Change

7/25/2012

As I am going through a change in my own life (selling my home and moving) it reminds me of the 4 Cs of change that I use with my clients when they are going through a change:

Create a compelling vision - I know I had wanted to move for a while. My place was getting older and I wanted to be in the city where I could be closer to friends and clients. But it wasn’t until I realized that I had to change in order to reach the goals that I truly wanted - to be closer to community that I made the decision to finally move. I now had a compelling reason to move.
Chart a course of action - once I knew I wanted to move I had to determine exactly where I wanted to go, find a place, and then take the necessary steps to sell my current house. I had to take action in order to make my dreams come true.
Challenge the ups and downs that arise - as with any change resistance will arise. For me the house took longer than I expected to sell and there were many challenges in the process of selling it that arose, but I had to keep focusing on the reason I was doing this - to reach my goals and dreams - in order to push through the resistance.
Celebrate - once you move through the resistance and get to the other side than you can celebrate. Celebration is a big part of acknowledging the action you have taken and recognizing the accomplishment of everything you have gone through. I celebrated with friends and family who encouraged me along the way.

What change are you going through? What step in the process are you in and what can you do to keep moving through the change process?

“Necessary Endings” Review 3

6/6/2012

Dr. Cloud continues in Necessary Endings by discussing how to know when to let go of people as this can often be the hardest ending. He says a way to understand this is to diagnose the character of the people. He says that there are three kinds of people and you need to deal with each kind differently:

Wise people - a person who can learn from his own experience or the experience of another, make that part of himself and then deliver results from that experience base. They adjust to the truth and you deal with them by talking to and giving them feedback.
Foolish people - a person who rejects feedback, resists it, explains it away, and does nothing to adjust to meet its requirements. They adjust the truth so they don’t have to do anything different so talking to them about the problem does not help but setting limits and consequences does. Making the foolish person feel consequences is the biggest way to help influence their change.
Evil people - a person who wants to hurt you intentionally and the way to deal with them is to step away and protect yourself.

Dr. Cloud says the way to make a change is to create urgency and this can be done with time and energy. He says there are few strategies to create urgency:

Make the threat to our future as real in our minds as it is in reality
Create “Ending Alliances” - form powerful coalitions of those people who will be influencers of change
Create vision - this helps to create the motivation to change
Set deadlines - force endings by a certain timeframe
Create structure - consisting of time, plans, critical paths, milestones, deadlines, and meetings.
Stay close to the misery - to keep giving you the incentive to change
Measure, measure, measure - to make sure progress is made

Doing these steps helps to make urgent the new normal. What are you doing to ensure that you are assessing whether the people you are working with are the right ones? Are you creating enough urgency to create the changes that you desire. What is one step above that you can implement in order to begin to make the change?

“Necessary Endings” Review 2

5/30/2012

Dr. Cloud continues his discussion in Necessary Endings by describing the the state of being stuck or when we are not able to make endings a natural process. He says that creating an ending may cause some hurt, but it is good pain because it gets you to a whole other level. It can be bad, however, when we get used to the pain and it becomes our new normal. Pain is a signal that something is wrong and action is required. Dr. Cloud suggests that people stay in this pain when they are taking actions of learned helplessness based upon their internal maps.

He says that there are five types of internal maps:

Having an abnormally high pain threshold - putting up with too much “stuckness”
Covering for others - taking on too much responsibility for others
Believing that ending it means I failed - feeling like you need to persevere through everything
Misunderstood loyalty - still feeling loyal to someone even when you have outgrown them
•Codependent mapping - feeling responsible for another person’s pain when the enabling is ended.

Our psychological mapping can influence the way we handle things especially endings. If you have one of these mappings Dr. Cloud says that we can grow past these internal mappings by getting in touch with reality. It is often through the awareness of hopelessness which finally brings people to the reality of the pruning moment.

The first step he says that will motivate you to do what is necessary is recognizing that what you are doing has no hope of getting what you want. So hopelessness gets us near to a place of fearlessness and out of the place of just wishing things would change, but still doing the same thing (e.g. - the definition of insanity).

So how do you know if you are just wishing for something or that there is real hope that it will change? Dr. Cloud says the past is the best predictor. So how do you know if you can trust someone? Again he says focus on what they have done in the past and that will let you know about their integrity and character. But know that they can change if they are involved in a change process, have some structure around that change process (e.g. - coach, mentor, seminar), have some way to monitor these changes, support, and some success. Finally there also has to be some energy to change.

So are you facing your reality right now? Are you seeing things as they truly are or are you still seeing them out of a glass of hope? If so what internal mappings are you holding on to? What sorts of things will help you to internalize the change and want to move on?

Review of “Switch” Final

10/19/2011

The last part of Switch by brothers Chip and Dan Heath discusses “shaping the path” of change in your organization, business, or life. Shaping the path means creating an environment that encourages change or providing a method by which change can happen.

In Switch the authors describe three ways to shape the path - tweak the environment, build habits, and rally the herd. In tweaking the environment the thought is making the journey easier. What is in the environment, culture, way of working that is making a change hard? One example is making buying books from Amazon easy by having the 1-Click system. All of your information is stored in their database so when you want to buy something you just click once and it is done. Tweaking the environment is about making the right behavior easier and the wrong behavior harder.

The second way is building habits. Habits change over time, but by visualizing doing new actions (or developing action triggers) at a certain time can help shift a habit as well as creating a checklist. Anything that reminds a person to shift an automatic behavior into a new one can help in building sustainable new habits.

Finally the third tool is rallying the herd. This means that change happens when there support and help along the way . It is emulating behavior that others close to you are doing. So if you can get a small group to start exhibiting the change they can impact the rest of the organization.

While these are all interesting ways to encourage change I believe that the Heath brother’s perspective on this process simplifies what it takes to really change. They provide great examples of how things can change and what it takes, but the real process of change happens in the practice of it, through the growing pains of it, and with the support and help of people who have already been through a similar process.

When have you had wins in implementing change in your organization? What did you do to encourage the change and make it so that it is accepted and implemented throughout your organization? What can you do today to begin shaping the path of change?

Review of “Switch” 2

10/12/2011

The next part of “Switch - How to Change Things When Change is Hard” by Chip and Dan Heath talks about the second component of making change happen in your organization, business, or life - motivating your Elephant.

The Elephant again is the emotional mind. It is one that is in touch with our feelings and emotions associated with the change. Oftentimes people are scared of the change - scared that they are not capable of achieving the change, withstanding the change, or making the change. So in order to truly motivate people the Heath brothers state that you need to make people believe they are capable of change by either “shrinking the change” or “growing the people.”

So how do you shrink the change? Well Strike says that you limit the investment that you ask for up front or you limit the amount of time that you ask for. Either way you are breaking up the change into bite size pieces so that you are providing small wins and therefore hope each time a small task is completed. As each step along the process is completed then your confidence builds that you can make the change happen and therefore your Elephant is growing.

The second way that you can help people believe that they are capable of change is to “grow the people.” That means that you can help people tie the change to a sense of pride, their identity or a vision of a better situation. As a result they have something that is guiding them towards a change and encouraging them to want to grow. It is shift in mindset to show them a vision of a better future and the benefits of that future.

So in your organization how are you motivating your Elephant and those of your employees? Can you find ways to “shrink the change” or “grow the people” so that they are motivated to change or is their Elephant getting in the way?

Review of “Switch”

10/5/2011

This is a review of the first part of “Switch - How to Change Things When Change is Hard” by Chip Heath and Dan Heath. This book describes three major ways to make change happen in any part of your business, organization, or life. They describe the three methods - as directing the Rider (your rational mind), motivating the Elephant (your emotions), and shaping the path (providing guidance on how to get there).

This post will focus on the directing the Rider. The Rider is the rational mind and can often get stuck in “analysis paralysis” when a change is occurring. The Rider might not know how to change or what to do or it could be exhausted from trying so hard to change (and moving past the emotional Elephant) that it loses steam. The rational mind can also get stuck in choosing the short term gain versus the longer term view of things (e.g. - eating chocolate now or losing weight in the long term).

So what do Chip Heath and Dan Heath say about directing the Rider? They say first that you need to find some bright spots or positive examples of when this change has successfully happened in the past. For example when have you been able to implement a successful process or technology change? What were the key components of making that successful? The Heath brothers argue that if you or someone in your organization has been able to do it before then you can do it again. It is like Tony Robbins always says: “Success leaves signs.”

The second way that Chip and Dan Heath say that you can direct the Rider is to give it direction. They say that the best way to get of the analysis of the mind is to envision a future where the change already exists. Lay it that vision in detail and know what that long term looks like and feels like. Then they say to script out the critical moves to get there. If the new vision is a new process change then script out what the old process is, what the new process could be, the gaps, and then first 5-10 ten steps on how to achieve that new process. Then your employees will know exactly what to do in bite size pieces so that they can start to make the change without the rational mind getting in the way.

So what bright spots can you identify in your organization to help you with your current change process? Or what vision are you trying to achieve in your life? And how can you map out the critical steps that you can use to start getting there today?

How to Handle Resistance to Change?

9/7/2011

If you are going through a large scale change in your organization - be it a technology implementation, a change in strategy, or new legislation - there will inevitably be some resistance to from your employees. Why? Because each person reacts differently to a change, stress, or moving out of their comfort zone. There are some typical reasons, however, that employees resist change. Here are the top five:

1.They don’t know why the change is happening - if an employee does not understand why a change is happening and how it could be important for the organization as a whole they will often not accept or be resistant to the change. By making and communicating out a “case for change” employees can understand why the change is needed.

2.They don’t think that the “rewards” outweigh the “cost” - often people like to stay in their comfort zone. They want to keep doing what they are used to doing unless the benefits of the change can be made for them. With the case for change, leaders need to clearly state the benefits of the change and why the new change will be better than the old one. Then employees will begin to feel more comfortable with the change process.

3.There is not enough clarity around the change - often when there is change information is not provided as frequently or as well as is necessary. Openness and transparency are important when going through a change process. It is imperative to share information down from the leadership on why, when, and how the change is happening and keep employees informed about the progress of the change.

4.They don’t feel part of the change - If employees are not asked for feedback as part of the change process then they don’t feel part of the change, which can lead to resistance. Feedback is an integral pat in of creating buy-in and having employees feel like their input and feelings are being heard and integrated into the change process.

5.Past change efforts have failed - some employees can feel like this effort will be just like the others and therefore are not supportive of it. Communicating why this one is different and why and how it will be successful will go a long way to reassuring people as well as showing “wins” during the implementation time frame.

Are you seeing any of these behaviors exhibited from your employees during change efforts? What have you done to alleviate resistance to change in your organization?

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