Sandy Schwan at Evolving Strategies, LLC

"To Get What You Want Don't Go With Your Gut." Wait...What?!

"Where there is shouting, there is no true knowledge."

Leonardo Da Vinci, Italian painter, sculptor, architect, and engineer whose genius epitomized the Renaissance humanist ideal, 1452 - 1519

When a person shouts at you, your gut reaction may be to yell right back. This is one situation when following your gut may not be such a good idea, and may result in a damaged relationship. Instead, try responding to the desired outcome.

NO: Event - Reaction - Outcome

YES: Event - Outcome - Reaction

Action

When an unsettling event occurs:

1. Pause.
2. Ask yourself

: what is the outcome I want? Instead of reacting to the event, act in alignment with your desired outcome.

Consider the person who yelled at you: do you want an improved relationship with her, or do you want to make her feel as bad as you do?

(If it's the latter, go ahead and yell back.) If it's the former, empathize with his anger and respond to the underlying issue in a calm manner.

Enjoy this great article by Peter Bregman.

Using Values to Guide Business Strategy, Keep Employees Engaged and Grow Your Business

"The Cause is Hidden, But the Result is Well Known."

Ovid, Roman Poet (43 BC - 17 AD)

People today are focused on the global economic crisis, but Harvard Business School professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter sees also a global crisis of business.

Has the model of American capitalism that worked so well to raise the fortunes of millions of people last century hit a wall? In its place must arise a new model of the company, one that serves society as well as rewarding shareholders and employees, Kanter argues in her new book, SuperCorp: How Vanguard Companies Create Innovation, Profits, Growth, and Social Good.

Kanter, one of my top tier strategy and organizational change visionaries that I follow and learn from, shared key points and great stories at a leadership learning session I attended with my esteemed colleague from the Northern Trust Company, Jill Nabonsal:

1.  Start with a Sense of Purpose. Lead with Your Principles and Values. Think about how you can apply your products and services to address the many unmet societal needs.

2.  Be Open to Discussions. It is Not Your Words But Your Conversations that Matter. Allow for self-organizing, -governing -policing where possible. Give your employees a voice and you may be amazed what transpires.

3.  Value Relationships. A Sense of Purpose Forms a Strong Basis for Your Relationships and Conversations. Start with 'Who I am, what I believe and what is important to me.' Speak of values first. Think of meeting others' needs before your own. (And you may be surprised how your own needs end up being met way beyond your expectations.)

4.  Use Values to Reduce Risk. Having Values at the Core of Your Solutions Reduces Risk. Your standards seem too high? Help your clients reach the higher standards that you may set. Who wins? Who benefits? Your clients, your clients' clients, your team, you.

Here is a more detailed summary of the book if you are interested in learning more.

But can doing good keep employees engaged and grow your business? You bet it can. Stay tuned for my next post.

New! Improved! But, Do You Know Who Cares?

"Erroneous assumptions can be disastrous."

Peter Drucker, (1909 - 2005) one of my all time favorite authors  

Many companies are keen to introduce "new and improved" products or services. Yet, all too often these new innovations are useful to the company but not the customers or clients they aim to serve. Example: a self check-out lane may help a company reduce the number of cashiers it needs but may be a hassle for customers who are baffled by the new machines.

Action: Evaluate new innovations through the lens of the market — not just the lens of your company. Before you roll out a new service, feature, or product under the "new and improved" umbrella, be sure to understand whether it is something your prospects and client want or need. 

In organizational change management, this evaluation step is called a Stakeholder Impact Analysis. (There are many names that are used as well, but I will stick with this title for now.) This activity is an important for step to allow you to consider all of the groups and people who could be affected by a change or innovation, and in what ways they will be impacted.

 

Know Thy Partner: Three Client Types and How to Work With Them

An interesting perspective to consider of the outset of each 'client' and / or organizational change.

“Men are anxious to improve their circumstances, but are unwilling to improve themselves; they therefore remain bound.” — James Allen, 1864-1912, English literary man of mystery and unrewarded genius

The smart folks at Vital Smarts and the MIT Sloane Management Review recently released a study on the root causes for the shockingly high failure rate of cross-functional projects and programs. Estimates are that as many as 80 percent of strategic initiatives, IT projects, corporate programs, and the like are awful disappointments. For example, four years ago, the world watched as Gustav Humbert, the CEO of Air Bus, was dismissed from his job in shame when the A380 aircraft missed its delivery date by more than a year. The worst of it was that the announcement of the delay happened on the day the plane was due! Makes you scratch your head in wonder that this information did not seem to be available to Mr. Humbert any sooner than the minute he was supposed to unveil the engineering marvel to the world. What was going on?

The study identified five early warning signs of project failure. How companies handle these five issues predicts with up to 85 percent precision how well they achieve critical results. In fact, if the people at these organizations handle any of these crucial issues poorly, the odds of the project being delayed, of quality being compromised, and of costs escalating are better than 70 percent. Not good.

1. Fact-Free Planning — Commitments to deadlines and limits on resources are made with little consideration for the real demands of the project.
2. AWOL Sponsors — The executive sponsor of a project is not leading as s/he should. S/he is not showing up for meetings, holding people accountable, or walking the talk.
3. Skirting — Powerful leaders bypass agreed upon decision-making processes or quality gates in ways that are allowing scope creep or putting commitments at risk.
4. Project Chicken — Critical aspects of the project are going over schedule or running over budget and it's not politically popular to admit it. Instead, people play "chicken"—letting things get closer to the deadline without acknowledging problems.
5. Team Failures — Key members of the project team are not competent or do not follow through on their commitments.

ACTION:

• In your project plans, remember to give the right level of focus on the people aspect of the project. Confirm sponsor commitment and what 'commitment' means to project success.
• Make one of the first steps in your project a "Roles and Responsibilities" list. In organizational (or project team) design 101, a fundamental reason why teams don't work effectively is because it is not clear who is doing what. Make it clear – write it down and discuss with everyone on that list.
• Raise issues as soon as you identify them. I think we all know that it is much more effective to handle issues when they are spark vs. a full-blown wildfire.
• Get clear on how people, groups are to be held accountable for this project. This is tricky, but if you get this agreement upfront, it gives you the leverage to question accountability should something go awry.

Adapted from Vital Smarts, 2009.

Self-Service Employee Engagement During Organizational Change

"If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change your attitude. Don't complain." Maya Angelou

Lots of interest and answers exists in how to engage employees. How are those solutions working? I am not sure, but I am thinking of a way to guarantee its success: self-service employee engagement.

One of the books I am reading currently states that "many studies have revealed that the average person possesses from 500 to 700 different skills and abilities." Wow – that is quite a large number to work with. And, it sounds like a great platform to use in helping to know that there is no lack of new ways to think about personally engage and navigate through organizational change successfully.

Going through organizational change can be frustrating. Actually, I will guarantee that you will experience frustration at some time during the change. When working with clients, I may hear questions like these regarding the managing change:

• When is 'it' going to be over, to stop?
• Why should I do anything or pay attention to anything since things are going to change again in six months?
• I am so frustrated. Just tell me what to do, and I will go do it.
• Why can't I just do my job the same way I've been doing it for the past 25 years?

How about if you decide to take the bull by the horns (yep, that is my southern heritage coming out loud and clear) and choose ways that you can win in the game of managing change? Why not think about the skills you want to show your company or skills you want to further develop? There are a lot of unknowns during organizational change, so try to define the shaping and engaging of your involvement.

ACTION

1. Make a list of activities that you enjoy doing. These activities can be in your professional or personal life (i.e., managing a family requires significant management and organizational skills, patience and flexibility to name a few!).
2. Identify five to fifteen skills that are required to do that activity well.
3. Think about how you can apply either one or many of those skills to guide you and others through the current organizational change your company is under-going.
4. Give your ideas a try.

In the end, you and your company – or team, family, organization, school, etc. – will win. Victims need not apply.

Loss: A Learning Opportunity with a Specific Purpose

"Should you shield the canyons from the windstorms, you would never see the beauty of their carvings." Dr. Elisabeth Kubler Ross, 1926-2004, Swiss-born psychiatrist and author

I have friends and family that are experiencing difficult losses of family pets. I've been revisiting Kubler Ross' five stages of grief to help me get a better sense of where these folks are in the grieving process so that I may better support them through each stage.

Brushing up on this model reflects what some of what my clients are experiencing. A merger of two companies with two distinctly separate cultures into one company and one culture doesn't happen overnight. People need to experience the Denial – Anger – Bargaining – Depression – Acceptance of the 'death' of their original company before accepting and embracing their new company.

Remembering to include organizational change frameworks and time to allow employees to move through this process. Don't fault them for their feelings. Instead take the time to learn how to assist in guiding them through the stages, if appropriate.

I'll end with another impactful quote from EKR:

"You will not grow if you sit in a beautiful flower garden, but you will grow if you are sick, if you are in pain, if you experience losses, and if you do not put your head in the sand, but take the pain as a gift to you with a very, very specific purpose."

ACTION: If you are experiencing an organizational change, develop a list of ten possible purposes / opportunities for you to learn in this change. The purpose is there...and it is up to you to find it.

Follow the Rocket Man to Develop Your Mythology-inspired Change Plan

"The less I say the more my work gets done."

Elton John (1947 – ), English music artist

(and inspired by The Northern Trust Corporation colleague across the pond, Mark Newsome)

Nike may have used this quote as inspiration for its "Just Do It" tagline. Have you ever noticed that during a shift in a company's business and/or organizational strategy, employees seem to fall into two broad camps: those who talk and those who deliver. All the talking is typically nonproductive and can show a weakness in character.

ACTION

1. Be quiet and get to work. Spend time in conversations of value that will help you and your team accelerate movement through a change, but do not waste your energy on fruitless conversations.

2. Try not to engage in fruitless conversations. Certainly, all humans need to express there questions, fears, concerns etc., but keep that group small and the conversations private.

3. Channel your inner Nike - not the company but the Greek mythological character of strength, speed, and victory - and focus on the building momentum, accelerating and creating a strong desire to succeed in influencing a significant strong organizational change.

Looking to Create Creative & Innovative Solutions? Go To Your Stretch Zone

Can You Become a Creature of New Habits?

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/04/business/04unbox.html?_r=1&goback=%2Ehom

This New York Times article provides an interesting perspective on the three zones of existence and in which zone true change occurs.

There are "...three zones of existence: comfort, stretch and stress. Comfort is the realm of existing habit. Stress occurs when a challenge is so far beyond current experience as to be overwhelming. It’s that stretch zone in the middle — activities that feel a bit awkward and unfamiliar — where true change occurs."

If possible, develop change management solutions, strategies and tactics to keep impacted people in the stretch zone. The stress zone can create an inability for people to learn because they are in the 'fight - or flight' mode.

Crash. Burn. Turnaround: Seven Ways to Turn Failure Into Success

"Every strike brings me closer to the next home run." 

Babe Ruth (1895–1948), American baseball player

Perhaps you are leading an organizational change (e.g., merger, acquisition, downsizing, hyper-growth, business process reengineering) that is not performing quite as planned. It could even be considered a…failure. So, what do you do?

 

You may not realize it now, but you have (at least) two key responses: the ‘little w’ response and the ‘Big W’ response (and I am hopeful that my Northern Trust Corporation colleagues reading this entry are smiling at the re-use of big and little w).

 

Option One: The little w response. wallow in self-pity

 

Option Two: Big W response:  Be Willing. Be Willing to turn disappointments into great accomplishments by:

• Changing a course of action that isn’t working, no matter how much faith, time and money you may have put into it so far
• Abandoning a path that is not taking you where you want to go, and starting over again

Thomas Edison believed there were no mistakes or failures, only “eliminated options” that brought him one step closer to his goal. Decide to eliminate option one above and rethink failure.

A failure can be a valuable opportunity to regroup and rethink strategies and goals. Do not let pride keep you stuck in a wrong decision. Realize there is hope on the other side of the change, even if you cannot see it yet.

 

ACTION: Try these seven steps to turn failure into success. 

1.   Look at your past objectively

2.   Focus on the purpose on the other side of the failure / pain

3.      Realize that you can’t see the whole parade from where you stand

4.      It’s not whether you have won or lost in the past; it’s the person you have to become to win in the future. Think about who you want to become 

5.  Accept that falling is a normal part of life, but try to fall forward - in the direction of your goal

6.  Realize that pain and heartache are only labor pains before your / the change's birth

7.  Know that retreat does not equal defeat

I recognize that these steps are not easy. There are strategies and tools to help you succeed in each step. Consider adding your steps that have worked well for you in the past. Even better, create a new step.

Make a deliberate decision not to give up in transforming your adversities into success springboards.

 

Adapted from © Advisor Today 2008 and Critical Choices That Change Lives: How Heroes Turn Tragedy Into Triumphby Daniel Canstro. All rights reserved.