Towards Transformational Change

Towards Transformational Change

Much has been shared on Change Management in so many ‘to do’ consulting manuals. However, change has a soft and a hard part: and interesting enough the softer part is harder relative to the other.

I look at change metaphorically speaking as a sailboat on the ocean.

For me, the hard part is the Project Management aspects: Prepare, Engage, Design, Implement, Monitor, Embed, Evaluate and Terminate and the ‘check points’ that would determine Go/No Go, at each stage. This is the intellectual part of change. The content part of change.

However, it is the softer aspect of HOW, we will deliver change that is more crucial. People connect to a Vision, a compelling vision of the future, a place which would be better than Today: that story needs to be told: Together we are changing! The story needs to be reinforced regularly and wins/losses shared transparently along the journey to build trust, credibility and for leaders to come across as being fair, transparent and authentic.

Kottler model of Change is an interesting framework that creates this. So too, the CAP (Change Acceleration Process) by GE. Each consultant uses their own framework that works best for them. Each step builds on the Process element of change. It is said that if you had 10 hours, what would you you use most of the time on: Sharpen the axe (Process) , or chop wood? (Content).

Amongst all, the most crucial part of the process: the Principles of Transition. This work is to be co-created by the steerco, and to be understood widely across the organization. Transition principles lays out clearly the Performance Ambitions, Reasons for Change, Business Case, and the why of Change. That said, it should speak to the Values of the company, and how it would approach all elements of change through those lenses, like the North Star that is fixed and directional.

Even more importantly, it should clarify, the Leadership Standards as to how leaders are expected to lead change and the ‘Must Do’ behaviours.

In my experience of dealing with change, I believe, that people are not uncomfortable with dealing with change. They are indeed uncomfortable with the uncertainty that change brings and not having answers to the questions that get raised, which leads to anxiety and personal frustration. Communication, Communication and even more communications , allows people to embrace change.

Abiding by standards, Principles of transition, Being fair, transparent and authentic with skill, and sensitive to how people respond to change is crucial for change to be transformative.

Change when handled well would lead to institution building, at its worst, it creates one bad design to another bad design. Structures are transformed, but people in those structures continue to operate without any change.

For change to be institutional, it needs to define and embed new ways of working, that is reinforced by rewards.  The tolerance of the lowest error, determines the threshold of the culture. If you tolerate late arrival to the meeting, no matter how insignificant that establishes the implicit tolerance and culture of the workplace. Leaders need to demonstrate what they are intolerant too and call this out publicly. Clearly, between what is said, and what is done, done beats said, any day.

When Strategy and Culture collide, who eats who for breakfast?

Most Change is destined to fail: the hard is delivered: the easy bit. The soft is left undone. Organization that truly wish to bring transformational change must focus on that 1% difference, which is a significant differentiator. It is the 1% difference which makes the 100% difference.

News - from facts to entertainment

I try not to react to news each day hoping I manage my day with sanguine composure. 

I find news disturbing and energy sapping. It keeps people constantly scared and anxious: building unconscious fears and seeding prejudice. News by definition is served out with one objective: sensationalism. To gain eyeball for the channel and deliver the commercial goals for prime time advertising. TV channels compete, racheting the decibel levels to steal the march from its' near rival, clamouring to gain attention.  As we have so little time to reflect on the news or to ascertain the veracity of what is being shared, we fall prey to colluding with the editorial slant that it so vociferously espouses.  

You can see this out through screaming headlines in the dailies, live news streaming, channels with news anchor, who invite panels not for objective dialogue but to stimulate argumentative views, where emotions are exploited and manipulated and all of us become live spectators to an unfolding drama. Everyone who watches has vested interests and all are gratified perversely. Panel members, who get an hour's slot to fame to either celebrity status or notoriety. I often wonder why panel members even bother to come when they know it could only be reputation damaging, but I guess they do not care. Unashamed, unabashed, and unrepentant they confirm to us all the sadness of our times: Crime and evil pays, justice and fairness continue to be violated. The anchor enjoys his potency to grandstand each news hour: interrogating and attacking, and making insinuations all the time, even while wishing to appear to be asking a question. Your silence confirms your guilt, your responses are taken as an excuse. Dammed if you do, dammed if you don’t. The audience these days is also invited to engage with the gory drama, through live text streaming of messages right through the telecast. News today is perverse entertainment, not objective reporting of facts, even a permissible allowance for offering a perspective. 

News today is speculative, sensational, gory, emotion rousing, and devoid of facts and accurate confirmation by authorities. Through archived images, manipulated clips set to multiple loop, and subtle innuendoes, the media whip up a kangaroo trial: a media trial that allows them to be prosecutor, judge and jury. Through all this we remain hypnotised, our mental abilities suspended, our thinking ability restricted, as we consume large portions of adulterated poison. This toxicity plays itself out in so many other ways: and anger is often deployed where it does not belong.  

Who is to blame? To answer that question respond to the riddle below:

A Queen, ignored by the King, decide to elope with a Knight, who seduced her and galloped off through the forest, where they were confronted by a Ogre who attacked the horse. The Knight, pushed the queen to the ground and certain death. The ogre’s soul was possessed by a wicked Witch who lived in the mountains. Who is responsible for the death of the queen? 

Once more on Leadership

How to like and be liked

Let me offer you two thoughts from David Rock, the SCARF model and my builds.

Our brain, he argues is wired for either reward (dopamine release) or punishment (I have elaborated on this from a Buddhist Perspective in several of my posts).

Status, Certainty, Autonomy, Relatedness and Fairness have a tremendous impact on our relationship.

Status – an increase or decrease can be achieved through feedback. Using Appreciate Enquiry, or feedforward – focusing on what is being done well. By offering negative feedback all the time we create and perpetuate the danger response. Also, as leaders, since we wish to share more on any issue with our direct reports, they may feel even more vulnerable. Enhancing the status of the other, making them feel valued would help. Read more about Pygmalion effect.

Certainty – What will happen during change. Just giving more information moves them to reduced anxiety. Setting clear expectations will create certainty.

My experience tells me that people are not afraid around change, they just need more and more information around the uncertainty that surrounds change. Providing regular communication will help including engaging people during change.

Autonomy – offering people choices, reduce stress. People need to know they have choices. Avoid micro managing. No one likes a hobson’s choice. Even in a stormy brawl in a bar, police tend to be very polite to the offender and offer him choices, ‘Would you like for us to walk outside and discuss this, or shall we move to the back of the bar?’. Try this with your child, “Would you like to do your homework an hour before dinner, or would you prefer an hour post dinner?”

Relatedness – when you meet new people, you feel stress regarding strangers. But as we get to know people (he is like me; not like me) is important to increase or reduce oxytocin. As leaders amply the personal relationship as they do not wish to be too close. Discussing one’s emotions reduces the impact of the emotion. All humans have a desire to engage and relate. All our fears are ‘internal’, created by the brain. Apprising one’s own thinking, feeling and behaving continuously would lead to personal growth. Remember we are all part of the social world.  

Fairness – a fair exchange increases positive feelings. Providing a perception of fairness is critical. Having a set of principles is important. Employees need to feel safe. That their backs are being protected. Organizations must demonstrate justice and fairness is being dispensed.

As leaders, we may end up creating danger responses by default. To enhance increase Status, Provides clear expectation, empowers, relates and connects and comes across as being fair. When we focus attention (I prefer to call it awareness) we become intelligent, and we experience total mindfulness.

Compassion, that goes beyond sympathy and empathy becomes ours to possess. Then we truly become leaders.

Grace in Conversations

Through many dangers, toils and snares

I have already come,

'Tis grace has brought me safe thus far

And grace will lead me home.

Lyrics from Amazing Grace

At work and socially, we have so many occasions to show grace, to be bigger than ourselves. Can we truly say that we leave people feeling more positive and energized and engaged after a conversation, or at the end we come out of the event devastated and frustrated. It is critical to assess how we bring about closures. I remind myself each meeting, if I can truly believe the conversation helped both of us: that is a true test of leadership effectiveness.

Build your opponent a golden bridge to retreat across.”

― Sun Tzu

One of the greatest skills, is to influence and impact the other, supported either by formal ‘power’ bestowed or otherwise. When an issue becomes a conflict, our natural reaction is to fight, flight or freeze. I would advocate, that ‘neither defy nor deny, but define; neither denounce nor renounce but announce, neither accuse or defuse, but confirm’. Through this new response, one can bring new direction, new meaning, new choices, and new actions.

 Having had more than three decade of experience in mergers, integration and transforming culture and organization, that involves re-setting the power dynamics and ‘new ways of working’ I am convinced that being graceful about change (being sensitive) is very important for leaders.  Coming through as being fair, professional and with principles is important. Employees may not feel good with the decisions: may agree or disagree with the results, and may be adversely impacted, but they must believe that the process was fair.

Perhaps for us men at work, being competitive at all times has been driven into us. While we hear, ‘play by the rules’, ‘be a gentleman’ do we really believe that.

The terms we use at work (many taken from war or sports) continue to reinforce, winning or losing. Deep within, we fear, “Nice guys come last”.

“The greatest victory is that which requires no battle.”

― Sun Tzu, The Art of War

I have innumerable personal instances in which I have lacked grace. Despite knowing that everything was flowing my way (aligned with want I wanted), I continued to act in a manner that appeared territorial or intimidating.

I am reminded of Lao Tsu” There is nothing in the world more soft and weak than water, yet for attacking things that are hard and strong there is nothing that surpasses it, nothing that can take its place”.

Again I try and remember “If you would contract, you must first expand. If you would weaken, you must first strengthen. If you would overthrow, you must first raise up. If you would take, you must first give. This is called the dawn of intelligence.

Intellectually, I get all this. But in the moment, in that crucial moment to offer grace, Do I? 

Amazing grace! How sweet the sound, That saved a wretch like me! I once was lost but now am found, Was blind but now I see. ~ John Newton, Hymnist