Focusing Change To Win Series – How Can You Lead to Thrive?

Posted on January 20, 2015 by agincourtarcher

Series Introduction

This is the eighth in the series of highlighting contributions from 1072 Business Leaders and Consultants from 80 countries in 19 Industry Sectors detailed in our book Focusing Change to Win. Each blog gives some of the key findings and a sample of useful tips. In this blog we are focusing on How Can You Lead to Thrive? Here are the other book sections we are highlighting:

8. How Can You Lead to Thrive?

Clearly from this survey, leadership skills that focus change to win are at a premium. Today, change is the norm. It is neither random nor regular but hovers somewhere between. How these interrelationships arise and how they challenge organizations is not well understood (IBM & KMPG Surveys endorse this)

Why should leaders focus on their organization’s essence?

An organization’s essence is the amalgam of mission, vision, values, intent and ethics. These components should be the focus of aligning and realigning people rather than delivering the corporate directives after a strategic planning retreat. Sustaining an organization’s essence is a dynamic that requires everyone’s engagement to define and redefine under changing situations.

It’s only by leaders “inter-reacting” that they can develop people’s shared clarity about the organization’s essence – “what we stand for!” From shared clarity comes confidence, from confidence comes cohesion and from cohesion comes the freedom to decide and act. That’s how organizations will stay on track today. Many people making many decisions true to their organization’s essence.

It’s also expected that some employees (including some executives) will not “buy into” an organization’s Essence once it is clearly defined. Leaders should then be ready for those employees and managers to transition out of the organization. This will benefit them and organizational cohesion

What are the dangers of using technology to increase control?

Technology increases the illusion of greater control which can feed a leader’s “Control Addiction”. More measurement equals more control. But measuring what is easy to measure can have the very opposite effect. The problem is that most of what is easy to measure has already occurred. What is difficult is dealing with the factors that are difficult to measure and with forecasting what is likely to happen down the road. We can’t spend more time looking through the “rear view mirror” when we have a winding road ahead of us. Technology’s cheapness and speed feeds this addiction with the past and “looking in the rear view mirror” by access to ever more data and information at the cost of acquiring knowledge and wisdom.

This condition is worsened by technologists clinging to largely sequential design and deployment processes which are not fully user or client inclusive, e.g. “Waterfall Process”. Contrast this with agile processes which are fully supported by our contributors. See the link to comparing the Waterfall Process with Agile Methodologies.

Why do we have difficulty developing leaders that can thrive in today’s conditions?

Today’s conditions are not good proving grounds for the leaders we need. More of doing more with less, multi-tasking and the growing doubt that we may be doing the wrong things means that decision-making, and expectations are now more compressed. Consequently, entrenched expediency leads us into solving one problem so quickly that we find we have now created five more problems. We are so busy trying to solve problems there’s no time for “Where the hell are we going?” These conditions are not good for selecting or developing leaders who can work well under fluid and complex conditions.

How do we develop leaders that can thrive?

The tension between what Leaders want to achieve and their current culture prevents traditional leadership training from making a significant impact. For example, many leaders’ previous training has left them feeling that they could do a better job doing it themselves. Of course, too often this has not happened together with little sign that they have addressed their own or their junior leaders’ performance issues. The consequence is that leading up to a change they lack confidence and skills to handle the natural uncertainty that change creates. Consequently, they default to avoidance and expediency and as a result staff resistance rises morale suffers.

The conclusion is that Leaders need to develop a better framework to assess their competence to lead people, make the next and later changes more effectively.

In this section we outline how leaders can be developed to increase their chances of achieving both measurable short- and longer term results than traditional leadership training. It is based on approaches:

Aligning People – Getting people on the Same Page
Action Learning – Solving Difficult Problems while developing leaders’ skills

A Final Thought

Our position is that it’s only by energizing people and harnessing technologies better than anyone else that organizations can survive and thrive. Genuinely aligned, empowered and collaborative people will outperform the competition every time. A leader’s role is to create successful change that fulfills people and avoids human casualties. Leaders need to create working relationships that are rewarding not just superficially productive.

Action Points 7: Leading to Thrive

A Leader’s greatest impact is when they motivate their followers to action by appealing to their shared sense of their organization’s essence. Use these questions to rate your leaders’ abilities:

To what extent do your leaders focused on developing rewarding not just working relationships?
How reliant are your leaders on “command and control”?
How well do they really engage those they lead?
How well do they foster a culture of collaboration? Consider both internally and externally.

Leading to the Essence

Do your people know what your organization stands for? Specifically:

How well understood is the organization’s essence? (mission, values, intent and ethics)
How well aligned are my people with the Organization’s Essence and where it’s headed?
To what extent do leaders use the essence to guide and coach their people?

Developing Leaders

To what extent are you distributing and empowering leaders at all levels.
What evidence do you see of true “inter-reaction” where success and failure are openly discussed?
To what extent do they then take lessons learned and use them to repeat success and avoid failure.
How well do they use processes to help people stand back, objectify problems and make people’s thought processes transparent?
To what extent does the urgent drive out the important and mask how things accumulate, misalign and make each subsequent more difficult?

Problem Solving

How often do your leaders try to solve complex problems with processes geared to “benign or simple problems”?

How often do leaders face complex or wicked problems?

Leading Learning

What expectations do we have of people to develop shared knowledge from similar situations?
How much effort have you put into helping people express being puzzled or misunderstood?
How well do they lead people on tackling problems and solutions by sharing understandings, resolving differences and producing agreed courses of action?
How well have leaders, especially senior leaders, consistently expressed their expectations of learning to all levels across the organization?

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Developing Leaders for Effective Change

Posted on January 6, 2015 by agincourtarcher

Leading in times of transition is at best a significant and complex challenge. At worst it can be a leader’s darkest nightmare. The tension between what leaders want to achieve and their organization’s culture often means that traditional leadership training has not equipped leaders to effectively lead the organization through major changes.
Too often previous leadership training and a history of failed change contribute to the tension between the forces for change and those for maintaining the status quo. Unfortunately, as each attempt to use training to improve leadership competence fails so do the chances of successful change decline.

One reason leadership training lacks impact (no matter how good) is the lack of rigorous and continuous linkage between advancing change and advancing competence. Consequently, leading up to a change, those expected to start the change become part of the problem, not the solution. Too often they are unable or unwilling to tackle rising uncertainty and resistance.

How can you re-engage managers and develop their leadership competence?
This blog looks at how you can develop both measurable short- and longer-term results based on:
1. Getting People On The Same Page by Aligning People and then;
2. Making Better Use of What You Have by using Action Learning to help managers solving difficult problems while developing their leaders’ skills.

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Focusing Change To Win – How Effectively Are You Communicating Change?

Posted on January 6, 2015 by agincourtarcher

Series Introduction

This is the seventh in the series of highlighting contributions from 1072 Business Leaders and Consultants from 80 countries in 19 Industry Sectors detailed in our book Focusing Change to Win. Each blog gives some of the key findings and a sample of useful tips. In this blog we are focusing on How Effectively Are You Communicating Change? Here are the other book sections we are highlighting:

7. How Effectively Are You Communicating Change?

The following is based on 684 contributors who chose to add comments on communicating change. Unsurprisingly, contributors see their people at the heart of any successful change process. They see gaining stakeholder commitment as a force multiplier of powerful change ambassadors. Essential to creating that commitment are leaders taking their people into their confidence with honesty and courage.

Surprisingly, however, our analysis also sheds light on some blind spots. Overall, contributors focus more on technique than systemic or strategic issues when communicating change. For example:

They (Leaders) lack the ability to motivate or hold people accountable….they do a poor job at this…..lots of saying nothing….People are told, not asked.

Change Communication Blind Spots

How do communicate change. Zone of Concern Chart

Real change requires authentic communication and dialogue across all organizational levels. Although, employee’s resistance and disagreement are unavoidable, contributors show how it can be managed through multiplexed and constant communication. They stress that this only happens when change communication is centered on establishing and retaining trusting relationships. If employees feel fairness, they will trust more and trust is the glue of success.

So, what role does communication play in reducing change mistrust and cynicism among employees? Frequently, it’s people’s sense of fairness. The communication timing, involvement and sequence impact their sense of justice.

Where’s the Requiring Environment?

There seems little focus on improving alignment and change success. Issues like change management, communication, and change measurement were under 6% of contributors’ comments on communicating change.

Looking in more detail, a third of contributors said that they didn’t know of any change related communication or that their leaders don’t communicate enough.

For most contributors, real change is the outcome of authentic communication. They show how change can be managed through constant communication. Contributors often commented that trust in management was the only variable that significantly impacted change resistance.

However, comments on authentic communication and building trust seem to collide with those related to top down led change. Critical contributors point out that top down rests too often on leaders clinging to the belief that power, privilege and success lie in their core group. Whatever blend of top down and bottom up it is clear – one should be intentional and as one contributor said:

Being solid in the values you hold as a leader that needs clearly articulating and solidifying with your change management team before you start planning.

Our contributors are clear. Lay the groundwork for successful change before trying to carry out the next change. This starts with putting the change management team together before a specific change is planned. Then develop a shared governing set of values and design the change measurement framework.

Implementing Effective Change Communication Processes – A Questionnaire

This 38 question instrument was developed from 755 contributor comments on implementing an effective communication change process. It is designed to engage those involved in change management and leadership in selecting relevant questions and then reaching a consensus on improvement areas.

Analyzing Change Impacts
Set-up Change Program with Metrics
On-going Communication & Training

Action Points 6: Implementing an Effective Change-Communication Process

Based on your answers to the questionnaire above, use the following questions to develop your plan for developing effective change communication.

Have you established an explicit set of shared governing values?
How are you getting people ready for the inevitable change?
Have you engaged stakeholders and change agents?
Have you put the change-management team together?
How do plan to align the team’s values of change and their expectations of one another?
How are you going to improve leaders change communication skills?
Who is going to ensure that real change will be the outcome of authentic communication?
How are you going to ensure that all your people know and understand your change rationale?
How are you going to monitor employee’s sense of fairness and trust? (Remember: trust is the glue of success.)
How are you going to establish dialogue between groups and individuals, in often tense situations?
How are you going to establish and monitor your change’s requiring environment? Is there a set of aligned change expectations between leaders and each individual?

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Focusing Change To Win – Is Your Organization Thriving or Just Surviving?

Posted on December 9, 2014 by agincourtarcher

Series Introduction

This is the sixth in the series of highlighting contributions from 1072 Business Leaders and Consultants from 80 countries in 19 Industry Sectors detailed in our book Focusing Change to Win. Each blog gives some of the key findings and a sample of useful tips. In this blog we are focusing on Is Your Organization Thriving or Just Surviving? Here are the other book sections we are highlighting:

6. Is Your Organization Thriving or Just Surviving?

This in-depth analysis shows the wide range of factors that go into developing the Thriving Organization. Our intent in being comprehensive is deliberate. We want leaders to select which questions are most appropriate to them.

Our reasoning is that there are no simple solutions or steps to follow. What we urge is open debate in leadership teams to reach a commitment to those few things which can make a difference between being ahead and just playing catch up.

Thriving or Surviving Questionnaire

Enabling Factors

There are 69 questions to select from divided into seven categories to help as you develop your plan for building a more vibrant and competitive organization.

Leadership in Thriving Organizations
Change Management in Thriving Organizations
Planning to Thrive
Agility to Thrive
Thriving People
Communicating to Thrive
Learning to Thrive

Action Points 5: Developing the Thriving Organization

Based on your answers to the questionnaire above, use the following questions to develop your plan for developing a more vibrant and competitive organization.

Leadership in Thriving Organizations

What is the one thing you can do to improve your leaders focus for your current change?
What is your strategy for building leadership capacity and competence in the longer term?

Change Management in Thriving Organizations

Which aspects of change management do you need to address now?
What are you going to do differently in managing change in the longer term?

Planning to Thrive

How can you improve planning for change for the next time?

Thriving People

In terms of the current change, what can you do to focus people on making this change successful?
What is your focus going to be in improving peoples change readiness and agility?

Communicating to Thrive

Where do you need to focus in terms of improving communication?

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Focusing Change to Win Series – Why Bother Measuring Change?

Posted on November 11, 2014 by agincourtarcher

Series Introduction

This is the forth in the series of highlighting contributions from 1072 Business Leaders and Consultants from 80 countries in 19 Industry Sectors detailed in our book Focusing Change to Win. Each blog gives some of the key findings and a sample of useful tips. In this blog we are focusing on The Why and What of Change. Here are the other book sections we are highlighting:

Why Bother Measuring Change?

Most of our contributors do measure change, but 37% either don’t measure change or they don’t know if they do or feel measuring change is too difficult. So, here’s some evidence why this is worth struggling with. For example, learning is the most mentioned benefit of measuring change (27.1%). Yet, if this is so important then why the lack of focus on vehicles like coaching, mentoring and training to capitalize on this learning.[3]

Another striking disconnect is the low numbers of those who see benefits of measuring change’s impact on marketing and customers. This is curious, as our contributors’ most common reason for losing customers is not price but poor quality (92.2%), poor follow-up by sales people (76.5%) and making the wrong assumptions about customers (64.5%). After detailed analysis, it would seem that the relationship between change and competitive advantage is not as clearly visualized as one might think.

In addition, the use of employee metrics including personal performance, resistance to change, improvement to company culture and understanding our purpose, are low compared to satisfaction surveys. Most concerning is the lack of focus on individual behavioral change and tracking pay-related rewards. This is further evidence of little focus on accountability and establishing a requiring environment

Even when metrics are agreed upon, the next challenge is creating greater transparency so that they are used to create and sustain change momentum.

What Questions do Change Metrics Need to Answer?

Overall, there needs to be more focus on developing effective change metrics. The challenge is: How well do your change metrics accelerate learning, problem solving and decision making?

In Section 4, we distilled contributor questions on what they need change metrics to answer into a questionnaire. We ask readers to go through and rate their current metrics under three sections:

Navigating during a Change
Reviewing a Change
Planning the Next Change

Our contributors suggest establishing a change scorecard with their leadership team and key stakeholders. For example by:

Agreeing on those questions which the team needs to answer
Deciding what current metrics could be put to good use
Assessing during the change process how well they cover the risks of losing customers through poor product or service quality and poor sales follow-up.

And finally……Asking how well your scorecard helps you sell this and subsequent changes?

Action Points 3: Developing More Effective Change

Metrics

Protocol

Three themes were referenced in contributor comments about change metrics and how to test their overall effectiveness.

How well do your change metrics accelerate learning, problem-solving, and decision-making?

Establish Your Change Scorecard

It is strongly suggested that you go through this process with your leadership team and key stakeholders. (See section 7 for more details.)

Review the table Contributor Questions.
Agree on those questions your team need to answer when you are doing the following:

Navigating a change
Reviewing a change
Planning the next change
- What current metrics could be put to good use?
- How well do they cover the risks of losing customers through poor-quality sales follow-up during the change process?
- How well do they inform you that the organization is reducing assumptions about customers’ view of the change and how the change responds to their needs?
- To what extent do your selected metrics allow you to preempt or least respond quickly to competitors
- How well do these metrics allow you to gauge and track employee stress around the change?
- To what extent will your metrics allow you to respond quickly and effectively to employee stress before it hardens their change resistance?

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Focusing Change to Win Series – Why do people resist change?

Posted on October 28, 2014 by agincourtarcher

Series Introduction

This is the third in the series of highlighting contributions from 1072 Business Leaders and Consultants from 80 countries in 19 Industry Sectors detailed in our book Focusing Change to Win. Each blog gives some of the key findings and a sample of useful tips. In this blog we are focusing on Why Do People Resist Change. Here are the other book sections we are highlighting:

3. Why Do People Resist Change

Here’s the reality, Leaders need employee support and trust if their change is going to stand any chance of success. Our contributors underscore this. If people are cynical about a change, pessimism will set in, and failure is assured. Our contributors show that there are no simple remedies, no sound bites or grizzly 7 step plans. Yet, at its core there are fundamental values that, if believed in, will offer a sound basis for planning and executing successful change. Change failures have left their mark on our contributors over the last eight years. Through their eyes, resistance is a brownfield site where change is synonymous with downsizing, doing more for less, and treating people poorly.

Accelerated change demands more of everyone. Such change has major consequences for employees. Accelerated change failure creates cultural toxicity. Crucially, leaders need to separate the symptoms of change resistance from the stress that causes it. If they don’t, they are just like bad sales people trying to overcome objections and not realizing 60% of those objections are of the salesperson’s own creation. These contributors, they are saying that change resistance is natural, but you don’t need to make it more difficult if you do some things profoundly well. The chart below gives a sense of the avoidable.

Change Resistance Factors

Once you recognize that Change Resistance causes stress then you can be more effective in reducing it. Our contributors say that, if leaders create clear and consistent frameworks, you help most people make informed decisions about committing to a change or not. Here’s what our contributors are saying:

Align Expectations between leaders and people
Set Clear Direction: Leaders clarify their change’s What, Why, How and WIIFMs (What’s In It For Me) for different groups and people.
Develop Accountabilities: by developing the rewards and consequences that assure expectations of both leaders and their people are met.

These are sound practices for reducing and managing people’s stress, but only if leaders realize the importance of Walking Their Own Talk.

Action Points: Managing Change Stress and Resistance

All these contributors are saying that change resistance is natural, but you don’t need to make it that difficult if you do some things profoundly well.

This starts with recognizing that change resistance is caused by stress. So why not treat the cause and not the symptom? Stress is natural and good if managed. Stress is reduced if leaders create clear and consistent frameworks that help people make informed decisions about committing to a change or not. Here’s how we interpret what our contributors are saying

Clarifying the Direction:
Leaders clarify their change’s what, why, how, and WIIFMs¹ for different groups and individuals. What does this mean for me? This leads to aligning expectations.

Aligning Expectations:
This is a process flow in two directions between leaders and each individual.

Developing Accountabilities:
This step develops the rewards and consequences through performance measurement, management, and rewards that ensure expectations of both leaders and their people are met.

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Focusing Change To Win Series: How is your “What” connected to your “Why”? – Setting-Up Change For Success.

Posted on October 14, 2014 by agincourtarcher

Series Introduction

This is the second in the series of highlighting contributions from 1072 Business Leaders and Consultants from 80 countries in 19 Industry Sectors detailed in our book Focusing Change to Win. Each blog gives some of the key findings and a sample of useful tips. In this blog we are focusing on The Why and What of Change. Here are the other book sections we are highlighting:

How is your “What” connected to your “Why”?

We take an in-depth look at how our contributors improve their chances of thriving, by communicating in ways that build trust and engage people. For these contributors, communication must constantly focus on the Why of Change & What is Expected and what the change is not about. This is the Change Expectations Framework. It engages deeper understanding and helps everyone manage stress more effectively.
Note: You may think everyone does these three steps, you are probably wrong at least 70% of the time according to studies over the last 10 years. Here’s why it is even more important today. Most contributors (89%) say that their organizations change at least every 12 mths . These changes are driven by 3-4 simultaneous reasons for change . All these changes should have three things in common. What you expect people to:

Stop doing, (so that they can start doing new things)
Start doing, and
Continue doing

How often does your organization initiate change

Yet, this survey’s findings show that contributors rarely mention all three in the same contribution. Why is this important? It creates increased stress and potentially change resistance. It works like this.
Assuming we are always managing change with limited resources like people, money, technology and time, leaders have to manage the tension between these three elements of stop, start and continue. Then, after deciding the commercial need for change, leaders need the Emotional Intelligence to identify which groups and individuals are likely to experience unhealthy stress and resistance.
This underscores the need for leadership consensus on why are we changing. For many contributors, leader inconsistency fuels people’s natural resistance . The ever-increasing rate of change demands that leaders give clear and compelling reasons for employees to overcome their feelings of here we go again . Unfortunately, we conclude that too many leaders either ignore, or are unaware that change will be stressful for their peers and employees.

Contributors readily see the need for change to adapt, survive or improve. The world’s ever-increasing pace demands that leaders give clear and compelling reasons for employees to overcome their feelings of here we go again. That response begs the question: What can leaders do about this condition. What follows are some thoughts.
All those implementing change know in advance, to some extent, that a change will be stressful and that not everyone will be willing to engage. For example, people often work well under certain stress to increase productivity. But, under other circumstances, they are surprised at the stress that another aspect of change can induce. So, stress can be negative, positive or neutral. For example, passing in an examination can be just stressful as failing. The problem occurs when people are under excessive or prolonged stress – Unhealthy Stress. The challenge for change leaders is that stress is unique and personal. A situation may be stressful for someone, but the same situation may be challenging for others.

Action Points: Reducing Employees Stress to Manage Change Resistance

Most contributor responses indicate that their organizations change anywhere from daily to annually. These changes are often unique to the organization, the triggers for change, and how change is managed. Yet all change has three things in common.

The Three Common Elements of All Change

Defining your own change and how it is managed starts with the following:

Identifying what you expect people to stop doing, so that they can start doing new things
Specifying what you expect people to start doing
Confirming what you want people to continue doing, while continuing to coordinate and keep the organization running.

Focus on communicating constantly the why of change and what is expected for your change to be effective and communicate what the change is not about. This is the change expectations framework, which engages deeper understanding and helps everyone manage stress more effectively

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Tracking Expectations to Avoid IT Project Failure

Posted on March 5, 2014 by agincourtarcher

(Abstract from Take Control of Your Project – Using Expectation Alignment to Avoid IT Project Failure by Terry Merriman, PCO Associates LLC)

Whether large or small, IT projects are complex change events. They need cross-functional collaboration between two or more departments or teams. Their success or failure reverberates throughout the organization and often impacts customers. Countless studies and papers on reasons for IT Project Failure cite two critical factors:

Poor interpersonal communications
Lack of professional project management

Numerous studies have shown that up to 70% of IT projects fail. Over 20 years, Terry Merriman and the other contributors to the White Paper – Using Expectation Alignment to Avoid IT Project Failure continue to uncover the usual cast of suspects like:

Customer requirements not being adequately defined
Customer requirements kept changing
Acceptance testing was slim to non-existent

These failure statistics are fully in line with the findings of the survey of 1072 business leaders and consultants summarized in my book Focusing Change to Win which I wrote with Kelly Nwosu.

How can that happen with professionals on both sides of the design effort? Weren’t they in the same meetings? What happened to the agreed requirements? testing regimens? and change request process?

Of course, they did all those things. What they didn’t realize is what they believed they understood of each other was at best misaligned. The IT professionals and the business professionals each assumed that the other understood the precise meaning with each communication; each assumed specific activities were part of the other person’s normal routine in a development project. So, projects failed to achieve the desired results due to::

Expectations not being made specific to the project or explicit to each other
Tasks not done as expected
Delivered Functionality did not meet expectations
Requirements weren’t met

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Realigning Schools for the New Normal – The Administrator’s Challenge

Posted on August 30, 2012 by agincourtarcher

Introduction

At school and district levels, managing scarce resources to sustain or improve results has never been more Multiple Choice Testing challenging. Striving for consistency and efficiency builds tensions between those who care most about equipping children for an uncertain future.

Increasingly critical eyes on the education system advocate blunt instruments like “stronger management”, more top-down management, tighter controls, and simple incentives. This is surprising since such methods are failing the private sector by dispiriting and limiting people’s contribution. So, why should we expect anything different in education?

This is aggravated by the economy. We simply don’t know what jobs will be there in twenty years. Today, apart from a few core skills we cannot know what knowledge or skills will be needed in the future.

The consequences are that teachers complain that their jobs, while rewarding, are getting harder because of too few resources, too much paperwork, crowded classrooms, students with emotional problems, low pay and high-stakes standardized tests.

Isn’t time to realign administrators, unions, teachers, parents and students? The realignment is from teaching a curriculum more efficiently, to one of inspiring lifelong learning to thrive in a rapidly shifting economy.

Here’s the case for realignment Continue reading →

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Change Management Fallacies – Survey

Posted on June 19, 2012 by agincourtarcher

The continued high failure rates of implementing change owe much of their origins to the fallacies of change management and how people view research (based on Korzybski). We would like to know how prevalent these fallacies are in your organization’s leadership team.

Please read the following and then click on the link to complete the survey.

Complete the survey

1. Over-Simplification: The belief that complex organizations mirror what their leadership think .

“I think we have a pretty good handle on what people think, we don’t need a survey to tell us what we already know”

2. Re-definition: A propensity to cast strong sub-cultures as sources of weakness when they may in fact contribute to the organization’s identity.

“It’s the field technicians that’s the problem. They are still resistant to the newer products ans systems”

3. Missionary zeal: The belief that a complex community can be converted to a single purpose that overrides its fractional – often factional – interests and perspectives.”

“I am sure when the see the case for this change they will come along”

4. Displacement: the attribution to cultural causes of structural weakness. It is not the values but the organisation or control system that is faulty.

“You know if we had a fully integrated reporting system I think we could overcome many of communication problems”

5. Scapegoating: The attribution of group’s values to responsibility for failure.

“It’s sales responsibility to ensure good customer follow up but they just don’t seem to care and want to go on to the next deal”

6. False Attribution to one cause what is due to many causes. E.g.

“they didn’t adopt the new technology because they weren’t computer savvy”

7. Discounting: Concluding that because one factor plays a role, another does not; the fallacy of drawing negative conclusions from positive observations. E.g.

“Our exit interviews show that people are leaving for higher pay and so it’s not anything that management can do differently”

8. Myopia:The idea that change management can divorce the individual from their working environment. E.g.

“People are change resistant because they don’t like the new curriculum”

9. Gut over Data: Drawing conclusions on implied assumptions that when explicitly stated are rejected. E.g

“Yes, I know that’s what your findings say but I think it’s really a recruitment issue”

“You can prove anything with statistics”

10. Politics: Many assumptions influencing reasoning are of the hidden, unconscious type. E.g.

“When we presented our findings only Joe and Lisa said what they felt, the rest just looked uneasy”

11. Hereditary: Demonstrating that a characteristic is hereditary and not alterable by the environment E.g.

“We found that traditionally main land Chinese expect a “thirteenth month’s pay before Chinese New Year, and there’s nothing we can do about it.”

“We wouldn’t have any of these problems if we could get more mid-westerners with their good work ethics”

12. Environment: Demonstrating that a characteristic is altered by the environment and claiming that it is not hereditary. E.g.

“We are getting more quality problems since we installed the new line. It’s the new displays they don’t understand”

Since all important human characteristics are environmental, therefore environment is all-important, hereditary unimportant, in human affairs E.g.

“It’s not so much their experience that matters it’s how they are led. We need our leaders to lead not shilly-shally around having more team meetings”

Great, but how can this help me?

This is probably the first thing on your mind after reading this Blog.
How about asking us? The first call is free! Just email me to set it up.
Don’t wait, get The Crispian Advantage working for you!. If our conversation leaves you needing more, we offer at a reasonable fee telephone and video coaching improve bottom line results.
If that still doesn’t do it, we’ll work with you on a solution.

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© Copyright All Rights Reserved, The Crispian Advantage and Walk the Talk – A Blog for Agile Minds, [2010-2012]. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Nick Anderson, The Crispian Advantage and Walk the Talk – A Blog for Agile Minds with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

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Meeting Today’s Leadership Challenges in a Complex World

Posted on April 4, 2012 by agincourtarcher

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF RESEARCH IN COMMERCE, IT & MANAGEMENT VOLUME – III, ISSUE – IV (APRIL, 2012 (ISSN 2231 – 5756)

Abstract

Today leading in a complex world is one of the hot topics being discussed across organization and conferences. Every one faces complexity both in a small or large-scale industry. This complexity is driven by uncertainty and accelerating change. For organizations to thrive in this rapid challenging business environment, leaders must learn to adapt and embrace the complexity, to see it as opportunity to achieve uncommon result. This chapter present valuable insights about KPMG study confronting complexity. It identifies factors that cause complexity. It also suggests ways through which a leader can address complexity and turn it into competitive advantage.

Authors Kelly Nwosu and Nick Anderson

1.0 Introduction

The challenge with managing complexity and leading in a complexity world has become an excuse for some business people to keep the status quo, to abandon thinking ahead and to push strategy to one side, because they don’t believe it can be flexible and responsive enough to help them in a rapidly changing world (ED, 2011). But, most organizations that succeed in the midst of complexity are those that think differently and turn the potential challenges into a competitive advantage. They also see it as an opportunity to make their company more efficient. According to the recent study confronting complexity conducted by KPMG International, the study reveals that more than 90 percent senior executives across 22 countries say their organization’s success depends on managing today’s complex business issues. Yet, less than half executives believe the actions they are taking to manage complexity have been very effective (KPMG, 2011). On the other hand, the IBM survey on global CEO’s also show that the language for reducing complexity has change, CEO’s are now talking about how to transform complexity into an opportunity to gain competitive advantage (Balkan, 2011). In our research, we were able to identify what complexity is all about, factors that cause complexity and actions to discuss the issues of complexity. In particular, this chapter covers three parts. Part 1 focuses on managing complexity while the second part focuses on leading to the essence then part 3 focuses on leading learning.

For the full article please go to www.ijrcm.org.in

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF RESEARCH IN COMMERCE, IT & MANAGEMENT (ISSN 2231 – 5756)

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Why do people resist change? Leadership Survey Findings (1072 managers, 510 CEOs, 80 countries)

Posted on March 15, 2012 by agincourtarcher

Here’s the first findings from research conducted jointly with New Catalyst.(http://changeisessential.com)

Click Video link to view Nick Anderson position the upcoming publication of the full research report – Stategies for Managing Change and Winning in Todays Competitive Environment

Since change management came into fashion, a litany of failure has left its mark and our respondent’s echo what many have gone through in the last 8 years. It seems through their eyes, resistance has to be viewed as a “brown field” site. Gone is the naiveté of “a job for life” and an enduring contract between leaders and other stakeholders. Now, change is synonymous with downsizing, doing more for less, etc. For these respondents, they paint a picture of failed change, broken trust, fractured communication and poor leadership. We summarize their comments into the following:

Cultural Toxicity of Failed Change
“If people don’t trust you, what change do you stand?”
“People can’t be bothered”
“What’s in it for me?”
“Not knowing the purpose of it all” – a litany of communication failure
Poor Leadership embeds and accelerates resistance

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Avoiding the Pitffalls of Strategic Planning

Posted on January 26, 2012 by agincourtarcher

Introduction

Getting people focused and committed on implementing a strategy has never been more difficult as von Moltke said:

Strategic plans do not survive first contact with the enemy, and hence must be always open to revision.

In today’s competitive environment every action has many reactions that aren’t easily anticipated. This is probably a major factor why 60% of change initiatives fail in North America and why something is going wrong with strategic planning.

One area that many executives either ignore or only pay lip service to are the cynicisms that previous initiatives strategic planning have accumulated in the organizations psyche. Here are some that you ignore at your peril

Crucial to understanding your people, as Peter Senge describes, is identifying where people are on the apathy-commitment continuum. He identifies two areas of personal need that they want satisfied in their working lives:

personal benefit which comes from compensation, benefits, position, recognition, or other non-tangible benefits
personal sense of fulfillment of their life’s purpose, vision, or calling.

Leaders need to grasp how well each person’s attitude and their contribution is met directly by company goals or objectives. Then they can assess where people sit on the apathy/commitment continuum. Any misalignment between personal needs and your strategy will generate unproductive or counterproductive behavior, if not actively managed

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Getting Competitive in Turbulent Times

Posted on January 19, 2012 by agincourtarcher

Introduction

The avalanche of data at ever increasing speeds creates greater corporate ADHD. The result is decision making suffers from “24×7 news cycle” thinking where now is better than later. Competitively, it means increased market stress and rapid cycles of wicked problem solving. So, what can we learn about remaining competitive?

It’s 20 years since I produced my Masters Thesis on managing change for competitive success based on Pettigrew & Whipp’s research of the later 80s and 90s. Since that time, strategic planning was reborn in the 1990s. New approaches for strategy focused on growth through mergers/acquisitions and joint ventures, generation of innovative ideas through decentralized strategic efforts within the company, emergent strategy, and the leveraging of core competencies to create strategic intent. By the start of this century the focus shifted to strategic and organizational innovation, including reconciling size with flexibility and responsiveness. New alliances mean cooperative strategies, complexity, changes in commitments of corporate social responsibility, etc. Today’s strategic planning and execution requires new models of leadership, less formal structures, and more commitment to self-direction.

Unfortunately, both strategic planning and implementation’s effectiveness leaves a lot to be desired with 60% of all change initiatives failing. Sydney Finkelstein summarizes areas of most strategic planning failure: launching new ventures, promoting innovation and change, managing mergers and acquisitions and responding to new environmental pressures. So in this era of dramatic change, global alliances, and a variety of environmental pressures, the potential for failure is very real.

This blog looks at what leaders need to consider to avoid being another survey statistic.

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If people don’t trust you, Change will Fail?

Posted on January 9, 2012 by agincourtarcher

On both sides of the Atlantic, the employment compact is fracturing along the lines of manufacturing outsourcing, poor change communication and inconsistent leadership. The bottom-line is that “doing more with less”sounds macho in closeted executive strategy sessions. The reality is that those who get the work done feel the stress of over-work and unabated insecurity is eroding trust in their leaders.

How close are we getting to the “old lie”?

Dulce et Decorum est Pro patria mori.( Translation: “It is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country.”

Wilfred Owen – Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori – it is sweet and right to die for your country. In other words, it is great to work your butt off and then a get a pink slip

North Americans grow more cynical of being asked “go the extra mile” with even fewer resources. As a result, change resistance is increasingly more complex and individualistic.

This fracturing eats away at competitiveness. The leadership challenge then is to repair, build and protect the trust people have in their leaders and other functions.

In North America, over the last ten years I have conducted expectation alignment projects in very different organizations like Royal Bank of Canada, Qwest Telecommunications and Turner Construction. In every project, leaders consistently under-estimated the gaps between:

What they expect of their people and what the people actually think is expected of them.
What they think people expect of them and their people actually expect of their leaders

In all projects, leaders had 65%+ more expectations than their people were aware. As you read on you will see that my findings are disturbingly endorsed on both sides of the Atlantic.

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What’s changed in Key Account Management in 15 yrs?

Posted on December 15, 2011 by agincourtarcher

Back in 1995 I worked with my client Peter Barlow then VP Global Account Management and Major Projects for APV (Food Process Engineering Company) on developing a Major Account Management System. Now over 15 years on I ask:

What’s changed in Key Account Management 15 years on?

Building and maintaining profitable relationships with your most important customers is more challenging than ever. The stakes are even higher of investing reduced resources on a few customers (accounts) with that nagging doubt of “backing the wrong horse”

“… (Managers) often don’t realize or understand how markets change and believe sales to be just how it was fifteen years ago.” (TACK Sales Leadership Survey 2011)

“Doing business with and actually making money from your largest strategic ‘partners’ has never been more difficult….Only a few corporations are getting it right.” (Richard Ilsley, SMCG 2010)

This blog takes a hard look at strategic, key or major accounts (KAM) and why many senior executives remain concerned 15+ years on. To do this retrospective I have drawn on several current experts in the field including a paper by Richard Ilsley of SMCG, TACK International and Mercuri.

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Key Account Management Series: Why are Sales Compensation Hydraulics Still Leaking?

Posted on November 29, 2011 by agincourtarcher

1. Introduction

I developed this as a discussion paper for a client’s European Sales Management Effectiveness Project. The interesting perspective is how the issues raised in the early 90’s are still validated by Deliotte’s 2010 survey of 250 Sales VPs. It begs the question:

Why are Sales Compensation Hydraulics Still Leaking?

1.1. How do you design a good sales compensation plan?

Specifically, a good plan:

Uses performance metrics that drive the company’s overall strategy;
Ensures roles, skills, selling, processes, internal culture, etc. are consistent with the overall sales force strategy
Are mechanically sound ; and
Can be administered efficiently.
Fits for your sales organization?
Can be administered with existing people, processes, data, and technology

(The following is based on Frank Cespedes book Concurrent Marketing, The Management of Major Sales (Neil Rackham) and 2010 Strategic Sales Compensation Survey by Deloitte & Varicent)

1.2. Compensation Hydraulics springs a leak

Since the mid 90’s the great bulk of literature still emphasizes what might be called

“Compensation Hydraulics”: Push this pay lever and get this kind of behavior.

This type of thinking fails to recognize that sales compensation is dependent upon, data analysis, strategy, values and human motivation. Many forget to ask:

How should we pay our customer facing people? (Which inevitably involves a range of business issues?)

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Complexity, the New Normal 4: Improving Sales Performance – Are you ready for the Challenge?

Posted on May 17, 2011 by agincourtarcher

This is the forth in a leadership series – Complexity the New Norm. This series is looks how we implement successful change that fulfills people and avoids human casualties.

Our question is, how do we create working relationships that are rewarding? (Rewarding not just productive). Why?

It’s only by energizing people and harnessing technologies better than anyone else that companies can thrive.

Genuinely aligned, empowered and collaborative people will outperform the competition every time.

This month I consider probably one of the most difficult areas is sales, especially complex sales.

What makes sales complex?

Classically, “Many to Many” Think of it like a bow tie. On the left side you have the selling organization and on the right Complex Sales. Typical characteristics:

Many decision makers
Team selling
Proposal or tender based selling (RFP)
Post sales support requirements like after sales service
Needs tailored solutions
High value, e.g often needing board approval
Long sales cycles
Technical/knowledge based elements
Consultative selling requirements
Customer relationship focus

So, more people across the company need to communicate with customers and prospects before, during and after the sale. This increases complexity and the difficulty of “Keeping Everyone On The Same Page”

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Complexity, the New Normal! 3: Listen to your guts – Are they really on the same page?

Posted on April 17, 2011 by agincourtarcher

This is the third in a leadership series – Complexity the New Norm.This series is looks how we implement

Seeing the Wood for the Treessuccessful change that fulfills people and avoids human casualties.Last time, I asked how we create working relationships that are rewarding. (Rewarding not just productive). Our position is that it’s only by energizing people and harnessing technologies better than anyone else that organizations can survive and thrive.Genuinely aligned, empowered and collaborative people will outperform the competition every time.Many surveys show executives say that their people aren’t ready to handle this “new norm” So, what’s getting in the way?When the urgent drives out the important, many leaders ignore what their “guts” are telling them, even when they sense people aren’t on the same page. They’ve sensed it before and seen the results. Yet, complexity and urgency mask how things accumulate, misalign and make each change more difficult.You know that feeling yourself. We’ve all worked in dysfunctional work places. You pick up on people’s differences (often unstated in team meetings) and how they use their experience to justify their positions. They are oblivious of others views. Worse still they believe that their views are shared by everyone.If leaders are aware of these things, why don’t they do something?I think it’s like how people put up with physical pain and stress – take the pain killers and go on. And I am not implying they’re weak but their strength to persevere can be a two-edged sword. Here’s some examples of what leaders ignore and don’t realize their effect:It’s expecting things to be done and repeatedly being disappointed.It is the lump in your stomach when they are handed yet another impossible deadline.It’s feeling that they have to be a mind reader to figure out what is expected.It’s that welling anger they get when important decisions fall apart (because there really wasn’t any buy-in).These are all misalignments. People not being on the same page. It’s costly, pervasive and accumulates.Now, add increasing complexity and we need to say – we can’t go on like this anymore. The busyness of complexity masks misalignments especially when wicked problems get into the mix.You’ve mentioned wicked problem solving before….But why is it so important in leading in complexity?Wicked Problem Solving

Horst Rittel coined the term Wicked Problems as he found traditional approaches to design and planning were not effective. It’s how we solve benign or simple problems.

Gather data
Analyze data
Formulate Solution
Implement Solution

This apparently very reasonable approach starts faltering when you:

1. Don’t understand the problem until you have developed a solution.

You can’t search for information without having some sense of what a solution looks. Rittel said:

“One cannot first understand, then solve.”

And what ‘the Problem’ is depends on who you ask – different stakeholders have different views about what the problem is and what constitutes an acceptable solution.

2. Don’t have a nice neat ending.

If there is no defined ‘Problem’, there can’t be a definitive ‘Solution.’ So you can’t solve the problem with the ‘correct’ solution. Herb Simon, called this ‘satisficing’ — stopping when you have a solution that is ‘good enough’

3. Don’t have right or wrong solutions.

Solutions are simply ‘better,’ ‘worse,’ ‘good enough,’ or ‘not good enough.’ How “good” they are will vary widely and depend on different stakeholder values and goals.

4. Can’t draw on past experience

There are so many factors and conditions that no two wicked problems are alike.

Here are a few examples of wicked problems:

Whether to route the highway through our city or around it?
What should our mission statement be?
What features should be in our new product?
How should we respond to a competitors new…fill in the blank?

The point is managing complex and wicked problems shifts the center of gravity toward peoples’ relationships and interactions. It shifts from relying on expertise and pride in accumulating knowledge to learning with and from fellow learners, honestly disclosing doubts and admitting ignorance.

I am thinking leaders who are listening will be saying: OK, I get, it but where do I start?

As I said last time, complexity and misalignment is best handled by those directly involved. So, leadership should be devolved to the lowest level. This means expectations you have of your leaders need to be clear, agreed and tracked. There are several alignment areas that senior people need to address with lower level leaders, which I will cover in later programs. But, I will start with a key competence that leaders need improve in their teams and activities. It’s a bastion against the confusion that comes from poorly managed complexity

Leading Learning

Leaders have to shed their prejudices and bad experiences of learning at school, – like cramming or memorizing, and that learning by doing is good enough. Many leaders will have to unlearn, and then learn about Leading Learning. There are five criteria you should expect your leaders to evidence in their learning expectations: Are they …..

Planned?
Action-Focused?
Constructive?
Social?
Time-Bounded?

Using these criteria, leader expectations need to specify what they expect of their people and draw out what their people expect in return.

What do you see as the main areas for leaders to think about when it comes to leading learning?

Here are four things to reflect on about your organization. Ask yourself:

How do we really match-up when it comes to leading learning?

Learning team-based sense-making process.

1. Learning is team-based sense-making process.

What expectations do you have of your people to develop shared knowledge from similar situations?

Why?

Shared situations builds shared sensing, which builds common frames of reference.
Positive shared experiences strengthen organizational culture.
Shared situations builds shared learning and reduces the exclusivity of individual experience

Can you find expectations that say it’s OK for people to express feelings of being puzzled or being misunderstood:

Why?

Such expressed feelings are often the tender shoots of learning and if subject to making people feel stupid will stunt learning before it has even got going.
Sharing puzzlement develops learner ownership because there’s “gas in their tank” to do something about it.
You don’t know how many others have the same feelings until they are expressed.
Getting people on the same page only happens when people’s feelings are transparent to others. It takes the guesswork of where people are coming from. It reduces assumptions about people’s intention, motivation and agenda

2. Learning is a socially negotiated

Leader expectations need to specify that making sense of problems and their solutions needs to be negotiated with the intention of reaching understanding, resolving differences and producing an agreed course of action.

Why?

What’s agreed is far more likely to stick
Stakeholder and team member interests of are more likely to be respected and served
Better alignment leads to growing trust and openness which leads to people being less guarded

3. Learning is multi-level sense-making

Leaders, especially senior leaders, need to ensure that their expectations of learning are expressed to all levels both vertically and horizontally across the organization. The belief that knowledge is only in one person’s head went out with the craftsman and his apprentice. Knowledge and reasoning need to be used for collective sense-making.

Why?

It’s the social process that bonds people together. As we engage with others we influence and are influenced by our working community their beliefs and values.
This type of participation is how we absorb and grow a healthy culture.
This is how we grow as individuals and develop rewarding relationships

It’s crucial that leaders understand that activity constrains and defines the learning that can occur, so the last point

4. Learning is a product of activities, systems and processes

Learning through Activities

The blend of people, their experiences, values and beliefs are not reducible to individual actions in complex situations. So, leader’s expectations need to shift from the individual to the team.

Why?

It’s not about you; it’s about us – “Leave your ego at the door!”
Information isn’t any good if it is not shared, in ways that others can understand
If you don’t interact with others your chances of building trust, respect and other relational glue is remote

If I am a leader or business owner listening to this today I might be saying that’s all very well but I have a business to run. What advice would you give them?

Do what you’ve always done, get what you’ve always got! – Not!

1. Hire people who evidence lifelong learning – if people aren’t curious they are not for you.

2. Make sure you pay people for doing different things not just doing what we have always done – cos if you don’t you will get what you’ve always gotten.

3. Ensure you make sure all people know learning is a priority and it’s not something left to chance or the competition

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_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
For Help in Getting Your People on the Same Page
Nick Anderson, Senior Partner, PDS Group LTD

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© Copyright All Rights Reserved, PDS Group LTD and Walk the Talk – A Blog for Agile Minds, [2010-2011]. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Nick Anderson, PDS Group LTD and Walk the Talk – A Blog for Agile Minds with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

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Complexity, the New Normal 2: Leading to the Essence

Posted on March 20, 2011 by agincourtarcher

Listen to the Radio Program – 15mins

In my last blog I introduced my new leadership series – Complexity the New Normal.

It’s time we had a debate about how we develop rewarding working relationships today. (Rewarding not just productive). It is the competitive core – energizing people and harnessing technologies better than anyone else.

The ultimate standard for such rewarding relationships is a leader’s ability to sustain superior results over an extended period. The debate should focus three

The Gordian Knot

questions:

What does it mean to lead?
What does it mean to follow?
When do you choose one from another?

Why is this debate needed for us to climb out of this recession?

People have lost trust. Many business leaders, too many unfortunately, are seen as self-serving and subservient to shareholders.

What happened? “Org Chart Thinking” increasingly doesn’t work. Knowledge workers respond to learning not “command & control”. Plus, young people don’t want to wait in line to lead. Most important, people are searching for genuine satisfaction and meaning. For example, “restoring people to full life and health.” Medtronic.

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Complexity, the New Normal! 1: Aligning Leaders for a Complex World

Posted on February 20, 2011 by agincourtarcher

Every one faces complexity driven by uncertainty and accelerating change. It is the “New Normal” making leadership more demanding and in demand.

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Leadership on its Head

Accelerating Complexity places extreme demands on leaders. The leader’s ability to relate, energize, and develop their followers is critical to empower them to act without direction. It’s a competitive imperative and requires a new balance of more effective and affective leadership. It’s the ability to produce results by being affective. That ability to influence people, in the way they think, feel and act is now paramount

As Peter Senge said Leaders “…cannot afford to choose between reason and intuition, or head and heart, any more than they would choose to walk on one leg…”

So, this month I deal with what leaders need to do – the easier bit. Next month, I cover the tougher piece on how leaders need to lead transformationally.

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Top Down or Bottom Up – Making Change Personal

Posted on November 22, 2010 by Terrance Merriman

By Contributing Blogger – Terry Merriman, PCO Associates

Implementing successful and sustainable change is tough, strategic change initiatives fail two-thirds of the time in North American business (Kotter, 1996, and McKinsey, 2009). How can your organization succeed? You can succeed by making change personal! Remember, performance is personal before it is organizational.

Isn’t this a truism, a matter of common business sense?

Since when was common sense common practice! It is common for many leaders to plan their change initiative, communicate it to their leadership team, tell the organization to watch for it, set some goals and measures, and incorporate the goals in their team and department objectives. Then, the change dies and the leadership team wonders why. The answer; the change was never translated into personal action!

If your people don’t embraced change and those in your value chain (including your customers and vendors) it will fail. Why? If your people do not understand the change initiative, buy into it, and integrate it into their daily activities, it will not work. Consequently, planned change and personal action don’t mesh as people are skeptical, don’t understand why, don’t see the need, and don’t know what’s in it for them.

So how do you make change personal?

Define, Communicate, Delegate and Track change related expectations. We usually get the organization’s side of change, define and communicate, pretty well. Where we fail is in putting the personal side of change, communicate, delegate, and track, into play.

Define the change in terms of broad categories of activity to which everyone in the organization can relate, and specific results that benefit the organization and its people.
Communicate the change initiative, and include the message that leadership will be expecting everyone to participate by defining specific expectations of each other necessary to carry out the change.
Communicate More, by focusing on individual working relationships by:
- Get each leadership team member identify specific expectations of each other as to what they must do to successfully implement the change. Ensure the expectations are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Time and budget bounded, Ethical and Recorded.
- Have each leader discuss their expectations of the receiver expected to execute, and ensure each accepts accountability for each other’s expectation. This helps to create a productive relationship and integrate the change into the business at the leadership level.
Delegate by cascading the above process to each leader’s direct reports, peers, and business partners to those teams that are considered key players in the change initiative.
- Ensure people delegate not only the responsibility and accountability but also the authority to execute each expectation. In this way people can develop ownership of those expectations other have of them. This step integrates the change throughout the organization as it becomes a part of each person’s work responsibilities and commitments.
- Ensure each expectation’s originator is held responsible for assessing the receiver’s ability to meet their expectations and coach them to develop their competence.
Track each expectation’s results. This means each person holding accountable the person who agreed to meeting and reporting progress to an expectation’s completion. So, the Accountability Culture is born. The expectations approach challenges leaders and their direct reports to get personal first perspective and serves to foster improved communications between them.

The Expectations Approach makes change personal by casacading accountability for implementing change throughout the organization in a way that helps people understand the reasons for and expected results from the change, and buy into it. We’ve found it one of the most effective ways of implementing successful and sustainable change in organizations. The side benefits of this approach are that it improves accountability throughout the organization, and encourages creation and development of productive relationships between people, leading to improved organizational performance.

Where has this approach been used succesfully?

This approach has been successfully employed in Fortune 500 companies and family owned businesses, from new selling strategies to management transitions (See Project Summaries) It has been shown to work in for-profit and non-profit organizations from large to small, and it also works in government organizations (it’s been used in the British Navy by its developer, John Machin).

“Change is Hard and Real Change is Real Hard!” If you want to be successful at change, you have to be prepared to tackle the hard part of change – making it personal.

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Great, but how can this help me?

This is probably the first thing on your mind after reading this Blog.
How about asking us? The first call is free! Just email me to set it up.
Don’t wait, get The Crispian Advantage working for you!. If our conversation leaves you needing more, we offer at a reasonable fee telephone and video coaching improve bottom line results.
If that still doesn’t do it, we’ll work with you on a solution.

_________________________________________________________________________
For Help in Getting Your People on the Same Page
Nick Anderson, The Crispian Advantage

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© Copyright All Rights Reserved, The Crispian Advantage and Walk the Talk – A Blog for Agile Minds, [2010-2012]. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Nick Anderson, The Crispian Advantage and Walk the Talk – A Blog for Agile Minds with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

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Who’s got the best mouse trap? or How do Consultants Differentiate?

Posted on October 13, 2010 by agincourtarcher

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This month’s topic looks at Competitive Differentiation in the Professional Services Sector. This sector typically includes accountants, lawyers, bankers and financial services, like planners etc. All these professionals offer very similar services due in part to regulations, certifications, disintermediation and the power of technology.

Go to any law firm’s web site like Varnum and Clark Hill, or large consulting firms and they look the same. They apparently have the same mouse trap.

Why did you choose your….attorney, accountant, financial planner etc?

So, how do professionals differentiate themselves?

On the basis of their expertise and their ability to develop Trusted Adviser status. David Meister asks: What benefits would you obtain if your clients trusted you more? For example, the more they will:

Treat you as you wish to be treated
Lower the level of stress in your interactions
Be comfortable and allow you to be comfortable
Involve you early on when their issues begin to form, rather than later (Open up)Share more information that helps you to help them, and improves the quality of the service you provide
Be inclined to accept and act on your recommendations
Bring you in on more advanced, complex, strategic issues ( Your are in the board room not waiting in the corridor awaiting instructions)
Refer you to their friends and business acquaintances

What characteristics would you look for in selecting your trusted adviser

Here are some of David Meister’s traits that Trusted Advisers have in common. Clients say they:

Make us feel comfortable and casual personally (but take the issues seriously)
Seem to understand us, effortlessly, and like us
Act like a person, not someone in a role
Are reliably on our side, and always seem to have our interests at heart
Don’t try to force things on us
Help us think things through (but emphasize that it’s our decision)
Criticize and correct us gently, lovingly
Don’t pull their punches: we can rely on them to tell us the truth
Are in it for the long haul (the relationship is more important than the current issue)
Give us reasoning (to help us think), not just their conclusions
Give us options, increase our understanding of those options, give us their recommendation and let us choose.
Are always honorable: they don’t gossip about others (we trust their values)
Help us put our issues in context, often through the use of metaphors, stories and anecdotes (they recognize that few problems are completely unique)

You said he listed “traits” as in a person’s character? So for example the adviser who is not honorable can’t be trained to be more honorable, right?

It’s a good point, in last month’s blog I made the distinction. Candidly, Meister’s list is mixture of Competencies and Traits. “So what?” you must be thinking,” I said, “Bottom line, you hire traits and develop competencies! Remember:

Competency : “The ability to do something successfully or efficiently.” ”Having the necessary ability, knowledge, or skill to do something successfully:”
Trait: “A characteristic or quality of a person.” (They are wired that way

For all intent and purposes professional advisers reading this should focus on what they can learn and develop to be competitive differentiated trusted advisers. But, here is the rub. Developing trust is not well defined. For example, research I did with Linda Marsh into Mortgage Loan Advisers we found that the customers trusted those who used more “Transitional Structuring” WHAT! (Some people call it sign posting). Like,

“We have now covered David’s Trusted Adviser traits and we are now looking at Adviser Competencies…

We and others have identified observable and trainable behaviors that impact those traits that David mentioned like making the client “feel comfortable”. Now, here’s the fundamental point about developing trusted adviser status:

How do you balance helping potential clients feel understood while ensuring they understand the issues and options available?

That’s difficult because if they don’t feel understood they aren’t really going to retain what they are told AND won’t likely see you as a trusted advisor. It takes me back to the most fundamental process of when people make a decision to change. They have to be sufficiently disturbed or concerned about their current condition that they look for a solution that enables them to resolve their negative condition. If Advisors, don’t know how to locate where a client is in this process and help them through at their pace any residual trust will be eroded.

What competencies have you and PDS identified to help develop competitive advisers?

In the world of Professional Services regulations dictate levels of certification – so the expertise playing field is level, for the new client looking for an adviser. So, we at PDS isolate “Competitive Competencies” which:

Make a disproportionate contribution to customer’s perceived value
Are “competitively unique” or superior
Are extendible: providing “gateways to tomorrow’s markets”

The Value of Effective Competencies

Greater objectivity – less biased by the manager’s interpretations of what happened but what actually happened
More Useful – less dependent on the manager’s judgment, more on the Adviser assessment (crucial if they are to learn)
More focus – less overwhelming as it encourages managers to match the feedback to the Adviser’s ability and their willingness to receive it
More quantifiable – greater understanding what of works and what doesn’t under defined conditions and allows people to compare themselves against a standard
More effective – less guess work about how outcomes are achieved. (How you Win and Lose)

It suggests that Advisers needs someone to coach them?

Yes, it is essential. All those firms we have worked with try to get people effective coaching to secure and retain clients from their competition, like, Ernst & Young, who I helped develop their Relationship Management Program, Watson Wyatt, Royal Bank of Canada, JP Morgan Chase

In your experience, what traps do advisory firms fall into?

To put our recent study in context, most professionals we work with love to do a great job. As one senior adviser said to me “I treat my clients as my children…”

But, being a trusted adviser today is not enough. We surveyed advisers to see how they were competitively differentiating themselves. In summary.

1. Most do not truly understand what a competitive Client strategy is.

2. People don’t understand the difference between Competitive Value Discovery and Differentiation.

3. They do not understand the difference between preparation and planning.

4. They do not understand the difference between offense and defense

5. Because any strategic plans were not common amongst the troops, the plan is not maintained or advanced.

Can you explain the difference between Competitive Value Discovery and Differentiation?

Competitive Value Discovery helps you increase value potential. The idea of finding value that Client’s had never thought of before is competitively differentiating. So, we can introduce clients to ideas they may never have thought of and help them see the competition as “not on the ball”. Whether it’s your client or you are trying to secure a new client, they always weigh your value against the competition. What we have more more control over is what they weigh, how they weigh it. Additionally, we need to plant what the competition plants in the client’s mind. Then, we have far better intel and a better sense of the client’s changing priorities to influence their Decision Guidelines both offensely and defensively – Competitive Differentiation.

“Given the same amount of intelligence… timidity will do a thousand times more damage than audacity” “The best form of defense is attack.”
Karl von Clausewitz

What else did you find out?

1. Their language is predominately about reacting to clients’ needs with no language of competitiveness.

2. No sense of doing things in a relational way but with competitive intent.

3. They see the activity of competing as separate from looking after the client.

4. The idea of decision guidelines and working to putting value behind them is a language that is foreign to them.

5. They don’t have a competitively strategic context for their day to day client interactions.

6. Largely, they have a passive position without having a strategy to extend the services they offer outsourcing.

What did you say to them about these findings?

How much profit are you leaving on the table because you are not managing our relationships with competitive intent?
So why are you not purposely discovering client value that will allow us to “Differentiate the Firm?”
How much more intent and purpose can we build if we develop our competitive competencies?

Tip of the Month:

What can Advisers start doing to differentiate them?

Get Competitively Aligned. For example:

In your firm, are you Competitively Aligned?
To what extent does management understand how to think and act competitively . . . with competitive intent?
How well aligned are your competitive account strategies with other parts of your firm
How many of your top client plans have an offensive element to their strategies?
Where do you see the main competitive misalignments within your practice or firm?

Then develop Clear Competitive Expectations

Validating & agreeing about what people expect of each other competitively
Developing effective deliverables that will demonstrate offensive or defensive actions against selected competitors

Competitive Accountability

Accepting responsibility for agreed competitive expectations for tasks performed & results achieved
Accepting that Win/Loss Reviews are not personal but are a natural process of getting more competitive

Evidence-Based Change

Gaining & maintaining competitive differentiation must show measurable proof to the firm and its clients.

Proving differentiation requires constant change & must be “evidenced” to:

Management

Organization

Customers

What evidence of change do we show?

Listen to the Radio Show

Great, but how can this help me?

This is probably the first thing on your mind after reading this Blog.
How about asking us? The first call is free! Just email me to set it up.
Don’t wait, get The Crispian Advantage working for you!. If our conversation leaves you needing more, we offer at a reasonable fee telephone and video coaching improve bottom line results.
If that still doesn’t do it, we’ll work with you on a solution.

Name

Email

Industry

Feedback

Δ

_________________________________________________________________________
For Help in Getting Your People on the Same Page
Nick Anderson, The Crispian Advantage

E-mail I Web I Linkedin

© Copyright All Rights Reserved, The Crispian Advantage and Walk the Talk – A Blog for Agile Minds, [2010-2012]. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Nick Anderson, The Crispian Advantage and Walk the Talk – A Blog for Agile Minds with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

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Leadership Challenges in Turbulent Times

Posted on August 21, 2010 by agincourtarcher

Leadership Turbulence

It’s a statement of the obvious ….. We live in turbulent times… I got to thinking what are the challenges of leadership in the times we are living in. Some years ago I noted this quote:

“Business is now so complex and difficult, the survival of the firm is so hazardous, in an environment increasingly unpredictable, competitive and fraught with danger, that their continued existence depends on the day-to-day mobilization of everyone’s intelligence” (Konosuke Matushita, founder of Matsushita Electric)

It struck a chord…to mobilize everyone’s intelligence… for regular readers you will recognize a theme in our work at PDS…releasing and focusing people is still a crucial ingredient to survival and sustained sucess

So, my focus this month is the Leadership Challenges in Turbulent Times

What’s the core to these challenges that leaders face….it’s Bravery…

Bravery is the capacity to perform properly even when scared half to death.
(Omar N Bradley)

The first step “walk and talk – – – the same talk” constantly. Alignment between attitude, philosophy and actions is key! Such consistency is hard to find, particularly since producing a payoff in change is often more about emotion and intuition than it is about analysis and logic. Where’s the bravery you ask? Try making emotional and intuitive decisions which may or may not be born out by analysis and logic!

Yet I like, Peter Senge’s viewpoint:

“high levels of mastery….leaders cannot afford to choose between reason and intuition, any more than they would choose to walk on one leg and see with one eye”

It’s that outward calm of seeing a swan glide across the water, yet below the water line…furious paddling..

It’s about not losing your head while those around you are running around like chickens with their heads cut off…..what are we going to d!….what are we going to do!

The bravery comes to challenge how your company operates, its implicit beliefs and philosophies (e.g., The unspoken creed…once in automotive always in automotive). Your culture can create its own distractions which interfere with what seems right, intuitive and obvious. Many times, discussing this tension is repressed so that “we don’t take our eye off-the-ball,” or so we don’t offend others. Consequently, leaders often focus on the seemingly “urgent” and let the critical issues slide. They take refuge in “safe” financial performance targets that can’t be easily disputed. These targets rarely support desired behaviors or intuitive outcomes.

Yet there are automotive dependent manufacturers in West Michigan that are wondering how to “keep it shiny side up!”

So in this fog of war, where do leaders look to survival?

If you look at successful companies, they have varied strategies, structures and systems. However, their leaders do have something in common. They share surprisingly consistent philosophies.

These successful leaders have moved away from over reliance on very formal ways of running their organizations (like articulating strategies, building structures and developing systems). They have moved toward using more organic ways of managing (like engaging people in defining a purpose, implementing through necessary and defined processes and developing people).

So what does this point out? It goes to the root of why so many change initiatives fail (60% +) even after overdosing on business re-engineering and other scientific management techniques. Many Leaders manage what is easy to manage (like managing numbers and not people). They’ve been trained in the scientific disciplines. They forget they are managing an “organism.” They dismiss the small and gradual steps associated with real change for grandiose strategies

So, let’s put this into perspective. Successful leaders recognize that an organization’s purpose is more important than short-term outcomes. Why? Outcomes change – their purpose does not! Their focus is on how they can create committed members of a purposeful organization. Putting purpose above outcomes, allowing new improved outcomes to take precedence and promoting different things to be done takes bravery.

Why is bravery so important?

It takes bravery for leaders and executives to address seven critical challenges. Without question, addressing them is about not acquiescing to “legacy tendencies” but about incorporating “what now works” into the development of “tomorrow’s legacies”! Bravery is about doing “different things,” not about making excuses as to why you can’t do different things.

Getting above the white noise of excuses is not for the faint hearted….getting up with clamor of resistances and fear

Where do we start with these challenges? Is there a sequence or are they inter-related?

They are interelated but a logical place to start is:

1. Embedding Purpose

Is your purpose Ill-defined or Conceptual Clear, well articulated & translated?

So, you’ve written and articulated the corporate purpose! But, do the troops actually understand what this means to their everyday behavior and actions? So often the organization states its purpose without regard as to whether or not it has created any ownership in that purpose.

Essential Questions:

How will you gain widespread organizational support for your purpose?
How will you ensure new activities, actions and behaviors invigorate your purpose?
How will you ensure your expectations are aligned with what people assume is expected of them?

2: Removing Distractions

Are your distractions unidentified or well identified and managed?

There are always distractions that deflect an organization from its “appointed” tasks. If these distractions go unidentified, they grow stronger. Distractions don’t just miraculously disappear. The longer they last the more they clog corporate arteries. Executives need to lead the “charge” in identifying and eliminating distractions.

Essential Questions:

How will you convince people to dismiss actions, operations and processes which stimulate doing old things?
How can you eliminate duplicate processes and reports that slow the organization down?
Who will oversee the distraction-elimination process; and, what authority will they have?

I can see how that would help but does this really get over the fog of war that we face today?

Not unless you integrate it with the next challenge…

3: Aligning Organizational Expectations

Are you expectations unstated or defused or well focused & aligned?

Over and over again, employees say, “I wish someone had told me exactly what was expected.” Have you ever considered that others’ assumptions of “what is expected” might be counter productive to your purpose or outcomes? Are people doing what you expect or what they think you expect?

Essential Questions:

What are the key components that reveal your organization’s direction and success?
How will you translate these words into actions, competencies and behaviors that can be managed?
How will you measure the degree of alignment with your purpose, and what evidence of alignment are you looking for?

Doesn’t this demand more from a leader than just stating the facts?

Yes. It’s about lt’s making clearer emotional connections. It’s alarming how one individual can undermine a change simply by being out of touch with intuition and empathy. One of the most overlooked yet common ways leaders fail, albeit unintentionally, is not to express appropriately, candidly and consistently what we feel as well as what we think. This is known as unintentionally ambiguous behavior. It gives mixed messages and next to aggressive behavior, ambiguous behavior can cause the most tension between leaders and others. (Adapted from Robert Cooper’s book, Executive EQ).

What is the context for well focused & aligned exepectations?

4 Creating Differentiation

How vulnerable are you to being seen as “same-o,same-o” or clearly differentiated from your competition?

If you feel like you’re the same in the marketplace, odds are that’s how the customer sees you. As a leader, you are responsible for creating a climate of differentiation.

Essential Questions:

How will you ensure that customer contact people and others connect with one another to develop differentiable approaches?
How will you measure the degree and profitability of differentiation?
How will you leverage differentiation to lead your market place?

I can see how these first four create a platform for success…but how do leaders get this to stick and not just be another “flash in the pan”

5: Coaching

How would you describe the coaching process in your organization…Isolated or Cascaded

We know, we know …. your people coach! The real question is, do your people coach with the right intensity and frequency to replicate successful behaviors? Or, is coaching infrequent, informal and isolated?

Essential Questions:

What will you do as a leader to establish your coaching cascade?
What is the right intensity and frequency of coaching needed under present competitive conditions?
How will you know that coaching is effective?

6: Replicating Success

How reliant are you on using Lagging Indicators as opposed to Leading Indicators?

The words, “best practice” seems to have permeated the corporate world. Your people undoubtedly have their own practices of choice, honed by years of personal experience. Often corporate rewards go to these people rather than to those who demonstrate the “best practices” that everyone can adopt and benefit from.

Essential Questions:

What will your real best practices look like?
How will you tie best practices to behaviors which can be evidenced and replicated without alienating the productive “lone rangers?”
How will you use your “language of leaders” to make managing easier and more measurable?

7: Rewarding Change

To waht extent does your reward system reflect what worked in the past rather then being liagned with your current direction?

If the recognition and reward systems of your company run on the “legacies of past success” it will only encourage doing things differently, not “doing different things!” To change, you need to consistently reward the new behaviors, not the “reward legacies” of the past.

It’s like traning people to use the longbow,used in the Middle Ages as a weapon of war.A trained army archer could shoot upwards of ten to twelve arrows in one minute, making him the world’s first “machine gun” in some ways. Today how ever, the fastest rate of fire a 36 barrell Prototype mini gun, and can shoot 1,000,000 rounds per minute

Essential Questions:

What proportion of people’s compensation should be tied to adopting the new behaviors?
How will you measure and reward those who support your purpose?
How will you “raise the bar” so that over time people demonstrate excellence in the new behaviors?

Where do you go from here?

Ensure that your “walk and talk” are consistent. This relates to your language, how you reward excellence, how you coach and how you react when things go wrong! Bravery means displaying an attitude of distinction.

Create a cascade of conversation and coaching that gets above the “white noise” of legacy…..that’s doing different things!

Align the expectations of the organization. Bravery is found in exposing misalignments and distractions for immediate correction.

Tip of the Blog

Look at your team/colleagues…whose up for a fight

“He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when this day is nam’d,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbors,
And say ‘To-morrow is Saint Crispian.’
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars,
And say ‘These wounds I had on Crispian’s day.’
Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot,
But he’ll remember, with advantages,
What feats he did that day. Then shall our names,
Familiar in his mouth as household words”

(St. Crispen’s Day Speech William Shakespeare, 1599)

Great, but how can this help me?

This is probably the first thing on your mind after reading this Blog.
How about asking us? The first call is free! Just email me to set it up.
Don’t wait, get The Crispian Advantage working for you!. If our conversation leaves you needing more, we offer at a reasonable fee telephone and video coaching improve bottom line results.
If that still doesn’t do it, we’ll work with you on a solution.

Name

Email

Industry

Feedback

Δ

_____________________________________________________________________
For Help in Getting Your People on the Same Page
Nick Anderson, The Crispian Advantage

E-mail I Web I Linkedin

© Copyright All Rights Reserved, The Crispian Advantage and Walk the Talk – A Blog for Agile Minds, [2010-2012]. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Nick Anderson, The Crispian Advantage and Walk the Talk – A Blog for Agile Minds with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.