Developing Leaders for Effective Change

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.

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

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

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

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.

Managing Change for Competitive Success – Questionnaire

This interview structure is designed to help interviewees talk about their principles and core values about leading which guide their behavior at work.  In each section, interviewees are asked about their proposals for change and how they should be implemented and then asking why they feel implementing such proposals are necessary.  It is this “why” question which is the most important.  It is the answers to these “why” questions that particularly should allow comparisons between each interviewee’s guiding principles and values of leading, in specific situations.  It should then help us decide how we are going to develop a coherent sales strategy by understanding what people mean by:

•  “building a rich, engaging purpose”
•  “creating more effective management processes”
• “developing their capabilities and broadening the way they look at the world of work”

Effective Communication & Perception – Why is this so difficult?

INTRODUCTION

Accurate communication can be defined as

“an idea transplant from one mind to another”.

Unfortunately, between two minds there is often a breeding environment for misunderstanding and distortion. It’s where phraes like  “I don’t think we are on the same page”

 originates.  Many factors influence such distortions.  These include:

• style and structure of the communication
• social climate between the sender and recipient of a message,
• integration of the message with other experience and learning
• motivation of the recipient to listen.

Complexity, the New Normal 2: Leading to the Essence

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.

Implementing Sustainable Change – Leadership Challenges

Walk the Talk – Radio for Agile Minds – Change Management – Our Beliefs Change Management – Our Beliefs

Regular readers will remember I was talking about how many change projects started in response to the worsening economy yet almost half of the respondents said that a significant amount of change projects failed to meet their stated goals.

Aligning Expectations is a Two Way Street

This is the second in a series which goes to the heart of the challenge facing our economy  – Implementing Successful  and Sustainable Change.

Since 1996 when Kotter’s research revealed that only 30% of change initiatives succeed. Even today, when McKinsey surveyed 3000 business executives this ratio of 1 in 3 still applied in 2009.

You see for people to be clear on their expectations of others they need to understand the change from their perspective. The problem is that managers use rational models which they think just makes a common sense and why things go wrong from the get go Why?

Because when they simply implement their prescription, they disregard or are not aware of certain, sometimes irrational- but predictable elements of human nature. Unfortunately, Yes. I say that because only 30% of change works and only 10% of such initiatives deliver everything intended by those planning the change.

Why has this lack of success been so difficult to improve upon?

At its core is this quote from Rabbie Burns:

“O wad some Power the giftie gie us

Rabbie Burns

To see oursels as ithers see us!
It wad frae monie a blunder free us”

 “O would some Power the gift to give us
To see ourselves as others see us!
It would from many a blunder free us”

Robert Burns

Another translation

The name of this radio program is “Walk the Talk” or translated “Do what I do” But what talk?

In times of change conventional wisdom suggests that the leaders of change should model the desired change to mobilize influential leaders to drive change deep into the organization yet….

So, you’re saying before leaders start walking their talk they need to be careful. What do you see as the pitfalls leaders should be aware of?

Two spring to mind.

First, Leaders think they have already made the change and we need to get everyone on side. Elaborate – behind closed doors – advisors, consultants etc.

Second, they think they are the panacea rather than mobilizing others to get things to happen.

Let’s take the first one.

Most senior executives generally buy into Gandhi’s astute observation:

“Be the change you want to see in the world”

Yet knowing something and committing oneself to change too often don’t lead to significant results

So, leaders change their behavior and yet nothing happens…I am confused…

You might as well talk to yourself!

And so are leaders…..when they make a change. Too often most leaders don’t count themselves among those who need to change.

Like if you pulled them to one side and whispered “Are you really customer focused?” they would say “No” (I don’t have time to be…have you seen the paperwork I have to get through or ….P & L)

The fact is we all consistently think we are better than we actually are – in psychology it’s called “self serving bias”

For Example, 94% of men rate themselves in the top half of male athletic ability

So, when it comes to change Walking your Own Talk it’s not so much as a desire to show people what to do BUT the real bottleneck is leaders knowing what to change at a personal level.

It sounds like many leaders don’t take a cool hard look at themselves before embarking on “Walking the talk” and prescribing what others should do?

Exactly, we often see this in our alignment work. Consistently, leaders have 70%+ more expectations than others realize and leaders are often oblivious of what their people expect of them.

What can leaders do to overcome this potential blind spot?

The Ring of Fire

There are several ways using surveys like 360 degrees feedback, or simply asking regularly what should I be doing differently? Or one large company has what they call the “Ring of Fire”

Direct feedback in answer to

1.  “What makes you great?”

2. “What holds you back?”

Are people really going to reply honestly?

No, not if the climate has not been set.

Yes, if the Leaders don’t believe they are the cure all for their organizations problems.

Yet, it’s sound advice that they should mobilize others, who by experience, respect and ability can become influential it getting things to happen. Yet, too often the influential leader’s role has shifted from being that helpful element to a broad set of actions, to being a cure all.

It’s a mindset problem leaders have. They forget they need to create the framework for changes not persuade people to adopt their prescriptions for change.

That sounds like leaders should let people come up with their own solutions…

No & Yes.

Persuasion or selling the need for change and what the change needs to be get welded together in leaders’ minds.

Leaders need to create receptivity for change (Framework) and not stray into the debilitating arena of “I know what we need to do…..”

The dangers are that you are seen to be part of the problem, you risk cutting off the growing motivation to do something differently and focus people on being spectators of change rather than being players in the game.

In reality it is often unexpected people who feel compelled to step up to drive change e.g. Genzink Steel – work scheduler

That’s why keeping leaders focused on creating the framework of lasting change is vital.

Too often we see leaders vested in their narrow focus unwittingly excluding the very people the need to create this framework.

Ok. Got that. So, What does effective leadership look like?

If you turn to Robert Greenleaf’s philosophy it can help leaders create the frame and not try to build their house on their own.

“Greenleaf  – The servant-leader is servant first… Becoming a servant-leader begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead. That person is sharply different from one who is leader first… The difference manifests itself in the care taken by the servant first to make sure that other people’s highest priority needs are being served. The best test, and the most difficult to administer, is this:

• Do those served grow as people?
• Do they, while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants?”

Robert Greenleaf’s most important work, Servant Leadership (1977/2002), is subtitled A Journey into the Nature of Legitimate Power & Greatness. Though his terms are secular ones, his definition of leadership is the clearest statement of this idea that the needs of followers are holy and that legitimate use of power arises from the consent of followers.

Like Christ washing the disciple’s feet – what did this do for their perception of his leadership?

Here’s a tip for now:

How often do you proactively ask for feedback?

Remember alignment is a two way street

• What you expect of me
• What I think you expect of me
• What I expect of you
• What you think I expect of you

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 on change, alignment, and personal and executive performance that improve the bottom line.  If that still doesn’t do it, we’ll work with you on a solution.