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.

Continue reading →

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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 – How Can Change Gain Competitive Advantage?

Posted on November 25, 2014 by agincourtarcher

Series Introduction

This is the fifth 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 Change Gain Competitive Advantage? Here are the other book sections we are highlighting:

5. How Can Change Gain Competitive Advantage?

Even after 30 years, the connections between change management and gaining competitive advantage are not well articulated. The disconnects between commitments to change and actual competitive behavior are a major factor in change failure. Getting beyond imitators relies on understanding and measuring behavior that distinguishes competitive behavior from other activities.

As one contributor said

Learning keeps us ahead of the competition by getting us closer to selected customers

to gather competitive intelligence

Focus on the Customer Survey Results - Stats Table
The seriousness of these ratings is underlined by the fact that, many studies show that it costs six times more to get a new customer than it does to keep an existing one. Acquiring new customers is costly, and in many cases, the money earned on the first sale doesn’t even cover the acquisition costs.

For example in the table to the right, only 70% of contributors say they measure customer satisfaction effectively. Worst still are the low percentages for the benefits of measuring change related to customers (3%) and their feedback when it comes to change success (12%)

These findings have uncomfortable resonance with the lack of customer focus we see in other parts of this report. Change drives these leaders, while customers and competitive advantage are apparent afterthoughts.

We conclude that there are practical ways to avoid these pitfalls. Overall, contributors comment that managing change for competitive success is a continuous, systemic, repetitive and uncertain process. They recommend five areas to improve competitive advantage through change.

Action Points 4: Implementing Change to Gain Competitive Advantage

Market and Competitive Sensing

What do managers do at present to maintain awareness of your competitive environment?
How well do managers use this information to make more competitive decisions?
What should managers do to improve awareness and agility to the competition?

Leading Competitive Change

What changes should managers make to develop a competitive culture?
How are you going to build more leadership capability to bring about successful change?

Integrating Change into Operations
Building Competitive Human Capital

What should managers be doing to link competitive change to day-to-day operations?
What performance metrics are needed to track this integration?
What performance management measures should you be using?
How do you see learning being managed both individually and collectively at present?
What should managers be doing to improve both individual and collective learning?

Developing Competitive Agility

What do managers do to reshape and adjust strategies?
What should be done to manage strategic change and the emergence of threats and opportunities?

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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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Our Corporate Ebola is Failed Change

Posted on October 7, 2014 by agincourtarcher

Just like the disease, corporate change has a 50% mortality rate

Boise, Idaho, 10/07/14 – Local management and organization specialist publishes a fascinating new book Focusing Change To Win. It provides a prescription for combating the risks inherent in organizational change. Risks like poor revenues, lost opportunity, competitive vulnerability, increased employee cynicism and fear. The endemic nature of these risks led Nick Anderson and his Nigerian co-author Kelly Nwosu to ask:

Why do some companies thrive on change while other just survive?

Answering this question led to a global study of 6000 comments from 1072 business leaders from 80 countries in 19 industry sectors with over 10,000 years of change management experience provided some powerful and practical advice and tools.

To reach this point, you have to go back to Nick’s experiences with failed change. The list, many of us can relate to includes:

“Am I going to have a job tomorrow?”
“Why did they let Sue go?”
“How am I going to tell Bill he hasn’t got a job?”
“What am I going to do?”
“We tried this before…”
“This (change) is only for them …..not us?”

Since those early days, his work with organizations across the business and public sector encountered a litany of failed change. His ongoing research shows survey after survey reporting that “People are the problem” (as the main reason). Percentages of failed change continue to this day ranging from 40% to 80% and many commentators agree that more changes fail than succeed. Only last September the Project Management Institute’s 2014 Report found that 56% of projects fail to meet their goals.
What is really thought provoking is that Nick and Kelly’s book show that there are those who do get it right.
But, really, isn’t comparing failed change to Ebola ridiculous? Nick Anderson doesn’t think so. The cost of a failed change can be staggering. Organizationally failed change can be fatal to both the organization and their people. Individually the stress of failed change permeates people’s lives, emerging as cycles of addictive behavior, broken relationships and financial hardship. For example, one Swedish study showed increases of heart disease was linked to poor leadership. Job insecurity has been linked to several different outcomes, such as:

Negative attitudes towards work
Turnover intention
Health complaints.

Data from 400 nurses at a Swedish acute care hospital showed that job insecurity affects stress even after taking account for individual characteristics. (Naswall,Sverke & Hellgren)
A 22 country European study concluded that while job loss is traumatizing, it is not common. In contrast, the fear of job insecurity is widespread and its health impact is as bad as losing your job (Mathilde Godard). Or, how about a German study which concluded that after the 2008 recession

“People fearful of losing their jobs are 60% more likely to develop asthma”.

Closer to home, studies from Texas A & M and University of California add weight to the endemic nature of this corporate virus.

So, what can we do about this disease?

Clearly, the last 20 years demonstrates:

Current Theories and prescriptions are not working or user friendly.
The reliance on imported change processes alone are less effective.
Leaders are facing greater complexity, accelerating change, greater competition and more knowledgeable customers.

The critical point of staving off failed change is to recognize that there is no “cookie-cutter” “quick-fix”. Importing new theories from outside an organization increases people’s natural resistance. It truncates thinking about “why will this change work for us?” and creates divisions between the “Importers” from the rest of the organization.
So, this book advocates using facilitated discussions, questionnaires and other tools to engage people in creating their own change approaches, processes and protocols. You may be thinking.

“Why not use what’s worked from outside” “It’s cheaper and faster etc.”

Here’s what the authors concluded. Excluding people from deciding how their organization handles change risks creating greater resistance and less sustainability. Fundamentally, it excludes middle level leaders so they cannot develop to their leadership skills and risks their resistance to the point of ensuring that change will fail.
Those who thrive on change really understand this. They recognize that so many “imports” are too often seen as disrespectful of people’s skills and expertise, especially when those people have experienced failed change. Importing prescriptions needs far more thought on how to reduce the toxicity of past failures. So, why is this book important for leading successful change?
As Bill Connors, President & CEO, Boise Metro Chamber of Commerce) said:
“Focusing Change to Win is a must read and reference for business people regardless of their company’s size. Whether you run a family business or public corporation, this book has thought provoking tools and questionnaires you can use immediately. Nick Anderson and his co-Author Kelly Nwosu have done a masterful job in distilling over 6000 business leaders’ comments into such a practical set of tools. If you want your next change to be successful, this is essential reading.”
To find out more go to focusingchangetowin.com or amazon.com. Also Nick will be at the Boise Chamber of Commerce for a book signing on Wednesday 29th October from 8 am to 10 am.

For more information,
Nick Anderson
(616) 745-8667
nanderson@thecrispianadvantage.com
For more information on 10/06/2014:
http://focusingchangetowin.com

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How to Make Sales Self-Coaching More Effective

Posted on June 25, 2013 by agincourtarcher

Self-coaching can be a like the blind leading the blind. At best, the rate of improvement is slow and inconsistent. At worst, the group perpetuates behavior that is not competitive. This is also true of peer coaching where they exert their influence based on equally inaccurate perceptions of what they do and too often steers the colleague in the wrong direction.What follows summarizes why self- and peer-coaching alone can be ineffective in developing sales peoples’ self-analytical abilities – A critical part of sales mastery. Then we overview how to solve this problem. The context is that since 2008 sales management can be summed up as, “Do More with Less” One result being that technology has accelerated the trend toward inside sales. In fact, there are now more inside sales people in USA than their traditional outside sales counter parts. In turn, this increasingly spawned the view that sales people can coach themselves entirely. This thinking is a logic based on increasing spans of control and a lack of sales managers both in ability and their inclination to coach their sales people Continue reading →

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Focusing to Win: Executive Seminar Series

Posted on September 26, 2012 by agincourtarcher

This seminar series features Nick’s new book Focusing Change to Win which he co-authored with Kelly Nwosu.

These sessions provides business leaders with insights into critical areas to help focus their businesses and align their people for competitive advantage. Each seminar helps you answer a fundamental question:

Seminar 1: How Clear Are You On The Why & What Of Change?

Seminar 2: Why Do Your People Resist Change?

Seminar 3: Why Do You Bother to Measuring Change?

Seminar 4: How Can You Implement Change & Gain Competitive Advantage?

Seminar 5: Is Your Organization Thriving or Just Surviving?

Seminar 6: How Effectively Do You Really Communicate Change?

We take a deep-dive into a change issue that you face. You will come away with an understanding of where your expectations with key employees are aligned and not aligned, and how critical that alignment is for successful change. You will learn how to clarify and specify your own expectations as to well how you can check if they are understood. Each session helps executives assess their performance in terms of:

How well have you communicated your expectations to your people?
How well do you understand what your people expect of you?
What are the likely gaps between expectations and assumptions?
What are our options for planning and implementing success change competitively?

What do you get?

A copy of our new book Focusing Change to Win
A tool, the Four Blocker Alignment Analysis, to identify misalignment
A method to help set the right expectations and get people on the same page
An understanding of how to align agreed expectations effectively
An example of an aligned expectation relevant to your situation
An improved chance for successful change in your organization

What preparation is needed?

For each participant organization we have preparation guides that ask people to consider issues related to the question being posed for each seminar.

Who should you bring?

Please select up to five key people to join you who are important to successful change in your organization, such as:

Which colleagues will help you answer the seminar question posed?
Whose opinion do you value to help look at the question posed from different perspectives?
Whose commitment will you need to make improvements in tackling change competitively?

What will be covered?

Each session focuses on real-life scenarios within the framework of the research findings and assessment tools developed. As we say:

“There is no role-play only real-play”

Seminar Format

Seminars are customized for clients and depending on their needs. They normally run from half-day to full-day. They can be run fact-to-face or web-based, although experience suggest face-to-face gets the best results

Maximum attendance is 20 participants! Costs start at $150 per person per half day excluding agreed preparation time, travel and accommodation.

Why are these seminars important?

Failed change means lost opportunity, competitive vulnerability, poor revenues, lost employees, increased cynicism and fear. Its residue is a hostile and toxic culture, where change resistance becomes the norm. The cost of a failed change can be staggering, from lowering morale to losing key customers due to poor quality.

Focusing to Win and the survey on which is based confirms other studies

Too many organizations are still trying to do things differently not do different things

Survey Contributors realize that working relationships are increasingly stressed in the drive for ever-faster responses to competitive threats and opportunities.

So, what are the meaningful differences between those that thrive on change and those that just survive?

Many contributors seem resigned to resistance being unavoidable yet recognize that trust in management is the only variable that significantly reduces change resistance. They seem to have little focus on improving organizational alignment to achieve change success.

For others, whatever the blend of top down and bottom up led change, it is clear – be intentional. This is invaluable to avoid being misinterpreted and mistrusted. These contributors are clear and details how to lay the groundwork for successful change.

Each seminar takes an aspect of the problem based on over 6,000 comments to give participants an assessment framework for their organizations. These cover analyzing change impacts, setting-up the change Program with Metrics and on-going communication.

Executive Summary

Continue reading →

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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

Continue reading →

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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.

Continue reading →

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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.

Continue reading →

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Problem Defining & The Consulting/Intervention Process

Posted on October 24, 2011 by agincourtarcher

Problem Defining & The Consulting/Intervention Process

Calif Manage Rev. 1979 Spring;21(3):26-33.Kilmann R, Mitroff I.

Intervention theory¹and the consulting process² have developed to provide more effective methods by which organizational change is conducted. These methods have emerged in order to operationalize a theory of changing rather than a theory of change. The latter is what Bennis³ found to be the focus of most discussions on organizational growth and change; yet a theory of changing is needed to create planned change in organizations and not just to explain natural change after the fact.⁴

Continue reading →

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An Approach to Solving People Problems

Posted on October 23, 2011 by agincourtarcher

INTRODUCTION

People problems are very varied; they can also be complex. There is no all-embracing theory for
understanding them and no magical formulas guaranteed to solve them. The problem-solver, where people problems are concerned, must be an experimenter. There are, however, a few guidelines which, if observed, will help to save the problem-solver from wasting time and effort on ultimately unprofitable activities.

Continue reading →

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Leading in Complexity – Discussion Starter

Posted on October 21, 2011 by agincourtarcher

Introduction

This discussion starter gets leaders thinking about leadership and help them move toward consensus before starting a major change initiative. (For more in-depth discussion please go to the Leading in Complexity Blog Series).

A critical issue is helping the team to “walk through” the range of relations they will meet managing change, dealing with the practicalities and intricacies
of people, departments, factions and geographies.

A large part of the task is not just ensuring leaders understand their change environment but that the organization can continue to learn and act on over time.

Continue reading →

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Effective Communication & Perception – Why is this so difficult?

Posted on October 18, 2011 by agincourtarcher

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. Continue reading →

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Presenting a Persuasive Case – How do you sell an idea?

Posted on October 18, 2011 by agincourtarcher

INTRODUCTION

A frequent and often crucial situation in management today is one in which one person is seeking to persuade another to accept proposals for change. This situation commonly occurs when a subordinate presents a case to his or her boss.

Unfortunately, people usually spend a great deal more time and effort in collecting supporting facts and figures than in planning for the face-to-face interaction on which the success of the whole exercise usually depends. Careful consideration of interactive strategy at the planning stage can both assist in the selection of effective arguments and result in more persuasive interactions.

Feature Dumping

This discussion of the issues involved concentrates on persuasion in the boss-subordinate context; but the principles considered apply equally well to any situation in which one person is seeking to gain the co-operation or the consent of another.

Continue reading →

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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”

Continue reading →

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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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Listen to the Radio Show of this Blog

© 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! 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.

Listen to the Radio Show

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.

Continue reading →

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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.

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Email

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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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Have you got your Change Shoes on? –

Posted on August 19, 2010 by agincourtarcher

Now, that’s a change shoe!

Sustainable change is based on leaders having a radical vision and building a pathway to that vision one step at a time.

Just as you wear a pair of shoes, this change walk has the left shoe – radical, right shoe gradual – Radical Gradualism

That got me to pose this question:

“What is the glue that holds an organization together while it goes through change?”

Relationships – the golden triangle of your people, your customers and your partners.So, that’s the pathway today – creating and holding on to that human glue that produces success

“Where’s the evidence to support your track this month?”The answer seems obvious…but…why is this facet of business becoming more important?

Traditional rationalization and cost cutting strategies fail too often – too many business turnaround failures. These traditional approaches, which are predicated upon cost efficiencies, have left companies demoralized, distracted and less productive.

If you look at the data – pure light

Successful leaders transform their organizations doing several things, like:

Building closer relationships with customers while harnessing human talent to deliver greater customer satisfaction: HP’s competitive strategy vs. IBM Mini Computers
Leveraging internal resident talent and expertise to resolve business problems and capitalize on opportunities: 3M Post-It Note
Fostering a climate that results in personal ownership for doing what’s needed: HSBC’s Customer First Change Process in the UK
Devolving responsibility to groups and teams create a project based organization: Volvo pioneered work cells – one team-one car
Raising the importance of individual and organizational learning, ensuring learning and working are integrated: KPMG link learning to career progression
Secure changes in attitudes and behavior: Fred Smith, FedEx “Anywhere,Overnight, Guaranteed”

“In the military, leadership means getting a group of people to subordinate their individual desires and ambitions for the achievement of organizational goals. And good leadership has very measurable effects on a company’s bottom line.”

My call to action: Challenge your attitudes, values and your behavior. They are the sole of your change shoes, rather than just focusing on your technology, products and services – all of which can be copied.

Some would say that other things like the right “goto” market strategy with the right distribution channels etc. So, have we got a chicken and egg situation like what comes first

People or Process or Structure?

Good point, but consider this: the days of ready, aim, fire have long gone, it’s been ready, fire, aim for some time. Few startups succeed – e.g. new restaurants close before their first anniversary. The change paradox is this “hurry slowly” – radical gradualism is a simple concept rigorously implemented

Let’s put it another way: At least three separate disciplines drew essentially the same conclusions about change and project management:

WYSIWYG-( What you see is what you get) is no longer reality. It’s IWKIWISI (I’ll Know it When I see It!) that reflects our world today

Like a lot of what you say seems common sense…why don’t more companies take this approach…?

Many factors….one telling fact is that average age of senior executives while falling is between 46-50 yo.So, they graduated between 1978 – 1982….Who had a laptop let alone a cell phone? At that time business schools still held on to a Fortune 500 view of the world and seeing the world through the lens of the Harvard Business Review. Let me ask you – What percentage of businesses is of this size in West Michigan? – Not many. So, the enculturation of managers was still “ready, aim, fire”

Bosses are turning still turn a deaf ear…Bosses are ignoring a wealth of creative ideas from
their employees

1:4 people believe that they are never listened to by superiors
Among older people the proportion rises to nearly 1:2!
1:4 never been asked by their bosses for their opinion or actively encouraged to offer up ideas, no matter their length of service.
1:2 Canadians surveyed believe that their companies use half or less of their brain power
Surveys – NOP Survey 1000 (London & South East) & “Report on Business” Magazine Dec 1998)

Do you see this trend getting worse?

Employees want bosses to listen better

In the Leadership Digest, in 2006 – While employees gave their bosses “high marks” in a recent study of worker satisfaction, staff still suggested areas for improvement:

43% want bosses to use their employees’ skills and abilities better.
More than 35 % want the boss to step in more often to resolve conflicts.
Just over 25 % wish bosses would ask for their ideas and listen more readily.

So, it depends on how business leaders react. Let me explain, based on James Brian Quinn, Philip Anderson, Sydney Finkelstein,with rare exceptions, productivity lies more in intellectual and systems capabilities than say raw materials, land, plant, and equipment. Intellectual and information processes create most of the value-added for firms in the large service industries–like software, medical care, communications, and education–which provide 79 percent of all jobs and 76 percent of all U.S. GNP.

In manufacturing as well, intellectual activities–like R&D, process design, product design, logistics, marketing, marketing research, systems management, or technological innovation–generate the real value-add. McKinsey & Co. estimates that by the year 2010, 85 percent of all jobs in America and 80 percent of those in Europe will be knowledge-based. Yet few managers have systematically attacked the issues of developing, leveraging, and measuring the intellectual capabilities of their organizations.

What are the other pitfalls in creating this service based economy and how does it relate to relationship development?

The more knowledge workers, the flatter the organization which impacts the style of leadership and how wealth transitions from one generation to the other or to new owners. This economy is and will become more dynamic.

Can you explain what you mean wealth transition?

Dynamic = more transitions – buying and selling, merging acquiring. But, What gets missed? Capital is no longer about bricks and mortar – it’s Human Capital

So, what challenges does this present? What can you do to build value in these circumstances?

The greater reliance on human capital for valuing an organization the more PE firms, M & A need to look at tools to assess the real value. This means doing the obvious things of doing inventories of the people, their skills, competence and certifications, where needed to redress findings like:

Only 1 in 10 can consistently achieve their Strategy’s full potential
Non-Financial Factors valued most by investors
- Strategy Execution
- Management Credibility
- Innovativeness

What are the main things executives have to do better?

Fulfills others: Take risks, trust each other, take proactive approach that we will work together on solving problems, share considerable confidence in their own and others abilities, have enthusiasm for their jobs.

Providing effective feedback is one of a manager’s most important tasks; it’s also one of the most difficult. Here’s a six-step model, proposed by Jack Stahl, current CEO of Revlon and former president of Coca-Cola, to facilitate feedback and make it more effective.

Value the individual. Begin by affirming what the employee contributes to your organization. Be sincere and thorough. This step is critical because it frames the conversation.
Ask the person to identify his/her biggest challenges. Ask the employee to assess his/her performance, including both strengths and challenges. This will help you pinpoint areas for targeted coaching.
Provide targeted feedback. Give specific examples of behaviors to change.
Agree on areas to develop for the future. The objective here is to focus the individual’s development and encourage him/her to practice specific new skills. You could also point him/her to training opportunities.
Agree on the benefits of improving and the consequences of not improving. This step is designed to fuel the employee’s motivation to improve or change.
Commit your support and reaffirm the person’s value. “When people feel valued, they can hear difficult feedback without being demoralized by it.”

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

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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Removing the Barriers to Sales Effectiveness

Posted on July 1, 2010 by agincourtarcher

Cogs of Effectiveness

The really effective sales organization has a number of characteristics, for example:

Skills and strategies suited to their market outstanding products or services
In-depth understanding of how these products can solve customer problems
Appropriate rewards and performance measures
Sales support system which actually helps to sell, not just administer
An ability and willingness to learn

Full effectiveness, however, can be achieved only if everyone:

Has a clear and shared vision of where the company is heading
Understands the strategy for getting there and their part in the process
Is rewarded for playing their part
Focuses obsessively on the customer

Some barriers to effectiveness are obvious – if the products are poor then no amount of sales skill can compensate sufficiently to build success. Many barriers are more subtle, and can sap the strength of the company over a long period without being tackled. Such problems usually fall under one the following three headings:

Misalignment
Inflexibility
Internal Focus

Misalignment

Feels like a bad back

There are many ways in which Misalignment is introduced into organization structures and processes; at best they generate unhelpful tensions and frustrations, at worst they lead to departmental rifts and sabotage. Common examples are:

Poor alignment of individuals’ expectations, departments and the company as a whole

E.g. the sales force seeks job interest by selling bespoke solutions, while the company is trying to standardize its offerings

Incentives for interdependent departments or people are not congruent

E.g. Sales force targeted on increased volume, administration targeted on decreased costs performance management process runs counter to company strategy

Sales management sets 30 day revenue targets, while company exhorts the salespeople to develop major accounts for the long-term

Salespeople are expected to cross-sell for other Divisions or countries, but are not rewarded for so doing

Sales management is “do as I say, not as I do”

E.g. Managers use a hard ‘push’ style, while advocating a ‘pull’ or consultative style with their people

Doing what we’ve always done what is going to be needed due to changing technology, markets and competition

E.g. When a monopoly supplier meets competition for the first time so the products no longer ‘sell themselves’

When new products address a different market – for example, printer sales force find themselves selling systems not peripherals

Gaps between stated values and actual values

E.g. “Our customers are our greatest asset ” while salespeople refer to them as “Buyers are liars”

“Our employees are our greatest asset”, while managers show little concern and even less investment

Inflexibility

Many markets are now more turbulent and unpredictable than ever before, and success comes only to those who are ‘quick on their feet’. Unfortunately many players suffer from at least one of the following:

Their sales organization structure and roles don’t match those of the customer

E.g. they offer multipoint direct contact with sales, service, technical support, while the customer wants single point contact

Geographical location of functions and authority doesn’t match the customer’s

Their organization is inherently unresponsive to change

E.g. in rapidly evolving markets, companies operating a traditional hierarchical and functional structure find it hard to compete with those successfully using a cross-functional team approach

• Their people are resistant to change

E.g. Salespeople who have been adequately successful for years have become “order takers”, and the entertaining approach to account development

Managers who find it hard to let go of their traditional, power-oriented style and allow staff the space and authority to really contribute

Technical people who are unwilling to take on the sales role and don’t believe in the new technology

Internal focus

True customer focus involves a lot more than ‘customer service training’; it means that no aspect of the organization should be free from an all-pervading concern with delivering what the customer wants, and a bit more. It means taking your cue from the customer in areas which traditionally have been internally focused, for example:

Company and/ or departmental structure

E.g. Split on arbitrary product/technical grounds, so that several sellers approach the same individual

Performance measures

E.g. Call rates, scrap rates, production volumes, instead of response times, satisfaction ratings, service call-outs

Perception of what is being sold

E.g. In terms of a product rather than the results of using it – a security system rather than peace of mind, a training course rather than increased sales effectiveness

Conclusion

There is no one best sales organization structure, incentive scheme, or strategic approach. If there were, we would not see the huge diversity which exists in the real world, and change would anyway render it obsolete.

The effective organization is never complacent, and audits itself rigorously and constantly, seeking out and remedying any instances of inconsistency, inflexibility and internal focus. It also never fools itself into believing that change=progress;. change follows cycles of learning of what works and what doesn’t, not from a fear of stagnation.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
For Help in Getting Your People on the Same Page
Contact: Nick Anderson, Senior Partner, PDS Group LTD
E-mail I Web I Linkedin

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Managing Alignment Challenges (Part 1 of 3) – Managing Conflict

Posted on March 18, 2010 by agincourtarcher

Walk the Talk – Radio for Agile Minds – Managing Alignment Projects

Introduction

During many consulting engagements we identified that organizational misalignment as a major factor in organizations and individuals were not achieving goals

This changed our focus to ground other work by aligning people’s expectations first, before designing learning, coaching etc. Over the last 10years, the PDS team developed expertise and an alignment practice with AlEx™, by serving companies in Canada and the US.

Consequently this approach has helped clients add millions in sales, bring construction projects in on time, and successfully transition family-owned businesses.

This month, I want to build on last month’s theme. Regular readers will remember I was talking about how many change projects were planned in response to the economy yet almost half of the respondents indicate that a significant number of change projects failed to meet their stated goals.

We have learned that anticipating and managing misalignment goes to the root of building successful change. And so my theme this month Managing Alignment Challenges so that you can increase the odds that the change you’re planning will achieve its desired results.

Today, I want to focus on people alignment but recognize that alignment of resources with strategy, for example, are other important components of successful change. It’s a big subject. But one thing is for sure – Change has to be personal before it can be organizational…

In your experience what are the main points for listeners to consider in improving the odds of making a change work?

For this blog I will focus on one of three key areas:

Managing Conflict and Relationship Tension

Subsequent programs and blogs I will cover…..

2. Managing Complexity

3. Improving Performance

The first is essential to recognize that there will be conflict and you have to manage it. Too often it’s the 800lb Gorilla in the room.

I chose the second as the need for change can seem deceptively clear yet being comfortable with complexity is something people want to avoid

Thirdly, if you are not actively focused on improving performance…why are you changing?

The last point seems obvious…why else would people want to change…?

For Example, if you are in China many changes get caught up with ensuring the leaders don’t “lose face”. In Corporate America, newly appointed leaders want to put their “stamp” on their tenure….there’s a primal nature to new leaders that we often cloak in business school speak, like “we needed a change of direction to improve the businesses performance….blah, blah, blah” And, of course, then there are the two ugly sisters – Greed and Ego.

The point about improving performance is that leaders start out pontificating about this subject yet get caught up in the first two and lose sight of Change’s central purpose.

So, you have the Eternal Change Triangle. If you go into a change with these things in mind you have the strongest structure on which to base change. If you don’t see or manage these three you will be flying a jet without any sense of direction. It’s why we use the metaphor of “The Performance Flight Deck”

Why do you think people don’t recognize the first two’s importance?

In my experience, especially in this economy, too many leaders can get caught up in expediency – a compulsion “to do something” NOW!

Back to an earlier blog, this call to action that is so prevalent in our culture. Though, the strangest thing I am about to say seems to contradict myself:

Despite the ubiquity of business planning education in entrepreneurship, there is little evidence that planning leads to success (Honig)

(You are going to have to unpack that one for me…and the listeners…LOL)

On the one hand, Mark Hurst on his Blog quotes Calvin Coolidge,

Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.

The trouble with the Coolidge’s take on success is, as Mark points out, that persistence is only effective if there’s a clear goal.Like the Cheshire Cat in Alice in Wonderland, a sort of feline Clausewitz. Alice asks which way she should go, and the Cheshire Cat answers:

“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat.

“I don’t much care where,” said Alice.

“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat.

For me that means, You have to stop and take time to find the direction. You can’t run while you’re reading the map. Too many leadersfocus on the end goal and not enough time on:

How are we going to get people to not only accept change but also be committed to changing?
How are we going to manage this change and keep making money?
How are we going to manage SNAFU’s (define)?

To summarize

“The general who wins a battle makes many calculations in his temple ere the battle is fought. The general who loses a battle makes but few calculations beforehand. Thus do many calculations lead to victory, and few calculations to defeat: how much more no calculation at all! It is by attention to this point that I can foresee who is likely to win or lose.”
-Sun Tzu, the Art of War

Let’s turn to this month’s theme, what are some of the benefits in managing conflict?

Our work in aligning people on construction projects with Turner Construction, strongly suggests that there 8 benefits

Helps develop a healthy attitude to managing rather than hiding conflict.
- Helps objectify disagreements and prevents things getting personal
Reduces the distracting and destructive products from poorly handled conflict situations.
- Defend Attack Spirals have destructive long lasting effects that last year
Helps harness diverse views and experience in the project team for the good of the overall project and Owner.
- The power of accepting the “Half Baked” is an inclusive stance not poorly thought out
Helps handle change as change progresses and manages the constant flow of information between key players…e.g. Owners, consultants and contractors.
- Plays to an earlier program, Clauswitz on not being caught up in sequential thinking – Change is not start with A, then B, then C
- Change is A learn and choose B or C or both knowing that B & C need to be accomplished
- Too many leaders have a touching reliance that they have complete knowledge
Addresses the tensions in managing the change dynamics as during the change life cycle

If you’re leading such a change, what are the typical examples of change dynamics?

Very often leaders have a false sense of control, and if for example they commission consultants or create teams things take on a life of their own

Another dynamic is my sixth point…

6. Recognizes that as work precedes the relative bargaining strengths of the parties are constantly adjusting. Standard approaches to planned change do not take this into account.

In more formal changes, like in construction we find that we need to help teams

7. Overcome the inflexibility inherent in standard contracts. For example, one contract assumes that the design is complete at the time of bidding and that the contractor employs most of the resources that will be required for the project. The fact is, design is rarely 100 % complete at the time of bidding and contractors subcontract most of the work.

Most importantly, aligning people as we do…

8. Develops Project Teams while recognizing their different rules of engagement. AlEx™ recognizes and helps facilitate different project needs and rules of engagement, like:

Changing Owner demands
Rapid learning
Generating and maintaining effective interaction between team members so that they can exchange views and debate the consequences of their decisions in an open and honest forum.
Changing circumstances over the project’s lifecycle.
Shifting relationship tensions between the major members of the project team.
Building trust for when things do not go as planned.

How would you sum up managing conflict…?

Conflict in life is a natural as breathing. What we have lost sight of especially with the backdrop of what’s happening in Washington is how do you respect another party’s opposing stance and achieve successful change…I heard a item on the radio about the Life Raft Debate where the students vote which professor they would choose to take the last place on their life raft…they chose the devil’s advocate….because all the others tried to entertain rather then debate

Tip of the month

If you want to follow these three programs you will find an article “Eternal Triangle” in the resources section at pdsgrp.net/resources where you will see a summary of what I have covered today.

Here’s my tip.

If you are planning a change or are in the middle of one…..how many times last week did you not confront your demons and openly say:

“The Emperor has no clothes……”

It’s OK to confront the issues not the person if you don’t unaddressed conflict will fester like road kill.

Then, stand back and look at your own organization – and ask “What traps are we falling into?”

http://pdsgrp.net/Media/audio/6294_031510.mp3

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

E-mail I Web I Linkedin