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Getting to Maybe: How the World is Changed

March 6, 2011 By Leave a Comment

In the movie Jerry Maguire, Renee Zellweger’s character tells Tom Cruise that he had her at the first hello. Well, this warning to the book “Getting To Maybe: How the World is Changed” had me at the first page:

Warning: this book is not for heroes or saints or perfectionists. This book is for ordinary people who want to make connections that create extraordinary outcomes.

What riveted me to this book on social innovation:

  • The authors fascinating yet easy to understand application of scientific complexity science as a way to understand social innovation.
  • The book’s thorough research and presentation of patterns of social innovation
  • The compelling stories of diverse social innovators – what triggered them to start, how they navigated their journeys, and the shared patterns of those diverse journeys
  • The use of poetry to ground each chapter, counterbalancing the art of change with the science of systems change.
  • More thoughtful, original, and thought provoking insights than I usually find in a professional book.
  • Many, many practical ideas that I can see how to apply both to my professional organizational change management work and my responsibilities as a trustee on non-profit organizations.
  • How relevant it is in today’s world with nations in the Middle East transforming and our school systems, unions, health care institutions and governments undergoing complex, profound and needed change.

The yellow highlights in my book are too numerous to list, but here are some of my takeaways.

Getting to maybe vs. concrete, measurable outcomes

“Maybe” comes with no guarantees, only a chance. But “maybe” has always been the best odds the world has offered to those who set out to alter its course…”Maybe” is not a cautious word. It is a defiant claim of possibility in the face of a status quo we are unwilling to accept.

Why complexity science?

  • Traditional methods of seeing the world compare its workings to a machine. Complexity science embraces life as it is: unpredictable, emergent, evolving and adaptable.
  • Connections or relationships define how complex systems work; an organization is its relationships not its flow chart.
  • Using insights about how the world is changed, we can become active participants in shaping those changes.

Being heard: speaking the vision and passion

Effective and innovative organizations keep alive the that vision and passion, that sense of calling…Part of the challenge in being heard is to hone what you have to say and practice saying it in a way that connects both emotionally and intellectually, both affectively and cognitively

Working with powerful strangers

  • If the system is to be transformed as opposed to overturned, collaboration between the radical and the establishment must be created.
  • In any discussion of power and its redistribution, link the issue directly to the organization’s mission and keep it in that context.
  • Power dynamics will surface in connection to mission fulfillment; which is appropriate; there it will challenge those in power to examine the depth of their commitment to real change.

Evaluation, measurement, accountability

  • Set information targets, not just performance targets.
  • Use developmental evaluation, charting a changing path of innovation by providing rapid feedback.
  • Frame changes from you’re learning as developments, not just improvements, and a key difference in perspective. Especially with funders.
  • Support learning as a meaningful outcome – and reporting on learning as a form of authentic accountability.
  • The highest form of accountability is internal. Are we being true to our vision? Are we dealing with reality? Are we connecting the dots between here-and-now and our vision?  Are we walking the talk? How do we know if we’re not?

Scaling innovation

Scaling up is rarely a linear process that involves doing more of the same.

A different approach to strategic planning

  • Make big-picture, strategic thinking an ongoing part of decision making, not something done only periodically in retreats.
  • Devote resources to identifying and tracking important trends. Make strategic analysis about the connections between local efforts and major trends a regular part of your work.
  • Develop a fierce commitment to ongoing reality testing, especially seeking and being open to critical feedback and standing still to see the bigger picture.
  • Instead of cheerleading, cultivate the skills of rigorous pattern analysis and reality testing.

Quotes I loved

  • Thinking is a form of action.
  • A goal helps to channel the energy but doesn’t create it.
  • Keep the goals front and centre –  let the means emerge.
  • Hell is not failing, hell is delusion.
  • It takes courage to act in the absence of certainty and clarity. But to not engage, to not connect does not mean we protect ourselves from uncertainty.

I’m a voracious reader, and highly recommend this book by Frances Westley, Brenda Zimmerman and Michael Quinn Patton — especially for those involved in innovation, organizational change and social transformation, or for those who wonder and perhaps worry about how we can solve today’s seemingly insolvable social issues.

Filed Under: Activating change, Innovation, Leadership Tagged With: , , ,

An unsquare way to reposition a product

March 2, 2011 By 1 Comment

A great example of product repositioning and value creation — without changing the product!

Filed Under: Advertising, Innovation, Smart company stories Tagged With: ,

More builders, fewer leaders: 10 new principles

February 8, 2011 By Leave a Comment

The problem with leaders is that they’re doing a superb job at leading broken organizations.  Government. Healthcare. Education. Auto manufacturers. Wall St. The energy industry. All are in need of new models for 21st century economics and pace of change.

Umair Haque, author of The New Capitalist Manifesto, believes that 20th century leadership is stopping 21st century prosperity. We don’t need more leaders, he says, but people who know how to create institutions for the 21st century economic realities. Those who excel at leading existing organizational models are just making broken organizations slightly better.

In his Harvard Business Review post “The Builders’ Manifesto” Umair contrasts managers, leaders and builders, suggesting these 10 principles of what he calls Constructivism.

  1. The boss drives group members; the leader coaches them. The Builder learns from them.
  2. The boss depends upon authority; the leader on good will. The Builder depends on good.
  3. The boss inspires fear; the leader inspires enthusiasm. The Builder is inspired — by changing the world.
  4. The boss says “I”; the leader says “we”. The Builder says “all” — people, communities, and society.
  5. The boss assigns the task, the leader sets the pace. The Builder sees the outcome.
  6. The boss says, “Get there on time;” the leader gets there ahead of time. The Builder makes sure “getting there” matters.
  7. The boss fixes the blame for the breakdown; the leader fixes the breakdown. The Builder prevents the breakdown.
  8. The boss knows how; the leader shows how. The Builder shows why.
  9. The boss makes work a drudgery; the leader makes work a game. The Builder organizes love, not work.
  10. The boss says, “Go;” the leader says, “Let’s go.” The Builder says: “come.”

Filed Under: Activating change, Innovation, Leadership Tagged With: , ,

A CEO’s view on rebels

February 1, 2011 By 1 Comment

I’m about to launch a research study on corporate rebels to better understand these change makers. Some executive friends have suggested that maybe I should use the word “change agents” instead of rebels.  This morning I stumbled across this video from Steve Jobs in early Apple days and decided to stick with rebels.

Filed Under: Activating change, Corporate Rebels, Innovation, Language, Leadership Tagged With: , , , ,

Marketing assisted living homes: take two

January 17, 2011 By Leave a Comment

The secret for  marketing assisted living homes: provide an extra ordinary client experience that makes people feel good.

Indeed, this is the basic marketing principal  for all services and products.

Sounds simple, but so many nursing and assisted living homes put operations first, client needs second, much like most industries. Whatever our fields, we become lulled into thinking that how we do business is the way to do business.  We rarely step back and question whether there’s a better way.

So let’s step back a minute.

Do you really need to  run your operations where  everyone lives on the same schedule, eats the ‘right’ foods, socializes with set group activities, sleeps at the appointed times?  Why must people live their last days in ways that may not fit how they lived most of their life? Does disciplined scheduling benefit your clients — or your organization, making it easier to run things?

Positive emotional experiences: good for people, good for business

New research shows that breaking away from operational norms and creating more positive emotional experiences is good for clients and good for business.

The New York Times recently wrote a fascinating article, “Giving Alzheimer’s Patient’s Their Own Way — Even Chocolate,” that explored the benefits of  flexible, client-centered care, finding that positive emotional experiences disminish distress and behavioral issues, especially among people with dementia.  (Note:  approximately two-thirds of people living in nursing homes have some dementia.)

In fact, providing a flexible living environment that works for each patient is proving to  dramatically reduced the need for anti-anxiety and anti-psychotic drugs, which often cause terrible side effects in the elderly. Flexibility means things like softer lighting, comfort foods, one-on-one vs. group activities, availability of food so people can eat when they’re hungry, encouraging clients to stay out of diapers, and personal touches, like using a perfume that the client so enjoyed earlier in her life.

The times article highlights the  research. More interesting to me are the interviews and stories of  Beatitudes Assisted Living in Phoenix, an innovator in client-centered alternative living. So innovative that many other facilities around the country are receiving Beatitudes training and now looking to adopt their practices.

These comforting personal touches improves behavior and enhances people’s lives because they “send messages that they can still understand;  ‘it feels good, therefore I must be in a place where I’m loved,’” explained Jan Dougherty, director of family and community services at Banner Alzheimer’s Institute in Phoenix.

All great marketing is the result of providing experiences that customers feel good about — and set you apart from the competition.  When people — usually adult children — are making decisions for their parents, most assisted living facilities “feel” the same and provide similar services and the same promise of keeping a loved one safe and healthy.

Beatitudes sets itself apart, providing emotional benefits to its clients and their families.  On top if it all Beatitudes has found that its innovative approach  saves money. This is marketing at its most effective.

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Note: I wrote a post about marketing assisted living facilities almost four years ago, and that post has become one of the most read posts since I began blogging in 2005, which tells me that the interest and desire to innovative assisted living marketing is significant.  I will continue to address this topic as the demand for assisted living is increasing, as is the challenge of running profitable, client-focused assisted living facilities.

Filed Under: Activating change, Innovation, Marketing trends, Smart company stories Tagged With: ,

Workplace communications: the revolution is in progress

January 12, 2011 By Leave a Comment

The use of smart phones and social networks in the workplace is expected to double in the next three years, according to an IDC/Unisys study of 2,820 people employed in companies with 500 or more employees. (“A Consumer Revolution in the Enterprise”)

What people use at home, they expect to use at work. And if their company isn’t providing them the devices or access to social networks, they’re using their personal devices to communicate at work in new ways.

The average survey respondent already uses four devices for work, and the proliferation is growing fast.  Much faster than enterprises’ IT support and security, governance policies, and communications training. This is somewhat like the early days of PCs, where enterprise IT departments were slow to introduce PCs so individuals in departments went out and bought them. the difference? Change is happening much, much faster.

In a time of such rapid change, there are few “best practices,” and there may be greater risk in waiting for these best practices than proactively establishing some fundamental enterprise communications behavioral guidelines, especially:

  • Who can communicate about what with customers? With employees on an enterprise-wide basis? How do you coordinate efforts to prevent customers or employees from feeling “spammed”?
  • What is an acceptable response time to interactions in the company? With the lines between work and personal life blurring people  respond at night, on weekends, and vacations.  Do you want a 24/7 norm for your enterprise — or are is there a need to set more human guidelines.
  • Education: what device/channel is best for communicating what kind of information? In other words, when is an instant message or email called for — and when is a posting on the internal social network a better communications alternative?
  • Security: what should be communicated within an enterprises’ VPN — and what  can be shared via instant messaging?

There are many questions to consider. I urge you to form a group and get to work laying down some communications fundamentals, carving out the time to think through how to provide communications guidelines  that reduce risk. But not so many guidelines that you suffocate people and add too much complexity.  (I’ve been guiding a number of enterprises in these discussions. Write me if you’d like to talk more about this approach: lkelly@foghound.com)

At the same time IT organizations need to quickly figure out which new apps, devices and Web-services are needed for your organization and customers — and how to introduce those in a way that provides the security and scalability for this new communications tsunami upon us.

The good news in all this, of course, is that employees are becoming much more productive, are having an easier time accessing resources and expertise important for their work, and are willing to blur the lines of work and personal, working more “off hours” if it’s easy to do so.

Filed Under: Activating change, Communicating, Innovation, Social media strategy Tagged With: , , , , , ,

The new science of problem solving and creativity

January 6, 2011 By 1 Comment

To develop more innovative ideas, we have to stop using conventional  right brain/left brain brainstorming techniques.

The reason?  Nobel-prize winning neuroscientists have found that the big “ahas” come from a model of the brain called “intelligent memory.”  When we learn something new our brains connect it with what’s already in our memory bank. When different pieces combine  into a new pattern we have an “aha” insight flash.

This scientific finding means that we need to develop alternative ways to traditional brainstorming.

Just as the intelligent memory concept has replaced the old two-sided brain theory in neuroscience, companies need to replace brainstorming with methods that reflect more accurately how creative ideas actually form in the mind,” writes Columbia Business School professor William Duggan in “How Aha! Really Happens” in the winter issue of Strategy and Business.

Over the past 18 months I’ve been using several new strategic ideation and problem-solving approaches  based on intelligent memory with much success.  Although I must confess corporate clients initially feel uncomfortable and wary with these new approaches because they are so different from traditional  “brainstorming sessions.”

Some of the elements that I find very effective in helping clients find the “aha insights”:

  • Reflecting on previous experiences and why they worked. This relaxes people, gets them off of  focusing on the problem at hand.  During a one or two-day session I ask people to look at these patterns of past success and what they might mean. Inevitably helpful connections are made.
  • Forgoing a logical order: I use exercises and conversations that seem to wander in order to help people wander through possibilities and previous experiences.  Wandering results in far more significant outcomes than a straight path.  Often someone will ask, “where is this going? Are we going to be able to come up with ideas to our situation today.”  About half-way through the day, they begin to see the magic of taking a non-linear route.
  • The art of good questions: being asked provocative, unusual questions is one of the best ways to trigger thinking and conversations that lead somewhere. I joke, though seriously, with friends that my questions are my art.  The most challenging part of guiding people to “aha’ insights is asking questions that open, deepen, and often explode thinking. Questions that tap into what they know in unusual ways, breaking lose new patterns and connections.
  • Photos, superpowers and metaphors: other techniques that tap into the intelligent memory is the use of photos, superhero superpowers, and metaphors to see, frame and understand situations in unusual new ways  — ways needed to connect new dots. Again, people often wonder what the heck I’m doing to their heads using these approaches.
  • Avoid conference rooms! Working in conference rooms is an energy killer, especially if sitting at a conference room table.  It’s so stultifying that I no longer will do collaborative workshops in this format. Far better to have a big room, some chairs you can move around, lots of wall space for sticking up ideas.
  • Do we really need to spend all day?: People spend so much time doing strategic analysis and developing strategic plans and allot so little for thinking.  Yet if you don’t have the strategic ideas, the planning is for naught. There’s some weird feeling that spending a day  thinking is wasting time.  Clients often ask, “Do we really need to spend five hours? Couldn’t we do it in two?”  Well, no. The way the brain works it takes at least two hours to mentally get into a place where your brain is relaxed enough to actually think creatively and begin to make the types of new connections that give you that brilliant flash of insight.  If you really want to tap into collective brilliance. If you really want ideas that will make a difference, chunk out some time and chill. I like to use the advice  from a consultant who helps  high-powered attorneys  improve their performance:  “don’t just do something, sit there.”

So as you look at innovation and problem solving, look for new ways that tap into the true science of the brain and say goodbye to traditional brainstorming. It just won’t get you where you want to go fast enough because of the way our brains are wired.

As William Duggan writes:

“Eventually, we can expect more techniques based on the new science of intelligent memory to replace methods from the previous paradigm. Companies that get there first will have a distinct advantage. What innovation does your company use, and in which paradigm do they fit, the old view of the mind or the new?

Filed Under: Activating change, Innovation, Problem solving Tagged With: , , , ,

What else could it be?

December 31, 2010 By Leave a Comment

As I think about 2011 I’m thinking about questions that open up thinking and possibilities. Two that have been resonating with me:

1. What else could America be? When Christina Baldwin and Ann Linnea, authors of  excellent book The Circle Way: A Leader in Every Chair, asked Toke Moller to give  them a question that  he would like Americans to be asked, he replied “what else could America be?”  If you apply this simple question to other situations, it opens up possibilities. What else could our organization be? What else could my position be? What else could our company be?

Which brings me to a second great question.

2.  What if we re-imagined what our entire industry could look like? What if we went beyond creating a vision for our own company and thought about how our entire industry could move into a new future, providing value for us and others?

This second question comes from the book The Power of Pull: How Small Moves, Smartly Mad, Can Set Big Things in Motion, by John Hagel, John Seely Brown and Lang Davison. The authors call this a “shaping view.”   A shaping view, they explain, provides a big-picture focus and defines direction, identifies where the opportunities lie, and describes the fundamental industry forces and the economic appeal of participating in the new view.

In thinking about game changing and innovative strategies, consider bringing your team together and asking this bigger question about how your entire industry might be able to move in a broad new direction. It generates much more interesting conversations and possibilities than the usual vision/ mission discussions.

The better your questions, the better your strategies.

Filed Under: Activating change, Books, Innovation, Language Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Free the rebels!

December 13, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Today’s prompt: Action. When it comes to aspirations, it’s not about ideas. It’s about making ideas happen. What’s your next step?

I had a giant “aha” professional moment in 2010 about the value and untapped potential of rebels, we optimistic people who feel compelled to speak up and make organizations better.  (Here’s that story.) Yet reams of organizational research shows that companies fear and/or ignore this most valuable talent. And, alas, rebels rarely receive help in learning how to get their ideas heard in a way that will be respected and embraced.

2010 was rebel research and idea incubation. Next year I’m intent on  freeing rebels so that both they and their companies can reap the benefits of passionate, truthful people who want to make a difference.  Supporting and empowering rebels gives meaning to change management and employee engagement goals.

If you’re interested in rebels and organizational change, check out Stanford B-School professor Deborah Meyerson’s book “Tempered Radicals.” It’s is a classic.

If you have any thoughts about this emerging Rebel Alliance, or would like to participate in some way, please drop me a line at lkelly@foghound.com.

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This post is part of a 31-day blogging challenge called reverb10, responding to writing prompts that are designed to elicit reflections on 2010, and hopes for 2011. You can find out more about it here.

Filed Under: Activating change, Communities, Innovation, Leadership Tagged With: , , , , , ,

The strong attraction to “The Power of Pull”: book review

October 17, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Last month I had the good fortune at the BIF6 conference to hear John Hagel, co-chairman of Deloitte’s Center for  Edge Innovation, talk about his research on passion and sustained personal performance, and the need to change our institutions to encourage and leverage this passion.  (Here’s the video.)

It was one of those 15-minute talks that felt  important, especially the 2009 Shift Index research that found  only 20 percent of people feel passionate about their work, and self-employed people are twice as likely to be passionate about their work than people who work for institutions.  What does this say about big businesses, hospitals and government agencies?!

To learn more, I read John’s new book, The Power of Pull, which puts swirling ideas around open collaboration, passion, social business, innovation and organizational culture into one compelling context. The book also gives a giant, well-researched kick in the ass to those who are clinging to “business and leadership as usual.”

John and his co-authors John Seely Brown and Lang Davison believe that businesses must change in order to more quickly and continuously pull new ideas into a company from passionate people inside and outside the company.

In the traditional push business model we forecast demand and push resources to the right place at the right time.  Profits come from controlling intellectual property, getting bigger to achieve economies of scale, and creating processes and specialized jobs to ensure those processes are executed as efficiently as possible.

But with today’s greater access to resources, people and capital, that model is starting to break down.  There’s more competition from around the globe. Shorter product life cycles.  Price wars due to over supply and commoditization.  The push model with its focus on control and incremental improvement is breaking down. People are miserable at work, and leaders manage in fear, not having the competencies for this new unpredictable, changing world.

Three concepts: passion, collaboration, vision

This book explores several big concepts, each deserving a book of its own and certainly deserving much more discussion than this post. But here are three that were especially compelling to me. (Note: the bold highlights are mine.)

1. Passion: When we tap into the work we were meant to do – our passion – work becomes meaningful. It’s not easy to uncover our individual passions, and it’s even more challenging for organizations to change their mindset and internal systems to harness passion in a way that attracts talent and puts it to work in  new collaborative ways.  The book puts passion into a business context that is rarely articulated in the business world.

  • “When we pursue our passions we tend to exhibit questing dispositions. We are constantly scanning the horizon for new challenges to pursue and seek out problems to solve as a way to deepen our skills in our area of passion. In contrast when we are simply putting in time for a paycheck, we tend to fall back on a more defensive disposition, regarding any unexpected developments as unwelcome and avoiding risk wherever possible.”
  • “As passions become our professions, we begin to see how social networks can provide us with an unparalleled opportunity to achieve our potential by allowing us to access resources and attract people who can help us while we help them.” Of course, it’s hard to decide what course of action to take it you haven’t first identified your passion, what fascinates you and that you feel compelled to explore.
  • “When institutional leaders celebrate the most passionate workers and their contributions, employee attitudes and dispositions will begin to evolve, with more and more individuals embracing change and seeking out new challenges to test and expand their performance horizons.”
  • “Institutional leaders should be aware that it’s not enough for passionate people to simply be able to identify and connect with other passionate people. All of them must also being interacting around some difficult problem within the institution…talent thrives when there are new challenges and opportunities to pursue. Institutions that are on the defensive with low-growth strategies simply cannot offer the same level of talent development to their participants.”

Collaboration — sharing “know how” not just “know what”

2. Get better faster, together. Creating new ways for people to work together and share tacit knowledge will help employees get better faster and improve overall performance of the organization. Tacit knowledge is the “know-how” kind of knowledge, but most company information we share is the “know what” kind.

To me this emphasis on tacit learning is big. I’ve been advising some major companies on how to get value from the community platforms they are investing in. I’m finding that employees do NOT want to use these platforms for simple “know what “ information; they can get that from the company Intranet or email.

What they do want is a way to work with team members across silos and geographies to get work done in better and faster ways. They want more meaningful, trusted relationships. They want to read and ask question of colleagues about how they’re doing things, and ask for help, offer help, and see new ways that things could be done altogether.  The opportunity to use new digital platforms to support this is significant, but it does mean providing goals for clear outcomes, and not creating so many rules and processes that it sucks the life out of the opportunity. More World of Warcraft, less Lotus Notes.

  • “Tacit knowledge is held by individuals, so if firms want to enhance their participation in tacit knowledge flows, they must find a way to enrich the social networks of their employees, helping them to connect with other individuals on relevant edges (of the business.)”
  • “One key dimension of the “Big Shift” is the movement from a world where value is concentrated in transactions to one where it resides in large networks of long term relationships.”
  • “The more people join a creation space and the more contributions they make once they’re there, the more successful the space becomes. To help the process along, start by keeping barriers to entry low. Next, give participants the real time feedback and clear performance measures they need to advance quickly within the community.”
  • “As participants get to know each other and find that they share similar ways of looking at their endeavors, they start to trust one another, which prompts even deeper levels of collaboration (and tacit knowledge creation) around the difficult challenges they share.)”
  • “Rather than trying to specify the activities in the processes in great detail, the orchestrators of the pull platform specify what they want to come out of the process, providing more space or individual participants to experiment, improvise and innovate.”

Defining the mission that will matter to many

3. A meaningful mission or shaping view: Having a clear, win-win mission is essential to attract and focus talent, resources and ideas – especially the most passionate, self-motivated people. The authors define a “shaping view” as a “galvanizing statement about the future of a market, an industry, or a broad social arena and how tomorrow will be different from today and how everybody will be better off” because of it.

This isn’t the first book to emphasize how critical a meaningful mission is to attract and motivate people.  Built to Last, Tribal Leadership, Firms of Endearment, Tribes and many others have found that people want to work for companies with a compelling mission and purpose beyond growth and profitability.  Yet few organizations have this articulation of where the industry is going and how you’re going to be part of that bigger movement.

  • “Corporate visions tend to be both too narrow and broad. They are too narrow in the sense hat they focus on describing the direction of the company. In contrast shaping views start with a clear view of the direction of the relevant market or industry and then move to implications for all companies in terms of creating value.”
  • “The creative act in a shaping view is to imagine what an industry or market could look like and to challenge conventional assumptions about what is required for success.”
  • “Corporate visions also tend to be too broad in the sense that they describe the future in such vague terms that they can accommodate virtually any choice or action

Can companies catch up to what people want from work?

It will be fascinating to see whether big, push companies will evolve fast enough to retain the talents of those passionate people on a quest to do meaningful work within the confines of today’s corporate cultures, cultures that often value process and politics more than outcomes and new ideas. Or whether passionate people and the Gen Y generation will simply flee these organizations and create new types of organizations that fit how people love to work.

The book notes that there are more billionaires under 40 than any other time in our history. People who make history, whether it’s Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg, don’t have the patience or time to wait for companies to catch up.

They value their passion more than organizational politics.

Maybe this is the year to uncover your passion and begin to let it guide you, as an individual contributor or as a leader.  In my next post I’ll share some books and workshops that might help on your quest.

As Joseph Campbell told Bill Moyers in an interview: “If you follow your bliss, you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you…. When you can see that, you begin to meet people who are in your field of bliss, and they open doors to you. I say, follow your bliss and don’t be afraid, and doors will open where you didn’t know they were going to be.”

Talk about pull.

Filed Under: Activating change, Books, Innovation, Leadership, Social media strategy Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

The change dilemma

August 17, 2010 By Leave a Comment

The dilemma of change is all around us. School reform. Government reform. New business and marketing models.  There’s no lack of ideas on how to innovate in diverse fields. The big hairy audacious problem is getting people to change.

I’ve seen some brilliant, innovative ideas proposed to companies this year that didn’t happen. Not because the ideas weren’t sound, but rather because people didn’t want to learn new skills, change behavior, work outside their comfort zones, hire new types of talent with which they are unfamiliar.

The energy invested in the politics to stop new approaches can be formidable.   Being on the outside as a consultant I get to watch objectively as people battle to maintain the status quo. It’s astonishing. The talent to block change is so nuanced and skilled.  But how depressing. Not just because it stunts an organization’s growth, but these change naysayers are killing their careers.

Watching these incredible situations has presented me with my own professional development agenda this year: change. (There’s something about the back-to-school calendar that forces me to set my own learning goals this time of year.)

I’m a practical sort, so what I want to learn is how to make change real. Change management theories are intriguing, but that’s not for me.  Here’s what I’m exploring in my change quest.

Changing one leader at a time: people change organizations, not policies, best practices or methodologies. So I’m starting a 15-month Courage to Lead program in the fall.  I told one of the program leaders that I like the concept of courage in leadership, where you learn to face down your fears. She told me that her intent is for leaders to feel “compelled” to lead. Fascinating. I’m also helping Harvard’s new non-profit Institute of Coaching to build its membership  and in doing so I’m learning about the field, which I thought was soft and squishy, but is actually invaluable especially in helping people change in ways that give them purpose and fulfillment. I’m also learning that much of any consulting includes some element of coaching, and many of us can benefit from the research and practices of the coaching field, even if we never label ourselves as coaches.

Required learning: for one of the largest corporations in the world I’m developing an extensive social media e-Learning program, which will be required of the company’s communications and marketing professionals. Social business and communications skills are becoming  fundamental competencies, but people aren’t voluntarily learning at the rates companies would like. So the program will be required and linked to their performance assessments.  To get people to change, one important approach is to  tie the desired new behavior or skills  to what people most care about — their salary, bonuses, and chances for promotion.

Telling stories: in this online social media era, I think in-person storytelling is more powerful than ever. I’m working with The Moth, a storytelling non-profit, to create a program for a corporate client where employee story slams will be held across the country (and hopefully the world).  What I find fascinating about storytelling is that it helps build a deeper sense of community and trust in an organization, two elements necessary for any change to have a chance in hell of happening. Also, the “authenticity” word has been used and abused way too much in social media conversations in the past couple of years.  I believe that the most authentic corporate stories are from its employees and customers — unedited.

Creating clarity through infographics: Meaning making requires that people see patterns and relevancy to them.  I’m quite fascinated with how infographics can create this clarity from complexity, helping people see ideas in new ways.  While my other change assignments are big and focus on behavior, I remain fascinated with innovating communications, particularly the way people gain understanding.  I’ve long been a fan of Edward Tufte, and am now enjoying seeing how to use technology (carefully) in new ways to tell a story with data. (Here’s a link to some interesting infographics related to marketing and social media.)

“They must often change, who would be constant in happiness or wisdom.” Confucius

Filed Under: Activating change, Communicating, Innovation, Leadership, Social media strategy Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Innovation & problem solving: 15 thought provoking questions

July 23, 2010 By Leave a Comment
Uncovering Possibilities

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Filed Under: Activating change, Innovation, Leadership, Point of View & Messaging Tagged With: , , , , ,

“Accidental Genius” can change your thinking

July 21, 2010 By 1 Comment

So I’m behind on my business reading because of all these fascinating conversations with strangers this summer. But one book I just finished is a wow because it can help you solve problems, find new ideas, have that “aha” marketing or sales breakthrough. And its advice is simple and easy for anyone to do.

The book is “Accidental Genius: Using Writing to Generate Your Best Ideas, Insight and Content” by Mark Levy.  Mark’s view — which I can attest to — is that by slamming down your ideas on paper within a short time frame, say 12 minutes, you can find insights, get unstuck, and find ways to express your business or yourself that are genuine to who you are. (I believe that when this “realness”  happens, you begin to like doing marketing and sales because the message means something to you.)

Mark’s book explains the freewriting process and shows how to put it to use for practical business and professional purposes.  By writing out your thinking on paper really fast, you push aside that ego lizard brain and tap into deep seated ideas, which are often both startling and right on. The speed of the writing pushes away the conscious editor that usually filters those wacky, odd ideas and thoughts.

I’ve used freewriting for the last 18 months and it has opened up tremendous creative thinking and strategic ideas. (And brought more value to my clients.)  When there’s a gnawing big opportunity or potential obstacle in our work one of my executive clients now says, “Lois, why don’t you go off and do some of that narrative writing.”  (Note, though, that most freewriting isn’t to be shared publicly; it’s a way of privately figuring things out.)

This approach also helped me finish my book “Be the Noodle.” For four months the manuscript sat because I couldn’t figure out what wasn’t working with it. I used one of the techniques in Mark’s book and did a Q&A with myself, wrestling in writing about the creative standoff.  I speed wrote a question, and then wrote a reply. No thinking. Just slamming it down, keeping the pen moving and never leaving the page until the alarm rings. (Part of the trick is setting an alarm and writing fast before times up.) The answers led me to a new book title and format change and within two weeks the book was finished and a publishing deal was put to bed.

Here are some of the things that I’ve highlighted in “Accidental Genius”:

  • Prompt your thinking: prompts are helpful way to jump start your thinking and writing. Mark includes an extensive, helpful list of short, open-ended prompts like: “I’m scared by….This sounds insane, but my organization would be 500 percent more productive if….I’d like to tell you a story about…”
  • Be open to what shows up: “When you freewrite the page is alive. The ideas that appear on it will change radically, if you let them. You must be open to the truth of the material as it shows up.”
  • Marathons: “Each time you formulate a starter thought, demand that it sends you in a new direction…Force yourself into uncharted waters, even if doing so seems artificial or uncomfortable. Pursue novelty and uncertainty; head toward anxiety.
  • The fascination method: Mark asks people he works with to make an inventory of everything that has fascinated them at any point in their lives — any ideas that have energy for them, whether or not they “fit” with the person’s business or book concept.  The fun starts by putting the ideas together and seeing patterns and insights. “From these places of energy,” he writes, ” we find the book’s premise and much of its supporting material. This material comes from an honest place within the client. It comes from the spot in their brain where they keep things they can’t forget.”

There’s so much more in the book. I hope you find it as valuable as I have.  When in doubt, write it out.

Filed Under: Activating change, Books, Communicating, Innovation Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Look up

July 9, 2010 By 3 Comments

One of the things that struck me about the fascinating behind-the-scenes documentary about Vogue Magazine (“The September Issue”) are the different behaviors of a decision maker — editor Anna Wintour — and the creative director, Grace Coddington.

In one scene they are both in a car driving into Paris. Wintour is heads down on the phone or on her Blackberry, checking emails. Coddington, on the other hand, is looking out the window, taking in the world.  Wintour is very much about commanding an executive presence. Coddington, dressed simply in black without makeup, is about finding ideas.

The IBM Institute for Business Value’s recent study of 1,500 CEOs identified “creativity” as the most important leadership quality. But can we be genuinely creative when we’re tethered to devices, status, best practices and corporate politics?

Grace Coddington looks up and is of the world. Maybe this is one of the simplest and most elegant ways to find the inspiration to create new corporate cultures, business models, and services and products.

Or maybe it’s a Friday afternoon in the summer and I’m wishing you all a weekend to look up and beyond business. I think it’s both.  Enjoy.

Filed Under: Innovation, Leadership Tagged With: , , ,

The courage to change: a business story II

June 18, 2010 By Leave a Comment

A few months ago I posted a little fictitious story about the courage to change in business.  It’s been viewed by so many that I thought I should add a more serious post on the topic.

Having the courage to change requires us to live in fear, and continually face down that fear as we move in our new directions. For most businesses evidence of whether our new direction will succeed can take months if not years.  Many of us will stumble along the way and want to turn back to what’s safe.

Yet the thing we need to remember is that there’s not much safety and security in “business as usual.” The world changes so quickly and so must we  — or soon we will soon be irrelevant.

One question to ask your organization every year: Why does the world need our company/organization/cause more now than ever before?

If you can respond firmly and confidently, you’ve probably been evolving. If the answer is vague or difficult to answer, you know you need to press the “accelerate change” button.

The larger the organization, the more difficult it is to change.  My first job interview coming out of college was with Bell Labs and Western Electric, part of AT&T. “I heard that the Bell System might be breaking up,” I said to my soon-to-be-boss. “Honey,” he replied, “Not in your lifetime.”  Well we all know what became of the Bell system. Kaput. (Don’t get me started about the sexism women had to deal with.)

But here’s the secret to courage and change.  When the change means something to people, they get moving and buying in to new ways. Employees and customers alike.  But if the direction or purpose is vague or irrelevant, it’s like pushing boulder up a mountain.

“When ideas mean something to us, the distance between thinking and acting dissovles. People don’t hesitate to get started. They don’t sit around figuring out the risk or waiting until someone else develops an implementation strategy. They just start doing.”  Dr. Margaret Wheatley, author and organizational consultant

So have courage, yes. But make the change meaningful. And communicate that meaning is compelling images and a language of possibility. To your employees. To your customers. And to yourself.

 

Filed Under: Activating change, Communicating, Innovation, Language, Leadership
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