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Does you organization support culture of change, innovation?

June 28, 2011 By Leave a Comment

 

Does your organization support a culture of change and innovation?

While most leaders want to be more innovative, often their cultures, business practices and management values don’t support such an environment.  Foghound’s study on corporate rebels found that just 34% are very satisfied with rebels ability to provide value in their organizations.

Here are six questions for leaders to consider as they assess how “change and innovation-friendly” their companies really are.

  • When you look in the corporate mirror do you see a culture open to new perspectives?

“Rebels often butt heads with their supervisors who want helpers not idea people. Rebels don’t want to hear, “That’s not the way we do things around here.” Foghound Corporate Rebel survey respondent

  • How do you lead management discussions so that people learn how to make decisions within a paradox of innovation?

How do you balance getting work done – with finding new ways to work? With adhering to standards – with taking risks? With rewarding employee cooperation – with recognizing employees for challenging the status quo?

  • Does your culture create obstacles or opportunities for people with the courage to challenge assumptions and ask new questions?
  • If people are your most valuable resource, how are you creating ways to tap into their collective brilliance? How do you make diverse perspectives heard?
  • Who and what filters new ideas? Are they helpful filters — or blinders?
  • Do your corporate values and beliefs encourage behaviors needed to innovate? (Or are your values rather bland and safe?)

Foghound Corporate Rebel Study: Value Rebels Provide to Companies

 

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

The 90-30 conundrum

June 24, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Approximately 90 percent of people who participated in Foghound’s recent Corporate Rebel Study said that they agreed that involving rebels more helps improve corporate culture and develop a more innovative company.

BUT only 34 percent percent are “very satisfied” with rebels’ ability to provide that value inside their organizations.

Companies want these rebels’ fresh thinking but many corporate cultures are getting in the way of that happening.   For while companies want to innovate the study found that they are uncomfortable when people challenge the status quo, question executive decisions, go around the rules, and ask too many questions.

If changing quickly to  tap into marketing opportunities and challenges is more important than ever, perhaps it’s time to change what our organizations value, model new behaviors as leaders, and teach rebels how to share their ideas in ways that trigger conversations vs. provoking anger.

I’ll be blogging more in the coming weeks about rebels.  Please feel free to share this research in your organizations.  I look forward to hearing more about your experiences in creating organizations where change agents are valued vs. viewed as trouble makers.

Corporate rebel ebook
View more presentations from Lois Kelly

Filed Under: Activating change, Corporate Rebels, Innovation, Leadership, Organizational change, Problem solving, Research Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Courage to lead: Providence Mayor Angel Taveras

June 15, 2011 By 2 Comments

True leaders are rare. Especially among  elected government officials, who tend to make tough decisions based on how it will affect their re-election chances.

One of those rare leaders is Providence Mayor Angel Taveras,  guiding the city and its people through some exceedingly painful yet necessary decisions in order to fill a $110 million  deficit.  And Providence isn’t just any city. It’s been historically  fraught with corruption, closed-door wheeling and dealing, and an unhealthy influence of self-serving insiders.

I often hear people excuse leaders’ inability to lead, saying things like, “Well he’s got a complicated situation to deal with.” Or, “It will take years for anyone to be able to change this place.”

Yet Taveras is deftly guiding the city through difficult change in order to get on firm financial footing. Imagine being a first-time urban city mayor and having to make tough decisions like closing schools and laying off community teachers, firefighters and police?

Despite these always unpopular decisions, Traveras is earning respect and collaboration from his constituents. The reason? He’s focused on doing what’s right, and working WITH diverse constituents. He isn’t dictating how to get to financial stability; he is collaborating in the true sense of the word with the people in the city who best know how to make changes on a tactical level.

Six critical leadership competencies that Taveras brings as mayor:

  1. Focus on a clear, shared goal: restoring the city to a sound fiscal foundation. Taveras’ message is clear about the urgent need to solve the deficit crisis.  Period.
  2. Honesty: revealing the city’s dire financial situation right after his election. No spinning bad news. No taking time to socialize ideas and tend to politics. Taveras has been a straight shooter, presenting the reality, and calling for people to come together to figure out solutions.
  3. Transparency, sharing: sharing the data to help everyone make better decisions.  Fire union president Paul Dougherty recently said that previous mayoral administrations would withhold financial information and often say, “Find it yourself.”  Taveras’ negotiators, however,  have “been straightforward, and they give you information when you ask for it.”
  4. Admitting missteps: acknowledging mistakes and learning from them. “They’re right,” said Taveras of crticism from the teachers union on how the city revealed teacher layoffs. “We certainly could have done a better job with our teachers and I learned from it.”
  5. Not having the answers: great leaders set goals and ask people with a stake in the outcome to create the best way to achieve those goals.  This approach speeds change. The solution isn’t dictated from above, it’s created by the people closest to the issues who know the issues, and will  be responsible for executing them. Taveras doesn’t claim to have the answers, and believes that Providence’s leaders have the ability to create the “how” now that the why is so vitally clear.
  6. Belief and fortitude: Taveras has a steadfast belief that the city will solve its problems, and he’s steadfast in his belief and his values. “He’s showing me intestinal fortitude that I didn’t think he had,” says Joseph Rodio, a lawyer for the police union. “Most politicians, in their first 60 days in office, become somebody different. He hasn’t.”

Quite simply, Mayor Taveras seems to have the courage to govern for the people and with the people.  That’s the type of leader — not politician — we should be supporting if we really want to make our cities, states and country a better place to live.

 

Filed Under: Activating change, Communicating, Leadership, Political communications, Problem solving, Smart company stories Tagged With: , ,

Extreme frustration = compliance or dissent

June 8, 2011 By Leave a Comment

What happens when frustrations in an organization reach a boiling point?

People either check out and say, “Just tell me what I need to do.”

Or they get angry and act out, “We’re mad as hell and aren’t going take this crap any more.”

Compliance or dissent. Both  suck the life out of people and an organization.  At least the vocal dissenters are engaged enough to care and want to do something to improve things. The compliant auto-pilots are much more checked out.

Yet my new research on corporate rebels, to be released in two weeks, finds that executives are far more annoyed with the dissenters who challenge the status quo.  They’re even more annoyed when their leadership decisions are questioned.

Last week I heard a story about a well-regarded, passionate physician at a major teaching hospital who questioned his executives’ decisions in a public forum. Her intention was well meaning. But she was shown the door two days later after years of service. Guess how many talented, frustrated people at that institution are likely to slide right into compliance.

Compliance at a time when heath care desperately needs creative solutions.

What’s a leader of a frustrated organization to do?

  • Open your mindset. People are not challenging you personally. They see problems they want to solve. They aspire to do work that means something more than just putting out today’s fires.
  • Articulate a purpose. Yours as a leader (See this great post from Harvard’s Bill George, “Why Leaders Lose Their Way.”)  Yours as an organization. Why do we exist — beyond the generic  “delivering a profit to our shareholders” or “delivering quality health care.”
  • Change how your organization runs meetings so that everyone has a say. Open by going around the table and asking each individual to share his or her observations and insights.  Try it. You’ll begin to accomplish more and people will feel more valued.
  • Involve people in creating the tactics to achieve the big goals and strategy.  People don’t resist change. They want change. They resist acting on plans that they don’t think are the best way to achieve the goals. This is a different, more collaborative way of creating plans. It might take longer than a few people hunkered in a conference room to bang out the plan in three days. BUT if you tap into people’s collective brilliance, they will come up with tremendous ideas and then MAKE THOSE IDEAS HAPPEN.
  • Know that you don’t have to have all the answers. Your job is to inspire people around a simple but powerful vision of what you’re aiming to accomplish, Your job is to ask new questions. To listen.  To provide more ways for more people to have a voice and know that what they do, think and say matters. To let people vent when their intentions are good. (Angry, destructive people should be booted out, of course.)

People want their work to matter. Let their voices be heard. Involve them in creating better ways.  It may be the only way to succeed in a world of  such seismic change.

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

#Trust30 Day 3: communications can change the world

June 2, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Day 3 prompt from The Domino/Ralph Waldo Emerson Self-Reliance Project: The world is powered by passionate people, powerful ideas, and fearless action. What’s one strong belief you possess that isn’t shared by your closest friends or family? What inspires this belief, and what have you done to actively live it? (Author: Buster Benson)

_______________________________________________________________

I believe communications can change the world.


It’s not that my friends and family don’t believe this; they just don’t understand why I’m so, so passionate about this belief.  Maybe, too, they’re tired of hearing me talk about this, but not really acting on my convictions.

While I’ve helped corporations and CEOs communicate in new ways to affect change, have I helped organizations and leaders who are out to change the world?

Not so much.

I see an opportunity calling. Or maybe it’s a responsibility

If we have a gift, as I do with bringing people together to see and articulate new possibilities, shouldn’t we use that gift to give back to the world?

Every time I facilitate  workshops magic happens. People get lit up by being able to talk with other people about issues and questions that they rarely have an opportunity to discuss. They begin imagining different approaches. They start connecting and forming trusted, collaborative relationships. They get energized and into that “flow” zone where work doesn’t feel like work.

My intent in the next year is to focus more on helping leaders who want to change the world.  And I hope it’s a mix of corporate and non-profit leaders. The world needs both.

Filed Under: Activating change, Communicating, Language, Leadership

Why people take risks

June 1, 2011 By Leave a Comment

 

Day 2 Prompt from The Domino/Ralph Waldo Emerson Self-Reliance Project: If ‘the voyage of the best ship is a zigzag line of a hundred tracks,’ then it is more genuine to be present today than to recount yesterdays. How would you describe today using only one sentence? Tell today’s sentence to one other person. Repeat each day. (Author: Liz Danzico)

People won’t take risks for something they don’t believe in.

 

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

Leadership lessons from Oprah

May 25, 2011 By Leave a Comment

It was spring of 1986 and my boss asked if I wanted to go to a women’s conference at the Sheraton in New York City.  Looking at a calendar full of looming client deadlines, I hesitated.

“A woman named Oprah Winfrey is going to be speaking,” he said. “I’ve heard from  friends in Chicago that she’s going to be a big star.”

I went and got my first dose of Oprah.

The conference wasn’t one of the big ballrooms; it was a smaller function room, but boy did Oprah fill it up with energy and a message that we women had the power to change the world — and still be women. ( I remember  her partner Stedman joined her, and Oprah called him the love of her life.) Her style was unpolished but charismatic, genuine and positive. She was a woman who wasn’t trying to act like a man, which was so common during the 80s.

So of course today (and yesterday) I watched Oprah wind up her 25 year show. Looking back on these many years she shared what she’s learned.

  • We all have a calling, what we’re meant to be doing in the world. When we live what we’re suppose to be doing — however small or big — we’re using our life to serve the world.
  • We are all responsible for our own lives. No one can fix us, save us, give us the answers. We create our our own energy.
  • The root of all struggles is not feeling worthy enough to be happy or successful
  • Everyone wants to be validated and be heard.  We can change the world one person at a time by letting a person know that I see you. I hear you. What you say matters to me. Validate their value.
  • The secret to her success has been her staff and God. “My success has been waiting and listening for guidance greater than my meager mind provides,” she said. “What are the whipsers in your life right now. Your life is speaking to you. Are you hearing it?”

Many tweets and Facebook posts have been moaning about Oprah’s long send off.  My sisters laughed at me when I told them I had re-arranged my business schedule to watch these last shows.

What people miss is that Oprah is not just a celebrity. She is a leader.

There are not enough inspirational people in the world focused on serving others.  There are too few role models who give and give and give — of themselves and of their wealth.

Oprah has inspired thousands and thousands to be more than they thought possible – and to pass on that gift and by helping others.

Speakers at leadership conferences seem to all share the same examples of exemplary leaders –  Steve Jobs, Ronald Reagan, Sam Walton, Herb Kelleher, FDR, Churchill. (Notice many are dead, and all are men….)

They’re great examples, but Oprah sets new standards in what it means to be a leader for our times, and is worthy of the label  of leader.

Love you Oprah. Even when we shared all that big hair and shoulder pads in 1986.

 

 

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

Putting words to why your company exists

May 12, 2011 By Leave a Comment

A great company purpose  is a rallying cry that inspires employees and customers.  It moves people emotionally, creates a differentiation that has nothing to do with products or price, and can be explained by anyone in the company.

The best example is Nike. While most of us know the company’s 20 year-old “Just Do It” motto, there’s much more to why Nike exists. Simon Sinek, author of the great book “Start with Why” shares this story about Nike founder Phil Knight over on his re:Focus blog:

Looking across the audience, Knight asked those who run to stand up.  And a good percentage of the room stood up.  Then he asked those who run three or more times a week to keep standing; everyone else was asked to sit down.Looking out at the people left standing, Knight said, “we are for you.”

“When you get up at 5 o’clock in the morning to go for a run,” he went on, “even if it’s cold and wet out, you go. And when you get to mile 4, we’re the one standing under the lamp post, out there in the cold and wet with you, cheering you on.  We’re the inner athlete.  We’re the inner champion.”

Without a single mention of their latest technologies or which athletes wear their products, Knight makes a vastly more compelling case for Why we want Nike in our lives. Nike may or may not be better, but we are drawn to them because they have a cause.

Nike doesn’t want to make products for everyone, they want to make products for champions.  Champions are not the ones who always win races, champions are the ones who get out there and try. And try harder the next time. And even harder the next time. Champion is a state of mind. They are devoted.  They compete to best themselves as much if not more than they compete to best others.  Champions are not just athletes.  Champions are entrepreneurs, politicians, nurses, soldiers, students and Hall of Famers.  Nike wants to make products for all champions.

Most companies have clever or meaningless tag lines (marketing) and bland, gobbledygook mission/vision statements (corporate communications). Few can express why they exist in a way that inspires.

Imagine what might happen if you could?  And you can.

A simple workshop exercise is to ask people, “If our company were a cause, what would our rallying cry be?”

Be prepared to be amazed at what your own people believe. And if they are stumped? Time for some corporate soul searching. If you don’t know why you exist — other than making money and improving shareholder value — you really can’t lead effectively. Manage, sure. Lead, no.

 

Filed Under: Activating change, Advertising, Books, Communicating, Language, Leadership, Smart company stories Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

When leaders are open

April 19, 2011 By 1 Comment

When we’re open to ideas they often emerge unexpectedly, almost out of nowhere.

“Where do you come up with these ideas,” I’ve heard leaders ask people, almost incredulously.  Interestingly many creative types don’t necessarily come up with the ideas. Instead, they’re tuned into the world in a wide open frequency, and they find ideas. Or people suggest things to them and they have the interest and courage to say, “Huh. What if we took that idea and….”

The challenge as leaders is to be open. To not have our plans so locked down that there isn’t room for a new approach. To not think of “research” in only the traditional market research ways. To listen to people and take in not just the idea, but how the person feels about the idea. Is there a certain hunger, drive, passion in how the person is sharing an idea?  That’s always a signal for me to tune in. This just might not be business as usual.

Here’s a TED talk from Eric Whitacre who, with two thousand other people around the world, created a magical virtual choir. And it started with a young woman sending him a video with an idea and Eric saying, “huh…what if….”

Take a look. Inspiring. A reminder to me to keep some white space open for opportunities that just might come out of left field.

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

Collaboration: the courage to be messy

April 5, 2011 By 1 Comment

Real collaboration requires that we get messy — asking new questions, questioning what we know, and putting aside our urge to get things done. It takes time to think together, letting thoughts meander, listening to different people share stories and ideas that may or may not be directly related to the topic at hand.  It takes recognition that thinking is acting.

Learning to collaborate  has been a long and challenging journey for me, a former Type A, “let’s get it done now” kind of person.  While I’m open minded I’m also skeptical, a paradox that many executives share.

But having experienced what can happen when people check their egos at the door and open their minds to “structured unstructured” collaboration  has been transformational for me.  And, believe me, that “transformational” word is one I rarely use.  The outcomes can make such a difference to company success that I now dedicate much of my client work on facilitating  strategic collaborative processes for complex organizations and companies.

With every workshop I’m reminded that the most creative, strategic answers come from people within a company. Not outside management consulting firms or the latest best selling business book author.  The secret is guiding people through a messy process where they are able to talk about questions that rarely get talked about, with people in the company that they rarely have the time or opportunity to talk with in any meaningful way.

A great article on the messiness and value of collaboration, “Collaboration: The Courage to Step into a Meaningful Mess,” was published this month by Alycia Lee and Tatiana Glad over at the Berkana Institute.  Here are a few of the authors’ key points that especially  resonated with me:

  • We are so driven to attain results that we often bypass one of the key components of creativity: the ability to question what we think we know.
  • Sole motivation to meet goals and generate outcomes comes with a sacrifice — deflated creativity.
  • Cooperation comes when people work to share ideas, whereas collaboration is that magic moment when we take a step beyond the individual needs (financial gain, meeting objectives) and co-create from a higher shared value, when you realize “we can’t NOT do this.” That shared value moves the process forward to generate new possibilities.

One last thought. It seems that every CEO in the world talks about innovation as a strategic priority, but few are pushing their companies to work in new ways to be innovative.

The secret is simple: step into messy collaboration that asks the big questions and involves diverse people far beyond the C-suite.

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

The eight most important behaviors of managers at Google

March 21, 2011 By 1 Comment

People leave companies for one of three reasons: a terrible boss, dislike of co-workers or a lack of connection with the company’s mission or the sense that their work matters.

Managers at Google have a much greater impact on employees’ performance and how they feel about their work than any other factor. So Google embarked on an extensive internal research project to determine the most important behaviors of their managers on employee performance. Rather than apply generic management principles, Google uncovered the behaviors most important in its own corporate culture.

Since the company pinpointed the most important behaviors and started teaching them in training, coaching and performance review sessions they have achieved “a statistically  significant improvement for 75% of our worst-performing managers,” according to  Laszlo Bock, Google’s vice president for people operations.

More about Google’s data-driven project to understand how to develop management behaviors that make a difference can be found in this recent New York Times article, “Google’s Quest to Build a Better Boss.”

Here are the eight behaviors that work for Google, ranked in order of importance. Do you know the most effective behaviors for your company culture? And which are more important than others?

1. Be a good coach

  • Provide specific, constructive feedback, balancing the negative and the positive
  • Have regular one-on-ones, presenting solutions to problems tailored to your employees’ specific strengths

2. Empower your team and don’t micromanage

  • Balance giving freedom to your employees, while still being available for advice.
  • Make “stretch” assignments to help them tackle big problems

3. Express interest in team members’ success and personal well-being

  • Get to know your employees as people, with lives outside of work
  • Make new members of your team feel welcome and ease their transition

4. Don’t be a sissy: be productive and results-oriented

  • Focus on what employees want the team to achieve and how they can help achieve it
  • Help the team prioritize work and use seniority to remove roadblocks

5. Be a good communicator and listen to your team

  • Communication is two-way; you both listen and share information
  • Hold all-hands meetings and be straightforward about the messages and goals of the team. Help the team connect the dots.
  • Encourage open dialogue and listen to the issues and concerns of your employees

6. Help your employees with career development

7. Have a clear vision and strategy for the team

  • Even in the midst of turmoil, keep the team focused on goals and strategy
  • Involve the team in setting and evolving the team’s vision and making progress toward it

8. Have key technical skills so you can help advise the team

  • Roll up your sleeves and conduct work side by side with the team, when needed
  • Understand the specific challenges of the work

Filed Under: Activating change, Leadership, Smart company stories Tagged With: , , ,

Solving the RISD leadership problem

March 14, 2011 By 2 Comments

 

Carly Fiorina at HP. Larry Summers at Harvard. And now John Maeda at Rhode Island School of Design. (RISD)

These leaders  all committed a fatal leadership mistake: they charged into organizations with strong  cultures and completely ignored the organizational DNA. They tried to force their beliefs on organizations with much different beliefs.  Things almost always end very badly for the leader when this happens.

Changing these revered institutions is necessary and difficult.  I followed all three leaders closely and admired their strategies for how to transform their institutions to be more relevant and dynamic. It’s a shame that such brilliant people didn’t understand a critical leadership fundamental.

The way to inspire people to change is to show them how new ideas support the organization’s reason for being and unique organizational beliefs.  Put change into the context of how it honors the organization’s rich culture and history, and how it makes the organization even more relevant for today’s opportunities.

Alas, these leaders fell into at least one of these three leadership traps:

  1. They did not identify their organization’s true and unique  DNA, the beliefs and values widely shared by multiple constituents — employees, trustees, board members, shareholders, customers, alumni.
  2. They knew the cultural DNA,  but did not know how to use it to inform decisions, build trusted relationships, or communicate change.
  3. They knew #1 and #2 but didn’t care about the culture. They were so passionate and/or arrogant about their new ideas that they wanted to move them ahead fast. Taking the time to align new strategies with the organizational beliefs and culture was viewed as “slowing things down.”  This approach almost always sends the message the new leader doesn’t think anyone else is as smart as they; things aren’t up for discussion and input because “I am smarter than you.”

John Maeda has not yet been asked to leave RISD.  But after an whopping 82 percent of the faculty gave him and the provost a “no confidence” vote, the chances of his survival are slim. Especially as this vote came just weeks after the faculty voted overwhelmingly against a five-year strategic plan.

In today’s Providence Journal Maeda said the problem at RISD is about communications, but from my conversations with RISD faculty and staff the problem appears to be about a deep cultural disconnect and questions on whether Maeda has the needed leadership competencies to run this college.  Few executives can ever repair that damage.

As RISD moves forward — with or without Maeda — it would be well worth their time to bring their people  together — faculty, staff, students, alumni, trustees — and uncover the purpose, beliefs and values that have made this prestigious art college so successful for so many years.  Then use those beliefs as a yardstick on which to assess future leadership decisions, inform strategic directions, and inspire their people to create what’s next.

Based on my experience helping organizations in this type of situation, enaging people in this collaborative process not only gives them a voice, it helps them and the organization heal and look ahead with confidence and optimism.

That’s good leadership.

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

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: , , ,

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: , ,

Ignore the obstacles

February 7, 2011 By 1 Comment


Are we wasting too much time solving problems?

We spend a lot of time solving problems in business. Some days I feel like we’re benevolent pit bulls, sinking our teeth into root causes, doing current and future state analysis, and constructing detailed roadmaps for breaking down the obstacles.

But what about the other way? Instead of focusing on the negatives, what if we obsessed on our aspirations and strengths? What would happen if spent more time imagining the value of doing more of what we’re especially good at?

Management guru Peter Drucker believed that building on an organization’s strengths snuffs out many of the problems:

“The task of organizational leadership is to create alignment of strengths in ways that make a system’s weaknesses irrelevant.”

Appreciative Inquiry authors and experts David Cooperrider and Diana Whitney share similar views:

“The positive core of an organizational life is one of the greatest and largely unrecognized resources in the field of change management today…Human systems grow in the direction of what they persistently ask questions about, and this propensity is strongest and most sustainable when the means and ends of inquiry are positively correlated.”

At your next management meeting, think about carving out some time to ask new questions around your strengths. Based on my experience you’ll uncover some remarkably motivating ideas, and you’ll  find the energy to pursue those positive opportunities in a way that you just don’t get with solving problems.

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