The Measured Connector

There was a time when organisations tended to be hierarchical, often led in a command and control fashion and had few dealings with other organisations unless they were suppliers or direct customers.

Today, we have a complex world in which change is endemic, organisations’ boundaries are permeable (with outsourcing, strategic partnerships, multi-agency working, etc.) and there are challenges which one sole leader (the heroic leader) cannot possibly hope to deal with.

In today’s world where outcomes will often be achieved by a number of different sections, departments or, indeed, organisations and agencies, Measured Connectors will step into their leadership role by demonstrating authoritative (not authoritarian) leadership and systems thinking. A good example of a Measured Connector is Tim Smit  who transformed a derelict Cornish quarry into the Eden Project, which has 100,000 plants from around the world and includes the world’s largest greenhouse. He managed to connect people from all around the world and the local community, from the private, public and third sector, from individuals through to governments, resulting in one of the UK’s top tourist attractions.

The Measured Connector focuses on a sense of purpose and connectivity across the organisation to help change to emerge. Take a look at this short video describing the Measured Connector.

The Measured Connector

Measured Connectors are the sort of leaders who exude confidence, as they walk through the turbulence of change as if they were in that calm centre in the eye of the hurricane. They have a clear set of principles and a relaxed countenance. They do not expect to lead from the front, but they do expect to lead by example. They have the confidence and clarity to face difficult and complex challenges and are more likely to articulate a set of underlying principles and a general direction of movement. They know their agenda well and seek to understand other people’s agendas. They wish to align other people’s agendas with the overarching agenda. They do not believe that it is their responsibility to do all the work themselves – but are adept at getting disparate people and different stakeholders together to deal with important issues. By linking people and their agendas and enabling them to get on with tasks, they are able to monitor progress with an inbuilt helicopter vision.

 

The Visionary Motivator

Of the five change leadership roles the Visionary Motivator is perhaps the one which many people intuitively see as a classical leadership role.

The person who sets out the vision for the group, the organisation or the community, and is able to articulate the end destination in a compelling and convincing way.

Not only do they have the vision they can engage people in conversations around the vision and achieve buy in as a result.

In some ways the Visionary Motivator is a salesperson – able to connect with your desires and needs and address any objections in a positive and reframing way. They see the world in an optimistic way – any problems are opportunities, and setbacks, mere hurdles to overcome. If the Thoughtful Architect can design the grand strategy and win your head over, the Visionary Motivator will surely win your heart.

Watch this short video to get a sense of how the Visionary Motivator goes about their business.

But as with all of the five roles there is a shadow side. For the Visionary Motivator it is the possibility of everything descending into spin, or an inability to understand some of the pain that people might be going through on the change journey.

The Visionary Motivator

How am I standing? – On the front foot, standing tall, chest out, head high, looking at people

What am I thinking? – Envisaging the vision, connecting with the vision, asking oneself ‘how can I bring people on board?’

What am I feeling? – Positive, inspired, confident, motivated, solution-focused

What am I saying? – Let’s work together towards a brighter future

What’s my goal? – Getting motivated people moving towards the vision

For more information contact me, read our book, or take the online five roles leadership questionnaire and receive your own profile and development report.

 

The Tenacious Implementer

Have you ever been on a training programme and ‘discovered’ that managers are not leaders and leaders are not managers?

Respected authors like John Kotter and Warren Bennis both make the distinction between managers “who make happen what would happen anyway” and leaders “who make happen what wouldn’t happen anyway”.

Our research into effective leaders of change recognised that this was a false distinction. Indeed one of the key characteristics of good leaders is to maintain focused attention on the key activities and step into the role of what we call the Tenacious Implementer.

So often in organisations we have leaders who are bright and inventive (not in all organisations mind you!) and seem to embrace change. They embrace change so much that they have barely started one initiative before starting another, and then yet another.

This doesn’t just lead to change fatigue within and throughout the organisation but it also allows the focus to be dissipated. Indeed canny operatives will be watching what the leaders are focusing their attention on, and as soon as their senior managers drop one initiative in favour of another, they too will spend less time and energy on the original.

The leader or manager who is a tenacious implementer will always return to the initiatives they have started. They hold people to account, recognise that the project needs to be seen through to the end and take quite a project management stance.

It might not be the sexy end of leadership, perhaps little vision or inspiration. But it is the part of a leaders role to manage things through to completion.

Do you want to step into the role of the Tenacious Implementer?

Then watch this video for some quick tips.

The Thoughtful Architect

Click the image to see a short video of the Thoughtful Architect

The Thoughtful Architect change leadership role can, to some, seem rather puzzling. Isn’t leadership all about being “up front, up to date, up to their job and up early in the morning” to quote Marcus Sieff. Whereas the research that Esther and I did before writing Making Sense of Leadership suggested that the more thoughtful, reflective leader was just as likely to achieve good results.

The thoughtful architect is the person who gets up on the balcony to scan the environment for the winds and the seed of change and then to cast their eyes down into their organisation to see if it is fit for the purpose of meeting and mastering the challenges ahead.

The thoughtful architect is able to analyse what is and develop plans and strategies for what could be.

This isn’t necessarily a role which comes naturally to most people. For example half the population tend to act rather than reflect first and (in the UK) over 75% of the population are psychologically more focused on the here and now and the past rather than looking at what we can change in the future.

So how to develop this within yourself?

Take an MBA and learn all about strategic analysis and developing strategies going forward;

Read a number of newspapers or business magazines each work and concentrate on 1) political, economic, sociological, technological and environmental trends and 2) connecting disparate stories and creating different possible future scenarios.

And then asking yourself what do I need to do, what does my organisation need to do, what do we as a community need to do?

And then perhaps take action!

The Edgy Catalyser

One of my favourite Simpsons episodes is when Homer is trying to go through the pearly gates and in order to proceed he is asked what his contribution has been during his life. Turns out that he discovered a new meal between breakfast and brunch!

Well a few years ago Esther Cameron & I discovered five leadership roles which are essential in managing change (Making Sense of Leadership)!

The first one is the edgy catalyser. This is the role which spots what’s wrong with the current situation – be it in the organisation or its operating environment. It is the edgy catalyser that creates discomfort and disquiet. Creates that sense of urgency that something needs to change, and soon.

Our research showed that this role is one which doesn’t gain you any friends and not too many of us like to work for such a person. However as a catalyst and a mover and a shaker (hence the name) this role is indispensable in getting things going and also ensuring that the change effort remains focused on transforming what is wrong.

Here’s a short video telling you a little more about the edgy catalyser.

The Edgy Catalyser

Top Tips for Managing Change #3

You either know why change fails or you don’t

Meaning you are one of the many people who have been on the butt end of change and know only too well why it fails … or … you are one of those managers who implement change and believe mistakenly that the change has succeeded or prefer to blame the ‘resistors to change’ or sometimes blame the senior mangers who have moved on to other things.

Maybe I have organised the universe to only show me organisations and leaders who manage change poorly or maybe I’m not looking in the right direction.

[Actually that’s not strictly true as I have experienced and researched good change management practices and have written them up as case studies in Change Management Masterclass]

I believe disengagement, disconnection and disenfranchisement sum up, what to me is the key disabler of change. Key stakeholder groups that are not communicated with, not consulted and not involved in the change process cannot to be expected to be overjoyed with the change or with making it happen.

There are all sorts of reasons why managers don’t involve stakeholders – especially staff – but they are missing a trick or two. Indeed in my experience senior leaders and managers do not have a monopoly on the truth. They may (may) have a better vantage point to see what the organisation needs to do to deal with the future challenges; and they may have access to key metrics which tell them the current health of the organisation.

But if they don’t tap into the thoughts and feelings of the workers then they will not win their hearts and minds over.

And a very simple path to follow is to use understand why change may fail according to Kotter’s reserach:

1. Not enough sense of urgency or pressure for change
2. Failing to create a sufficiently powerful support base
3. Not developing a clear vision
4. Under-communicating the vision
5. Permitting obstacles to block the new vision
6. Failing to create short-term wins
7. Not aligning structures, systems, policies and skills
8. Neglecting to anchor changes firmly in the corporate culture

Although somewhat dated (1995) Kotter’s analysis still holds up and many change managers still use it as an overarching framework.

For now, let’s just look at the first four reasons. Kotter turned them on their heads and said what you need is to Establish a sense of urgency; Form a powerful guiding coalition; Create a vision; and Communicate that vision.

For each of these imperatives those responsible for the change should be able to use them to actively engage different stakeholder groups.

Establishing a sense of urgency could involve front-line staff examining and reporting back on market and competitive realities; managers can be identifying and discussing with their co-workers crises, potential crises or major opportunities; team and departmental meetings can be ensuring that the level of current dissatisfaction or future threat is sufficient to kick-start the change and maintain momentum.

Forming a powerful guiding coalition is about assembling a group with enough power to lead the change effort and encouraging them to work together as a team but it also means ensuring that key stakeholders are engaged and the change team has the necessary sponsorship, power and authority and connection back into the business.

Creating a vision of the future is important for people who are being expected to let go of the past. It includes creating a vision to help direct the change effort and developing strategies for achieving that vision. But it is also having a clear understanding of what you want to achieve from the change and also the route map for getting there.

Communicating the vision requires the use of every vehicle possible to communicate it and  related strategies together with clarity around any new behaviours expected and also ensuring people are informed and hopefully engaged with the change by having a shared understanding of and commitment to the direction of the change.

To be sustainably successful each of these tasks really does require engagement, connection and enfranchisement. I personally believe everyone who has a stake in the continued success of the organisation should be involved in helping create it.

First you have to get out of bed

I don’t know about you but I really like positive psychology books and self-help and self-improvement books. When I read a good one I feel I can change the world. Or at least change myself.

They can be incredibly motivational and highly inspirational IN THE MOMENT. However they do rely on YOU doing something different and therein lies the rub. 95% of people won’t ever get around to doing the darn exercises which will guarantee a happier, more fulfilled life.

How is that?

Of course, the odd inspirational quote can lift your spirits and perhaps change the outlook of your day enabling you to overcome a particular block that you’ve been experiencing. But generally sloth-like as many of us are we just fall back into the same old routines.

However What about lasting Change?

I’ve entitled this blog post “but first you have to get out of bed” because I think often the root cause of failure to capitalise on the wisdom of such books is that WHATEVER THE MESSAGE … FIRST YOU HAVE TO GET OUT OF BED! That is – it’s over to you, down to you to do something. Do something different, think in a different way, be different. and how many of us can be bothered? Because., of course, the reason why we need motivation and inspiration in the first place is because we haven’t actually gotten out of bed. Indeed many of us are still well asleep.

In this series of blogs I will be exploring a few simple ways in which we can engage in the process of awakening seeing the world and ourselves in different ways.

unfortunately most of what I’ll be saying does involve YOU in Doing Something Different. But the trick will be trying to keep that to a minimum.

Thaddeus Golas wrote a wonderful book entitled The Lazy Man’s Guide to Enlightened  in which he stressed the importance of doing very little and I do honour that edict, especially in the search for a more fulfilling life – be it enlightenment or better relationships or being who you truly are!

So, the simplest of exercises – to be done anytime, anywhere. No one will even you’re doing it (apart from the rather in-turned look you may just have on your face). Do it right now. do it when you wake up in the morning and do it when you just can’t think of what to do next, or you just don’t want to do anything next.

Indeed one could call the exercise “the art of doing nothing (apart from breathe)”.

So read the next few lines and then just Stop what you’re doing:

• Take a slightly larger than normal breath;
• Exhale;
• Take another breath;
• Exhale;
• Concentrate on breathing in through your nostrils and feeling your abdomen rise;
• Watch as your breath goes out through your nostrils and your abdomen relaxes;
• Keep your mouth shut;
• Breathe in and out, maybe ten times. Count up to ten if you can; and
• Then just get on with your day.

If you’re in bed and want to stay there, stay there. If you were wanting not to do anything, don’t do anything.

If on the hand you do want to do something different, get on with something you’d been meaning to do, hey, just go ahead and do it!

How much of your company can you outsource before it’s not your company any more?

Six questions to grapple with before you outsource any function:

1. At what point does a business lose its identity?
2. What actually is core to your business?
3. Do you need to provide a seamlessly integrated service?
4. Who retains accountability?
5. Who is working to what Vision?
6. Who is working to what Values?

The prevailing business wisdom is that you should be outsourcing as much of your business as you can – particularly the non-core bits and those which can be done in a cheaper or more efficient way by others. In the public sector this is being driven by the massive budget cuts and is also resulting in the concept of shared services where organisations merge units (such as HR & IT) to provide more cost effective ways of delivery.
However the recent G4S security debacle at the London Olympics has called the whole concept into question.
Though there are strong arguments both for and against outsourcing I think outsourcing can be questioned on a number of levels and a number of questions answered.

My first question is:
At what point do you lose your identity?
If you want to see a wonderful example of someone who loses their sense of self by giving up different aspects of their functioning then do view the Monty Python clip of the Black Knight gradually losing different parts of his body. It is an hilarious portrayal of this situation.
An organisation needs a sense of identity and cohesiveness just as much as na individual. Managers and staff need to have a sense of purpose to be able to give their commitment to the organisation.

The second question is:
What actually is core to your business?
Take cleaning for example. Perhaps outsourcing your office cleaning doesn’t make for any material difference to your business … unless you happen to be a hospital where cleanliness is one of the main contributors to the overall mission of the organisation – creating health.

The third question is:
Do you need to provide an integrated service?
Whether you are providing a national rail network or have a business with a number of interconnected and business critical functions which need to gel, any disconnect will impact operational efficiency and ultimately customer service.
It is hard enough within one organisation to ensure there are not systemic failures in delivery. When there are multiple agencies or partner organisations the likelihood of mis-communication and malalignment increases exponentially.

The fourth question is:
Who is accountable? Both in terms of ultimate responsibility but more crucially in terms of looking after the business.
This question is more often posed when there has been some catastrophic failure such as in the BP oilspill in the Gulf of Mexico or a serious accident or response to a natural disaster. However it happens in more mundane circumstances – in my local area it proved almost impossible to discover who was responsible for keeping the street clean – the outsourced refuse department; the outsourced recyclers; the in-house (but mainly agency staffed) street cleaners; the in-house enforcement officers?

The fifth question:
Who is working to what Vision?
We probably all have heard of stories such as the following two:
A workman is seen diligently sweeping the floor of one of the hangars, at Cape Canaveral in the 1960’s. When asked what he was doing  replied “I’m helping to put a man on the moon”
Or three workers, working on a wall, when asked the first one said they were laying bricks; the second said they were building a wall; the third said they were building a cathedral.
I would defy anyone to say that many lowly paid outsourced workers will be holding an inspiring vision of the organisation that they are supplying services to.

My sixth and final question is:
Who is working to what values?
We know from researchers and writers such as Jim Collins (Good to Great) that successful companies have at their heart a set of core values. How these values are translated into critical behaviours is key to a company’s success. I sometimes struggle to understand when I’m talking to an operative of an outsourced company how exactly they are embodying and enacting the values of the company that they are meant to be representing.

These six questions pose both operational and strategic dilemmas and indeed can be taken at face value or you can ask and answer them at a more profound level.
The solution though is to ask the six questions and be brave enough to engage with the dilemmas and paradoxes that working out the solutions will uncover.

The Art of Listening

Getting to Grips with the Art of Listening

Last month I discussed the basic requirements for (good) coaching to happen.
In a nutshell they were:

1. Time & Space;
2. Active Listening;
3. Empathy;
4. Contextualisation; and
5. Powerful Questions.

If you notice the first four require attention and receptivity, whilst the final one requires some action. Obviously all of these key facets need some interaction but the first four do require a certain stillness, reflection and understanding.

Now, it may be that I suggest this because I’m more inclined to Introversion rather than being an Extrovert who favours action over reflection, movement over stillness and quietude. The essence of the first four requirements is listening with body, mind and spirit.

Let me quote from what I consider to be one of the world’s most wonderful and inspiring  books – Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse. For those who haven’t had the pleasure it is about Siddhartha’s journey of personal development and enlightenment. Many of the crucial scenes occurs when he is in dialogue with Vasudeva, the ferryman.

 “Vasudeva listened with great attention. Listening carefully, he let everything enter his mind, birthplace and childhood, all that learning, all that searching, all joy, all distress. This was among the ferryman’s virtues one of the greatest: like only a few, he knew how to listen. Without him having spoken a word, the speaker sensed how Vasudeva let his words enter his mind, quiet, open, waiting, how he did not lose a single one, awaited not a single one with impatience, did not add his praise or rebuke, was just listening. Siddhartha felt, what a happy fortune it is, to confess to such a listener, to bury in his heart his own life, his own search, his own suffering.”

And later …

Photographer © 2005 Steven Smith

“But more than Vasudeva could teach him, he was taught by the river. Incessantly, he learned from it. Most of all, he learned from it to listen, to pay close attention with a quiet heart, with a waiting, opened soul, without passion, without a wish, without judgement, without an opinion.”

Paradoxically deep listening creates the time and the space for listening to occur. Listening to what the other has to say, to listen to what the other feels, to understand the context in which this particular situation is unfolding. All this requires a listening which involves all five senses, a listening which requires intuition, and a listening which requires an opening of the heart.

Wilfred Bion. The noted British psychoanalyst and author of the seminal work on groups – Experiences in Groups – used to suggest approaching each session “without memory or desire”. That’s not to say you disregard your experiences, or knowledge, your competencies, but that the fundamental stance you take is being open to the moment and be open to all that happens. Which requires open to being the container of all that the other wishes to share, consciously and unconsciously.

Internal or External Change Agents?

This blog was triggered by a question that David Gaster posed on one of the LinkedIn forums on change management that we’re both members of. It was concerned with change success and failure rates:

“have you seen any break-downs for internally led changes as opposed to Consultant led?”

My answer was “no”, I hadn’t seen any, I did mention that with the generally accepted success rates I tend to quote that 70 – 80% of change efforts fail … but then go on to reframe by saying 70 – 80% of change efforts fail to meet 100% of their original objectives. Which makes a lot more sense I think. And I guess we’re talking more about planned change where there is a clear set of measurable objectives upfront unlike more emergent change.

But the question did get me thinking about the question and the different reasons that organisations use internal and external change agents. Indeed I have written something about this in the latest edition of our book Making Sense of Change Management:

“Some organizations rely on outside help whilst others believe that they have the change agency capacity in-house. Although the core competencies of internal and external change agents are similar it is worth considering some of the differences between the two, partly so one can consider what may be best for any particular change situation, and partly so that the change agent can understand some of the nuances.”

Lacey (1995) identifies some of these different factors:

Consulting process	Internal Change Agent	External Change Agent
Entry	Ready access to clientsReady relationships Knows company jargon Understands root causes Time efficient Congenial phase Obligated to work with everyone Steady pay	Source [find] clientsBuild relationships Learn company jargon “presenting problem” challenge Time consuming Stressful phase Select client/project according to own criteria Unpredictable outcome
Contracting	Informal agreementsMust complete projects assigned No out of pocket expenses Information can be open or confidential Risk of client retaliation and loss of job at stake Acts as third party (on behalf of client), or pair of hands	Formal documentsCan terminate project at will Guard against out of pocket expenses Information confidential Loss of contract at stake Maintain third party role
Diagnosing	Has relationship with many organization membersPrestige determined by job rank and client stature Sustain reputation as trustworthy over time Data openly shared can reduce political intrigue	Meet most organization members for the first timePrestige from being external Build trust quickly Confidential data can increase political sensitivities
Intervening	Insist on valid information, and internal commitment; free and informed choice – people can choose to participate or not – is a luxuryRun interference for client across organizational lines to align support [“allowed” to engage with other parties of the organization if need be]	Insist on valid information, free and informed choice, and internal commitmentConfine activities within boundaries of client organization
Evaluating	Rely on repeat business, pay rise, and promotion as key measures of successCan see change become institutionalized Little recognition for job well done	Rely on repeat business and customer referral as key measures of project successSeldom see long-term results

We can see that throughout the course of the assignment both internal and external consultants will have challenges but often of a different nature. And of course how well the change agents address these challenges will determine how successful or otherwise they may be.

Huffington et al (1997) building on the work of Basset & Brunning (1994) suggest some criteria for when internal and external consultants may be indicated for a particular project:

Internal change agents when there is a need to work longer term with the outcomes of the change; when there is an internal driver to use or rely upon internal capacity or capability; when internal knowledge of the system now and into the future is required; when engagement with the wider groupings will be improved with internal change agents; and when there is a belief that ownership should clearly be internal.

External change agents when there is the need for a major organizational-wide change especially when there is high level senior management involvement or sponsorship; when the changes are of a complex nature with limited capacity or capability within; when there is a need for an external, more objective, perspective; and when the situation requires an intervention by people with no conflicts of interest, loyalty or prejudice.

Once again the suggestion is that internal and external change agents are chosen for different reasons and are and therefore will have different criteria of success.

My own experience in being both an internal and external change agent and observing many others over the years is that on a good day, on a good project, the internal change agent wants to deliver an excellent long lasting outcome for the organisation and, as a by-product, be recognised for such. On a bad day they just want to survive and limit the damage to their reputations.

Likewise for external consultants, on a good day striving for a win-win-win where the client, the consultancy and the individual all benefit from a job well done. On a bad day, damage limitation and the hope of an onward recommendation nonetheless?

A useful reflection before commissioning consultants and for them before accepting the job:

1. List the pros and cons for using internal or external change agents for the particular change intervention you have in mind;
2. What are the implications for the organisation?; and
3. What are the key questions for the change agent?

References
Basset, T and Brunning, H (1994) The ins and outs of consultancy, The Journal of Practice and Staff Development, 4 (1)
Huffington, C, Cole, C and Brunning, H (1997) A Manual of Organizational Development: The Psychology of Change; London, Karnac Books
Lacey, M (1995) Internal consulting: Perspectives on the process of planned change Journal of Organizational Change Management. Bradford: 1995. Vol. 8, Iss. 3