Vedere Consulting
Musings on leadership (including self-leadership) by an executive coach with 30 years experience training, consulting with and coaching leaders.Tuesday, July 22, 2008
When Change Threatens to Go South
I’m dedicating this blog (my longest one yet!) to a fabulous group of people with whom I have been privileged to work the past several months, and to my esteemed colleague, Kathleen McSweeney.
Plum Cluverius
It was a tough week for the admissions department of a private university. As the director said: “Change is hard!” He should know. His department is undergoing a significant reorganization due to continued staffing shortages and financial constraints. As implementation of the new structure got underway, and even though staff was involved from the start, tempers flared, water cooler whispering resumed, and some of the hard won trust and cooperation within the group began slipping away.
This behavior has caught the managers and staff off guard because the group has worked so hard to create a collaborative environment. The reorganization occurred in part to rectify staff concerns about uneven distribution of work, less than efficient processes, and confusion about leadership roles. Everyone in the department had opportunities to share ideas for the new structure—in meetings, in writing and one-on-one. Changes and their reasons were explained. Staff and management learned together how to communicate, resolve conflicts, work together as a team. They talked together about the future they wanted for the department.
When this department had done so many things right, why did things seem to be going wrong? An answer, I think, lies in William Bridges seminal work on transitions, detailed books like Transitions: Making Sense of Life’s Changes, and Managing Transitions: Making the Most of Change. ( www.wmbridges.com ). Bridges helps us see that our emotional response to change, our adjustment to change, what he calls “transition,” is pivotal to the success of any change effort. Each person goes through, at their own pace, three stages of transition.
The first, which Bridges calls “endings,” is the process of saying goodbye to what we must leave behind in the change. Even with positive changes, there is some sense of loss—and loss produces a host of emotional reactions. In the admissions department, this meant saying goodbye to familiar work teams, processes, student groups, roles.
Once we recognize what’s going away, we enter a period that Bridges call “chaos” or “the neutral zone.” I’ve always preferred “chaos” because that’s what it often feels like! In the “chaos” stage, you know what you’ve left behind, but you don’t know where you’re going. Someone from the admissions department said, “you don’t have the picture yet, you don’t know what it’s going to look like.” You’re kind of groping around in the dark. All of us like some sense of certainty, and in “chaos” there usually isn’t much. People experience a variety of emotions—confusion, fear, anger, exhaustion. It can seem hard to get going. It doesn’t sound very pretty, does it? But there’s an upside. In “chaos,” all the old rules go away; it’s easier to be creative. When things are going smoothly, it’s easy to get into a rut. But in “chaos,” there is no rut. You can try new ideas, new ways of doing things.
In the third phase, which Bridges calls “new beginnings,” you begin to get the picture. You see where things are going; you understand what you need to do to thrive in the new world. You form new habits that work. It’s not always an easy phase, but you start to see the light at the end of the tunnel.
Every individual, every group, every organization goes through these phases. We don’t go through them together—everyone has their own pace—and we don’t go through them in an orderly way. We wander all over the place—one day hopeful, the next day discouraged, the next day angry, the next day excited, etc. etc. Leaders, often because they are more involved in the planning, are often further along in the process than the staff, and they can forget what it’s like to not know, to be in the dark.
Bridges helps us see that all these reactions are normal. In a transition, both people and process benefit when individuals are tender with themselves, tender with each other and patient with the process. The admissions department has learned the value of discussing progress and setbacks with each other, celebrating successes, staying involved in planning the future, speaking up and offering solutions when something isn’t working.
Any team, department, or organization contemplating a change, or finding themselves in the midst of one can learn from the admission department’s experience. Change is hard. But when you understand the process of transition, you can move through it more smoothly and successfully.
Plum Cluverius
It was a tough week for the admissions department of a private university. As the director said: “Change is hard!” He should know. His department is undergoing a significant reorganization due to continued staffing shortages and financial constraints. As implementation of the new structure got underway, and even though staff was involved from the start, tempers flared, water cooler whispering resumed, and some of the hard won trust and cooperation within the group began slipping away.
This behavior has caught the managers and staff off guard because the group has worked so hard to create a collaborative environment. The reorganization occurred in part to rectify staff concerns about uneven distribution of work, less than efficient processes, and confusion about leadership roles. Everyone in the department had opportunities to share ideas for the new structure—in meetings, in writing and one-on-one. Changes and their reasons were explained. Staff and management learned together how to communicate, resolve conflicts, work together as a team. They talked together about the future they wanted for the department.
When this department had done so many things right, why did things seem to be going wrong? An answer, I think, lies in William Bridges seminal work on transitions, detailed books like Transitions: Making Sense of Life’s Changes, and Managing Transitions: Making the Most of Change. ( www.wmbridges.com ). Bridges helps us see that our emotional response to change, our adjustment to change, what he calls “transition,” is pivotal to the success of any change effort. Each person goes through, at their own pace, three stages of transition.
The first, which Bridges calls “endings,” is the process of saying goodbye to what we must leave behind in the change. Even with positive changes, there is some sense of loss—and loss produces a host of emotional reactions. In the admissions department, this meant saying goodbye to familiar work teams, processes, student groups, roles.
Once we recognize what’s going away, we enter a period that Bridges call “chaos” or “the neutral zone.” I’ve always preferred “chaos” because that’s what it often feels like! In the “chaos” stage, you know what you’ve left behind, but you don’t know where you’re going. Someone from the admissions department said, “you don’t have the picture yet, you don’t know what it’s going to look like.” You’re kind of groping around in the dark. All of us like some sense of certainty, and in “chaos” there usually isn’t much. People experience a variety of emotions—confusion, fear, anger, exhaustion. It can seem hard to get going. It doesn’t sound very pretty, does it? But there’s an upside. In “chaos,” all the old rules go away; it’s easier to be creative. When things are going smoothly, it’s easy to get into a rut. But in “chaos,” there is no rut. You can try new ideas, new ways of doing things.
In the third phase, which Bridges calls “new beginnings,” you begin to get the picture. You see where things are going; you understand what you need to do to thrive in the new world. You form new habits that work. It’s not always an easy phase, but you start to see the light at the end of the tunnel.
Every individual, every group, every organization goes through these phases. We don’t go through them together—everyone has their own pace—and we don’t go through them in an orderly way. We wander all over the place—one day hopeful, the next day discouraged, the next day angry, the next day excited, etc. etc. Leaders, often because they are more involved in the planning, are often further along in the process than the staff, and they can forget what it’s like to not know, to be in the dark.
Bridges helps us see that all these reactions are normal. In a transition, both people and process benefit when individuals are tender with themselves, tender with each other and patient with the process. The admissions department has learned the value of discussing progress and setbacks with each other, celebrating successes, staying involved in planning the future, speaking up and offering solutions when something isn’t working.
Any team, department, or organization contemplating a change, or finding themselves in the midst of one can learn from the admission department’s experience. Change is hard. But when you understand the process of transition, you can move through it more smoothly and successfully.
Labels: Leadership: Team
Monday, July 14, 2008
What's Wrong With Wisdom?
“Abandon sageliness and discard wisdom
Then the people will benefit a hundredfold.”
-- Lao Tzu
This quotation hits me like a thunderbolt. Because my secret longing is to be wise. I’ve trained for it and read for it and worked for it and sacrificed other goals for it. To my mind, wisdom is the ultimate accomplishment. It goes beyond being savvy or smart. It means knowing how to use what you know, how to respond to the moment, how to help.
But there’s a dark side to my pursuit of wisdom. The dark side is having to know, having to respond rightly. If I’m wise (like the many “sage” characters we see on TV) I have to know what to do, what to say. That can be nerve wracking. Because I don’t always know. When I don’t know something I or others expect me to know, I feel incompetent. I lose my focus. As a coach, my attention shifts from my client to myself. “What do I do now?” I ask myself. I become conscious of my hesitations. I wonder what my client is thinking of me. In the worst moments of unknowing, I imagine that everyone will somehow know about this and think I’m completely hopeless. My mind is running a mile a minute.
The last thing I’m doing in such a moment is what Lao Tzu calls “non-doing.” For Lao Tzu, there is a flow of life that is ever-changing, ever-creative. If we trust in the creativity of life, our job becomes one of doing nothing that interferes with that flow. Paradoxically, if one is focused on being wise, one cannot be aware of the flow or trust that flow. Whatever one does will interfere with the creative process. When I struggle to be the sage, I act unwisely. When I let the process unfold, when I don’t grasp for the solution or the right thing to say, when I focus on what’s happening and don’t worry about what I “should” be doing, the right answer comes.
Many of the executives I know are the same way. After all, aren’t they paid to have the answers? These executives believe, sometimes at an unconscious level, that they have to know what to do when subordinates come to them, when their bosses come to them, when the organization demands an answer. They are great problem solvers, great visionaries. And, like me, sometimes the external or internal pressure to know gets in the way. Just like my brilliant insights sometimes get in the way of my client’s discovering something even more brilliant for themselves, the go-to VP with all the answers gets in the way of their subordinates solving problems for themselves. Or they solve a problem too quickly and miss valuable information that would have informed a better decision. Or they solve the problem the same old way and lose out because the old way is no longer sufficient.
There is such pressure for us to know, to be right, to be wise. Yet to be wise and helpful, we have to let go of our desire for wisdom, our need to be right. We must wait for the right time, trust that others will find the answer, tune in to what our senses, our bodies and our emotions are telling us, let go of what we know so we can trust the unknown. All this requires a certain faith, not in ourselves, but something larger. Call it God, call it the Tao, call it the Universe. If we trust in the flow of life, we don’t have to be right. We simply have to be present.
Then the people will benefit a hundredfold.”
-- Lao Tzu
This quotation hits me like a thunderbolt. Because my secret longing is to be wise. I’ve trained for it and read for it and worked for it and sacrificed other goals for it. To my mind, wisdom is the ultimate accomplishment. It goes beyond being savvy or smart. It means knowing how to use what you know, how to respond to the moment, how to help.
But there’s a dark side to my pursuit of wisdom. The dark side is having to know, having to respond rightly. If I’m wise (like the many “sage” characters we see on TV) I have to know what to do, what to say. That can be nerve wracking. Because I don’t always know. When I don’t know something I or others expect me to know, I feel incompetent. I lose my focus. As a coach, my attention shifts from my client to myself. “What do I do now?” I ask myself. I become conscious of my hesitations. I wonder what my client is thinking of me. In the worst moments of unknowing, I imagine that everyone will somehow know about this and think I’m completely hopeless. My mind is running a mile a minute.
The last thing I’m doing in such a moment is what Lao Tzu calls “non-doing.” For Lao Tzu, there is a flow of life that is ever-changing, ever-creative. If we trust in the creativity of life, our job becomes one of doing nothing that interferes with that flow. Paradoxically, if one is focused on being wise, one cannot be aware of the flow or trust that flow. Whatever one does will interfere with the creative process. When I struggle to be the sage, I act unwisely. When I let the process unfold, when I don’t grasp for the solution or the right thing to say, when I focus on what’s happening and don’t worry about what I “should” be doing, the right answer comes.
Many of the executives I know are the same way. After all, aren’t they paid to have the answers? These executives believe, sometimes at an unconscious level, that they have to know what to do when subordinates come to them, when their bosses come to them, when the organization demands an answer. They are great problem solvers, great visionaries. And, like me, sometimes the external or internal pressure to know gets in the way. Just like my brilliant insights sometimes get in the way of my client’s discovering something even more brilliant for themselves, the go-to VP with all the answers gets in the way of their subordinates solving problems for themselves. Or they solve a problem too quickly and miss valuable information that would have informed a better decision. Or they solve the problem the same old way and lose out because the old way is no longer sufficient.
There is such pressure for us to know, to be right, to be wise. Yet to be wise and helpful, we have to let go of our desire for wisdom, our need to be right. We must wait for the right time, trust that others will find the answer, tune in to what our senses, our bodies and our emotions are telling us, let go of what we know so we can trust the unknown. All this requires a certain faith, not in ourselves, but something larger. Call it God, call it the Tao, call it the Universe. If we trust in the flow of life, we don’t have to be right. We simply have to be present.
Labels: Self Leadership
Thursday, July 3, 2008
"Let's Make the Department Shine"
“The manager’s unique contribution is to make other people more productive. He may be charged with other responsibilities . . . but when it comes to the managing aspect of his job, he will succeed or fail based on his ability to make his employees more productive than they would be working with someone else. And the only way to pull this off . . . is to make your employees believe, genuinely believe, that their success is your primary goal.”
--Malcolm Buckingham, The One Thing You Need to Know
--Malcolm Buckingham, The One Thing You Need to Know
I’d like you to meet my friend, John Hudson. John’s had an interesting career, primarily in healthcare. He’s moved around a lot because he gets bored after a few years on the job. But he’s always able to find another job (usually a more responsible one) because he has a track record of taking troubled work units and turning them around. Over time, he’s developed a system for doing that. It’s not the system that might first come to your mind. John’s no slasher out to fix the unit by firing everyone and bringing in the replacements. His philosophy is simple and he makes sure his employees hear it soon after he arrives. Basically it’s this:
• His employees are the experts. They know more about their work area than he does.
• It’s the organization’s systems (and by systems he means everything from processes to workflow to technology to the work unit’s structure) that keep his employees from doing their jobs
• It’s his job to fix the systems
Can you imagine what that sounds like to a troubled work group or organization? There’s no blame. There’s only acknowledgment of what the group can do. There’s the promise of support. The result is, as John puts it, “they warm up to me.”
John doesn’t stop there. He shares with them his vision for the organization—his sense of the positive future it will be possible for them to achieve. He sees the vision as “his best stab at it.” It’s not immutable or perfect, but simply a place to begin. He tells the group that he will need to create a strategic plan to make the vision a reality and he needs them to help him create it. He then follows through with a series of management retreats and staff meetings. At the management retreat, department managers do a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) analysis. John brings in consultants to talk to the group about best practices used elsewhere. From all this information, the managers develop a tentative action plan. Then in a series of all department meetings, the action plan is presented and employees have the opportunity to give feedback on the plan. Their feedback is considered and incorporated where it makes sense. The plan is implemented. An important part of the process is mixing up the groups so that silos are broken down and communication is enhanced.
It’s a fairly simple formula, really. Many management books suggest something similar. What struck me about John, when he was sharing this with me over drinks one evening, is his passion. His strategy works. It works, he says because he believes that almost everyone comes to work wanting to do a good job. He sees his role as harnessing that energy, in giving people a chance to succeed by focusing on the things they can control to make the work better. He told me a story about a group who were complaining that a major impediment to success was another department’s sloppiness. John’s reply to them is telling, “Here’s my struggle about that. They’re a moving target. We can’t fix them. Let’s try to fix what we can control, let’s focus on making our department shine. Then everyone else will have to come up to our standard.”
I think John does a great job helping employees see that he’s there to serve them and that by serving them the company’s goals are also served. Then he delivers what he says he will. He works hard with his employees to make sure the department will “shine.” I believe we could all take a page from his book.
Labels: Leadership: motivation
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