Change Reflections from the US Presidential Election

This isn't a political post.  Rather, I've been pondering some of the questions that change thinking and Donald Trump's victory ask of each other.  Why?  largely because commentators (with the exception of the irresistible Buchan Observer) have emphasised how the election has been about change: the result is a demand for change from those alienated from a political and liberal elite, and the campaign a change from past winning practice.  So, what's it got to do with change thinking?

Here's two perspectives to get us started.  Sure you can add more - please do.

First, for a change initiative to be successful, Prosci's ADKAR model suggests that the individuals involved must move through awareness, desire and knowledge and then have ability and reinforcement.  It maps awareness to the business need phase; desire and a degree of knowledge to the concept and design stage; knowledge and ability to implementation; and reinforcement to post-implementation.  A classic critique of Donald Trump's campaign has been that it has been strong on intent and weak on plan: we might say he's done the business need phase, and the concept element (but not design) of the next.  So, those energised by his campaign have awareness and desire, but little knowledge of what change will actually entail.  I'd say that their change journeys are yet far from clear - and I find that people want to understand that journey before they embark.  They want more than just a future state vision.  If that's right, then Donald Trump will have to lay out his plans and what they will actually involve for US citizens, or he'll risk hitting the buffers.  If committed support continues without the plans being clear, maybe we need to rethink the relative importance of desire and knowledge, and of laying out clear change journeys.

Second, Kotter's 8-Step process for leading change might seem a better model for Donald Trump:

• Step 1: Create a sense of urgency - Check!
• Step 3: Form strategic vision and initiatives - Check! (well, initiatives are named)
• Step 4: Enlist a volunteer army - Check!
• Step 5: Enable action by removing barriers - Check! (that's getting elected)

But Step 2 - where's the Guiding Coalition?  Either it's the priority of the next few weeks as key Republican leaders come on board, and is thus being done out of Kotter's sequence.  Or, it's close friends and family - in which case maybe we need to re-define coalition?

Either way, seems we may have a large-scale case study that will prompt us to re-think aspects of our favourite models.  Alternatively, the change will fail to achieve what it's promised, and we can go back to our models to explain.  Any other models / change insights to apply?

ADKAR is copyright PROSCI INC and the 8-Step Process is copyright Kotter International.

Change as BAU - yes, but what do we do?

One of the privileges of consulting is that you talk with many talented leaders, each engaging with different opportunities and challenges.  So when common themes emerge you sense that something’s happening to which you need to respond.  This year I’ve heard many more leaders talking about the need for change to be BAU, arguing that a sustained ability to effect change has to be a core organisational competence.

Why’s this coming to the fore now?  I think a number of factors are at play:

o  Operational leaders and groups are having to work with and absorb change initiative after change initiative – and they and their people are tired of being ‘done to’  

o  Partly as a symptom, Programme & Project organisations are faced with an unsustainable volume of requests from Operations for project managers to help effect change

o  Portfolio approaches, while helping, are not yet delivering enough to address the above factors (but that’s for another blog)

Beyond this, perspectives are far from uniform.  Some emphasise BAU change capability because without it benefit realisation leaks away.  For others, it’s more about continuous improvement or reducing the number of expensive corporate programmes.   

The obvious response is to equip operational functions with change capability.  But what does that actually mean?  Does it mean methods and tools; ways of engaging their people more effectively; leaders growing in how they sponsor change; or even changing culture?  And since it’s the case that it could be one or more of these (and others) that's required, how do we know what to major on?  There’s little point, after all, in only providing a method and toolkit if the organisation has an intensely change-resistant culture.

For Afiniti, where I work, this takes us to something we’ve had in our toolkit for quite some time: a Change Readiness Assessment that we’ve typically used in relation to specific change initiatives.  This, by exploring six ‘levers’ that need to be well developed for an organisation to be change ready, highlights exactly how and where action needs to be taken if change capability is to become a BAU core capability.  Crucially, the tool we use does more than just point out (say) the need for development of capability or culture per se.  A rich exploration of each lever, and subsequent careful analysis of answer distribution, outliers, and underlying factors get to the heart of the matter.

You can try a cut down version here – it's not the only solution, but we think it works well.  What do you use? 

Goodbye Kiss?

Keep It Simple, Stupid (KISS) - that's a principle we like.  We know that effective leaders strip out complexity from the narratives they tell, so we work to keep things simple.  We repeat the principle and internalise it.  It becomes a mantra, and the risk is then that we stop thinking about it, and don't notice when it over-rules other important principles.

That. at least, was what conversations with Afiniti clients at the start of the year highlighted.  Everybody agreed that good change leaders kept things simple - and that this was a good thing.  But we all agreed, too, that the really best leaders were super-comfortable with complexity and ambiguity.  They take the mind-bendingly complex on board, laden with seemingly inherent conflicts and uncertainties, then they make things simple for others.  So, there's another principle - that good leaders handle complexity. 

There should be no problem reconciling the two - complexity travels in one direction (to the leader) and simplicity in the other (from the leader).  What we were talking about, though, was how reality is different.  We all knew leaders so fixated on the simplicity mantra that those who work for and with them are never allowed to bring anything complex to the table.  We weren't talking about coaching, so that people learn to focus on the key issues, but about teams, programmes and organisations in which over time the complex can never be acknowledged and explored.  The result is not simplicity, but the simplistic.  Lazy leadership. 

So, we established a third principle, one that retained the principle of leaders being comfortable with complexity: as leaders, we need to KISS - but we don't look for the KISS to be reciprocated.

Incidentally, there's some fascinating 30 year old insight about goodbye kisses here.

Wolves (x2), Fifa and Incarnation

The news that Wolfsburg had signed one of the UK's best FIFA players grabbed me.  I liked the idea
of playing for a German team, but living in Wolverhampton - a Wolves connection?  I wondered how long before we get transfer fees (maybe we already have)?  And then how long before Wolfsburg pays more for a FIFA player than an on-the-field player?

I guess this highlights changes in what we'll pay to watch; in evolving definitions of entertainment and of sport; and illustrates how we're happy to pay to watch things that would have seemed unusual a couple of generations ago.

More than that, though, it highlights just how pervasive the shift from atoms to bits really is.  There's money to be made from people watching others play a computer game simulating a football match - albeit not yet as much as is to be made from charging to watch the football match itself.  I'm not into knocking computer games either.  I absolutely get that while they may draw us and our children away from physical activity (come in the Daily Mail), that they develop other capabilities wonderfully, and provide access to sporting / gaming excitement to many who would not otherwise gain that, or certainly not at a top level.

Nevertheless, I was struck by a comment made by Bruno Senna on being beaten on a race simulation game by non racing drivers.  He said 'when you’re driving in the simulator ... you are training your eye, and you can never react as fast through what your eye sees than what you feel with your body'.  I think that matters.  It seems to me that we live in a world of wonders, and wonders to be appreciated through five senses, not just our eyes.  Developing all five senses, being aware of my body and the subtle way it interacts with my environment - these are rich, and (I suspect) more key to my quality of life than I appreciated when I was younger.

So, for now, I'll stick with football matches, per se - and be so very glad I'm able to trust in a God who took on a body, and who said his creation was good.  The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.

Once more unto the breach, dear friends?

I spent a good chunk of the week before last at the Barbican for the RSC's production of Shakespeare's Richard II, Henry IV parts 1 & 2, and Henry V.   It was good, very good, with (for me) David Tennant's Richard II being the standout.  Each of the plays had real interest, but what I found fascinating was the difference it made that they were being performed together as a cycle, with storylines, characters and themes persisting through multiple plays in the cycle.

For example, the characters of Henry IV and Henry V are each present in three of the four plays, Falstaff in two of them, and so forth.  This meant that director and actors couldn't treat each play in isolation - Jasper Britton playing Henry IV had to interpret his role in a way that made sense across a three play arc.  Greg Doran, directing all four plays, had to build something - sets, costumes, music, characters, etc - that worked as a cycle, not just as four individual plays.  This meant that each play 'talked' to the others; that three plays became keys to the interpretation of the fourth, in part determining its meaning, throwing its themes and patterns into relief, shedding light on plot and character.

Nothing surprising about that, but there's a lesson for how we manage change portfolios.  Specifically, we're used to the idea that treating change initiatives as a portfolio means prioritising, sequencing, and timing change activities.  But I wonder if we recognise that each initiative in a portfolio provides context that shapes the meaning of the others?  If one initiative changes processes to reduce cycle time, then cost-saving changes to roles and systems driven by another initiative will inevitably also be connected (helpfully or unhelpful) with a need for cycle time reductions.  The very specific business drivers for one change don't go away when the rationale for another programme is being articulated.

The opportunity we have, therefore, is to build an integrated change story spanning the portfolio.  Seizing this opportunity, we can (positively) move towards a holistic change journey for those impacted, leveraging themes and imperatives across the portfolio.  Negatively, we can avoid clashing and confusing separate change journeys and stories.

In fact, this seems a necessity, not just a possibility.  So what gets in the way?  Let's be real, it's challenging - weaving potentially different imperatives into a coherent whole is rarely straightforward.   And we certainly don't want to blend clear programmes into one ill-defined mega-attempt to boil the ocean.  But it's also true that individual change programmes can tend to take on a life of their own, presenting themselves as the only 'show in town' - their leaders single-mindedly focused on directing their own cast.  Other programmes, with their distinctive agendas and narratives, are easily viewed as competing distractions (if not irritations) rather than sources of potential leverage.  Simply they're seen as threat, not as opportunity.  I don't think it needs to be like that.

Thanks to John Griffiths (@johngriffiths7) for conversation prompting this blog, and analogies with Biblical hermeneutics.

Ron Rolheiser, Unseen Roses, and David Bowie

A very dear friend in my teenage years, the late Bill Raeper, wrote an acclaimed biography of the Scottish writer George MacDonald.  It was MacDonald who spoke of the scent of unseen roses [fn full quote] a phrase that resonated for me this week reading Ron Rolheiser’s The Shattered Lantern.

Paraphrasing, Rolheiser is arguing that narcissism, pragmatism and unbridled restlessness have eroded our ability to contemplate, to live examined lives - and thereby, as per Nietszche, we’ve wiped away the entire horizon of faith.  Instead of wondering at ordinary life, we merely wonder how or whether.  And the loss of wonder, of a 'second naivete', means that we are no longer haunted by the scent of unseen roses, because unseen roses are just no longer possible for us. 

 

David Bowie was also very present to me when I was a teenager.  Bowie’s too early death, and scale and nature of reactions to it, also took me the scent of unseen roses, to wonder at ordinary life that opens up new vistas.  For that, I think, is what Bowie did best, for me at least.  The excitement of Starman on Top of the Pops was less about the relative positioning of Bowie and Mick Ronson’s guitar, and more about ordinary teenage life (switch on the TV; don't tell your poppa) as a container for the extraordinary (there’s a starman waiting in the sky).  So it is, too, with Space Oddity (take your protein pills), Jean Genie (loves chimney stacks), and Life On Mars (the lawman / Beating up the wrong guy’).  Extraordinary stories and songs rooted in the details of ordinary life, approached with wonder.

Perhaps, and maybe only perhaps, this is why Bowie has been on the agenda for the Archbishop of Canterbury and church organists.  Perhaps, even, it’s got something to do with why it was Bowie who knelt and prayed the Lord's Prayer during the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert.  Perhaps, if we (if I) re-learn to wonder at ordinary life, faith can again become natural and the scent of unseen roses will haunt us afresh.   

MacDonald wrote 'haunted with the hovering of unseen wings, with the scent of unseen roses, and the subtle enticements of "melodies unheard,"' in Alec Forbes of Howglen 

Four Ps for Leading Change in 2016

They get everywhere, don't they?  Gangs of four letters traveling together, alliteratively demanding attention.  4Ps of Marketing; 4 Ps of Strategy; 4Cs of Learning; and so on.  Just rolling with it, here are 4Ps for leading change in 2016 - things that I'm seeing more and more on the agenda, and which I think as change leaders we need to be increasingly good at.

No surprise in P number one - Portfolio.  I've seen a real shift over the past years to an emphasis on managing portfolios of change, rather than expecting LOBs to handle a plethora of separate change initiatives.  Prioritising, filtering, sequencing - most organisations are getting this in place.  Here's a next step, though - integrating at the point of change.  Simply, the LOB implements one set of changes that integrate those associated with multiple programmes or projects.  Tougher to manage, but an awful lot simpler for line managers and their teams who can establish a rhythm of change 'upgrades' through the year.

Second P - Purpose.  Nothing new here, perhaps?  Ensuring a clear change purpose at the outset is second nature.  So what is changing?  Maybe it's just me, but I'm encountering a growing demand from those on the front line that we don't just tell them what's in it for them, but that we articulate for them clearly and honestly why the organisation is making the change.  I've had front line workers telling me the change just won't be successful without that.  They want to be treated as adults - and that's not a surprise.

P number three - Person.  I blogged here about how change leadership can learn from therapy.  This simply feels like it's getting increasingly important - as with therapy, as with any leadership, the character of the person looking to enable change matters.  Therapy says it's empathy, integrity and unconditional positive regard that drives change: what would happen if those words cropped up more often in Change Leadership role descriptions?

The fourth P?  Pushing for participation, tell me what you think.