“The leaders we need are already here.”
These magic words come from Margaret Wheatley, co-founder of the Berkana Institute (http://www.berkana.org). The Institute is a worldwide community of people who recognize the need for change in communities, organizations and nations and who offer their leadership to help resolve the most pressing local problems. Of leaders, she says, “We define a leader as anyone who wants to help, who is willing to step forward to make a difference in the world. We know that the world is blessed with an abundance of these leaders.”
These are good words to live by in our own organizations too. In yesterday’s model, leaders were singular and appointed. Leaders were at the top of the heap by virtue of title. Others were deemed followers. Leaders were expected to know all the answers and by force of will to get followers somewhere. By virtue of this model leaders held power and followers did what they were told.
Today’s leaders can emerge from any part of an organization. Rather than being given the title, leaders choose for themselves to make a difference and take action to do so. They see themselves not as experts but as learners. Rather than focusing on heroism and control they focus on enabling others to succeed.
This brings us back to Margaret Wheatley. About 15 years ago she began writing about the connection between living organisms and organizations. “Every living thing seeks to create a world in which it can thrive. It does this by creating systems of relationships where all members of the system benefit from their connections,” she wrote. “As the system develops, new capacities emerge from … working together. Looking at what a self-organizing system creates leads to the realization that the system can do for itself what leaders have felt was necessary to do to the systems they control.”
Wheatley urges leaders in self-organizing systems – and, by the way, all organizations are self-organizing — to abandon the fear-based practice of command and control. “We have to ask ourselves, “How much trust do I really have in the people who work here?”
And what is the reward for embracing a more participative approach? “Those leaders…tell of their astonishment,” she says. “They are overwhelmed by the capacity, energy, creativity, commitment and even love that they receive from the people in their organization.”
It sounds like Utopia. Trusting leaders can bring about an astonishing array of positive results. And anyone can be a leader. If, as Wheatley says, “the leaders we need are already here,” what are the attributes of today’s leaders? How can we prepare ourselves to become a leader? How do we step forward and nominate ourselves for the job? Stay tuned.
By Elise Roaf
How many times have you tried to have a strategic conversation with an executive or client only to have him or her immediately revert to a tactical focus? Sometimes, the same happens with other members of our own teams. It’s hard to stay focused on strategy. When you’re putting out a fire, it’s hard not to just focus on tactics – deliver the order.
The best way to regain that strategic focus is to ask the right questions. Whether you are just asking them of yourself, or of a client, executive, or colleague, you can use questions to prompt people’s strategic thinking. First, be sure you craft the right questions:
- Questions should demand details, not a yes or no response
- Questions should use keywords straight from your organizational or departmental strategy
- Seek to clarify assumptions or complexity
- Use supportive language
- Ask questions that value the other person’s opinion, validating the importance of the tactic
Here’s a story that serves as a great example. I was working with a client on a survey and she wanted to add a question to the survey. It was a bad question that wasn’t actionable and wouldn’t contribute to her strategic use of the results. I asked “What will you do with the results? What will you improve based on the results from that question?”
Stopped her dead in her tracks. She decided not to include the question.
Here’s another example. I had a conversation with a client about the company’s intranet. The client doesn’t believe the intranet has any strategic importance at all. He views it as a distraction on his plate of more pressing issues. Here is the series of questions I asked him:
- How important is innovation for your business? (He said it is their most important goal.)
- What is required of a company to be truly innovative? (After some prompting, he agreed that conversation, dialog and idea sharing were crucial.)
- What role might your intranet play in enabling more conversation, dialog and idea sharing?
He stared briefly at me in a stunned silence. He had his answer. He answered his own cynicism with his own answers to my questions.
One more story. After a facilitated series of Q&A and planning, my client and her team realized they can no longer be order takers and still deliver truly strategic communication solutions. Instead, they must enable others to be great communicators and serve the organization in a whole new way. At the end of the day I asked her what she thought about the planning we’d done.
“I just hadn’t ever thought about it this way. No one had asked me those questions.”
Stacy Wilson, ABC, is president of Eloquor Consulting, Inc., in Lakewood, Colorado
How many consultants or independent practitioners out there? How many of you work for the man, but view the man as your client? This is for all of you.
If you weren’t flexible before, you certainly have become more flexible in the past 13 months, right? Clients want to cherry pick what they can afford, sometimes opting to do more themselves. Some want to stagger project stages to fit a challenging budget. Some want to pre-bill, others want to delay billing.
The more flexible you can be, the better able you’ll be to survive in this tough environment. Here are some suggestions.
- Offer options for how your time is used and how it gets billed
- Work with subcontractors and vendors to flex their involvement and billing
- Be ready to work as part of the client team, with you doing some pieces and the other team members doing other pieces
- Be ready to teach others how to do stuff, rather than doing it for them
- Think in terms of smaller chunks of work that can be done incrementally
- Understand the dependencies between those smaller chunks of work
- Create a calendar of your work that shows all the time overlaps (Gannt Chart) so you can see how you might move things around to accommodate client’s changes
- Be ready to tackle those outlying projects during the down time, and be ready to spin up fast when too much work comes in at once
- Delegate where you can (budget allowing, of course)
For those working outside their client operations, I want to suggest a great book: Bag the Elephant, by Steve Kaplan. Its focus is on how you can operate in a way that makes it easier for large companies to hire you. The ideas work well for a client of any size, and some work well for those serving internal clients. It’s a short, easy read you’ll remember for a long time.
Stacy Wilson, ABC, is president of Eloquor Consulting, Inc., in Lakewood, Colorado
Yesterday’s Communitelligence webinar was about getting executives and clients off the individual tactics and into strategic thinking and decision-making. As the facilitator, I talked about using questioning and even offered 15 specific questions people can use to pull a client or exec back to strategy.
- Creating your own questions
- Facilitating a flexible planning session
- Recapturing a hi-jacked session
One of the individuals who sent in the evaluation after the webinar had this to say: “Perhaps more specific, rather than general, examples.” Ok, I can accept that a few specific stories illustrating how to use all the intellectual capital we just gave away would have been good adds. I’ll do that next time.
But, as my colleague just said, “they want you to do it for them.” He’s right. So many of the communicators I run into in conference and workshop sessions want someone to give them step-by-step instruction. “Just tell me what to say in that difficult conversation with my exec – give me a script.”
John Gerstner, president of Communitelligence, commented to me that even best practices don’t always make sense because you need a solution that speaks to your particular organization. So, it’s about taking the tools and figuring it out for your situation or organization. Requires some critical thinking, a skill that all of us in communication should continue to hone.
This depends on my ability to recognize a bunch of valuable tools when I see them. I think some are looking so hard for the script that they miss the tools right in front of them. And it means being able to think through how to use the tools once I’ve recognized them. Takes work. Takes effort, focus and dedication. Sometimes courage.
I’m all about tools. Those who’ve worked with me know this. But, not tools that simply tell “how” to do something or tell precisely “what” to do. No, I value tools that prompt my strategic thinking and that of my client. I want tools that push me to be practical, direct, honest with myself and my client, focused on the right stuff. That’s what a good communication tool should do.
When we took a bunch of our custom tools and made them available online at http://www.eloquor.com, this was our focus. Help communicators think more strategically, even when putting out fires. Part of that is about helping communication teams conduct their strategic business more consistently. Ultimately, it all comes down to positioning communication as a strategic function that serves as a valuable asset and trusted advisor to the business. Put in less “corporate speak”: communication matters to the business and communicators offer the business value.
But, communicators have to be willing to hone their critical thinking skills, to use strategic thinking tools and to master the ability to find great and appropriate solutions. It’s our future.
Stacy Wilson, ABC, is president of Eloquor Consulting, Inc., in Lakewood, Colorado.
If you’ve been in communication for a while now, and you consider yourself an advisor rather than an order-taker, then right now your brow is furrowed. Why would I ask what the value of strategic communication is? Aren’t we passed this? Can’t we just assume that yes, strategic communication is valuable. More valuable than simple tactics such as newsletters and Town Halls?
First, let’s take a stab at defining “strategic communication.” Here’s a simple view (I am, as always, focused on internal communication):
Sound and measurable communication process that supports business goals, enables individuals and teams to contribute their best, and encourages dialog and recognition
These are the elements research shows us are fundamental to engagement in the workplace. These are the elements that make workplace change more successful, and according to the work of John P. Kotter, our organizations more financially sound.
Right about now, you’re wondering why I’m talking about this. Well, last month I facilitated a webinar for Communitelligence on moving execs and clients off a tactical focus and onto a more strategic thought process. One comment in the evaluation really sparked my attention. The attendee wanted more explanation of what made strategic communication better.
I talked this through with several others, including Communitelligence founder John Gerstner. We all wonder why we’re still talking about this. Isn’t it obvious that making a strategic difference to our organizations is better than just cranking out newsletters? Haven’t we proven this in our ROIs, measurement and business cases
Could it be that this was an entry level communicator who hasn’t yet discovered the value of strategy in his or her work? If so, this speaks to a void in our educational system that we professionals will have to fill as these newbies come into the work place.
Could it be that this was a mid-level communicator who hasn’t had the benefit of a mentor or working for a strategic-thinking organization? Likely – we see it all the time. This is what our associations are striving to do, along with those of us providing many different organizations counsel. But, it takes a long time to reach everyone, especially those who are not networking, not reaching out, not getting involved with other communicators.
Could it be that this was a senior level communicator who still hasn’t got the message about strategy, about serving as an advisor, about delivering value? I sure hope not. You’d have to have been working for decades in a vacuum.
I am always willing to educate other communicators on the value of strategy in our work. I wistfully look to the day when the presumption is that communication is strategic – there is no other option.
Stacy Wilson, ABC, is president of Eloquor Consulting, Inc., in Lakewood, Colorado.
Comments |
RE: What’s the value of strategic communication? |
Interesting topic, Stacy…I’ve been discussing this issue of “tactical vs. strategic” communication around a lot recently with colleagues and friends. I think what I’m missing in your definition is the word “change.” A great tactical communications plan will be measurable and support one or more business goals, but it focuses on a delivered result rather than on a delivered change. It’s really only when either individual behavior and/or organizational direction needs to be changed that a communications strategy is required. A planner asks the question “Are we doing things right?” while a strategist asks “Are we doing the right things?” A strategy is only valued where it is required — i.e. where change is well defined — otherwise, a really good plan will do perfectly fine, even at a high level in the organization. Remember the Cheshire Cat in Alice in Wonderland…When Alice asks the cat which fork in the road to take, the cat asks where she wants to go. When she says that it doesn’t really matter where she goes, then the cat says it doesn’t matter which road she chooses. When managers can’t really define the change they want to see, they aren’t likely to value communication strategy. |
Posted on Thursday, Jan 21, 2010 – 09:24:00 PM CST ![]() |
RE: What’s the value of strategic communication? |
Mike, valid comments. However, in my original post, I noted that I’m willing to “educate.” I don’t think you can persuade someone to take up a strategic mindset and certainly did not imply that. But, education is required and it can be done without the big wow effort. Just yesterday I spoke with a young communicator about her communication plan. We walked through it step-by-step and addressed where her thinking needed to be more strategic. We talked about how she can use this thinking to reposition herself with her internal client and achieve more results with stakeholders. If we keep talking about this type of focus, even with the small stuff, eventually she embeds the thinking. We tackle her confidence level and position her to make a difference, even if it’s not in a shock and awe sort of way. It’s one person at a time. Changing the definition and the entry methods into the profession will wait for another day. |
Posted on Friday, Jan 15, 2010 – 03:04:00 PM CST ![]() |
Are We Appropriately Recognized? |
The issue of whether the value of the communicator is appropriately recognized is an old, old chestnut. It persists, in my view for four main reasons: 1) There is no common definition for “communication” within and among businesses. One person’s job spec for a “communication lead” may involve strategy and messaging, another’s may involve effectively acting as a concierge for senior stakeholders. This problem is unlikely to disappear. 2) The barrier for entry into the world of communication is non-existent. Everyone–particularly many senior managers–fancies themself as a communication expert on some level. Many who end up as professional communicators do so by default or accident. Even with aggressive growth of professional accreditation, this is unlikely to change as well. 3) The above factors do little for the confidence of professional communicators (and particularly internal communicators) and the corresponding timidity produces work that is safer and more tactical than required. 4) The organization has yet to have a “shock and awe” moment when they realize something desired would not have been possible without the strategic communicator. I do think things will get better–not by trying to persuade people that we should be treated as strategic–but by seizing the opportunities for communication to make a difference in these turbulent times. Mike Klein–The Intersection http://intersectionblog.wordpress.com |
Posted on Friday, Jan 15, 2010 – 10:18:00 AM CST ![]() |
Max Ways, the former editor of Fortune magazine, predicted 40 years ago, “The main challenge to U.S. society will turn not around the production of goods, but around the difficulties and opportunities involved in a world of accelerating change and ever widening choice. So swift is the acceleration that trying to ‘make sense’ of change will become our basic industry.”
That prediction is an apt description of our current reality. Change is no longer a force in the environment. It is the environment. Organizations around the world struggle to keep their footing in a whirlwind of technological innovation, customer demands, competitive pressures, globalization and economic volatility – knowing that any of these forces can turn a business model upside down in an instant, rendering even the best strategies obsolete.
To succeed during turbulent times, organizations and individuals must find ways to thrive – not just survive – amid complexity and uncertainty. Those enterprises that continually transform themselves in response to constantly shifting conditions gain a tremendous competitive advantage.
So what does it take to manage change today?
Managers looking to help their organizations (or teams or departments) make sense of change in the 21st century need a completely different set of skills than their counterparts in the last century. Forget about issuing orders or coercing with threats. Success in the Information Age takes employee engagement and creative collaboration. It takes guidance by managers who know how to harness the energies and talents of others while keeping their own egos in check. It takes leaders at all levels who manage by influence rather than by position.
The dictionary says that leadership means going ahead or showing the way. To lead is to help a group define and achieve a common purpose. But look carefully at that last sentence – helping a group define and achieve a purpose is not the same as setting that purpose and then “selling” it throughout the organization. Change driven from on high without significant across-the-board participation is bound to meet with workforce skepticism and resistance. On the other hand, the co-creation of purpose/vision/strategy is an inclusive process that encourages employee engagement from the very beginning.
Effective management of organization change also depends on early, comprehensive, and transparent communication. In most cases, the manner in which change is communicated is more important than the nature of that change. And don’t think for one moment that speeches and articles are the only ways leaders communicate. Every action and off-the-record comment carries weight. As one insightful manager told me, “What I do in the hallways is more important than anything I say in the meetings.”
Abrupt change that comes as a complete surprise is the hardest to accept. To reduce fears of the unknown and squelch fantasies of the rumor mill, leaders “set the stage” by informing people upfront about the real-life challenges and opportunities that are likely to become the future impetus for organizational transformation. They also make sure that employees have enough business acumen to make sense of financial data. The more everyone understands about the current situation, the trends and forces shaping the future, the economic realities of the business, the alternatives being considered, and the consequences of not changing – the easier it is to accept and even anticipate the need for change.
Respected change-managers are powerful communicators who don’t ignore or sugarcoat negativity. Instead, they help people make sense of it. If a past change effort has failed, it’s publicly acknowledged and reviewed so that everyone can extract its lessons and move forward. (Likewise, if a best practice is discovered, it’s also publicly acknowledged, reviewed, and learned from.) Candid change-communication means that both positive and negative aspects are disclosed. The most motivational managers are those trusted by their team to share knowledge and “tell it like it is.”
Effective managers of change are catalysts, creating synergy in their organizations. They delegate responsibility and authority. They encourage and protect their teams. They model attitudes and behaviors they want to see reflected back. Most of all, they realize that managing change today takes emotional literacy. It is no longer enough to appeal solely to people’s logic. Leaders also have to touch people’s hearts. And the best of today’s leaders do so by revealing their own passion – for the future success of the organization and for the individuals in that organization who face the tough job of transforming themselves in order to collectively create that future.
Carol Kinsey Goman, Ph.D. is the author of nine books including CREATIVITY IN BUSINESS and “THIS ISN’T THE COMPANY I JOINED” — How to Lead in a Business Turned Upside Down. She delivers keynote speeches and seminars to association and business audiences around the world. For more information or to book Carol as a speaker at one of your events, please call: 510-526-1727, email: CGoman@CKG.com, or visit her website: http://www.CKG.com.
After speaking at a conference on the East Coast, I was approached by an executive who handed me his business card as an introduction. I was startled when he abruptly snatched it back. He explained that he wanted to cross out the word senior in front of his vice-president title. He went on to tell me that he was only temporarily acting in the senior position and that, as soon as possible, he wanted to return to his old job. He said that five years earlier his ambition had been the presidency of the company, but not anymore: “Being a vice president suits me just fine. I’m good at it, and I could do it in my sleep. I don’t need the added pressure of a higher position. Besides, I’ve got a family and a couple of interesting hobbies. This gives me time to play.”
Just the week before, an audience member had shown me a drawing he’d sketched of his career objectives. His goal was to become the head of corporate communications for his present employer – an international firm that had already identified him as a “high potential” candidate. But the young man went on to say that he also wanted to live on the family ranch in Montana. While the company had been looking at ways this employee might commute home on weekends, he’d drawn a picture of himself working from the ranch and coming into an office only periodically.
Like many other talented professionals I’ve met and interviewed, these two were developing their own lifestyle formulas to compensate for the demands of the workplace. And while the strategies differ from person to person, they almost always reflects a desire for autonomy and freedom.
Especially noticeable in younger generations, employees are demanding more control of their time — whether it involves organizationally structured arrangements such as flextime, flex-place, part-time or contractual work, or a corporate culture that stresses results over “face time.” And enterprises that don’t fully support and align with these initiatives will lose a competitive edge in retaining and motivating top talent.
Newer workers are not as likely to believe (as do some of their bosses) that the world begins and ends with the office or factory. I’ve heard this sentiment expressed in a variety of ways: “I love my job, but it’s not my whole life.” “If the company ever relocated, I wouldn’t move. I like my lifestyle here too much.” “My parents weren’t there for me when I was growing up. I will never let a job get between me and my family.”
My anecdotal research was supported by a 2005 study in which the Society for Human Resource Management found women and workers younger than 35 saying that work-life balance is the most important component to their overall job satisfaction. But don’t think it’s just women and Millennials who are looking for work-life balance.
Although blending career and family life first came to corporate attention with the influx of female employees in the 1980s, companies soon began to find that so-called “female” issues actually jumped gender lines. One example is DuPont: Because more women were joining its ranks, the company’s affirmative action committee decided to survey employees about their child-care needs. They found that childcare was not just a women’s issue; it was a mainstream employment issue affecting both men and women. Those findings had significant implications for DuPont’s ability to retain good staff; a subsequent study found that half of the women and a quarter of the men working at the company had considered moving to a company that offered more job flexibility.
Based on the results of this survey, DuPont executives began a process of developing “work-life programs” to help employees deal with issues such as childcare and elder care and to balance the demands of work and home. Fifteen years later, a survey of employees found that 52% of those who had taken advantage of the programs said they would “go the extra mile” for DuPont, compared to 36% of those who had not used the programs.
Beyond the U.S., balancing work and life is fast becoming a global business issue. A recent survey by Watson Wyatt found four out of five employees in the UK saying work-life balance considerations played a crucial role in deciding whether or not to stay with their current employer. And, by the way, most employees who were dissatisfied chose not to say anything, but simply to leave.
Some leaders are paying attention – and responding. Last year I worked with a company’s senior management team. They were looking to center their organizational reengineering efforts on the key question: What gets in the way of your doing a great job and having a great life? It wasn’t an idle question. A 2005 ISR study of 50,000 workers found a clear link between good management practices, good work-life balance for employees, and an improved bottom line that included more satisfied customers and lower rates of absenteeism and safety incidents.
So ask your staff about their scheduling conflicts, and then involve them in co-creating timetables and deadlines. Be as understanding and supportive as you can when your workers have major personal issues. Find creative ways to help employees balance the work-life seesaw – and watch the positive effects on retention, customer loyalty, and profits!
Carol Kinsey Goman, Ph.D. is the author of nine books including CREATIVITY IN BUSINESS and “THIS ISN’T THE COMPANY I JOINED” — How to Lead in a Business Turned Upside Down. She delivers keynote speeches and seminars to association and business audiences around the world. For more information or to book Carol as a speaker at one of your events, please call: 510-526-1727, email: CGoman@CKG.com, or visit her website: http://www.CKG.com.
If you’re curious about what leadership is all about, you’ve come to the right place. Here is where we are going to explore the art of leadership and how it applies to our practice as communicators.
We will discover there is no simple formula for leadership. It’s a quality that emerges when we give the best of ourselves to others. It grows in direct proportion to how much we’re willing to give away. And it can be measured by the leadership we bring about in others.
Talk about a paradox. And talk about an opportunity. As communicators we are uniquely placed within the ebb and flow of organizational life to learn from others and practice the principles of leadership in all we do. When we do this, we add value to our work and credibility to ourselves as professionals. I’m looking forward to learning from you as we discover the curious nature of communication leadership. As Carl Sagan once said, “Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.”
By Elise Roaf
I have been intrigued by the subject of leadership for a long time. Like most of us I’ve worked with leaders good, bad and mediocre, inspired by some and bored by others.
Early in my communication career I found myself drawn to exploring the nature of business and that led me to discover more about the leaders who so profoundly affect organizational life. I was an absolute sponge for the stuff. Looking back, I realize my early interest probably had more to do with wanting to change the leaders I worked for. How successful do you think I was at that? It took a while but I came to understand the inevitable: When it comes to leadership, I could only change myself. Hmmm. Back to square one.
So now that we’re at square one where to begin? There are numerous great books on leadership to be read and inspired by. Here are just a few of my favorites:
Michael Fullan, Leading in a Culture of Change
Daniel Goleman, Richard Boyatzis and Annie McKee, Primal Leadership: Realizing the Power of Emotional Intelligence
John P. Kotter on What Leaders Really Do
James Kouzes and Barry Posner, The Leadership Challenge
I have also learned from the writings of William Bridges, Margaret Wheatley, Peter Senge, Dave Ulrich and others whose perspectives have further enriched my understanding. One thing is certain. There are more books on leadership than there is time to read them. That’s why recommendations from others go a long way to making the best of our reading time.
What about you? What books on leadership are at the top of your list? What would you recommend to this community?
by Elise Roaf
Not that it should have come as a surprise to those of us who study organizational behavior. Flattened hierarchies and virtual enterprises have increased workplace complexity while reducing institutional support. We’ve gone from relying on org charts to depending on social networks. So now, more than ever, successful professionals must leverage their relationships.
Which makes me wonder about the connection between personal networks and organizational change . . .
In the pursuit of “hard skill” competencies and formal strategies we may have failed to notice that the most effective change agents are those individuals who have placed themselves at the center of intricate webs of relationships. How to help employees build and maintain these unique relationships may be the most effective change-management “technique” a leader could learn.
The new business fundamentals include an increasing focus on knowledge, trust, relationships, and communities. And social networks – those ties among individuals that are based on mutual trust, shared work experiences, and common physical and virtual spaces are in many senses the true structure of today’s organizations. Anything you as a leader can do to nurture these mutually rewarding, complex and shifting relationships will enhance the creativity and readiness for change within your team or throughout your organization.
This is true because your team or organization is an example of a complex adaptive system. In the natural world, examples of complex adaptive systems include brains, immune systems, and ant colonies. In each of these systems there is a network of individual “agents” acting in concert. In a brain the agents are nerve cells, enzymes, etc.; in a corporation the agents are departments, functions, individuals. Each agent functions in an environment produced by its interactions with other agents in the system. The relationships among agents are the conduits for the intelligence of the system. The more access agents have to one another, the more possibilities arise for creating innovative solutions to challenges faced by the whole system – and (as a direct consequence) the more prepared the system is to anticipate and react to change.
But, in order to capitalize on the business potential in relationships between people, trust has to be established. Trusting is not a matter of blind deference, but of placing – or refusing to place – trust with good judgment. In what are called “dense” relationships, the strength of connection is such that trust is taken for granted. In newer, less dense relationships, trust must be built.
Trust is the belief or confidence that one party has in the reliability, integrity and honesty of another party. It is the expectation that the faith one places in someone else will be honored. Or at least that is the definition of trust in its “benevolence-based” form. Another type of trust, “competence-based,” describes a relationship in which one party believes another to be knowledgeable about a given subject. When building personal networks, both types of trust are essential. People have to believe that you know what you’re talking about, that you have accurate information and expertise, but they also have to believe that you’re taking their perspectives and concerns to heart.
Another ingredient of trusting relationships is consistent credibility. One thing I’ve learned over the years is that you can talk until you’re blue in the face, but you will never create trust unless your sustained behavior parallels what you say. That’s why building trust can take so long. People are waiting to see a long-term, consistent pattern of behavior that is congruent with what you’ve been telling them.High-trust relationships are also very personal. Beyond the obvious link of work-related issues, we develop relationships through finding things in common: loving the same music, rooting for the same team, having children in same school, liking the same kind of food, or playing the same sport. And sometimes a leader has to create experiences that enable individuals to get to know one another as fellow human beings.
A story I often tell in my Creative Collaboration program is about Jeff Garbin, whose first management assignment was to help facilitate John Deere’s change from the “cell concept” of manufacturing in which employees merely performed one or two operations on a component before passing it on to the next cell to a “modular production system” in which all employees working on a given component would share equal responsibility for the finished product.
Along with the other new module leaders at Deere, it was Garbin’s job to help his employees through the transition – and he had inherited a problem. In Garbin’s words: “We had ten people working the early shift and five on the late one. There were people on the two shifts who had never spoken to one another before. They didn’t know each other, they came from different manufacturing disciplines and they had a reputation for not getting along. I had to build some kind of relationship between the two shifts – and I had to do it quickly. What I thought of was pretty simple, but it turned out to be very effective. I got everyone together in a room for a couple of hours, with no limits on what they were to discuss, except that it couldn’t be business-related. That was the beginning. Within three months, people started coming in early or staying late just so that they could talk with people on the other shift about what was happening at work.”
Another issue leaders should be aware of is motive. Ron Burt, of the University of Chicago, discovered through numerous studies that certain patterns of connections that individuals build with others brings them higher pay, earlier promotions, greater influence, better ideas, and overall greater career success. But the MIT study found that high-performers didn’t develop and maintain these networks because it was “political” or self-serving – but rather because it was a natural consequence of the most effective way to get work done. And the connections made with others worked in ways that were mutual and reciprocal.
I’m not saying that leaders should throw out all formal change-management strategies. But I am suggesting that leaders should understand that the social side of change – which includes building personal networks and developing trusting relationships – might prove to be the most powerful strategy of all.
According to IBM’s Global CEO Study 2006, competitive pressures and global market forces are driving 65% of the world’s top executives to plan radical changes at their companies over the next two years.
Looking over the results of this survey, it becomes very clear that CEOs today are looking at new kinds of innovation to drive substantial organizational change. It’s not just product innovation anymore. Now it’s about innovation in a business model, an operational process, or a management behavior. In making this point, one CEO commented that “The business model we choose will determine the success or failure of our strategy,” while another stated that “Products and services can be copied, the business model will be the differentiator.”
Fear is definitely a factor in the impetus for change. In fact, 61% of CEOs admit they fear that their competitors will make changes in their own business models that ultimately reshape the landscape of their respective industries. So CEOs want their companies to be ready to adapt rapidly – or, better still, be the company leading the industry transformation.
CEOs today want innovative ideas not only from employees but from customers, and trading partners. This is in direct contrast to past corporate philosophy, where innovation was considered too critical and proprietary to involve outsiders. In fact, the study highlights the link between external collaboration and financial performance. Top performing organizations used external sources 30% more than under-performers. On this kind of collaboration, one CEO stated that, “We need third parties as benchmarks and sparring partners. This also helps our staff broaden their views.” While another simply stated, “If you think you have all of the answers internally, you are wrong.”
While a large portion of CEOs recognize that big changes are on the horizon, a significant portion indicated some trepidation about their company’s ability to execute the necessary changes. As they contemplate this radical change, only 20% of CEOs say they’ve been highly successful in such endeavors in the past.
So what does all this mean to communicators? Well, for starters – here are the messages you’ll be asked to spread throughout the organization for the next couple of years:
WANT TO INCREASE YOUR VALUE TO THE ORGANIZATION?
Become a top-knotch collaborator.
Benchmark everywhere.
Constantly reinvent your job.
Nurture innovation in your team or work group.
Become a champion of change.
Do all that – and the future is yours!
Carol Kinsey Goman, Ph.D. is the author of nine books including CREATIVITY IN BUSINESS and “THIS ISN’T THE COMPANY I JOINED” — How to Lead in a Business Turned Upside Down. She delivers keynote speeches and seminars to association and business audiences around the world. For more information or to book Carol as a speaker at one of your events, please call: 510-526-1727, email: CGoman@CKG.com, or visit her website: http://www.CKG.com.
Because of the bilateral surgery, Ray spent a full week in the hospital (instead of the usual three days) and I was with him every day. That gave me plenty of time to observe the hospital staff. And what I saw was almost as impressive as Ray’s speedy recovery. I was constantly surprised and delighted by the highly collaborative spirit of the team of physicians, nurses, therapists, and aids who worked on his case.
I was especially grateful because I know how rare it is to get this level of service. I’ve consulted with several healthcare organizations where, instead of patient-centric synergy, a silo mentality had taken over.
And healthcare isn’t the only industry dealing with silos . . .
A study by Industry Week found that business functions operating as silos are the biggest hindrance to corporate growth. A more recent American Management Association survey shows that 83 percent of executives said that silos existed in their companies and that 97 percent think they have a negative effect.
In a recent Wall Street Journal article on the latest business buzzwords, the word “unsiloing” was listed. Unsiloing mangles the noun silo to make a simple but important point: Managers must find ways to foster cooperation across departmental, hierarchical, and functional boundaries.
Which is no easy task.
Turf battles happen everywhere – in hospitals, government agencies, associations, school systems and private industry. Silos can be created around an individual, a group, a division, a function, or even a product line. Wherever it’s found, silo mentality becomes synonymous with power struggles, lack of cooperation, and loss of productivity. And always, the customer/client/patient is the ultimate loser.
I’ve seen firsthand what silos can do to an enterprise: The organization disintegrates into a group of isolated camps, with little incentive to collaborate, share information, or team up to pursue critical outcomes. Various groups develop impervious boundaries, neutralizing the effectiveness of people who have to interact across them. Local leaders focus on serving their individual agendas – often at the expense of the goals of the rest of the organization. The resulting internal battles over authority, finances and resources destroy productivity, and jeopardize the achievement of corporate objectives. Talented (and frustrated) employees walk out the door – or worse yet, stay and simply stop caring.
What can be done to tear down silos, reduce conflicts, and increase collaboration? Here are a few ideas:
Reward collaboration. Too many companies talk about collaboration yet reward individual achievement. Therefore, the first obvious solution is to change the reward system. Define and make collaborative performance objectives part of the employee review process. Recognize and promote people who work across organizational boundaries – and tell their stories to the whole organization.
Focus on innovation. Innovation is triggered by a cross-pollination of ideas, such as when the “right people” happen to meet at the right time and discover, in the course of conversation, that each has information needed by the other. It is in the combination and collision of ideas that creative breakthroughs most often occur. When an organization focuses on innovation, it does so by bringing together people with diverse perspectives and expertise – breaking down barriers and silos in the process.
Communicate transparently. In any organization, the way information is handled determines whether it becomes an obstacle to or an enabler of collaboration. Company-wide communication is a vitally important tool in breaking up silos or avoiding their creation. You need to make sure that every employee has access to the same candid information about how the company runs its business – its financial challenges, competitive pressures, and strategic initiatives.
Encourage networks. Employees with multiple networks throughout the organization facilitate collaboration. You can accelerate the flow of knowledge and information across boundaries by encouraging workplace relationships and communities. Use a tool like Social Network Analysis (SNA) to create a visual model of current networks so you can reinforce the connections and help fill the gaps.
Create alignment. You want your people to understand their roles and what they do to help the organization succeed. You also want them to understand the roles of others. To help combat silo mentality, departments and teams need to know how they support or influence other areas of the organization. They need to understand the importance of working in concert with other areas to achieve crucial strategic objectives.
Mix it up. Encourage teams from different areas of an organization to work together. Find opportunities for managers and other employees in the organization to collaborate in cross-functional teams. Rotate personnel in various jobs around the organization. Invite managers from other areas of the organization to visit your team meetings, even making them members of the group, as you work on mutually beneficial efforts.
Focus on the customer. Nothing is more important in an organization – whether it’s a for-profit company or a non-profit group – that staying close to the end user of the service or product you offer. Unfortunately, within silos, the focus is typically on internal issues rather than on response to customers. You can refocus the organization by sharing marketplace information and customer feedback. Better yet, bring in a panel of end users to report on their experience so that everyone understands how the enterprise as a whole is meeting, exceeding, o
Carol Kinsey Goman, Ph.D. is the author of nine books including CREATIVITY IN BUSINESS and “THIS ISN’T THE COMPANY I JOINED” — How to Lead in a Business Turned Upside Down. She delivers keynote speeches and seminars to association and business audiences around the world. For more information or to book Carol as a speaker at one of your events, please call: 510-526-1727, email: CGoman@CKG.com, or visit her website: http://www.CKG.com.
Answer: Location, location, location.
Question: What’s the secret of organizational change?
Answer: Communication, communication, communication.
Which is not to say that the top-down cascade communication strategies of the past are sufficient. They’re not. What is taking their place is a broader, more inclusive definition of communication. Here are five ways to add strategic value to your change communications.
1. Don’t just recite the facts – interpret them.
Facts are neutral. People make decisions based on what facts mean to them, not on the data itself. What people really want to know is, “What sense do you make of this? What is the conclusion? What does it mean to us?”
2. Utilize the power of symbolic communication.
There are a thousand ways to communicate symbolically. There are ceremonies, awards, logos, icons, drawings, and metaphors. Best of all, there are real-life leadership behaviors that “speak” volumes.
Folks at BBC still remember when Michael Grade, then controller and now director-general of BBC One, visited the news department one day when they were short-staffed. He pitched in and acted as a junior researcher to cover a shipwreck incident, finding a member of the coast guard to interview. That example raced through the company grapevine to become a positive symbol of corporate culture change.
3. Tell more stories.
Storytelling is an important tool to connect with audiences on an emotional level. In communication terms, storytelling is a “pull” strategy, in which listeners are invited to participate in the experience and to imagine acting in the mental movie that the storyteller is presenting. Stories resonate with adults in ways that can bring them back to a childlike open-mindedness — in which they are less resistant to new and different ideas.
4. Turn first line supervisors into first-rate communicators.
There’s little doubt that one’s direct boss is a crucial link in the change-communication delivery system. Who better to align employee efforts to the change goals? But most first-line supervisor are lacking a key communication element.
While consulting for a utility company in New York, I was observing several supervisors delivering a change message to their teams. As you would expect, there was a great variety of styles and expertise on display: Some managers were glib ad-libbers while others were stilted and read from a script. Some were well liked and others were barely tolerated by the people they managed. But all the supervisors had one weakness in common. Not one of them had the training or skills to turn a monologue into a dialogue.
5. Harvest the grapevine.Research suggests that up to 70% of all organization information circulates through the grapevine, yet few communicators have taken advantage of the informal channels in their organizations. Gossip moves through people who gravitate into an intermediate position, making connections between individuals and factions. Those who control the gossip flow hold a lot of power.
The company’s commitment to leadership development is in direct contrast to what I’ve seen in many other organizations. Definitive, purposeful succession planning is rare, even at the very highest corporate levels. Too often the “bench strength” in leadership is so poor that careers stall because no one else has been groomed as a management successor. Companies that don’t address this issue now are going to be at a serious disadvantage in the very near future.
By the year 2011, the leading edge of the Baby Boom workforce will be 65 years old – eligible for full retirement. And that generation’s collective wisdom will leave with them unless it has been transferred to younger employees. Which in turn makes succession planning and knowledge sharing increasing important to an organization’s financial strategy.
Effective leadership is a crucial source of competitive advantage, and corporations can’t just wait for leaders to arrive, fully developed. Organizations must actively seek out people with leadership potential and find ways to nurture and develop that potential. It takes a serious commitment of both time and resources to do it right. But that is the key to what separates great companies from good companies. Great companies make developing leaders a priority.
Here’s how . . .
The process begins with the early identification of leadership talent, and the realization that under certain circumstances, leadership potential is easy to spot. In an area of complex problems or in times of crisis, there are people who organically rise to the top. They are proactive, reliable, thoughtful, and they automatically take control. These natural leaders speak up – and other people listen to them because they’re providing solutions, not just stating problems.
Joseph Pieroni, president of Sankyo Pharma, notes the emergence of informal leadership in his organization: “Every time we are in a tough situation, people point to the same two or three individuals because we feel confident these ‘leaders’ will go well beyond their area of responsibility – and do whatever is needed.”
Identifying new leaders is something that all current leaders should be responsible for – and that policy is most effective if it starts at the top. CEOs and presidents need to spend time focused on this issue, assessing leadership strengths as well as current and future organizational requirements. And leadership development should start early. Ten or fifteen years before a person is expected to be at their full potential, current management should be discussing how to develop this individual. The most valuable conversation will center on how people use their time: How can their skills be leveraged in new ways? Who needs to know these people? Who should be working with them, coaching and mentoring them? What experiences would be the most advantageous?
Spotting potential leaders is also a smart move for managers who want to advance their own careers. As one savvy leader told me, “The minute I begin a new assignment, I start looking for people who can be groomed as my successor. I know that I won’t be able to take the next step until someone else can take over my current job.”
However future leaders are identified, the next step is to find ways to nurture their potential. Along with formal educational opportunities, mentoring relationships, and personal coaches, leading-edge companies make sure that key candidates receive the kind of assignments that help them grow and develop.
The head of Ketchum’s brand practice, also the associate director of their New York office, was offered the director position in Atlanta as a way of rounding out her expertise. That was a decision made to advance her career, and looked at from the standpoint of what would add the most value for her. Another example from Ketchum is a director from the San Francisco office who was moved to a leadership role in London so that he could gain international experience.
But leadership development isn’t only about acquiring business skills. It’s also about effective mental preparation. According to Bob Dilenschneider, CEO of The Dilenschneider Group, the key is learning to keep a sense of perspective: “Keeping your balance at all times can be extremely difficult. Since leaders play the game at the highest and lowest levels, they experience the glory of the victories as well as the disappointment of setbacks and failures. The trick is not to let the glory go to your head nor let the disappointments devastate you.”
I agree with Bob. Giving people the freedom to succeed and fail – and the guidance to help them deal with both – may be the best leadership development strategy of all.
Not likely.
Elephants are those forbidden subjects and hard questions that lurk in the back of everyone’s mind – and which senior management hopes will go unnoticed.
Every organization has its own elephants. But if you listed them, you’d be surprised at how the same themes exist in company after company. Here are some verbatim examples from email surveys and focus groups at various organizations I’ve worked with.
* Senior leadership paints a picture of Utopia. What world are they in?
* I’ve met with the mayor of this city more times than I’ve met with our company leaders.
* We have managers, not leaders.
* How can our executives say “we’re all in this together” when they get all the benefits and we get all the cuts?
* Our best people are leaving and the “dead wood” is staying.
* No one cares how hard we work.
* Loyalty is a one-way street here.
* They talk about collaboration, but we don’t get rewarded for it.
* The wrong people get promoted into leadership positions.
* Leaders don’t tell us the whole story.
What if, at the next all-hands meeting, leaders talked about the elephants in the room? What if they used that opportunity to set a tone of transparency and candor? How do you think employees would react?
Well, in my experience, a well-planned session around these unspeakable issues builds employee engagement better than all the “rah-rah” motivational speeches ever could. It breaks down barriers, creates equity between leadership and workers, and jolts people out of their usually complacent or skeptical mindsets.
Here’s how I’d design it:
1. Use email and focus groups to uncover key issues. Capture exact words and phrases.
2. Create a “Top 10 Elephants” list.
3. Prepare executives for the process, but don’t let them see the list beforehand.
4. Bring in an outside moderator to ask pointed questions and push for real answers.
Sound risky? Sure. But how risky is it to think employees can focus on work while surrounded by a herd of elephants?
The company 3M, one of the first organizations to fully embrace innovation as the essence of its corporate brand, defines it as “new ideas – plus action or implementation – which result in an improvement, a gain, or a profit.”
Good definition, but it needs another element. People.
Innovation is people using their imagination, experience, curiosity, instincts and relationships to develop and implement ideas that create value.
Innovation is the fuel of our future — new products, new services, new markets. But it is isn’t just the “next big thing.” It’s also a million small things. Innovation is about people working within a philosophy of continuous improvement and change.
If you are looking to communicate this kind of innovation, here are a few thoughts to keep in mind:
1) Let leaders know that whether they lead a team, a work group, or an organization, they can’t innovate alone. They must involve and rely on others.
Isolating leaders as the sole visionaries in the organization simply won’t cut it anymore. Thirty years ago, by the time an idea got to the senior leadership, it had been sifted through several layers of management. Now, savvy executives encourage e-mails and phone calls directly from people on the plant floor to get their opinions and suggestions.
2) Help leaders recognize that the heart of innovation is trial and error. While I’ve never worked with an organization that truly encouraged failure, I have worked with leaders (at all levels) who created environments where failure is acceptable. Where it becomes a learning experience, and not something to be punished.
3) Tell stories that show how mistakes can become successes. One such story: For years Charles Goodyear labored to find a way to make rubber commercially useful. Then one day Goodyear accidentally spilled a mixture of rubber and sulfur he was holding on a hot stove. The chemical reaction of heat applied to this mixture resulted in the discovery of the vulcanization process used to manufacture rubber tires. And with that “mistake,” an industry was born.
4) Help stamp out the Not Invented Here (NIH) mindset. An example of generating motivation to break that mindset came from General Electric in the days when Jack Welch was in charge. Welch made it clear that the sharing of good ideas across the organization was a high management priority. This posed a challenge for GE managers because of the size and diversity of the company. If you did have a good idea, how could you identify the people in other businesses who might benefit from it?
The Chief Learning Officer at GE came up with a simple solution. He created a “hot line” to be manned by his team. This operated similar to a dating service – only instead of matching people to other people, it matched good ideas with business units that might benefit from them.
5) Whenever you communicate this topic, look for ways to broaden the definition of innovation. Go beyond the creation of new products and services to include strategic innovation – new ideas about mission, values, and goals; administrative innovation – changes in internal systems; field level innovation – front line workers inventing solutions to better serve their customers; and incremental change that encompasses everyone in every job thinking about ways to do things differently and ways to do things better.
Carol Kinsey Goman, Ph.D. is the author of nine books including CREATIVITY IN BUSINESS and “THIS ISN’T THE COMPANY I JOINED” — How to Lead in a Business Turned Upside Down. She delivers keynote speeches and seminars to association and business audiences around the world. For more information or to book Carol as a speaker at one of your events, please call: 510-526-1727, email: CGoman@CKG.com, or visit her website: http://www.CKG.com.
I thought of the Warren Bennis quote (the myth of leaders being “born” that way) when I read about a new book due for publication next month:
According to the “Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance,” the trait we commonly call talent is highly overrated. Or, put another way, expert performers — whether in sports or surgery, ballet or computer programming, music or leadership — are nearly always made, not born.
One of the most interesting findings from this research is that there is little hard evidence that anyone could attain a level of exceptional performance without spending a lot of time perfecting it.
This is not to say that all people have equal potential. But it does mean that a certain kind of practice (called “deliberate practice” in the study) is needed to build on whatever potential you have. So, our mothers were right, it’s practice that makes perfect – if that practice has two key elements: immediate feedback and specific goal-setting.
According to the findings, rather than saying you don’t have the talent for something, a more accurate statement would be that you don’t have the desire to devote the time, energy and focus that it would take for you to excel.
Thinking of changing jobs – careers – industries? Then find something you love and go for it! If you don’t love what you do, you are unlikely to put out enough effort to get very good. And if you do love your work, you’ll be surprised at how “talented” you can become.
What’s your opinion of this research? Do you agree or disagree with the findings?
Carol Kinsey Goman, Ph.D. is the author of nine books including CREATIVITY IN BUSINESS and “THIS ISN’T THE COMPANY I JOINED” — How to Lead in a Business Turned Upside Down. She delivers keynote speeches and seminars to association and business audiences around the world. For more information or to book Carol as a speaker at one of your events, please call: 510-526-1727, email: CGoman@CKG.com, or visit her website: http://www.CKG.com.
The company 3M, one of the first organizations to fully embrace innovation as the essence of its corporate brand, defines it as “new ideas – plus action or implementation – which result in an improvement, a gain, or a profit.”
Good definition, but it needs another element. People.
Innovation is people using their imagination, experience, curiosity, instincts and relationships to develop and implement ideas that create value.
Innovation is the fuel of our future — new products, new services, new markets. But it is isn’t just the “next big thing.” It’s also a million small things. Innovation is about people working within a philosophy of continuous improvement and change.
If you are looking to communicate this kind of innovation, here are a few thoughts to keep in mind:
1) Let leaders know that whether they lead a team, a work group, or an organization, they can’t innovate alone. They must involve and rely on others.
Isolating leaders as the sole visionaries in the organization simply won’t cut it anymore. Thirty years ago, by the time an idea got to the senior leadership, it had been sifted through several layers of management. Now, savvy executives encourage e-mails and phone calls directly from people on the plant floor to get their opinions and suggestions.
2) Help leaders recognize that the heart of innovation is trial and error. While I’ve never worked with an organization that truly encouraged failure, I have worked with leaders (at all levels) who created environments where failure is acceptable. Where it becomes a learning experience, and not something to be punished.
3) Tell stories that show how mistakes can become successes. One such story: For years Charles Goodyear labored to find a way to make rubber commercially useful. Then one day Goodyear accidentally spilled a mixture of rubber and sulfur he was holding on a hot stove. The chemical reaction of heat applied to this mixture resulted in the discovery of the vulcanization process used to manufacture rubber tires. And with that “mistake,” an industry was born.
4) Help stamp out the Not Invented Here (NIH) mindset. An example of generating motivation to break that mindset came from General Electric in the days when Jack Welch was in charge. Welch made it clear that the sharing of good ideas across the organization was a high management priority. This posed a challenge for GE managers because of the size and diversity of the company. If you did have a good idea, how could you identify the people in other businesses who might benefit from it?
The Chief Learning Officer at GE came up with a simple solution. He created a “hot line” to be manned by his team. This operated similar to a dating service – only instead of matching people to other people, it matched good ideas with business units that might benefit from them.
5) Whenever you communicate this topic, look for ways to broaden the definition of innovation. Go beyond the creation of new products and services to include strategic innovation – new ideas about mission, values, and goals; administrative innovation – changes in internal systems; field level innovation – front line workers inventing solutions to better serve their customers; and incremental change that encompasses everyone in every job thinking about ways to do things differently and ways to do things better.
Carol Kinsey Goman, Ph.D. is the author of nine books including CREATIVITY IN BUSINESS and “THIS ISN’T THE COMPANY I JOINED” — How to Lead in a Business Turned Upside Down. She delivers keynote speeches and seminars to association and business audiences around the world. For more information or to book Carol as a speaker at one of your events, please call: 510-526-1727, email: CGoman@CKG.com, or visit her website: http://www.CKG.com.
Mark van Vugt, Professor of Social Psychology at the University of Kent, thinks that leadership is genetic. His theory, published in the journal “Personality and Social Psychology Review”, states that leadership is the product of human evolutionary history and, as such, played a crucial role in the success of humans and is now deeply embedded in our genes; so much so that the human brain possesses a hardwired leadership prototype, a fixed idea of how a leader should behave and what they should look like, that is innate and difficult to change.
A few thoughts from his theory:
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For millions of years there was no formal leadership in human groups. Essentially, it was the best hunter or the fiercest warrior that emerged as leader. In present times, we still evaluate leaders in that way. The most admired leaders are the ones that help us defeat an enemy group – or unite various factions.
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Living for millions of years in small groups with close personal contacts between leaders and followers has ensured that what we are looking for in leadership is an intimate personal touch. Ideally we would like our leaders to know us personally and take an active interest in our lives. Successful leaders are still the ones that make people feel special.
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Leaders who try to dominate followers are particularly disliked. In ancestral times, overbearing and selfish leaders were simply ignored, ridiculed or sometimes even killed. This egalitarian ethos is still visible in modern society.
Carol Kinsey Goman, Ph.D. is the author of nine books including CREATIVITY IN BUSINESS and “THIS ISN’T THE COMPANY I JOINED” — How to Lead in a Business Turned Upside Down. She delivers keynote speeches and seminars to association and business audiences around the world. For more information or to book Carol as a speaker at one of your events, please call: 510-526-1727, email: CGoman@CKG.com, or visit her website: http://www.CKG.com.
We know intuitively that Mr. Strasberg’s reasoning is sound, but leaders seldom apply it in the workplace. Instead, most workers report that they are singled out for notice only when there is a problem with their performance. Here is a question I often ask my audiences: If your boss told you that she noticed something about your performance and wanted you to come to her office to discuss it, would you assume that she had noticed an area of your special competence and wanted to bring it to your attention? Among the majority of audience members who respond with nervous laughter, only a few hands raise.
Bosses tend to notice and comment on weaknesses and mistakes more than they comment on talents and strengths. While continuous learning and self-improvement are valid concepts for future success, focusing solely on what is lacking leads to an unbalanced evaluation of employees’ worth and potential. It is no wonder then that most workers have problems taking risks and confronting uncertain situations.
Certainly, if you manage people or lead a team, a powerful change-management strategy is to help people focus on their strengths and find ways to build on them that is congruent with the direction the organization is taking. It’s the same thing in change communication. Approaches (such as Appreciate Inquiry) that look at what an organization already does well – and builds on those accomplishments to be even better – energizes and stimulates people to change because it is based on talents already possessed.
Carol Kinsey Goman, Ph.D. is the author of nine books including CREATIVITY IN BUSINESS and “THIS ISN’T THE COMPANY I JOINED” — How to Lead in a Business Turned Upside Down. She delivers keynote speeches and seminars to association and business audiences around the world. For more information or to book Carol as a speaker at one of your events, please call: 510-526-1727, email: CGoman@CKG.com, or visit her website: http://www.CKG.com.