This new game that I happen to be building a healthy addiction to has an Augmented Reality option. You can look through your camera at whatever is in front of you and see it augmented by a little creature jumping around pecking (many more pecking critters than any other kind in my experience) or otherwise interacting with you. I am sure you’ve heard of it. It’s Pokemon Go!
Now, I also recently had the opportunity to attend a Bay Area Organizational Development Network (BAODN) event in San Francisco where the topic was, among other things, Improv. One of the improv activities we played used a very similar as it encouraged you to imagine an augmented reality and interact with that reality.
I’ve got the whole world in my hands!
Both Pokemon Go and Improv activities like ‘Three Line Environment‘ increase our focus on the present environment. They encourage us to understand the environment, notice changes or uniqueness about that environment and then, using that knowledge, decide how to interact with the environment. These are great tips for considering before you come up with a plan to address and manage a change coming your way or that you are helping with.
These augmented realities remind me how it is important to be present and consider how your actions impact others. As a set of reminders here are three:
Observe your current environment
Notice how people and things (Eevees and Psyducks) interact with it
Consider how your involvement in that environment will make a difference
These trendy new games or engaging group exercises are great reminders of things we already know. Use them and other activities to remind your stakeholder group about how they impact the environment around them and how they can choose how they change it.
There was a haze over my vision, everything I saw was mottled and almost blurry, I just wasn’t engaged and focused on the change at hand. You see, I’d let myself get off kilter. One too many assaults on my boundaries at work, a few too many requests and directives from leadership and peers, most of which I didn’t say “No”, like I should have to. A cramped leg, a growing to-do list, a missed lunch with a friend. All of this added up to me being hazy. Hardly ever the best state to be in, even worse with a major change in hand.
When you find yourself in situations like mine above, it’s time to flush your mood. A distraction to the descent and opportunity for your mind and body to re-engage on the upswing.
Mindful engagement is a tried-and-true method of getting back to center and bringing back some focus. I have a great app on my phone, Headspace, which has some guided meditation exercises which work wonders when you wonder what works. I also have a luxury of a SomaDome at work, where I can engage in a guided event with lights and waves flowing through me. However, free meditation tools sit on YouTube and all over the internet. Try one.
Another way I reset my engagement, is to reset myself physically. I appreciate the power of movement. Getting up and out of my current environment and changing my perspective works wonders. Whether a walk around the block, down to a park/trail or a more robust run through along a levee, each can bring me out of the funk and back on track.
And I can’t speak highly enough of the final tool I use to change my mood away from a change-dampening one to a change-engaging one. That is laughter and humor. I good giggle goes farther than any of the above to freshen my perspective and laugh away the lament. Pulling up these Saturday Night Live skits where the actor is breaking character to laugh/snicker/smirk just like I am the other side of the screen really lightens the mood and leaves me, 4 minutes later, ready for the next big change.
As I write about re-framing my own mood, I recognize that people impacted by the changes I am helping also are frequently in a mood themselves. And while popping on a guided meditation track at the beginning of a team meeting can work in some circumstances, not everyone is receptive to the methods I describe above. In situations where you feel a stakeholder/friend/colleague you are interacting with is experiencing something similar to what I describe above. it is important to give time and space for them to reframe the situation and flush the situation. You might bring up a distracting and non-sequitor social media post or just put your agenda on hold for a moment to allow for them to re-engage. No matter what approach you take, do something or the haze will take over.
Bring in the closer! That rings out across baseball stadiums across the world. Specialists who are best at managing a specific situation are becoming prevalent across the rosters of baseball teams from Oakland (Go A’s) to the Netherlands (yes, they mount a team every once in a while).
While change specialists are helpful in the corporate environment, more often than not we all need to help drive change and don’t always have the luxury of calling the closer.
I have worked across, inside and for organizations driving transformational changes. I currently manage a team and with that comes the luxury of being able to select and manage talent. This becomes one of those rare times when I get to interview for and discover change agents.
Now, let me be clear, I don’t hire change managers exclusively. In fact, justifying the hire of a pure change specialist seems to be an insurmountable challenge in a technology-driven software company. However as I hire architects, project managers and program leaders I never stray from my allegiance to change management skills and competencies.
The following set of competencies I seek is not indifferent from many leadership skills lists I have seen floating around the internet, and I do not profess to be an expert talent scout or leadership savant. However in this day-and-age the following skills always help:
Consultative: The ability and aptitude to approach a problem and change consultatively. Not as a pure export, nor as an innocent bystander, but a as a consultative partner towards a better end-state.
Empathetic: Considerate of the people impacted by and needed for the change
Inquisitive: Today, sometimes referred to as the constant learner, but no matter the label, someone who is interested in learning more about people, their opinions and ideals and how things work around here.
Diligent: While many of the above skills align to listening and learning, it is equally important for me to discover diligence and accountability in a candidate. The ability to drive towards an outcome and get things moving and then keep them moving.
These skills, interests and capabilities can manifest themselves in many different ways. I find conversations with candidates for positions on my or others’ teams flowing between deep and broad, detailed and self-aggrandizing. I am open to your ideas, and am very interested in how you would approach situations. Everyone has something to share and their experience to date in their life is unlike anyone else’s. Discovering this makes interviewing people, for me, one of my most rewarding day-to-day tasks.
I personally value the talents effective change agents have. I look throughout my life to surround myself with people who have those talents, both so I can learn from them, but also so I can extend the capability of the organization I support. More change agents helps more change happen more effectively.
I look forward to talking to you too soon. And let’s bring in the closer together!
David is struggling, his resource center agents only have so much time in the day. They support an ever-growing population of new employees, contractors and interns. He needs to change things up and find better ways for employees to find their own way without making a call every time. Ajay is working on a project that will change the way agents get and receive requests from employees, he reaches out to me to help craft a plan to manage this change for all our agents. Wait a minute? That is going to impact the same stakeholders David’s change will, as well as two other things I know are going on. It’s time to work together more effectively to align our changes.
Step Right Up, Read All About It!
In every large tech company in California, (like the one I work for) and most companies, anywhere around the world, change is constant. News of the changes coming and going flows through informal channels, like the picture shared above, as well as from the all-hands, manager passdowns and other formal channels. How can we, as change professionals, help manage the flow of changes to stakeholders inside and outside the company?
Well, no matter my position in the company, I have taken time to describe and visualize the portfolio of changes I see, hear and understand. This picture becomes a constant companion for me as I engage and support the organization. I have held it in my pocket, had a slide handy to tack into any presentation, formalized it with robust portfolio management tools and sketched it again and again on white-boards. No matter how it is displayed and developed, it remains a powerful tool.
Knowledge is power they say. Well, knowledge applied with a purpose is even more powerful. And knowing about changes coming to affect a stakeholder is a quick way to endear yourself to their struggle. While I prefer to listen when engaged with a stakeholder, I have discovered that sharing information about upcoming, considered or possible changes always triggers a response and deeper conversation with that stakeholder. I find that pulling out that picture of known changes and discussing the visual always adds to it and helps me extend my knowledge and allow for new insights into how the current portfolio of change impacts the organization.
Change portfolios can be managed or at least described through a centralized or de-centralized change management team. Since I joined the corporate hierarchy over ten years ago I have moved frequently between centralized and de-centralized organizations. All the roles I have had have been shared service roles supporting the execution of some or all of our corporate strategy. I have noticed little difference in how I am my team of project, change and portfolio managers drive change through an organization. The way we work remains the same regardless of how our organization is structured. However, I have noticed a few differences:
Centralized PMO/CMO organization have an explicit responsibility to document and manage a portfolio of change, however receive less access to information because they become ‘them’ not ‘us’.
De-Centralized project and change management resources certainly become ‘us’ rather than ‘them’, however struggle to find time to share experiences and insights that could build a better picture of the change portfolio
Centralized change portfolio management becomes, at least under my watch, a sought-after partner on changes, however struggle with resourcing the mid-size changes that could benefit most from their support
With both organizational structures, one thing remains the same. The people who are managing change have a moral responsibility to collaborate and share insights. A portfolio of change cannot be developed by a team of mavericks. The constant flow of information and sharing of the power it provides only serves to strengthenand expand the value of the visual change portfolio.
Therefore, the strongest contributor to success of any individual trying to help organizations manage the constant flow of change is that individual’s ability to gain and maintain trust with his or her peers and stakeholders. Trust reduces inhibitions. Trust creates flow of information and insights. Trust provides a safe place to talk, be heard and share. Trust your change managers. They are there to help manage the change you hired them to help with, but also to manage the changes coming at your constantly from every direction. Share with your change manager, and they will share with you.
Tweetable Moment: Be like a 4 year old and ask Why? You will likely discover a lot!
How do you discover Why?
How do you uncover your feelings and perception about a change?
How do you learn?
As we change we constantly learn. We learn new ways to engage, work, love and play. We learn because we are human and have a thirst for knowledge. There are many different ways people learn and as change leaders and coaches we can help people along this journey of discovery.
There is a lean concept called, “The Five Why’s”. As with almost every lean concept, it is pretty simple (as all the waste of the concept has, of course, been stripped out). Ask Why? Keep asking Why? Until you discover what you are looking for. It utilizes the principle of Shoshin, or “The Beginner’s Mind”: To approach a new change as a beginner would and be inquisitive in your discovery.
I personally greatly appreciate this concept and have used it as I drive change with others. I coach both resistors and supporters to approach the change with Shoshin and discover for themselves their perception of the change and get to the bottom of why that perception exists.
Together through this coaching exercise we can together discover their Why? This is helpful to me, the change manager as it helps me understand their position and even, sometimes, when the why’s get deep, how their core values influence their position on this change. This is change manager gold. And the exercise of discovering it is much like digging for gold; however your tool is not a sluice or shovel but a simple three-letter word: Why?
Tweetable Moment: Volunteering is a personal choice, your role is to create an environment where people choose to volunteer to help you.
This morning I setup a table on the playground of my son’s elementary school. I put out a folding project-board with pictures and graphs showing how school-funding in California works (it is rather complicated). I setup a few piles of knick-knacks and tchotchkes and put on a welcoming smile. In no time I was swarmed by kids. Some of the fifth graders were reading the information board, most of the first graders were jockeying for position to get bracelets and necklaces with the school foundation’s logo on them. Then, slowly, the parents came to see what was going on. They hovered behind the wall of kids, but some were curious. A few asked questions and I approached most to give them a knick-knack, answer a question or suggest ways they could learn more or, even better, volunteer to help in the future. Then the bell rang and everyone scurried off to class, work and the rest of their lives.
I was creating an environment. A place where people would feel comfortable to engage, ask questions or volunteer to participate in helping with a change I was very passionate about (Education in California). I did not tell them what to do, I shared with them ways they could help make up their own minds and opinions and choose how to engage in the change. Creating an environment rich with information and enrichment will help each change you work on. If you spend time creating that environment, you will have stakeholders step into it and engage. Then they can opt-in, on their own accord, to the change you are enabling.
During a recent session where we were discussion best practice facilitation techniques, the concept of twice as much preparation as execution came up. I strongly adhere to this principle and spend time before any event, whether it be a school table or a facilitated problem solving session considering and preparing the environment I want the group to volunteer to enter and engage with. And the primary goal I have with any environment, is to make it comfortable. Whether it is knick-knacks or food, reduced distractions or pleasant sounds, investing in your environment will pay dividends. Invite people into the conversation about your change. Just as you would invite a friend to chat about things important to you both in your living room.
I discovered a very simple, yet provocative article on volunteering and gathering volunteers. It has a few interesting tips on engaging volunteers that apply directly to building an environment for your change to succeed:
Post a “Position Available” – Clearly state what is available and what help you need. Clear, certain expectations of any role with the volunteer opportunity or change.
Remind people that “There is a Lot You Can Do” – Make engagement attainable. It need not be an overwhelming barrage, state what are the baby steps people can take to opt-in and engage.
“Bring Your Friends” – Show how they will gain affiliation by participation. By volunteering to participate in your change people will gain friendships, build on existing friendships and gain greater affiliation across the organization
Ask “Would You Help” – Asking people directly for help shows that you think they can. It is empowering to be asked to help, and it provides an opportunity to have a conversation and learn about their interest or lack of to help.
“Thanks for Your Interest” – Simple thank you for any level (even stopping by a table on the playground) goes a long way.
This time of year the weather changes. Where I live, in the California Bay Area, the weather changes are relatively subtle, however each year the weather does change and one day you wake up and it is time to wear gloves on the ride into work. I find it tricky on cold mornings because I tend to listen to the radio, and when something funny comes on I smile, and the cold wind against my teeth as I ride my bike down the leaf-blown street is not entirely comfortable. This is my signal that the environment around me has changed and autumn and winter are upon us.
When you leave the house you look into the sky, or check the weather app on your phone to determine if you should bring along an umbrella. The reliability of the weather forecast may not be high, however at least it gives you a clue towards what outcome you can expect from the day’s sky.
The weather forecast for the environment around the change you are managing is an important artifact to have at your side when you are working to plan the next engagement with your stakeholders. Recognizing that the environment around you, your stakeholders and your change is constantly changing. One day you may be engaging people who are excited and expectant because the holiday party is coming up. Another day you may be engaging people who are downtrodden and frustrated because their parking spots were cordoned off because of construction in the area. You never can fully predict or realize the full extent of the impact the external environment will have on the people impacted by your change. You can only hope to be sensitive to those, sometimes subtle shifts in the climate and pack a pair of gloves or an umbrella.
Yesterday a Sharknado hit the LA Basin (via a camp film on SyFy). Watching the tragedy transpire (and there was tragedy all around, especially in the quality of the film, dialogue and acting) I came to recognize several ways that applying a sound change management plan would have kept so many more people alive.
You see, a Sharknado is a dramatic change. It is something completely unexpected, some would even say unbelievable, and changes like that are approached with strong skepticism. While I appreciated the effort of the news station to get the word out, they commonly showed stock footage, not the gruesome truth. However, TV shots of the gruesome truth of the change are still not enough. People respond to TV news with disassociation. I remember the video of a lady watching COPS on TV as the cops actually busted into her house, catching her completely off guard. People do not associate the dramatic footage on TV with something that can affect them, you have to make it a direct What’s In It for Them statement.
So, now what WIIFM statement or other change management tactics could be applied to reduce the carnage in Sharknado? I remember Fin, the hero of the movie, calling out to people struggling with their cars to evacuate the area quickly because sharks could fly in at any moment. He used a personal plea and authority for change (he had a chainsaw in his hand). These were useful tactics. But they were not enough, the man in the car was eaten by a shark moments later. Fin, the hero and leader, should use have used direct guidance. This is a tool firefighters use in time of a fire. They don’t explain, they don’t question, they just tell you what you need to do and physically start to make you do it, exerting their full authority. When a Sharknado is bearing down on you, you look for authority, and follow authority more quickly.
An additional change management tactic that could be used is to increase people’s desire to change by the use of scapegoat or sacrifice. Showing the results of not participating in the change can have a compelling effect. In the early stages of the movie the sharks attacked through giant waves and ate people on the beach. This was the only time during the movie where the full team acted as one. Everyone ran, screaming. They had seen the results of non-participation and ran.
This topic may drive several articles, it is so rich. Whatever transpires, it is critical to reinforce the change. We all now know that a Sharknado can happen, now we need to remember and Semper Paratus ~ Always be ready!
Trying to get the word out about change management and how it can help others?
As people come to me to ask about how to communicate and share principles of change management, I harken back to my favorite model to describe the audience themselves.
I use and appreciate the Prosci ADKAR model for the people side of change.
When people approach me to ask about building a curriculum for change management communications, I ask them to describe their audience and their goals using this model.
Apply ADKAR to your desired training outcomes
Are you trying to gain AWARENESS of change management principles from your change team?
Are you trying to build DESIRE to participate in and support your change management activities?
Are you trying to impact KNOWLEDGE to participants so they can manage change themselves?
Are you trying to help provide ABILITY to participants so they can see how they can do change management themselves?
Are you trying to REINFORCE the use of change management techniques?
Knowing this will help guide which modules, voice and tone you use in your training. One training size does not fit all!
Trust. Implicit trust in the relationship of a child and his parents. As we walk through the airport, I know the little boy I guide through the throngs does not know, or care where we are going. He is excited for the ride, the trip, the adventure, wherever it may take us.
Trust and hope are qualities associated with effective change. Those who trust you will follow. Those who don’t may falter. Hope for the adventure of making the change is what you can hope to create in those coming on the journey with you.
When you leave the house you look into the sky, or check the weather app on your phone to determine if you should bring along an umbrella. The reliability of the weather forecast may not be high, however at least it gives you a clue towards what outcome you can expect from the day’s sky.
Change Managed 