Creating Silos

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Silos

Is change breaking down your silos or creating more?  Here’s what we know about change.

  • Change creates feelings of uncertainty.
  • When we are uncertain, we don’t believe we have the answers, so we look for them elsewhere.
  • When looking elsewhere, we look to those sources and people we know and trust.
  • At work, that includes peers and leaders.
  • The peers and leaders we know best are those we work with most closely.

If this is the impact of uncertainty, what psychological incentive do you have to reach out of your comfort zone and breakdown the silos?  How do you encourage collaboration?

  • Create forums to meet people in the other silo(s). Earlier in my career, the bank I was working for acquired a competitor.  We were going to combine teams, bringing together two silos.  After the acquisition was finalized, we held a daylong meeting with the sole purpose of understanding what each member of the new team did and our approaches to our work.  After the meeting, we each had a far better understanding of who each person was and how we each worked. There was less uncertainty.
  • Find the common areas of uncertainty.  Talk about the elephant in the room.  The meeting I mentioned above reduced some areas of uncertainty and, honestly, created others.  What are we all unsure or unclear about?  During change we can feel that we want to be perceived as highly competent and in the know. Admitting we are uncertain about something requires vulnerability but it opens the door for real understanding.  Knowing others are going through the same experiences of uncertainty, especially because it feels negative, can create a sense of camaraderie.
  • Find or create the answers together.  Change can feel like it is happening to us and we have little control.  The reality is that we have significant control over how change is executed and how we interact with it.  If you don’t know something important, determine how you will find out.  Often, the way you’ll find or create the answers is by bringing others in, not shutting them out

Your Brain on Change

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man on elephant

Those of us that are of a certain age probably remember the ad ‘this is your brain on drugs’ with the egg sizzling in a frying pan. A very effective visual. You can argue whether it was an effective campaign.

There is a visual I’ve been using recently to help explain the neuroscience of change. Jonathan Haidt originally talked about it in The Happiness Hypothesis and it was made famous by Chip and Dan Heath in their book Switch.

Picture a rider and an elephant going down a path. The rider is the rational, thinking part of your brain. The elephant is the emotional part of your brain. The emotional brain is far older evolutionarily than the thinking brain. It is so old that some people refer to it as the reptilian brain. This is the area of the brain that responds to the environment. When danger is perceived, it triggers the flight or fight response. It is here that you determine whether you will take on the ‘danger’ or flee from it.

Under normal circumstances, it is surprisingly easy for the rider to control the elephant. The rider can guide the elephant down the path and make it comply to his or her wishes. Now introduce change. The brain perceives change as a potential danger. Why? Because it is uncertain, something we can’t predict, something that we have less control of than our current situation. And, with this potential danger, the emotional brain takes over. Think of an emotional elephant. One trying to decide whether to fight or flee what it has encountered on the path. How easy is it for the rider to control that elephant? The rider needs to put the rational aside and work with the emotion.

So, when you’re leading change, you need to make sure you are communicating to both the rider and the elephant. The rider needs to talk about what is happening, what the timeframe is, how it will be implemented, etc. The elephant needs to talk about the fact that change can be difficult and scary, it needs to have its emotions recognized, it needs to have an opportunity to vent its concerns and to replace the negative emotions with positive ones that allow it to move forward. Once the emotions are part of the conversation, the rider and elephant can begin working together again.

Five Secrets of Great Change Leaders

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Change LeadersAt one point or another in your career you will or have been asked to lead change. What does it take to be a great change leader?

  • You tell people why. Even if the current state of affairs isn’t great, it’s the one that feels comfortable. People need to be given a reason why to change. What the change is and how it will happen is good, helping me understand why is great.
  • You ask for help. Sometimes we think of a change leader as the person charging up the hill on the white horse and making things happen. They are the ones charging up the hill. However, he or she can’t be doing it alone. Great change leaders know you can’t do it alone and they ask for the help of others.
  • You plan well but you expect the change to change. You know that getting from here to there won’t necessarily go as planned, so you plan for unexpected twists and turns in the journey.
  • You communicate as transparently as possible and listen constantly. Great change leaders don’t just stand in front of large groups of people and give speeches. You listen to what other people have to say. You continually talk to people in a variety of settings and ways and make sure there are ways for people to respond, share ideas, find the blind spots, highlight the successes and discuss the failures. You don’t just share information, you share a part of yourself. You balance being strong with being vulnerable.
  • You love the journey. The great change leaders I’ve known really love the challenge of change. You love creating something new and better. You love getting people excited about the future and helping them believe that future can happen. You understand how difficult change can be but set high expectations because you believe it can and will happen. You love being able to look back and say, “We started over there and are now over here. Great work.”

What do you think it takes to be a great change leader?

Changing the Tire While the Bus is Going 60 mph

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Transforming an Organization

One of the issues I often hear from client during times of change is ‘how can I implement change when I can’t even keep up with what I’m doing now?’ People often feel like they have to change the tire and steer the the bus while it’s going 60 mph. Change is like that. The world and your business don’t stop so that you can transform the culture, the strategy or the organization.

However, there are some things that can help you slow the bus down while you’re changing the tire.

          • Separate the urgent from the important. There is always something that needs our ‘urgent’ attention at work. The key is to decide if it’s urgent and important or urgent, but in the end, not really very important. If it’s the latter, let it go, especially if it doesn’t help with the transformation. If it’s urgent and important to the transformation, give it your full attention.
          • Remember that change is a process. When faced with transformation, we can get trapped into thinking it all has to happen now. Change takes time. Transformation doesn’t happen quickly. Create short-term milestones and work to achieve those milestones.
          • Enlist others. Involving others in the change effort has enormous benefit. It speeds up the buy in. It develops others abilities and capacity to change. And, it distributes the work. Some of you steer, some of you change the tire, some of you take care of the passengers on the bus to make sure it isn’t too much of a bumpy ride.

 

 

 

About Edith Onderick-Harvey

Edith Onderick-Harvey is a highly regarded consultant, leadership and talent expert, and speaker. Edith is frequently quoted in the media including The New York Times, CNN.com, HR Executive, and American Executive. As the President of Factor In Talent, Edith works with leaders to take performance — their own, their team’s and their organization’s — to the next level.

What’s Critical for You?

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Institute for Corporate Productivity

The Institute for Corporate Productivity (i4cp) released the results of its 2014 Critical Human Capital Issues Survey . The survey shows that creating change-ready organizations is still the top priority for high-performing companies. One of the key takeaways from the study is that most companies simply do not have the internal bench strength to enable sustained high-market performance.

Working with companies that are tackling rapid growth and change, this rings true for me. When I work with clients and we are identifying bench strength for key roles, we often see that the bench strength for those roles is limited. Our challenge then is to proactively begin to develop talent and identify talent sourcing strategies to fill the gaps.

If you see this in your company, you’re not alone. Here are the survey’s top 10 human capital issues for 2014 for high-performance organizations:

1. Succession planning
2. Leadership development
3. Knowledge retention
4. Coaching
5. Managing/coping with change
6. Non-executive succession planning
7. Measuring/rewarding behavior
8. Talent shortages in critical areas
9. Measuring/rewarding results
10. Internal communication

  
  

About Edith Onderick-Harvey
Edith Onderick-Harvey is a highly regarded consultant, leadership and talent expert, and speaker. Edith is frequently quoted in the media including The New York Times, CNN.com, HR Executive, and American Executive. As the President of Factor In Talent,  Edith works with leaders to take performance — their own, their team’s and their organization’s — to the next level.

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