Tag Archive for: change

What Good Leaders Do When They’re Worried Too.

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Even when they don’t have all the answers.

Let’s be honest—leaders are feeling it, too. The weight of budget pressures. The ambiguity of shifting markets. The quiet wondering: Will this affect my team? My job? And yet, amid all this, employees are looking to leadership for confidence and direction.

This is the moment where the leadership gap either narrows—or widens.

Here are four tips for leading when everything is not alright.

 

Steady Doesn’t Mean Stoic. You don’t have to pretend nothing’s wrong. In fact, that kind of false optimism only creates distrust. Your team wants to see a real person leading them—not a cardboard cutout of “executive confidence.” When someone is feeling uncertain, they often look to see how those around them are showing up. You can’t always provide certainty in a difficult environment, but how you are responding will help quiet some of the concern. For example, a colleague of mine is facing a pending announcement of layoffs at her company.  She’s a seasoned career professional and has been here before. She has as much uncertainty as the rest of her team; however she is showing up for them by sharing her experiences with a previous lay off, what she’s learned about navigating internal resources, and being curious about what her team is feeling and thinking.

Name What’s True (and What’s Not). People fill silence with worst-case scenarios. Don’t let fear metastasize in the absence of communication. Tell your team what you do know, what you don’t know, and what you’re watching. Earlier in my career, I heard a great saying “Like milk, change has an expiration date.”  What’s true today may not be tomorrow. Transparency breeds trust.

Invest in Mid-Level Leaders. Your middle managers are often closest to the emotional pulse of the organization. This is when they need the tools and support to lead through ambiguity. Train them to hold space for uncertainty while keeping teams focused and aligned.

Align on Purpose. When strategy is in flux, purpose becomes your anchor. Reconnect your people to why their work matters—not just to the business, but to your customers and communities. In times of fear, meaning is one of the most powerful antidotes.

Bottom Line:

You don’t have to have all the answers. But you still have to lead. And that’s what people will remember when the crisis passes.

Our Breakthrough Leadership program helps mid-level leaders lead in uncertainty.  Click here to learn more. 

5 Tips for Handling a Bad Situation

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How should you handle a bad situation?
Facebook is facing a crisis. Cambridge Analytica used 50 million users’ personal information without their permission to create targeted campaigns during the 2016 presidential campaign. Users want answers. The media wants answers. Congress wants answers. Still, during this storm, Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg was conspicuously absent. From news accounts, it’s not just that he wasn’t appearing in public. He also seems to be invisible internally. One news account was speculating that we had more concern about protecting his brand than facing the bigger issues. He broke his silence yesterday, after #WheresZuck took over social media. By not being present, his leadership brand has taken the hit.
Crisis situations (and even garden-variety mistakes) often involve rapid rates of change in stakeholder perceptions and actions. How should leaders handle it when things go wrong? When poor decisions are made? When they simply make a mistake? Here are four tips:
  • Get in front of it. News travels fast these days. Whether it’s through social media or the good old fashion office grapevine, people will know something has happened. Don’t wait to acknowledge the issue.
  • Own it. I very vividly remember sitting in a meeting with a CEO and his team. The CEO called one of his directs out about something that didn’t go well. The leader’s response was simple: “I made a mistake. Here’s what I’m doing to resolve the issue.” No hemming and hawing. No blaming. And, this admission didn’t tarnish his reputation. It continued to elevate it. Both before and after, he was consistently regarded as one of the best division heads in the company.
  • Keep people informed. For a situation like the one Facebook is dealing with, there is no quick fix. A multitude of conversations are happening and decisions need to be made out of the public eye. That said, employees and customers need to know that something is happening. Whether the mistake is visible to 1 person or millions, they need to know that something is happening. And, avoid the platitudes. “We’re in discussions” or “We’re assessing the situation” sound like corporate-speak. Treat people like the adults they are. Even if there is no decision or resolution yet, people need to know what has been done and what your general goals are for resolution.
  • Take the heat. It’s likely that there will be unhappy people in this situation. Even senior executives shy away from conflict and are known to avoid situations that involve a strong negative reaction. However, leadership means that the ‘buck stops here’. People need to know that you understand the situation. And not not just on an intellectual level but that you acknowledge the emotions involved. Don’t just talk about the facts, allow space for the feelings. “We know that some people are frustrated by…”
  • Say “I’m sorry.” Or, “I take responsibility.” Or, “I apologize.” But only if you mean it. Leaders are successful, in part, because of the actions they take, the decisions they make, and the results they get. That success can make it hard to admit that what you did or how it turned out had a negative impact or hurt people. Trust is the foundation of leadership. Without saying those two or three small words when it’s needed, that foundation will erode. You could end up being labeled as that person who thinks he or she can do no wrong.
How have you seen leaders handle bad situations?

Is 20% the Number?

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How hard is it to get 100% of even the smallest group of people to agree on anything, never mind a whole company? We’ve all struggled with that dynamic. But when it comes to culture change, Konica Minolta CEO Shoei Yamana believes the number is a lot smaller:
“Across a big company it is impossible to get 100 per cent of people to change. But you only need 20 per cent of the people. If I can do that, I am 100 per cent confident I can change the whole company.”
Last week, the Financial Times asked me to share my perspective on culture change. Their How to Lead feature was a profile of how Yamana is moving Konica Minolta past 140 years of success into a new business model. I shared my perspective in their companion piece Ask the Outsider. While his journey is focused on leading a traditional, 45,000 person, Japanese company through a major shift, his insights can help anyone who is trying to change mindsets in their team, department or company.
  • Give the words meaning: In the article, Yamana highlights the importance of telling evocative stories to paint a picture. It illustrates and reinforces behaviors that supports the new culture. He cites some actions taken by staff to meet a customer’s desire to see digital stars in their hospital room. By telling that story, he makes the ideas of nimble and customer-focused real.
  • Make people hungry: Complacency is the enemy of innovation. In it’s long history, Konica Minolta was focused on making products without regard for whether it was something the customer wanted or needed. The company wasn’t hungry to do something that was truly breakthrough. Success was simply assumed until Yamana no longer made it acceptable.

 

  • Change who you see as competition: Konica Minolta couldn’t rely on its past. Success was getting in the way of the future. Rather than positioning the company against its traditional competitors, Yamana positioned start-ups and industry disruptors as the competition. That shift, along with putting the customer at the center of their conversations, is changing how the employees at Konica Minolta see their roles.
What do you think? Is 20% buy-in the tipping point for change?
At NextBridge, we advise leaders and leadership teams on successfully changing their organizations and cultures.
What conversation would you like to have? Call me at 978-475-8424. I’d love to hear what you have to say.
Resilience

6 Tips for Building Resilience

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Yesterday, I had the opportunity to spend time with job seekers at the Harvard EdPortal. We were discussing the importance of being change ready and resilient. We talked about how important it is during a job search. And, how important it will continue to be once they land their next opportunity.

Here are the five tips I shared with them on being resilient in the ever-changing world we live and work in.

Stay positive — what is the opportunity?: The natural human reaction to change is to think about what you are losing or have lost. Instead, think about what opportunities a new or unexpected situation is affording you. How can this benefit you even as you help the organization? What skills do you bring to the table that will help you thrive? What will you need to do differently to make that happen?

Focus on what you are learning: Every experience in life allows us to learn something, and nowhere is this more true than in a changing environment. It may be we learn more precisely what it is we like to do (or not do). Or where we excel and where we struggle. If we remain open-minded, we often find new ways of seeing and doing things. New experiences can also tell us what we need to unlearn. What is it that is no longer serving us well? What mental models are getting in the way? The greatest skill development comes when we are faced with new challenges – if we face them with energy and intention.

Change ‘either/or’ to ‘both/and’: Too often, we look at situations as “either/or.” For example, I may think that I either stay or I go. It’s either good or bad. More often, especially in the complexity we face today, we need to move to thinking “both/and.” Both/and thinking would be more like “How can I stay and contribute while preparing for the possibility of leaving?”

Identify what is not changing: Even though it may seem like everything is changing, there are many things that are not. Who you are as a person, what you bring to a situation, and the skills, experience and capabilities you have are not changing. In a more tangible way, there are probably many things about your organization that are not changing. Does it have the same mission? Are its core values immutable? Is what delights your customers the same?

Focus on what you do control: Usually we have more control than we initially recognize. Too often people feel like change is something being done to them. They feel there is no option but to just accept it as it is. In some ways, this can be true. For example, if your company is being acquired, you can’t stop the sale from occurring. You do, however, control how you think about and respond to the change. You can choose to resist or make the best of the situation. You can ask how to best contribute to the new organization. You can seek out information, education, and new projects that align with the changes. You can provide constructive feedback in a positive way at the appropriate times. You can reach out to help others make adjustments. Ultimately, if the new situation isn’t to your liking, you can opt to move on – maintaining your relationships and reputation as you go. Control is much more of an internal state of mind than an objective, immoveable reality.

Build a support system: The most resilient people are not resilient because they can face any situation on their own. They are resilient because they have a network and support system that helps them in a variety of ways. Sometimes it’s emotional support. Sometimes it’s resource support. Sometimes its expertise. Sometimes it’s something you don’t even know you need yet.

Resilience is a multifaceted skill, which can be purposefully developed over time. It’s also a state of mind. As either a job seeker or a leader looking to develop resilience where you are now, it begins with how you think about the challenges and changes in front of you. What are you focused on?

We’d love to hear your tips for building resilience. Share them with us by clicking here.

Is Middle Management Really Going Away?

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Middle Managers

I had the pleasure of watching an interview with Jay Samit, CEO of SeaChange International and author of Disrupt You speak at the C-Suite Network conference a few months back. One of the more provocative predictions he made was that in 5 years, one half of all middle management jobs will be gone. Not 20 years. Not 50 years. Five.

Needless to say, the number of implications that creates are far too many to discuss here. Jeff Hayzlett, the interviewer, asked the question we were all asking ourselves — if half of all middle management is going away, what should middle managers do? Here are Samit’s 3 pieces of advice:

  • Commit to life-long learning: change is occurring so rapidly that we can’t possible know what our opportunities will be in 2 or 3 years much less 10 or 15.  By continually learning you can see what may be coming around the bend and be ready for it while those who have chosen to shut-off their learning will never know what hit them.
  • Keep an open mind: the further we go in life we can begin to assume that we know the answers and how it should work.  The truth is, without an open mind, it’s amazing how wrong you can be.
  • Invite data in:  in some circles, you hear a lot about big data.  Data comes in many forms – quantitative, qualitative, anecdotal. Data is available in so many ways, don’t be afraid to gather and use data to help inform your path and illuminate possibilities.

“The quest for certainly blocks the search for meaning. Uncertainty is the very condition to impel man to unfold his powers.”

-Erich Fromm

Change and Keeping the End in Mind

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change_innovation

Trying to promote change and innovation? Keep the end in mind with a robust, vivid, compelling vision that you keep front and center. It can unleash innovation and be a touchstone, barometer and guide for what and how things get done.

When you have a robust vision of the future, it opens up possibilities. Rather than closing down options, it can allow for change and innovation. With a robust and compelling vision, the focus becomes on achieving the vision — on moving forward — not just making the here and now more efficient or productive or less risky. It allows people to engage in creative thinking about how to get to that vision because ultimately there can be a wide variety of ways to achieve it. Without a vision:

  • people and organizations become overly focused on what and how things are done now
  • change represents uncertainty and as humans, we hate uncertainty
  • there is no gauge to measure a new idea, which makes the idea that much harder to justify pursuing

The vision provides a road map for how something new or different is, indeed, not leading us into uncertainty but closer to the ultimate destination.

And it’s important that the vision not just be a statement that hangs on the wall. It needs to serve as a tool to guide conversations, to help make decisions, to determine how resources are allocated and to promote debate.

How are your vision helping promote change and innovation?

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.

How To Build An Agile Organization

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change 228 x 202

i4cp defines agility as ‘the ability to move quickly, decisively, and effectively in anticipating and taking advantage of change.” The question is, how do you create this ability in your organization? According to i4cp and based on my own experience, high performing organizations instill agility by being prepared. That’s right. You manage change by anticipating, planning and taking advantage of it.

How can you make that happen?

    • Make it a regular practice to look outside the organization to see what may be just over the horizon. Most organizations only look as far as the trends within their industry. The best organizations look at the broader context. They look at other industries from which they can learn lessons. They look at societal, political and economic changes. Opportunities are often identified where on the surface, none may seem to exist. When people are mentally able to analyze, play with and explore potential change, they are more easily able to embrace it when it actually occurs.
    • Assess your organization’s capabilities in the context of those potential changes. Do you have the talent and resources you need to take advantage of what the future may hold? If not, how will you develop or gain those capabilities.
    • Determine how agile people are in your organization. Do you hire for it? Is agility an expectation? Is it rewarded?
    • Leverage what makes you successful now but don’t rely on it for your future. Often, success can reduce one’s ability to change. However, when success is paired with the expectations that change is part of success and that change will happen, starting from a position of strength can make change more powerful.

How many of these characteristics describe your organization?

Spring Cleaning Your Priorities

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Happy Spring CollageSpring is that time of year when everything is new again. The winter cold and drab is finally receding. It’s a good time to think about what needs some sprucing up in your company.

Take a look back at the achievements and new opportunities presented in the first months of the year. What’s been achieved? How are you progressing? What new opportunities are presenting themselves in your market? What’s going on with your people – what talent do you have and what talent do you need? Are development plans moving forward?

It’s also a good time to clean things up. What’s no longer relevant? How have priorities shifted? What can fall off of your (or someone else’s) plate? What processes just aren’t working anymore and need to be revamped? What talent is not working out and may need to be reallocated inside or outside the company?

Don’t just save spring cleaning for the yard or your home. Do some spring cleaning at work, too.

“The only constant is change.” – Unknown

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change is the only constant

 

Over the past several years this saying and many others about change have become rather trite. “Change is everywhere and to be successful you must embrace it.” “Change is the new normal.” “Champions eat change for breakfast.” Yeah, we’ve heard it all before.

What is somewhat new about change is the sheer pace of it. With the advent of breakneck technology advances, change is not only constant but accelerating. Every few months there is a new social media outlet that can help you reach your customers while you’re still trying to figure out Twitter. Some businesses are wondering if they should create an app for their services. Messages can travel around your company, not to mention the world, in nanoseconds. And there are still the usual changes like new product introductions, reorganizations, and new workflows.

– How should you take a leadership position around change in the 2015 workplace?

– Answer the big question, “WHY?” People yearn for context. They want to understand why things happen and how they fit into that equation. As things move ever more quickly, we often forget to answer this simple question in our haste to “just get it done.”

– Listen to the reactions. Sometimes we think that in order to lead change, we need to be the cheerleader, playing down the realities that change is hard and that there will be bumps along the way. Take the time to listen and to respond in a realistic way to the reactions people have — the good, the bad and the ugly. In some situations it’s okay to say, “Yes, this stinks and at times it is going to be difficult. When we get through this, here is how we will be in a better place…”

– Know that some people will be more ready to change than you. When it comes to introducing technological change, there are people in your organization who will be asking why the company isn’t moving more quickly. We have a whole generation who have grown up with IM, texting, Facebook and other forms of social media. Harness their enthusiasm to learn all you can about the benefits and the drawbacks of various technologies. Engage them in understanding how it could be used in your business or why your business isn’t ready for it.

– Be a storyteller. Think back to your childhood. I could probably mention a story that you haven’t heard in 30 years and you could tell it to me. If I asked you to explain Freshman Algebra concepts to me, that would probably not be so easy for most of us. We are wired to remember stories. They help us put ourselves in situations and to remember information. Tell stories about the successes of previous changes where people first had doubts. Tell stories about how a team worked together to make it happen. Tell stories that help people paint a picture and understand how to move forward.

-Use social media. More and more of our organizations are using social media as way for people within the company to communicate with each other. Use social media yourself to ask questions, share updates, talk about successes, and ask for ideas. Again, if you need help in this area, there are people in your organization who are social media savvy. Encourage your team to use it as a way to have a productive conversation about the changes that are occurring. Soon you’ll see leaders emerge on your team, taking the reins of championing change.