Management Craft

The Best Decision Makers are Reflective - Happy New Year #leadership

Many people set goals for the new year. I do that, too. Even more important than goals, however, is reflection. How did 2011 go? Of what are you most proud? What would you do differently if you could have a "do-over?" If your last year ended up being your last year, would it have represented your best living?

Reflection is critical for our growth because it is often only through looking back that we can see things that will shape our future.

What is reflection? We throw this word around, but do we all know how to do it? I am continually honing my ability to reflect. Try these practices:

• Take stock - define and list your accomplishments.
• Be real - acknowledge those outcomes that make you wince when you think about them.
• Remember players - this is perhaps most important - who enriched your life, helped you become a stronger and better person, cared for you (and visa versa)?
• Look around - how have your physical suroundings changed? What did you buy, get, make, and get rid of and do your things add value to your world? What's missing? What's unneeded?
• Notice how you feel - assess your vitality and the habits that have either improved or diminished your health.

Reflection allows us to learn - to do the next year better than the last. We all want this. New Year's Resolutions and goals are wonderful and can generate breakthroughs. This is especially true when they are informed by a humble and nonpunitive look back.

Happy New Year and here's to a great 2012 - the Year of the Dragon. Brave, bold, benevolent.

Peace and #Management

As we head into the holiday season and new year, I thought I would take a few minutes to wish you success and peace.

Peace of mind - that you know you are doing your best and showing your team love and admiration.

Peace in alignment - that you are in symphony with how you are leading people, leading your business, and leading your life.

Peace in progress - that you feel a sense of accomplishment and are moving forward.

Peace in the unknowing - that you embrace the chaotic nature of a full life.

Peace in humbleness - that you have strong self-confidence that is constantly informed and reinvented through learning from others.

Peace in restoration - that you know you deserve and need to recharge and that you enjoy this time and allow yourself this indulgence.

Peace in dreaming - that you are excited but not nervous about the future such that you can embark fully and without preventable self-induced distractions.

I wish you peace - a calm that is not settled, but is powering your work and your life. May you be compelled and composed, inspired and gentle, ready and reflective. May your resolve be steeled by passion and ownership.

The Tentacles of Our Ways – Why Change is So Hard

Someone asked me the question, "why is change so hard?" I thought I would share my response with you. Your thoughts?

We might like to think that change initiatives will go smoothly if we have and implement a good and detailed plan. The plan is critical, for sure, but is rarely the driver for success because change involves more than going from A to B. Change is hard because it requires hundreds of trigger flips and culture change.

There are many behavioral or belief trigger points of change adoption for each affected individual including initial acceptance of the idea, understanding of the plan, how our work will be affected, our feelings and beliefs about the change, and the specifics of each change as they are implemented. As these triggers are flipped, we move forward in the transition process. If due to resistance, lack of clarity, or operational challenges a trigger does not flip, then we may become stuck in the old way. As William Bridges wrote in Managing Transitions: Making the Most of Change, “to begin you must first end.” When a trigger fails to flip, transition slows or stops. Multiply this by many triggers and employees and it is a miracle that change ever occurs.

Change does happen, however, and is often accompanied by a supporting workplace culture change. As change leaders, it is useful to think of a change initiative as creating a new reality or shifting the organizational culture. Every large change – even something as seemingly straightforward as a new software system – involves changing what people do (tasks, roles, structures), how they do it (processes and habits), and why they do it (beliefs and values). These three categories correspond to the layers of organizational culture as defined by John Kotter and James Heskett in Corporate Culture and Performance. To change culture, we must affect and align all three layers. If all we do is change what we do, new practices will eventually be in conflict with the culture and we will begin reverting back to the old way (the obesity problem in America is a great example of this – the “what” is usually quite clear to people and they change habits for a time, but many do not realign their values and beliefs to sustain and support change).  Our efforts to implement change will be more successful if we reach all three layers and especially the inner layer of values and beliefs. As Simon Sinek wrote in his book, Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action, people follow because they believe what you believe. Change requires many willing followers (see his TED talk here).

Change occurs through emergent, not reductionist practices. Individual triggers of change adoption and cultural elements are linked and co-dependent like meshed and far-reaching tentacles. What’s the message for change leaders? Create an integrated plan, engage and enroll employees in the “why,” and attend to as many trigger points as you can. Think nonlinear. Think messy. Think terrier-like persistence required here. Think wonderfully human and the hardest work you will ever love.

From Wild Fires to Bonfires #management

One of my clients used this phrase and I thought it was a great way to describe what great managers do better than struggling managers.

• Great managers: they spend more time building relationships and teams (bonfires) and less time reactively fighting daily fires (wild fires) because they have built strength and independence and ownership.
• Managers who struggle are often consumed by their daily to-do list (wild fires) and spend less time around the corporate bonfire.

Management is a social act with the primary responsibility of helping people and teams do their best work. Spending time fighting wild fires will not get us there. I realize that for some of you, this idea might seem unrealistic, but start small. Try every week to shift some time from wild fire to bonfire.