Category: Uncategorized

Immersion is a Catalyst of Change

Posted on by simongterry in Uncategorized

When making major change finding symbols and mechanisms that help accelerate the change can be important. These elements of your change management plan act as catalysts, helping make the change occur. Jim Collins described the power of catalytic mechanisms as a vehicle to help organisations achieve goals in a classic Harvard Business Review article. 

Immersion in the problem is an incredibly powerful catalyst of change in organisations. Too often change conversations can have an abstract or a theoretical flavour.  Improving customer satisfaction, employee engagement or community reputation can seem like moving the needle on an intangible measure.  These conversations are often lifeless.  They are very different measures and conversations when you are at the edge of the organisation, face to face with those affected and discussing the issues.

Immersion changes the nature of people’s understanding of problems.  Put the change agents or those doubting the need for change in the heart of the problem, face to face with the issues and people involved.  The need for change change is more tangible.  People see things with new eyes. Immersion shows you parts of the system that you have never seen before.  There is nothing like being on the spot.  Immersion also delivers passion and insights that can’t be found around a conference table.

We have a lot of ways to immerse ourselves in any situation requiring change.  I have seen the power of formal immersion programs that prompt reflection, discussion and action.  More simply, we can eat our own dogfood. We can go to Gemba. We can know our enemies. We can manage by walking around.  We can do the work or live the life for an hour, a day or a week.  We can turn back on our customer and community understanding and use our own radar to contribute to the change.

Immersion can be the easiest powerful action you can take to catalyse change.  Everyone in the organisation can be involved.  It can take as little as half an hour and as much as a lifetime.  Put your leaders in the heart of the problem and watch the results.

Four things change agents need

Posted on by simongterry in Uncategorized

Driving change in any organisation is hard.  There are lots of approaches to driving change.  Two of my favourites are Kotter’s and the McKinsey influence model.  There are many more.

In my experience, getting traction and making change stick requires four key elements to be established.

This change is real:  You need leadership, a strong case for change and evidence of enduring intent.  The change must be needed.  It must not be temporary or a fad.  There must be evidence that the change is not going away or that management attention will drift elsewhere

This change can be done:  Are we clear on the symbols of success in this change?  Has anyone else done something similar?  Is there a role model that I can copy?  A clear statement of the world after the change is needed to help people make the abstract changes tangible for them.

We can make it happen:  The team needs the capabilities (skills, time, systems and resources) to make the change happen.  It needs to feel within reach and possible. Never easy.  Just possible.  Within our collective capabilities.

We are doing it together: Build a sense of community, discussion and engagement with the change.  We are not changing others.  We are all changing together.  

Ask new questions

Posted on by simongterry in Uncategorized

Asking the old questions will give us the old answers. New thinking comes from considering new questions. Disruptive times ask us to challenge ourselves with new questions. If we don’t, the changes ahead will ask even more of us.

At a recent Startup Australia organised by Powerhouse HQ, Kate Bennett Eriksson of PWC made the powerful point that organisations trying to create a more innovative culture need to learn to ask new questions in their decision making. Referencing Victor Frankl, Kate noted that between stimulus and response is time for thought. Changing decisions with new questions that alter our thought process generates a different outcome.

New questions are a powerful technique of change. When I want to learn a new way of thinking or consider new issues I develop a mental checklist of new questions to help me think differently in decisions. The provocation of a new set of questions changes the process and outcomes of thinking.

New questions to consider

I believe we need to lead change in the way we work and organise ourselves to survive digital disruption. This belief led me to the panel session on Startup and Corporate collaboration at which Kate spoke. It also has driven my engagement with organisations like The Responsive Organisation Manifesto, Disrupt.Sydney and Change Agents Worldwide in search of new ways of thinking and techniques for responding to the challenges of disruption. I have come away from those conversations with many new questions to ask.

Here are some of the new questions that I have learned to ask:

All confronting questions and only a beginning of the new thinking ahead.

Questions for you:

What new questions do you need to add from your decisions? What old questions are getting in the way? How can new questions drive new thinking and new results in your world?

What are you waiting for?

Is your career a collection of cells or a portfolio?

Posted on by simongterry in Uncategorized

If you look at any classical hierarchical organisation chart, what do you see most?

White space.

That white space is where the opportunity and ambiguity exists. The white space is where everything unplanned occurs, especially important in a time of fast paced disruption. White space is the territory of much needed collaboration. White space is where we make our difference.

Career as a series of cells

However many people lives their work lives constrained by the boxes. We each get to choose our contribution.  For some the boxes define the limits of their contribution.  Each job becomes the cell in which they live and contribute to the organisation. Too many people view their role as the limit of their authority and the limit of their opportunity. When these individuals change role, it is as if they have had their cell moved; new window, but same limited vision.

Worse still a proportion of people view this succession of cells as defining their life. They see themselves as only their job. Those jobs have needs, challenges and demands that dominate their lives and limit their broader contribution to the communities and societies in which they live.

What’s the alternative? Career as a portfolio.

We each have a rich purpose and lives full of opportunities.  Our workplaces and our lives are full of whitespace.

From all that opportunity we get to form a portfolio of opportunities to make a contribution.  Like investment managers, we allocate our limited time into many things to diversify the sources of our monetary, physical and emotional returns.  Some will be through our day job.  Some opportunities in our portfolio will be projects – collaborations that we run on the side to explore who we can be.  These side projects might be at work but they could equally be outside.  Not all side projects are economic.  Many are simply creative or social.

Beyond traditional work, we make a contribution with our leadership and participation in society.  We have families and relationships.  We volunteer.  We advocate.  We debate.  We join organisations.  We participate.  Most of all we discuss and help and build rich communities.  Given the complex issues society faces we need more of this broader contribution from everyone.  

Each of these activities helps define who we are as part of our rich portfolio of contributions.  After all, where we choose to spend our time and money is a much better indicator of who we are than a list of jobs or even our self-declared descriptions.

Having recently found myself without a day-job, I have entered the world of a portfolio.  I have been overwhelmed by the opportunities, the difference I can make and the richness of experience that each opportunity offers.  Each and every opportunity was possible if I was still working full-time, but I know I would have faced different incentives and pressures in exploring these opportunities.   I wouldn’t have made such a clear choice to manage a portfolio with my time.

It is time to step outside the cells.  

Make a bigger contribution.  Make your mark.  Manage your career and life as a portfolio of interests.  What more can you do in, around and on the side of your job?

Is your career a collection of cells or a portfolio?

Posted on by simongterry in Uncategorized

If you look at any classical hierarchical organisation chart, what do you see most?

White space.

That white space is where the opportunity and ambiguity exists. The white space is where everything unplanned occurs, especially important in a time of fast paced disruption. White space is the territory of much needed collaboration. White space is where we make our difference.

Career as a series of cells

However many people lives their work lives constrained by the boxes. We each get to choose our contribution.  For some the boxes define the limits of their contribution.  Each job becomes the cell in which they live and contribute to the organisation. Too many people view their role as the limit of their authority and the limit of their opportunity. When these individuals change role, it is as if they have had their cell moved; new window, but same limited vision.

Worse still a proportion of people view this succession of cells as defining their life. They see themselves as only their job. Those jobs have needs, challenges and demands that dominate their lives and limit their broader contribution to the communities and societies in which they live.

What’s the alternative? Career as a portfolio.

We each have a rich purpose and lives full of opportunities.  Our workplaces and our lives are full of whitespace.

From all that opportunity we get to form a portfolio of opportunities to make a contribution.  Like investment managers, we allocate our limited time into many things to diversify the sources of our monetary, physical and emotional returns.  Some will be through our day job.  Some opportunities in our portfolio will be projects – collaborations that we run on the side to explore who we can be.  These side projects might be at work but they could equally be outside.  Not all side projects are economic.  Many are simply creative or social.

Beyond traditional work, we make a contribution with our leadership and participation in society.  We have families and relationships.  We volunteer.  We advocate.  We debate.  We join organisations.  We participate.  Most of all we discuss and help and build rich communities.  Given the complex issues society faces we need more of this broader contribution from everyone.  

Each of these activities helps define who we are as part of our rich portfolio of contributions.  After all, where we choose to spend our time and money is a much better indicator of who we are than a list of jobs or even our self-declared descriptions.

Having recently found myself without a day-job, I have entered the world of a portfolio.  I have been overwhelmed by the opportunities, the difference I can make and the richness of experience that each opportunity offers.  Each and every opportunity was possible if I was still working full-time, but I know I would have faced different incentives and pressures in exploring these opportunities.   I wouldn’t have made such a clear choice to manage a portfolio with my time.

It is time to step outside the cells.  

Make a bigger contribution.  Make your mark.  Manage your career and life as a portfolio of interests.  What more can you do in, around and on the side of your job?

How to start a movement

Posted on by simongterry in Uncategorized

Change movements fascinate me.  People coming together to create change that is beyond the power of one individual, is how all of our greatest social accomplishments have been made.  I have started a few myself, both successfully and unsuccessfully.  I have studied lots of others hunting for ideas that can be reused.  

I have learned that there is no perfect formula. However, these things help movements to success:

Purpose:  Defining why the movement exists matters most.  This is the reason people will give up their time and effort to be involved.  Failure to agree on common purpose will result in factions, disruption and failure later

Engaged champions: A few engaged champions is worth thousands of passive members.  Find your champions and treasure them.  Finding them is usually as simple as letting them approach you.  The ones you want will have a bias to act.  You are often better cutting the freeriders and focusing only on the engaged users in the early stages.  Exclusivity, a strong sense of the other and deep personal relationships helps build energy and resilience in the movement.

A small secretariat: A movement usually needs some group accountable for shaping and maintaining direction.  A small secretariat of the most engaged champions can play that role.  The secretariates does not need to be hierarchical but they do need to play a role as custodian of the purpose and a node for actions across the network.

Cellular structure: Networks are more resilient & more engaging than hierarchies.  Small group structures engage people and build personal connections within the network. The groups also provide local support, back-up for missed communication and solve issues locally where required.  Action by small groups requires less coordination.

Stories: Successful movements have rich storytelling traditions. Myths, tales and anecdotes help share their messages and make purpose tangible to the community and others. Stories share abstract ideas in tangible ways making them more human and personal.

Continuous communication: Driving change is only one element in people’s lives.  You cannot overcommunicate.  Share stories, successes and challenges.  Make sure there is a vibrant connection across your network.

Sense of community:  Great movements build strong senses of community.  That is usually evident in the support and sharing that occurs within the community beyond its core purpose.

Symbols of change: To understand the movements vision, you need defining symbols that people can understand and relate to their own world. A few common values can be part of a powerful symbol of the change.  The more human, personal and individual the symbols are the easier they are to live and share.

Consistent action & confrontation: Action builds movements.  Action inevitably involves confrontation with opponents.  A regular cycle of action and confrontation is required to keep engagement of the movement.  Action and confrontaction creates new stories to share and can bring the movement’s symbols and purpose to life for a wider audience. Progress may be slow but action must be continuous.

Reflection & adaptation: Successful movements adapt to changing circumstances, responses and to the needs of the system in which they operate.  Processes to foster reflection and development of new adaptations matter to enable this.

Gathering: Human beings are tribal.  We like to gather.  Whether it is gatherings of the cells or gatherings of the whole movement, the people involved need to come together and feel part of the tribe from time to time.  Gatherings are where the informal story sharing occurs.  It is where trust and connection is built, knowlede is exchanged and new innovations are started.

This list is a starting point on my studies and experience.  What are your ideas?  What have a left out?  What of the above is wrong?

Change begins when you start

Posted on by simongterry in Uncategorized

Today I saw a conversation on twitter between two people who inspire me with their passion and ability to make change, Maria Ogneva and Susan Scrupski.  I also saw a moment in that conversation that represented an insight into change leadership I see again and again.  I paraphrased that moment in this tweet.

Here’s what struck me about this tweet and what makes it a template for all change leadership:

  • A person, our change agent, sees a need for change and forms an intention to make it
  • The intention for change is not fleeting and our change agent reflects on the need for change over time
  • Our change agent has doubts they are ready to make change happen
  • The change agent is very aware of the challenges ahead
  • The change agent decides to act regardless.

Almost everyone can see changes that they want in the world.  Many many people don’t think that they are ready to lead change and have doubts.  Everyone knows change is hard.

Change still gets made.  Why?  

Because people with passion and energy, just start.  They find the way forward and find their purpose in the hard work.

When you look at the lives of great change leaders, again and again you find the same comment.  They weren’t the best placed.  They weren’t the most powerful or most capable.  They weren’t given authority.

Change agents are the ones who see a need, challenges and take action anyway.  Everything else comes with solving problems, drawing others to help and having success.

Great change leaders are the ones who start work regardless.

So when are you starting? Today?

Today you will change the world

Posted on by simongterry in Uncategorized

Lay hold of today’s task – Seneca

Today’s task is to change the world. Is anything less worthy of your unique talents?

You have a purpose. It describes how you want to change the world. Your actions everyday to fulfil that purpose will change the future. Just by doing what you do each day explicitly including that purpose you are starting the process of change.

Start today

You can’t start yesterday. Who knows what will happen tomorrow? Better start today. It is the safest and only choice. End of argument.

How?

Changing the world starts small and grows. Everyone can make a contribution to bringing about the changes that they want to see in the world. The less hierarchical power you have the closer you are to and the more influence you have on the problem. Almost nobody, including those in power, can make all of a change on their own. We need to work together. Make one small change today that makes things better – a different conversation, a different way of doing things or engaging a different person. Small changes accumulate building momentum to the ultimate goal.

Addressing doubts

Everyone has doubts. That niggling feeling of awareness that the world can be better is a doubt. It likes company. Doubts only grow as you move into action. The only way to remove doubt is to address them in action. Otherwise all you will have is a hollow sense of purpose and a bucket of doubt.

Failure?

Failure will happen. It won’t always be dramatic. However, it will happen. A lot. If changing the world was easy then you wouldn’t be required to do it. Every failure will make your ultimate change better. Be resilient & persist. After all your changes & your purpose are critical. (If to nobody else, they are critical to you).

Reflect on your impact

At the end of the day, as you pull off your shoes, ask yourself “what impact did I have on the world today?”. Ask yourself “what am I going to different tomorrow?”. Ask yourself “how do I feel now?” If you have done anything or spoken to anyone in the day, you have answers to these questions.

Today’s task is to change the world. You are already changing something. Do you want to change it accidentally or on purpose? Make your changes count.

Are you sure you are going the right way? What could you do more, better or differently?