Category Archives: Management

Communications, Internal Communications, Management

How do you know if you are on a good work team?

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How do you know if you’re part of a good work team? I’ve been having lots of wonderful and intriguing discussions with friends of mine about teams. With my soccer team, about why we like each other enough to hang out when we don’t have to.  With my friend Ann Max, who coaches corporate teams towards productivity. I also chatted at length with my friend Jen Hunter, who works with leadership teams to build on their collective strengths. The question is harder to answer than you might think. For one, sometimes people don’t know that they’re in a team.

I once had a colleague who regularly and without fail tried to ambush his team members.  He saw us as competition. Was he a bright and capable guy?  Absolutely, he is one of the smartest people I’ve worked with. He just couldn’t imagine us as being on a team and so saw us as chasing the same scarce resources, whatever he imagined them to be. Did the rest of us think he was competition?  Nope, we thought we were on a team.  Therefore, we were regularly surprised at his negative response to simple initiatives. If you’ve read my blog before, you’ll know I think surprises at work are terrible things with disastrous results.

Of course, there are those times when a team comes together and does amazing things.  When this happens, it creates synergy, energy and amazing outcomes. My soccer team does one thing consistently, we laugh. If we don’t laugh, then what’s the point of getting together? We also know what roles we play. 

I’ve been fortunate enough to have some fantastic work teams, those times when a group of individuals transcends their independent parts to produce results well beyond their scope. One of the tricks of success is that we didn’t allow ourselves to get too insular. Not only is navel-gazing boring, but it epitomizes counter-productivity.

Good teams also know that effective communication is central to success.  Good teams have frank conversations, respectful consideration of ideas and the freedom to laugh at each other and ourselves when things get goofy. They are patient.  Good ideas take time to share and understand and they can’t come to fruition without a team patient enough to listen. If you’re on a good work team you’ll know it because you not only like your colleagues, you respect them.  You certainly won’t be afraid to speak your mind to them.

Quick Tips

  • Good team members give each other time, patience and fun. 
  • They respect and can anticipate each other.
  • Good teams happen when you realize that you are collectively better than your individual parts.
  • Good teams are self-aware, everyone knows what their role is and how that role connects to and supports others.
  • Most importantly, good teams communicate.

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Management

5 Tips For Finding Joy in Your Work

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Have you ever met someone who just loved her job?  Someone who doesn’t mind working late and regularly starts early? That person that does their work steadfastly and without complaint. I’m not thinking about a rock or movie star.  Don’t think of glamorous positions or even high earners.  This is about that restaurant server who shows up with a big smile on her face and makes you feel like your family when you’re eating in “her” restaurant. That waiter who thinks there is more to enjoying a meal out then having food served to you.

It’s the couple who clean your office and whistles while they do it. They smile as they go about their work and take on all tasks without hesitation. Although you are in an office building full of people, they know your name.  They ask about you and your life. They notice when you go away on holiday and are always willing to stop and chat when they find you working late.

When I start to get cranky and whine about my job, I think of them and what they do. I don’t think of them because I think my job is better, but because they “know” their job is better than mine and they are excellent at it.

I’ve often heard the expression, “your job defines you”, but I think it’s more accurate to say that we define our jobs.  We are the ones who decide that the work we are doing is valuable and worth doing well. We determine what it takes to be successful. We decide when we’ve had enough.

I recently heard an interesting discussion about the value of work-life parity. We‘ve all been told, countless times, that it’s important to our health and well-being that we achieve balance. The common perspective is that working long hours or not escaping from work on the weekend isn’t good for you. The idea is that being engaged at work is important to your overall well-being, but don’t be too engaged.  Find that balance.

Nigel Marsh, author of “Forty, Fat and Fired” and more recently, Fit, Fifty and Fired Up argues that work-life balance is critical and that it is too important to leave up to employers. Things like dress-down Fridays and flextime mask the essential reality that some jobs or career choices are simply not ever going to be compatible with the demands of having a family and small children.

Marty Nemko, a career coach, makes the case against work-life balance. He asks, is what you’re doing with your time valuable? He argues that the concept that family is primary is only true in terms of the quality time you spend with them. Furthermore, he states that children benefit from having role models who value productivity. He has said that working parents make better role models than stay at home parents.

No matter what perspective you bring, work and life should not be on a teeter-totter. Rather than treating them like competitive teams, see them as a marriage. There has to be a give and take. Consider how much time you spend working.  Most people spend more of their waking life engaged in work than they do in anything else.  Treating it as if it’s disconnected from your life means you are constantly at war with yourself.

Why wouldn’t we instead strive for the joy of work? Why not decide to look at all the time we spend at work as an opportunity to do something you love. Getting that attitude of joy in our work doesn’t always come naturally.  Sometimes it means you have to take steps to bring the joy back or use a few old tricks to get you on track. The following are some of the tricks I use, though to be transparent… I work for myself and I LOVE what I do.

Fake it until you make it

Sometimes you just have to fake yourself out. For anyone who’s done a lot of phone work, you know that even though the person on the other end of the line can’t see you, if you smile, they will hear it in your voice. It seems our brains notice the physical even if our minds don’t mean it. So, be positive. Decide to smile and approach work as if you love it, eventually, you may forget that you were faking it and start loving.  This works well in the short term but if the problems are deep, you may need to look to additional solutions.  `

Muscle your way through

This approach is essentially about grinning and bearing it until you are past the bit you hate.  Sometimes projects come along or times of uncomfortable change and you need to just survive the worst of it. You may not be able to smile your way through or pretend that you’re enjoying it, but if a job is worth having it may be worth the effort of getting through the bad times. This is when you focus forward and think about your long-term vision.

Find a pet project

This approach is really about reminding yourself why you wanted the job in the first place. Look at what it would take to make you happy and engaged and see if you can find a way to introduce that work to what you are doing. Understanding that you can’t always introduce new projects you might want to consider new approaches to doing your job.

Look at your skills

Since you can’t always control the projects you work on or even the approaches you use, consider your skills.  Are there basic skills that you can work on to achieve a different level of joy from your work or perhaps a job that will bring you more joy?  A writing course, an IT course or perhaps it’s about tweaking your organizational skills.

Take a walk

Sometimes taking a break gives you a new start on your work and you can come back and look at it with fresh eyes. Sometimes a long walk is required, like a good long vacation. If that doesn’t work, consider a one-way walk out the door.  There are times when your work simply doesn’t fit you anymore. Just as getting the right cultural fit was important when you were hired it’s important to realize that both you and your organization can change and many incremental changes over time may mean the fit is no longer good enough.

What tricks do you have to keep the love of work present? Is there such a thing as work-life balance and do you even want it?

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Internal Communications, Management

How to decide

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Imagine polling your colleagues to determine what you personally will have for lunch. What about dictating to your neighbours how they should vote? Seems ridiculous right? Yet as silly as that sounds we can get into a decision making rut. Using the same approach for all decisions. When you consider the range of decisions we have to make on any given day this is not only ineffective, it can create challenges in your business and personal relationships.

The most generous person can become a dictator and the most opinionated can become indecisive by applying the same decision-making style for every eventuality. Consider that there are generally three ways to reach a decision.

Consensus: This is when you gather everyone and take a vote. A true consensus is a rare occurrence, so assume that there will be some outliers, but them aside, consensus decisions are a reflection of most people’s opinion. This is a great approach when choosing government or determining strategic priorities with a board for an organization. In a family setting, it might be how you decide where you stop for lunch during a road trip.

Consensus is great but as you can imagine it takes time. People have to be informed, ideas explained and people will need time to think. Then come the debates and the vote. Not all decisions can afford to wait for the process to unfold and frankly, not all decisions require a group or are even appropriate for a group. Some decisions will impact only a few people and in those instances, the opinion of many and varied voices are not only overkill, it’s disrespectful to those who have to live with the consequences.

Consultative: Consultative decisions are more tightly focused on those who have to take action, those with specific knowledge and those impacted by the decision. Although one person may have final say, this approach allows the decision maker to hear from the relevant players. This approach takes time but is not as time-consuming as consensus. In most healthy organizations, familial and corporate, the majority of decisions reside in this area. It allows participants to own decisions and therefore consequences.

Command: With command, one person is in charge and what they say goes. Long live the king! This approach has it’s uses and is particularly effective in crisis situations. Command decisions allow for fast turn around and are prefaced on the assumption that the decision maker has expert knowledge. Unfortunately, some leaders find the command approach so appealing that they employ it for all decisions. The challenge, of course, is that no one person has perfect knowledge of all issues. It can also slow processes down by creating bottlenecks. With one person making all of the decisions,  projects can begin to pile up.

The thing is, no matter what approach you use, it’s good to keep in mind that others are also available and no one approach works perfectly all the time. Unfortunately, even if you employ the right decision style at the right time, you can still make silly decisions. If this weren’t the case, we’d all be healthy, active, careful savers who never drink too much coffee or wine.

For tips on hacking decision making, check out 5 Hacks for Decision Making.

How do you decide how to decide? Do you know someone who only has one approach to deciding? Ever get caught in a situation where the decision-making approach didn’t fit the issue?

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5 Hacks for Decision Making

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Leadership, Management

5 Hacks for Decision Making

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Not being able to make decisions can create paralysis in your life. Indecision can cost you your business, end relationships and make even the easiest of activities complex. Often, if you can’t make a decision then you are probably afraid of something. Before you can begin to consider your options, you need to lose the fear. Consider the worst case scenario and the possible outcomes. What can you do to mitigate the risk? What can you do to mange and respond if it comes to pass? Then decide what what works best for you.

Despite your best efforts there will be times when even deciding how to decide can feel almost insurmountable. Fortunately, there are methods we can use to hack indecision.

  1. Make Habits Not Decisions: Make habits out of some decisions and remove the whole decision-making process. For example, Friday night is date night for my husband and I and consequently, neither of us is interested in making dinner. So Friday’s is for leftovers or ordering in. No arguing over who has to cook. No decisions about what to cook.
  2. If/Then Decisions: If/Then decision-making basically means that you make decisions based on external actions. If this happens, then I will do this. For instance, if I’m not sure whether to walk the dog or work in the yard, then I see if it’s going to rain and if yes, then I go for a walk.
  3. Avoid Information Overload: Sometimes having an excess of information can result in going in circles. To avoid “analysis paralysis” determine what information is really important or relevant in order for you to reach your decision. Make sure you know why the information is relevant. Create a schedule that includes getting all the data you need and stick to your deadline for making a decision.
  4. Assess the Risks: Determine what risks are associated with different decisions. Weigh whether or not those risks are worth taking. If a decision comes with risks not worth taking, then perhaps that is the wrong decision.
  5. No Decision is a Decision: Remember that by not making a decision you are making a decision. Generally, the result is that you lose the element of choice.

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Resources

If you’re looking for additional tips, check out the Harvard Business Review’s Deciding How to Decide, found here: https://hbr.org/2013/11/deciding-how-to-decide

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Communications, Management

Visual Meetings – How To Bring Meetings To Life

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Several years ago I was at a conference on systems thinking (essentially, understanding how things connect) and during the plenary sessions I noticed that tucked away to one side was a woman busily working on capturing the meeting proceedings in images. I was mesmerized. As the session progressed I kept looking from her to the presenters and I was charmed by the images that emerged.  Her blend of colourful figures and words captured beautifully the vibrancy of the conversation in the room. The “Ah ha” moments were carefully displayed with a burst of yellow and orange marker that had a more lasting impression on me than any of the words I’d carefully jotted down in my notebook.

As the conference progressed I’d catch glimpses of the artist as she made her way through all of the plenary sessions and occasionally, the smaller concurrent sessions.  I approached her at one point and asked her how I could get copies of her illustrations. She asked me for my card and I happily handed it over. Although months passed I did not hear from her and I kicked myself for not asking her for her card. Then one day a package arrived. It was from the conference organizers and they were inviting me to attend the next year’s conference. Amongst the conference details was a poster of all of the images from the last conference captured by the graphic artist. I was hooked. Although I had fond memories of the event, they had mostly faded, her images brought them all roaring back to life.

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After that experience, I wondered how I could capture some of that vibrancy in my regular day to day meetings. As it happens, I got my answer several years later while attending the same conference. The presenter was a fellow named David Sibbet.  David talked about the power of images, he brought us back to those days long ago when we huddled around fires in caves and drew on walls, but he also brought us back to our childhood. Those wonderful colourful books that kept us engaged and made us want to read. Even today some of my favourite life lessons come in the form of blog posts from Susan Cooper, who uses her colourful illustrations to tell important life stories.

We have a very natural affinity for visuals. People love to see their ideas captured in an interesting and interactive way. This is why writing things out on boards is a standing practice of meeting facilitators. Big thoughts are also more likely to be developed because visualization allows you to see natural and unnatural links between ideas. Patterns become more visible and this gives the group an opportunity to get those big picture ideas that help create group momentum. Our memories benefits from using visuals too. By putting things up on a shared board the group can keep track and recall ideas more easily.

So why do we eliminate visuals from our regular meetings? Well the most common response is, “I can’t draw”.  David would argue other wise and as I know from attending many art classes over the years, everyone can draw; we just need to be taught how. That’s precisely what David Sibbett does in his two books, Visual Teams and Visual Meetings.

Don’t believe me?  Let’s see what you can learn in just a few minutes.

Start with a simple circle. Thinking of mixing something in a bowl—maybe egg whites. Before putting the pencil to paper, try out the motion. Use your arm in the process; it will make a better circle. Got it? Great, you now have a circle.

  1. Add a few brackets and you have a bouncy ball.
  2. Throw some lines beside the circle and it’s moving fast.
  3. Add two dots and a smile and you have a head.
  4. Point an arrow at your circle and you’ve made your point.
  5. Place larger circles around it and you have a bull’s-eye or a central idea.

Getting visual doesn’t require rocket science or a degree in art. We are all natural drawers…stick figures can express ideas too. Introducing colour markers on a white board or giant note pad will easily do the trick of making meetings more engaging. Sticky notes are also a useful tool and can bring colour and shape to visual story telling. When doing a process mapping exercise one organization I worked with used sticky notes to represent each step in a process.  As participants added sticky notes, the visual image grew. The ensuing image of multiple sticky notes spread across a wall was a more powerful illustration of the need to cut steps than any conversation.

I have had great success with strategic planning by putting markers and sticky notes into the hands of colleagues. The challenge is not about the ability to draw, it’s the willingness to try. Go ahead, let your inner artist out, you’ll be surprised by what shows up.

Have you ever had to draw to make a point? Have you ever used the back of a napkin to illustrate what you meant?  Do you do better when visuals are used?

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Management

Time Keeps on Tricking

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Time and I have never been great friends. Not surprising coming from a champion procrastinator, still, I haven’t had as much patience for Time as I’d like. It’s not that I expect to love the way Time operates, but it’s just that Time has always struck me as being a little skittish. You’re in the middle of doing something important and suddenly Time is gone like you hadn’t been working together to accomplish something. Then there are those moments when you’d like Time to get going and instead of hopping on it, Time just lingers and lingers, hanging around like a bad smell. All in all, I find Time just a bit too temperamental for my taste.

My lack of simpatico with Time has meant that I’ve had to come to an agreement about certain things just so I can avoid Time conflicts. For instance, when I travel, I get Time on a leash. I watch every second as if it were my last and plan for all eventualities because if you’re not careful when you need it most, Time will get away from you. One moment you’re flying and the next, you’re stuck at the airport and Time has hopped the last plane without you. I also don’t play around with Time when I have critical deadlines or meetings. I make sure  I’m well prepared in advance in case Time slips away.

Rather than be defeated by Time, I thought it would be better to go back to basics and implement some tricks for managing Time.

11 Time Management Tips:

  • Schedule time for the things you care about. If you don’t make time for these things you will find yourself living without the things you love or crashing into other priorities because you didn’t make the time.
  • Identify your priorities. Do the important things first.  Every day, decide what matters most and get it done or at least make some progress on it.
  • Set time limits. There’s nothing like a deadline to sharpen your focus and push you to get a task completed in a timely manner.
  • Schedule time to be distracted. Years ago an old boss told me that I should schedule half my time for the things I needed to accomplish and half my time for the things that would get in the way.
  • Set objectives. Before starting meetings, tasks or calls, determine what you want to get from them.  This will allow you to focus your time more effectively and you will know whether you have been successful.  Don’t forget to take the time afterwards to determine whether you achieved your objective.
  • Create systems for staying organized. Organizing systems don’t have to be complicated, they are really meant to create shortcuts for deciding where things should go or what order they should be done in. It can be a simple as a filing system or reducing the amount of email that comes across your desk.
  • Make sure you get enough sleep. Different people need different amounts of sleep, but we all need to sleep. Experts suggest that you get no less than 7 hours but you may need as much as 11 hours to feel well rested.
  • Eat well and Exercise. When we are healthy, we are more productive.  Studies show that exercise increases the blood flow to the brain increasing alertness and focus. Exercise also increases our energy level and brain function.
  • Schedule time to think. If I can only do one time management trick, then that’s the one. In order to plan, perform and produce, I need to think. No matter what you are working on, it will go faster and smoother if you think about it first, even if time doesn’t seem to be your friend.
  • Say “No”. Don’t overburden yourself, it adds stress and means that you are constantly fighting an uphill battle to meet objectives. Even a great opportunity can become a problem if you don’t have the time to manage your priorities.
  • One thing at a time. The quickest way to overwhelm yourself is to try to tackle everything on your list at once. Break activities down into digestible pieces and do them one at a time.

What do you think? Are you friends with time? How do you manage time when it decides to manage you?
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Management

Service At All Cost

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When I first worked for a member of parliament I was tasked with responding to all of the correspondence that came into the office. This was back in the day when correspondence involved the postal system and computers had two colour options for screen displays, orange or green.

Some of the messages we received would be from industry leaders expressing everything from concern to dismay about a recent government announcement. Some were outraged letters from constituents complaining about misguided government policy. Many of the letters were, well for lack of a better word, crazy.

They reminded me of nothing so much as, Letters From A Nut, these missives from Ted L. Nancy were rife with odd requests and strange preoccupations. The difference is, that while comedian Barry P. Marder wrote the Ted L. Nancy letters, the letters appearing on my desk were written in full earnest by constituents.

The woman who wanted the grass around the mailbox cut, not the lawn…that was cut, but the grass a few inches from the box, “it was a disgrace on federal property.”

Or the lady who felt she had a democratic right to a free air conditioner. Then there was the gentleman who wrote to his MP to explain how much he liked to eat road kill. He at least was pleased with government policy that made that possible. Of course he was not nearly as disturbing as the two brothers from a rural part of the country who wrote in demanding wives. I’ll admit an air conditioner seemed almost reasonable by comparison.

The thing is, no matter how odd or outrageous the letter, a polite and reasoned response had to follow. The issues could not be ignored, dismissed or blown off. Constituents who had taken the time to write in deserved an answer. Whether it was clarity on constitutional rights or a quick call to Canada Post requesting that someone with scissors head over to the post box in question, letters were not only answered, the issues in them were fully researched and addressed as far as possible.

What that experience in a political office did was give me an effective lesson in customer service. What it looks like, how it operates and the lengths you need to go to. You see it didn’t matter that we did not deliver the air conditioner, what mattered was that we took the request seriously and responded thoughtfully. People remembered that on Election Day. To be sure there were times when people wrote in or called the office with issues I found offensive, but my job was to listen first, see what if anything could be done to address the issue, explain why if it could not be addressed and offer up alternate solutions.

Since my time on the Hill I’ve had plenty of moments where I’ve thought back to those letters. Instants where I would have liked noting more than to kick the person in front of me, instead, I’ve smiled and thought of ways I could help. It isn’t always easy, it doesn’t always work, but the interesting thing about that is, in the end, whatever was making them/me/us crazy didn’t matter. We didn’t remember the issue, just how we felt at that moment. People don’t remember the specifics of the product they remember the service.

Image courtesy of Miles Stuart at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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Internal Communications, Management

Problem Solving 101 – How to Solve Problems

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English: Mimi & Eunice, “Problems”. Categories...
Mimi & Eunice, “Problems”(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ever notice how easy it is to solve other people’s problems? When presented with someone else’s conundrum it can be easy to assess the possibilities, look at what might work and develop solutions. To the person who owns the challenge, our proposed solutions may seem innovative, creative, and perhaps even ingenious. “How did you come up with that solution so fast and make it look easy!?”

When our personal paradigms, perspectives or biases do not weigh us down, problem-solving is relatively easy. We can get a handle on the problem; look at each possible solution and determine next steps. The challenge, of course, is that we don’t get to ignore our own difficulties and focus exclusively on other people’s problems. The biggest hurdle to resolving our own problems is that there are two kinds of solutions, the ones that work and the ones we like.

If your emotions, ego or attitude are all wrapped up in the outcomes, how do you avoid distracting yourself? How do we harness our own inventiveness and objectivity, while avoiding natural biases to solve problems? Start by taking a deliberate approach.

8 Tips For Problem Solving

  1. Figure out what the problem is. This may seem obvious, but unfortunately, problems can stretch out longer than they need to because we assume what the problems are rather than taking the time to analyze them and make sure.
  2. Once you know what the problem is, refine and define it as clearly as possible. Develop a laundry list of elements that make the problem completely transparent. If there are elements that you cannot define, make a note of them too. Make sure that you list the barriers to resolution.
  3. Consider possible approaches to reach solutions. Do you need to ask for help? Do you need to do some research, interview experts or contemplate the problem more?
  4. Once you have gathered all of your information, put it in one place and organize it so that it makes sense and it is easy to identify individual elements. What do you need to do first? What parts hinge on others in order to be successful?
  5. Determine what represents low hanging fruit or easy fixes. Quick wins are not only easy but are valuable because they boost morale and build momentum.
  6. What will take more time, money and resources to resolve? All solutions should be either easy or matter. What are the mini projects you need to do in order to get your big projects accomplished?
  7. Keep track of what you are doing as you do it. Make sure you are moving in the right direction by monitoring progress. Team and the communication within the team are critical. Getting the right people in place and making sure that communications are effective will go a long way towards avoiding unnecessary roadblocks along the way.
  8. When the process is complete, make sure that the results you have achieved are the ones you wanted. Sometimes we achieve the right outcome but create other problems along the way.

What do you think? How do you resolve challenges?  Ever solve a problem that had someone else in knots? Have you had a problem easily resolved by someone else?

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Management

How Do You Know You’re Not Producing Crap?

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how do you know you are not producingWhat would you do if you found out that your best practices had become your worst practices? Would you stop doing them? Most of us would probably say yes, but its not that easy is it? If we could stop when we recognized that something was a bad idea, then we would have far fewer smokers, alcoholics, gamblers and other addictive behaviors. 

Ok, what if we removed addictive behaviours from the conversation and simply looked at those behaviours that are just bad practice, we would stop right?  Well, actually, not really or not easiliy.  Often what people do instead of changing their behavior is to work harder at their old models.  They don’t do it out of stupidity or spite, they do it because they are absolutely convinced  that if they apply themselves, if the tools are right, if everyone would do their part, if any array of things were different  then  the old models would be effective and they in turn would be proven correct. On a regular basis new and better ways of doing things are revealed and ignored.

Psychology Today shared results from recent psychological research that revealed that the five worst learning practices are the ones we are most likely to use in schools.  Think about that. We teach our young with methods that are most likely to ensure they don’t learn.  Do we hate our kids?  Unlikely.  Are we committed to seeing them learn and develop new ideas? Yes.  So why aren’t we using the five best learning practices? 

Think about the corporate world’s persistent use of brainstorming sessions as a way to generate new ideas.  Research has shown that we actually generate more ideas when we are alone, than when we are in group settings.  The reasons are many, ranging from a reluctance to share because we might be ridiculed, to feeling too much pressure to perform.  Regardless of the reasons for low output, we know that we are less innovative in group settings, yet we not only persist in brainstorming sessions, but we work hard to make them work better.

What makes the sessions so very appealing is that we like how we feel when we participate.  We feel that we have produced more.  They generate trust and generally make us feel more connected to our colleagues.  Not bad for a bad practice and if we had feeling good as our objective, then that would be great, but that is not the outcome we are looking for from the activity, so why persist? The answer is simple and really complex, we don’t like change.

Change is hard and it can seem frightening or futile. We will work hard to avoid change. If we can understand what motivates us to do the things we do, then we are in a better position to manage performance, manage outcomes and manage expectations.  As leaders we need to understand that what we are comfortable doing isn’t always what we should be doing. Some of the most destructive words in any workplace, community or culture can be,  “That’s how we have always done it.”

This s not to say that traditions are wrong or old way erroneous. We just need to  be aware of why we cling to activities and ways of doing things.  We should also constantly be looking for the ways to improve.  We may determine that the old ways are still the best ways, but being blind to possibility, or closed to opportunity is not only a way to fail ourselves, but when managing people it can be disastrous for an organization.

One of the most interesting aspects of social media is that it behaves like a continuous improvement process.  It never stops assessing and adjusting, it asks participants to continuously adapt, it regularly produces metrics that you can measure performance by and it never stops changing. Not bad practices for the rest of our lives. Not surprisingly, it also happens to be one of the few places where brainstorming actually produces a quantity of innovative ideas.

Applying some of the adaptability that we use to navigate the social media world in the real world would be a great start to ensuring we are not producing crap. What do you do to stay effective? How do you ensure that your practices are still best practices? Share your ideas with me in the comment section.

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Internal Communications, Management

We Are Built For Change

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When you work in the health sector, you know that something new is always around the corner.  When you do communications in the health sector, you’d be lucky to get to the corner without something changing. Change is not just inevitable, it happens faster all the time, we do not walk forward, we leap. At times it can feel overwhelming, yet once it’s complete you may wonder what all the fuss was about, but then, we’re built for change. We are designed to shift, bend and flow in new directions. We are never the same person twice. It’s important to understand that our bodies anticipate change even if our minds shy away.

Consider brain plasticity, it’s a fascinating subject.  What it tells us is that even in the face of traumatic physical impact, our brains learn to reroute and work in different ways to accomplish the goals we set out to achieve. When we learn new things, our brains physically change, we forge new neural networks to accommodate our new skills. Conversely, when we don’t think about something for long periods of time, those networks may begin to decline and in some instances may even break.  Our brains are a use it or lose it proposition. Our grey matter can thicken or thin depending on what we do. In fact, our brains can change functionally, chemically and physically. We are literally creatures of transition.

When we shy from change or fight it we are fighting our very nature.  This does not mean that all change is good or good for us, but that our instincts should be to understand why the change is happening as opposed to fighting it simply because it’s happening.  What our body’s reaction to change also tells us is that we should learn to embrace new opportunities as they are presented. We should at least take the time to learn more about the options that are available to us rather than always playing it safe, which is sometimes just another word for stagnant.

I’ve worked with and in many different organizations as they moved through change. Some changes seemed impossible when we started, almost monolithic in scope.  Others were more subtle but still required a shift at a fundamental level. I have managed through professional transformations, new service delivery models, technology changes, policy changes and political changes. Although they all held their unique challenges, what stayed consistent were the reactions of people. There were those who keenly embraced the coming transformation, the majority who moved along at a slower rate of change and those who fought it until the very end. When I see broad scale resistance to change I know that there has been a failure to communicate the need for change effectively.

The single most important feature of change management is communications. By that, I don’t mean leadership telling people what they need to change, but involving them in the process of change.  This means informing them early and keeping them appraised of change all along the way with persistence and consistency.  It involves listening to their input and allowing them to adjust. We are built for change, but we still need to adjust to new tasks.  Imposed change does not allow that process to take place in a healthy or efficient way. If we wake up one morning and can’t use our right arm, our brain isn’t going to suddenly reroute and make it useful again. We will need to take time and consistently practice the use of that right arm until the brain redirects messages and finds new pathways or we will need to learn to rely on our left arm, either way, change isn’t instantaneous. When change happens in our personal or work environments it is no different, we need time to adapt.  Even when we decide to embrace change ourselves, we still need to take the time to adjust to that decision or we will become overwhelmed.

John P Kotter, former Harvard Business School professor, the founder of Kotter International and well-known author on organizational change management, identifies eight steps for successful change management:

Step 1: Establish a Sense of Urgency: Help others see the need for change and they will be convinced of the importance of acting immediately.

Step 2: Create the Guiding Coalition: Assemble a group with enough power to lead the change effort, and encourage the group to work as a team.

Step 3: Develop a Change Vision: Create a vision to help direct the change effort, and develop strategies for achieving that vision.

Step 4: Communicate the Vision for Buy-in: Make sure as many as possible understand and accept the vision and the strategy.

Step 5: Empower Broad-based Action: Remove obstacles to change, change systems or structures that seriously undermine the vision, and encourage risk-taking and nontraditional ideas, activities, and actions.

Step 6: Generate Short-term Wins: Plan for achievements that can easily be made visible, follow-through with those achievements and recognize and reward employees who were involved.

Step 7: Never Let Up: Use increased credibility to change systems, structures, and policies that don’t fit the vision, also hire, promote, and develop employees who can implement the vision, and finally reinvigorate the process with new projects, themes, and change agents

Step 8: Incorporate Changes into the Culture: Articulate the connections between the new behaviours and organizational success, and develop the means to ensure leadership development and succession.

 What do you do to manage change in your life? Do you race towards change? Do you need time to accommodate change?

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