How Do You Face Change?

by: Center for Creative Leadership

0

Tweet

 How do you face change?

Tags: Center for Creative Leadership, Change, Leadership Engine

| What is MyVisionRoom? > | Back to Leadership >

Why Either/Or Thinking is Dangerous

by: Tim Kastelle

0

Tweet

Here’s a quick quiz – see how you do:

• Do people love change or hate change?
• Are big companies more innovative or are small ones?
• Is innovation good or bad?
• Is growth good or bad?
• Is Google making is stupid or smart?

All five questions have the same answer: both.

How did you do?

I was struck by the response to my post Actually, People Love Change.  I had a surprisingly large number of people say “No they don’t!”  That kind of missed the point of the post.

The point that I was trying to make is this: there are some changes that people actively seek out.  They view these changes as good.  Yet we know that in many cases, people strongly resist change.  They view these changes as bad.

So you can’t categorically say that change is good, or that change is bad – it’s both.  The challenge is that you have to figure out type of change you’re dealing with in each particular case.  You have to categorize the change.

Classification is an incredibly important tool when you’re dealing with complexity.

It’s complexity that led Theodore Sturgeon to develop Sturgeon’s Law:

90% of everything is crap.

Here is how Sturgeon phrased it:

I repeat Sturgeon’s Revelation, which was wrung out of me after twenty years of wearying defense of science fiction against attacks of people who used the worst examples of the field for ammunition, and whose conclusion was that ninety percent of SF is crud.

Using the same standards that categorize 90% of science fiction as trash, crud, or crap, it can be argued that 90% of film, literature, consumer goods, etc. are crap. In other words, the claim (or fact) that 90% of science fiction is crap is ultimately uninformative, because science fiction conforms to the same trends of quality as all other artforms.

His short form of this reflects the thinking behind the Tao as well:

Nothing is always absolutely so.

Everything that’s black contains some white.  Everything that’s good contains some bad.  Change can be mostly bad, but sometimes good.  Or vice versa.

Either/Or thinking is very dangerous in a complex system – precisely because nothing is always absolutely so.  And, for better or worse, we live in a whole set of complex systems.  We have to figure out how to move beyond Either/Or thinking.

So how should we respond to this?

Here are some ideas that can help:

• Classification: how do biologists learn about how the world works?  The first step is always classification.  They can’t say anything if they can’t accurately tell what type of things are interacting with each other.  That’s what The Innovation Matrix is – a classification tool.
• Study the part with the outcomes you want: we know that most large firms struggle with innovation, while some have become very good at it.  What makes them different? Figuring that out is a classification challenge.  One way to attack this is with The Positive Deviance approach:
  Positive Deviance is based on the observation that in every community there are certain individuals or groups whose uncommon behaviors and strategies enable them to find better solutions to problems than their peers, while having access to the same resources and facing similar or worse challenges.
  The Positive Deviance approach is an asset-based, problem-solving, and community-driven approach that enables the community to discover these successful behaviors and strategies and develop a plan of action to promote their adoption by all concerned.
  
  Or, alternately:
• Pay attention to outliers:  In complex systems, outliers matter – a lot.  That’s why thinking about averages is so dangerous.  If we take Sturgeon’s Law seriously, the average science fiction is bad.  But as he says, that’s uninformative.  The critical question is “how good is the best Sci-Fi?”  It turns out that the best is pretty good – the outliers a lot more important than the average.

Absolute statements get more attention.  That’s why I named that post “Actually, People Love Change” instead of “Sometimes Change isn’t so Bad” or something equally wishy-washy.  But the truth of the matter is that reality isn’t absolute.  Neither black nor white.  Neither either nor or.

It’s “both.”

Developing some skills to deal with “both” is pretty essential these days.

Read more from Tim here.

Tags: Change, Innovation, Tim Kastelle

| What is MyVisionRoom? > | Back to Leadership >

Avoiding an Organizational Growth Cap at Your Church

by: Ron Edmondson

0

Tweet

When I consider companies like Apple, Facebook, Google and Amazon, the one constant I think of is change. Interestingly, after I typed that first sentence, I Googled “Most Innovative Companies” and found Fast’s list for 2012. How close do you think I got to their list? See for yourself HERE. But, don’t be impressed with my guesswork. You could have done the same thing, because it’s obvious to us that these companies are all about change.

Then I think of churches I know…some of the most growing, Kingdom-impacting churches I know are also the most innovative…the most open to continual change. I think of LifeChurch.tv, for example. Not only have they impacted many with their vision for multi-site/video venues, but they’ve also helped us discover or been a part of YouVersion and Open, a resource website for churches and ministries. I also think of Andy Stanley’s North Point and how their version of doing church and Andy’s preaching style has impacted so many others. Both LifeChurch and North Point appear to be a culture of change. From what I read about their culture, change is continually being introduced.

Let me be clear. I’m not advocating that either of the church models is the right one for every church. Neither are they the exact right model for the church I pastor. I am interested in church growth. I do like to see progress. I do want to avoid capping Kingdom growth.

I am suggesting that there may be something about growth we can learn from the two examples…business and church. My personal experience, and watching other organizations succeed, has led me to believe that there is something about continual change that produces continual growth.

In fact, I wonder if:

The level of growth an organization can experience may be determined by its level of tolerance or resistance to change.

I’m still processing that thought.

Read more from Ron here.

Tags: Change, Church Growth, Innovation, Ron Edmondson

| What is MyVisionRoom? > | Back to Leadership >

Why Changing Your Church’s Culture Rarely Works Out

by: John Kotter

0

Tweet

The Boston Globe recently ran a front-page story in their “Ideas” section on organizational culture, inspired by some depressing events involving the Boston University hockey team. It was much more impactful than the average writing about culture, and raised the important question: Why do conversations about an important topic like culture typically go nowhere, leading companies to waste time and money with “cultural change efforts” which very seldom work?

Here is the problem: First, virtually no one clearly defines what they mean by “culture,” and when they do they usually get it wrong. Second, virtually no one has read the original research that shows why culture – when clearly defined – is so important, how it is formed, and how it changes.

Definition: Culture consists of group norms of behavior and the underlying shared values that help keep those norms in place. Take your work, for example, a place where almost everyone shows up between 8:55 and 9:05. Why? Not because the CEO has decreed it, or because people are fired if they don’t do it. That’s just the way it is! That is a group norm. Why does it exist? And why doesn’t it go away when Gen X or Y individuals are hired? My guess: People are hired who embrace the value of respecting others, including other people’s time, so they also show up to meetings on time, and anyone who doesn’t gets a glaring look from everyone else.

Where does culture come from? It usually comes from the founders of the group. For whatever reason, they value certain things and behave in ways that seem to help the group succeed. Success is key. So it seeps into the group’s DNA.

How does culture change? A powerful person at the top, or a large enough group from anywhere in the organization, decides the old ways are not working, figures out a change vision, starts acting differently, and enlists others to act differently. If the new actions produce better results, if the results are communicated and celebrated, and if they are not killed off by the old culture fighting its rear-guard action, new norms will form and new shared values will grow.

What does NOT work in changing a culture? Some group decides what the new culture should be. It turns a list of values over to the communications or HR departments with the order that they tell people what the new culture is. They cascade the message down the hierarchy, and little to nothing changes.

In summary, that’s the whole story.

Read more from John here.

Tags: Change, Folklore, John Kotter

| What is MyVisionRoom? > | Back to Culture >

Understanding the Change Process in Your Church

by: Thom Rainer

0

Tweet

Ron Johnson is not off to a good beginning; the former Apple retail leader is now CEO of JC Penney and the most recent quarterly results are not encouraging. After making wide, sweeping changes, same store sales have dropped 26 percent and stock prices are at a three-year low.

Meg Whitman, the former CEO of eBay, is attempting a turnaround at Hewlett-Packard. The challenge is daunting. Though she has a long-term strategy in place, many people believe she is moving too slowly.

A pastor of a large church recently resigned after leading the congregation in several major changes. Attendance at the church dropped precipitously as many members voted against the changes with their feet.

At another large church just twenty miles away, the pastor is moving so slowly that people are also moving out. They are waiting on this leader to provide visionary leadership, but he is simply too reticent to move forward.

Volumes have been written on change, the pace of change, and the consequences of change. In simplest terms, leaders move at a perfect pace, too slowly, or too rapidly. In this brief article, I address what fast-paced leaders should consider. I offer five basic issues these leaders should grasp.

Understand the Change Tolerance of Those Directly Impacted

Some fast-paced leaders look at the organization only from their perspective. They fail to put themselves in others’  shoes to consider what this change might feel like to those directly impacted. These aggressive leaders need to ask more questions and listen more carefully. They may be surprised to hear how those directly impacted will respond to the proposed changes.

Understand That Change Tolerance Is Contextually Driven

I have seen too many leaders move to a new area and assume that change tolerance would be very close to their previous place of leadership. If they came from an organization that dealt well with change, they might assume that the same leadership pace would work at the new organization. Unfortunately, many leaders have been burned when they discover their assumptions to be wrong. Many contextual factors affect the tolerance level of change. Again, it is incumbent upon leaders to know their contexts and how to lead in those contexts. Listening to the stories of those in the organization is vital to this process.

Understand That Most Change Resistance Is Emotional, Not Rational

Such is the reason that well-thought, calmly-presented, rationally-explained reasons for change might not be well received. The leader must understand the hearts of those impacted, not only the heads. Why are they so emotionally attached to the status quo? What stories can the leader share that would address the hearts of those feeling the changes?

Understand That Leaders Must Have Sufficient Tenure to Deal with the Change

Too many leaders initiate change but fail to see the obstacles before them. As a consequence, they often leave before the changes are fully implemented. The organization is thus left with frustrated people and a void of leadership. If a leader is seeking to lead change, he or she must be willing to stay at the organization a sufficient time to see the change accomplished, and to deal with any aftermath caused by the change.

Understand That Leaders Must Understand Themselves in Leading Change

Self-awareness is vital here. If you are a slow-change leader in a fast-paced organization, you will likely encounter frustration and impatience. If you are a fast-paced leader in a slowly-moving organization, you will likely encounter resistance and resentment. A good simple exercise is to rank yourself on your comfort with the pace of change on a scale of one to ten. Then do the same for the organization you lead. If you have a gap greater than two, you have major work to do before you even begin to lead change. Sometimes the work must be done on yourself. At other times, there is greater work to do in the organization. The gap must be closed or the leader will find himself in a position of frustration and, ultimately, failed leadership.

Tags: Change, Leadership, Thom Rainer

| What is MyVisionRoom? > | Back to Leadership >

The Pivot Point of Organizational Change

by: Leadership Now

0

Tweet

We know that the vast majority of organizational change initiatives fail. Why? The general answer is our resistance to change. But what if it’s something else?

In The Pivot Point, authors Victoria and James Grady ask, “What if this is not a ‘resistance’ problem for which the organization must engineer a solution, but a deeper ‘people’ problem that the organization must first learn to understand and respect?”

Perhaps the problem is less about resistance to change and more about attachment to some thing.

Change involves destruction and insecurity. You have to give up something to create something new. It’s the nature of change. Sometimes it is very hard to give up that thing. It creates anxiety, frustration and insecurity. “We form attachments to objects unique to our organizational environment and we lean on them for support.” What we react to is our loss of attachment.

The essence of the problem is not resisting change per se, but resisting the distress inherent in somehow losing the objects that we attach to or lean on in our work environment. These objects can be people, systems, places, things, or even abstract concepts such as ideas or environments—anything that provides us with a sense of “attachment” to the organization.

If this is the case, then the challenge is to identify those attachments and the impact the proposed change will have on them, and design a solution around them—introducing changes will maintain healthy attachments. The authors refer to this as the Pivot Point of organizational change success: “when we recognize the significance of our individual reaction to organizational change, take appropriate steps to support healthy attachment behaviors, and make use of current information to optimize the situation for all concerned.”

The authors suggest that “to mitigate the negative effects of losing our sense of stability, one way an organization can ease the transition of a change initiative is to look for a generic substitute to replace the lost object until a new sense of stability is restored. Those replacements could be “a leader, a favored object, a method of communication, a continuing education series, a technology, a colleague, a culture, or any combination of these items.”

They also present other methodologies to prevent or modify symptoms before or as they are developing. It is possible to discover which symptoms are most likely to escalate, allowing you to implement a strategy to mitigate these symptoms before you ever begin your organizational change initiative.

Read more about The Pivot Point here.

Tags: Change, Leadership Now, Structure

| What is MyVisionRoom? > | Back to Leadership >

Disrupt Something and Think the Unthinkable

by: Phil Cooke

0

Tweet

When was the last time you shook up the thinking at your office? If it’s been too long, then maybe it’s time to start thinking the unthinkable, seeing what nobody else can see, and breaking a few rules. We are all creatures of habit, and it usually takes a jolt to shake us out of our rut. I know – I wrote a book on the subject. But climbing outside the rut is exactly where we need to be.  So start tomorrow.  Think of the projects you’re facing at work, and then think of the most outrageous solution.  For once, just forget about budget, schedule, and rules.  Just start asking, “What’s the most elegant and perfect solution?”  Reframe the problem in a new light and see what insight comes from there.

And just for fun, see how many minds you can blow in the process.

Tags: Change, Innovation, Phil Cooke, Structure

| What is MyVisionRoom? > | Back to Leadership >

How to Innovate Like a Shark

by: Simon Sinek

0

Tweet

Tags: Change, Innovation, Simon Sinek

| What is MyVisionRoom? > | Back to Vision >

The Cost of Church Revitalization

by: Darryl Dash

0

Tweet

I’m amazed by these words by researcher Ed Stetzer in his book Planting Missional Churches: “Church revitalization does not happen much, but it does happen sometimes. I have been struck by how infrequently it actually occurs.”

Talk about sobering! Church revitalization is possible, but it’s rare. According to statistics, most existing churches are in a state of plateau or decline. The good news is that these churches can be turned around, at least in theory. The bad news is that most of them will never pull out of their decline.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what it takes to turn a church around. I can think of a lot of churches that are in decline, but I can only think of a few that have turned around. Here’s what they have in common.

First, they got uncomfortable. I’m amazed how easy it is to drift into a comfortable life and ministry. Sadly, comfort and decline go together. Churches that become stable and comfortable have chosen safety, but it’s a safety that leads to death. Churches that die are churches that have forgotten how to take risks and live dangerously in their mission.

In each church turnaround, the church made a decision to begin living on the edge again. This meant taking new, very real risks. Leaders are the first to go here. Leaders put a lot on the line when they choose to lead a church into risk and discomfort.

Second, they confronted dysfunction. Churches have a way of slipping into dysfunction over time. Because it’s scary to confront dysfunction, a lot of it goes unchecked and eventually it becomes unnoticed. The dysfunction eventually begins to choke the church and its ministry. Until the dysfunction is confronted, there’s little hope for a turnaround.

The cost of confronting dysfunction is high. In each church turnaround, people got angry, and many people left. In some cases, the church was almost stripped to its core. It took courage and a willingness to suffer. The payoff was substantial, but there’s no denying that it cost a lot to those who were willing to confront the dysfunction.

Third, they refocused on the gospel and on mission. It’s not enough to get uncomfortable and to confront dysfunction. Churches need a positive focus. In the faith communities I know that have turned around, the churches became focused on two things: the core of the Christian faith, centered on the person and work of Jesus; and the mission to take that news to others.

It’s no wonder that church revitalization is rare. In each case, the turnaround took years, and the pain was significant. Both church planting and church revitalization are necessary, and both are costly and risky. But churches can be revitalized, and the cost, though significant, is more than worth it.

Read more from Darryl here.

Tags: Change, Darryl Dash, Recapturing Vision

| What is MyVisionRoom? > | Back to Vision >

Say Yes to the Mess

by: Susan Adams

0

Tweet

Frank J. Barrett, a professor of management and global public policy at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif., is also a jazz pianist who has led his own trios and quartets and traveled with the Tommy Dorsey orchestra. In his new book, Yes to the Mess:  Surprising Leadership Lessons from Jazz, Barrett riffs on the themes that improvisational jazz and enlightened corporate management have in common. The book is breezy and fun, and offers vivid real-life stories from Barrett’s musical career and observations about some jazz greats, all juxtaposed with anecdotes from the business world.

Here are the lessons he imparts:

1. Improvise through the chaos.

Barrett tells about playing at a club in Cleveland with a jazz quartet whose members he didn’t know, including a singer he had never accompanied. In the middle of a bebop tune, it became clear the singer hardly knew the song. As the saxophone stopped playing and the other players balked, Barrett persisted, hitting a few notes and then the original melody. Soon the sax jumped back in and the singer started making up words. “Within a few seconds, we were grooving again,” he writes.

That tale leads him to the story of GE’s experience during the financial crisis, when the company’s hugely profitable financial arm, GE Capital, suddenly hit a wall. GE wound up improvising with its other businesses, from manufacturing light bulbs to jet engines. The company recovered on the strength of its ability to adjust to change.

Read the rest of the lessons in the full story here.

Tags: Change, Frank Barrett, Jazz, Leadership Engine, Susan Adams

| What is MyVisionRoom? > | Back to Leadership >