Category Archives: Change

How to Make Navigating Ambiguity a Super Power

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How to Make Navigating Ambiguity a Super Power

GUEST POST from Robyn Bolton

You are a leader. The boss. The person in charge.

That means you know the answer to every question, make the right decision when faced with every choice, and act confidently when others are uncertain. Right?

(Insert uproarious laughter here).

Of course not. But you act like you do because you’re the leader, the boss, the person in charge.

You are not alone. We’re all doing it.

We act like we have the answers because we’ve been told that’s what leaders do. We act like we made the right decision because that’s what leaders do in a volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) world where we must work quickly and flexibly while doing more with less.

But what if we didn’t? 

What if we stopped pretending to have the answer or know the right choice? What if we acknowledged the ambiguity of a situation, explored its options and interpretations for just a short while, and then decided?

We’d make more informed choices. We’d be more creative and innovative. We’d inspire others.

So why do we keep pretending?

Ambiguity: Yea! Meh. Have you lost your mind?!?

Stanford’s d.School calls the ability to navigate ambiguity “the super ability” because it’s necessary for problem-finding and problem-solving. Ambiguity “involves recognizing and stewing in the discomfort of not knowing, leveraging and embracing parallel possibilities, and resolving or emerging from ambiguity as needed.”

Navigating ambiguity is essential in a VUCA world, but not all want to. They found that people tend to do one of three things when faced with ambiguity:

  • Endure ambiguity as “a moment of time that comes before a solution and is antagonistic to the objective – it must be conquered to reach the goal.”
  • Engage ambiguity as “an off-road adventure; an alternate path to a goal. It might be rewarding and helpful or dangerous and detrimental. Its value is a chosen gamble. Exhilaration and exhaustion are equally expected.”
  • Embrace ambiguity as “oceanic and ever-present. Exploration is a challenge and an opportunity. The longer you spend in it, the more likely you are to discover something new. Every direction is a possibility. Navigation isn’t simple. It requires practice and patience.

Students tend to enter the program with a resignation that ambiguity must be endured. They leave embracing it because they learn how to navigate it.

You can too.

In fact, as a leader in a VUCA world, you and your team need to.

How to Embrace (or at least Engage) Ambiguity

When you want to learn something new, the library is one of the best places to start. In this case, the Library of Ambiguity  – an incredible collection of the resources, tools, and activities that professors at Stanford’s d.School use to help their students build this super ability.

It’s easy to get overwhelmed by the number of resources, so here are three that I recommend:

Design Project Scoping Guide

  • What it is: A guide for selecting, framing, and communicating the intentions of a design project
  • When to use it: When you are defining an innovation project and need to align on scope, goals, and priorities
  • Why I like it: The guide offers excellent examples of helpful and unhelpful scoping documents.

Learning Zone Reflection Tool

  • What it is: A tool to help individuals better understand the tolerance of ambiguity, especially their comfort, learning, and panic zones
  • When to use it: Stanford used this as a reflection tool at the end of an introductory course, BUT I would use it at the start of the project as a leadership alignment and team-building tool:
    • Leadership alignment – Ask individual decision-makers to identify their comfort, learning, and panic zones for each element of the Project Scoping Guide (problem to be solved, target customer, context, goals, and priorities), then synthesize the results. As a group, highlight areas of agreement and resolve areas of difference.
    • Team-building – At the start of the project, ask individual team members to complete the worksheet as it applies to both the project scope and the process. Individuals share their worksheets and, as a group, identify areas of shared comfort and develop ways to help each other through areas of learning or panic.
  • Why I like it: Very similar to the Project Playground concept I use with project teams to define the scope and set constraints, it can be used individually to build empathy and support amongst team members.

Team Dashboards

  • What it is: A tool to build trust and confidence amongst a team working through an ambiguous effort
  • When to use it: At regular pre-defined intervals during a project (e.g., every team check-in, at the end of each Sprint, once a month)
  • What I like about it:
    • Individuals complete it BEFORE the meeting, so the session focuses on discussing the dashboard, not completing it
    • The dashboard focuses on the usual business things (progress against responsibilities, the biggest challenge, next steps) and the “softer” elements that tend to have the most significant impact on team experience and productivity (mood, biggest accomplishment, team balance between talking and doing)

Learn It. Do It.

The world isn’t going to get simpler, clearer, or slower. It’s on you as a leader to learn how to deal with it. When to slow it down and explore and when to speed it up and act. No one is born knowing. We all learn along the way. The Library will help. No ambiguity about that!

Image credit: Pexels

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Shared Values Key to Achieving the Most Radical Visions

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Shared Values Key to Achieving the Most Radical Visions

GUEST POST from Greg Satell

With the political season heating up, an increasingly frequent topic of discussion is how radical candidates should be. Some say that the optimal strategy is to be mainstream and court the middle. Others argue that it is better to more extreme and rile up the passions of your most active supporters.

Yet as I explain in Cascades that’s a false choice. The truth is that once seemingly radical positions, such as voting rights for women, civil rights for disenfranchised racial groups and same-sex marriage are now considered mainstream. To win those battles, however, activists needed to appeal to shared values.

What’s key isn’t any particular policy, but whether you can appeal to common values and mobilize supporters to influence institutions that will determine whether you can bring change about. You don’t do that through enforcing ideological purity or demonizing your opposition, but by putting forward an affirmative vision for a better future.

Change Starts With Passionate Grievance

As a young man, Nelson Mandela was angry. “I was sympathetic to the ultra-revolutionary stream of African nationalism,” he would later write. “I was angry at the white man, not at racism. While I was not prepared to hurl the white man into the sea, I would have been perfectly happy if he climbed aboard his steamships and left the continent of his own volition.”

After the National Party won elections in 1948 on a white supremacist platform, things got worse for native blacks , Indians and coloureds (mixed race). Mixed marriages were outlawed and it was mandated that races would live in segregated areas. This policy of Apartheid would only become more extreme over the next half century.

Mandela and his comrades stepped up their efforts as well. Rather than just merely protesting, the African National Congress (ANC) adopted a program of direct action, including boycotts, stay-at-homes, strikes and other tactics designed to undermine the Apartheid regime. Whatever hopes for working within the system that had remained were now gone for good.

Yet while Mandela’s actions intensified, his views tempered somewhat. Originally skeptical of building links with other racial groups, he began to see the value of collaboration. That’s what set the stage dealing the first blow to Apartheid, The Freedom Charter.

Searching Out Common Values

In June 1955, the Congress of The People, a gathering that included blacks, Coloureds, Indians and liberal whites convened to draft and adopt the Freedom Charter, much like the Continental Congress gathered to produce the Declaration of Independence in America. The idea was to come up with a common and inclusive vision.

However, the Freedom Charter was anything but moderate. It was a “revolutionary document precisely because the changes it envisioned could not be achieved without radically altering the economic and political structure of South Africa… In South Africa, to merely achieve fairness, one had to destroy apartheid itself, for it was the very embodiment of injustice.”

Yet despite its radical aims, the Freedom Charter spoke to common values, such as equal rights and equal protection under the law—not just among the signatories, but for anyone living in a free society. It didn’t seem so at the time—and the struggle would go on for decades—but the Freedom Charter ended up being the first major blow to Apartheid.

In later years, when Mandela was accused of being a communist, an anarchist and worse, he would point out that nobody had to guess what he believed, because it had been written down in the Freedom Charter in 1955. Of course, it would have been conceived differently if it had been an ANC-only document-—and some within the ANC bitterly protested—but it was the common ground that document created that brought about the end of Apartheid.

Influencing Institutions

All too often, those who seek to bring about change, whether that change be in an organization, an industry, a community or throughout society as a whole, seek only to mobilize support among interest groups. That’s necessary, but far from sufficient. The truth is that only institutions can bring about real change.

In South Africa, Mandela and his comrades suffered under an all-powerful regime. Yet what they understood was that the government relied on many institutions outside the country for its survival. That was a significant vulnerability that could be exploited by mobilizing interest groups to influence key institutions.

One key campaign was taken against Barclays Bank in British university towns. For example, in 1984, Anti-Apartheid activists spray-painted “WHITES ONLY” and “BLACKS” above pairs of Barclays ATMs in British university town to draw attention to the bank’s investments in South Africa.

This of course, had little to no effect on public opinion in South Africa, but it meant a lot to the English university students that the bank wanted to attract. Barclays share of student accounts quickly plummeted from 27% to 15% and two years later Barclays pulled out all of its investments from the country.

It was a major blow that helped lead to other corporate divestments, sanctions from western governments and, eventually, the downfall of the regime. Apartheid had simply become economically untenable.

Surviving Victory

Mandela’s ascension to the Presidency of South Africa in 1994 was a historic triumph, but if it had stopped there the victory would have been limited. As we have seen more recently in places ranging from Ukraine to Egypt, even great, hard-fought victories can quickly be reversed. Every revolution inspires a counter-revolution.

To achieve lasting change, you need to plan to survive victory and you do that by reaffirming your commitment to common values. In the case of South Africa, that meant adhering to the principles of the Freedom Charter, which called for equal rights for all citizens, even for the white oppressors. That’s why today Mandela is remembered as a hero and not some tin-pot dictator.

In researching Cascades, I found that these principles held true not only in political and social contexts, but even in the corporate world. Radical change was achieved in firms ranging from IBM, Alcoa and Experian to fields like healthcare and education. In many cases, the degree of change surpassed anything anyone thought possible.

The truth is that success doesn’t depend on how radical or how moderate the vision, but how well you can appeal to shared values. Or, as Mandela himself put it, “to be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.”

— Article courtesy of the Digital Tonto blog
— Image credit: Pixabay

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39 Digital Transformation Hacks

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39 Digital Transformation Hacks

GUEST POST from Stefan Lindegaard

Here you get 39 hacks that can help yourself and your organization in its digital transformation efforts. The hacks are divided into these six main categories:

  1. Corporate Mindset
  2. Personal Leadership / Executives
  3. People – Mindset, Skills and Toolbox
  4. Organizational Structures and Processes
  5. Networking and Ecosystems
  6. Tools

This is work in progress and Grimur Fjeldsted, my co-author and partner at Transform XO and myself are very open to your feedback and input. Get in touch!

Here we go with the hacks.

1. Corporate Mindset

Strategy for a digital world: Your company needs new approaches to strategy that must be rooted in the belief that there is no such thing as a digital strategy; just strategy in a digital world. Besides crucial digital focus, your strategy approach must also be built on speed and flexibility which means that you must listen, adapt, experiment and execute better and faster than ever before – and than what your competition does.

Profitability: Digital acceleration should be geared towards driving economic benefits aimed of keeping – or developing – a healthy culture of profitability. So focus on growth and profitability and know that when setting up something new, it does not always mean that the old is bad. The key is to know the gaps and build the bridges.

Create a vision statement: You need a vision statement in order to build the narrative for the digital transformation your organization must undertake. Build upon the visions you already have in place, but have in mind that you need to think as if you are already in a digital world.

Align digital efforts to vision and overall corporate strategy: Executives – and later on their teams and the rest of the organization – need to think of digitalization as a tool to reach the goals stated in the corporate strategy – short, mid and long-term.

Ride the waves of merging industries: Exponential growth, mergers of technologies and disruption created by new business models will change the supply and value chains that make up the industries as we know them today. This will happen faster in some industries than others, but every company need to prepare themselves to be disrupted. Digital is a key enabler.

Be competitively unpredictable: Either your industry stays the same or it will be disrupted significantly in the coming years. The challenge is that you don’t know which scenario wins, so you need to prepare the organization to face either option. Agility is key for this. If you decide to be proactive on this and if you read the merging of industries right, you are on the way to become competitively unpredictable.

Develop the digital compass: Knowing where to go in the digital world is one of the biggest challenges. In this context, you must look at digital for operational elements as well as digital for transformation/innovation efforts. This covers all aspects of digital from social media, e-commerce, digital life to big data, artificial intelligence and IoT. It is difficult developing a digital compass so be ready to experiment to find the right way forward for your organization.

Step up the communication efforts: You have to develop a common understanding and a common language around digital transformation. Build your communication strategy on the above efforts.

2. Personal Leadership / Executives

Go from doing digital to being digital: Internal and external forces with a special focus on the shifts in customer expectations require new approaches for dealing with digital. Did you company react to these changes by doing digital or by being digital? Getting to know your patterns of action will help you on the long journey of understanding what digital transformation really is about.

Know the leadership challenges: Who leads on digital in your organization? Is digital leadership spread across silos, functions and business units or is it unified? Who has the ownership of the touch-points in the customer, supplier, innovation and other journeys? Do you have the capabilities and infrastructure to be data-driven or do you rely on your gut instincts? If the leadership team does not get this, all other efforts will be in vain.

Build a core team and give executives skin in the game: Set up a small core team with a mix of top level executives (at best led by the CEO him or herself) and people with the right mindset and skills towards digitalization. This team must make things happen and the key elements are to set the direction, build the belief and remove the obstacles for digital transformation. Don’t turn this into a talk, talk committee. It has to be action-driven and people – including the executives – need to be hold accountable for its success.

Focus on the root causes, not the barriers: Too many executives and their chosen teams keep fighting the barriers, but they will not go away if you don’t attack the root causes. Root causes are different for each organization. Know yours.

Bring Emotional Intelligence (EQ) into digital efforts: Develop your ability to have successful conversations with others, up, down, sideways, inside and outside the organization. The ability to empathize impacts employee engagement, retention and performance and it is critical to good teamwork. It it also critical for customer engagement and ecosystem driven innovation. This is about interacting rather than managing. It is important today and even more so in a growing digital world.

Identify the heroes and make space for the first rebels: Who sounds the alarm horn, when the rest of the organization steers towards the abyss? You need to identify the heroes who really make a difference for your digital transformation and you must beware that many of the future heroes might have the label of being a rebel today. Once you know what to look for in people and later on who the heroes are, make sure they are close to your inner circle.

Build belief, instill a sense of urgency: First, the executives and their teams must believe – and upgrade their own mindset and competences. Then, they must build belief within the organization and external stakeholders. Communication including networking and stakeholder management is key. The paradox is that this must be done with a sense of urgency that very few people can understand.

Manage speed plus complexity: Today, we all try to handle speed, but in the near future it will also be about handling complexity. The rising complexity gives leaders headaches, and thereby resistance to take the first steps towards change. Establish a collective realization to embrace change og listen and adapt much more dramatically than ever before. Maybe AI will soon help us on this.

3. People – Mindset, Skills and Toolbox

Asses your digital maturity: You need to assess not only the organizational maturity but also your personal maturity for digitalization. Once you know your starting point as well as your objectives, it becomes easier to develop in the right direction. You can find many assessment tools online although it can take some time finding one that works for you. We are working on this.

Know your network and skills: Assess your network and skills with regards to the elements that are the most important for your work and career issues today and in the near future. If you read this, you already know that digital is important. The next questions to consider are how you can grow your network in this direction and context.

Learn in new ways: You need to challenge yourself constantly in the next couple of years in order to keep up with the best – or just stay relevant. You can do this through reverse mentoring, taking classes at platforms like Singularity and Udacity and by expanding your network in directions that works for your new future. As a starter, you could look into exponential growth and how this brings along merging technologies and even industries.

Embrace the positive aspects: There are so many public perspectives on digitalization and they are both positive and negative. If you want to prosper in this new era, you must embrace the positive aspects and explore the opportunities while still keeping a healthy balance by having a realistic view and understanding of the less positive consequences. And remember that the worst you can do is to do nothing at all.

4. Organizational Structures and Processes

New ways of working: Explore the “new” ways of working which often includes buzz words such as lean, agile, experimentation, MVP, holocracy, RACI and boss-less management. Adapt the ways that can work within your organization and experiment on how to bring the past and future together.

Don’t act like a startup: You are not one, but you should still adopt a beginner’s mindset. This means you need to look at things with a fresh perspective, stay curious and be open for experimentation while learning from the failures that come along with experimentation.

Experiment, implement and standardize on digitalization: Set up small teams that work in new ways, capture the lessons learned from successes as well as failures and communicate strategically about this. Build from this to float more projects into the organization and consider establishing a new competence center. Validate and standardize well consolidated working methods across the corporation and focus on the next development.

Break down silos, review governance structures: Internal resistance is often caused by business units and functions that are working towards different objectives. This will be a major issue with digitalization as it has strong impact across the board. Assess the processes, policies and systems that prevent success in this context. Update.

Educate in new ways: Forget Harvard, INSEAD, London Business School and all the other business schools that are rooted in the last century. Ok, that might be a tad too much, but you should definitely find ways to complement traditional training and educational efforts with the offerings by the likes of Singularity University and Udacity. Learn by doing and train the trainers.

Work with HR – when/if they are ready: Most HR teams lack a strategic role when it comes to corporate transformation, digitalization and innovation. This is a paradox as everyone agrees that people are the key element here. This has to change and the core team need to help them upgrade their capabilities in this context. If successful, HR becomes a powerful partner as they have a strong influence on corporate training including the executive level.

Don’t go full frontal with learning activities: Before you push learning, use 3-6 months to influence the executives by sharing short pieces of information and insights that fit their specific situation and objectives in the context of digital transformation. Build further on this to help them develop their own ideas on how digital can help their personal agendas. Then, develop a program to upgrade their mindset, skills and toolbox (and for their key people and teams). Make it action-driven.

Note: several of the below hacks on networks and ecosystems are also highly relevant to organizational structures and processes.

5. Networking and Ecosystems

Digital business models are platforms based on networks and communities: Products have features, platforms have communities and networks. Platforms are connected, collaborative and scalable. You do not have to replace your current business models based on products as the digital business models often live alongside the traditional ones (at least for now). The key is to learn the new rules of strategy based on a platform-driven world or begin planning your exit.

Develop a networked business structure: A next generation organization is highly networked. It is plugged into physical as well as virtual assets and resources and entrepreneurial and industrial ecosystems on a global scale. The external strategic stakeholders (current and potential) must be identified and mapped based on their role in the value chain, business model ecosystem and/or supply chain. Better interaction and flow across ecosystems must be enabled.

The internal networked business structure: The same as the above needs to be done internally where the focus is also to break down silos. Here it is critical to know how to navigate the fine line between the existing corporate culture and the different culture that is often needed for a successful transformation. A mindset upgrade program must be initiated in this context, and key internal resources should get their feet wet fast.

Form a strategic alliance with IT: You cannot do it without them. But make sure IT also sees opportunities that everyone can pursue together rather than just risk that IT wants to shut down.

Be the accelerator for your ecosystems: Strive to become the accelerator that brings together your ecosystems and takes the lead in developing the services, processes and products needed for everyone to win with digitalization.

Win early and reap the benefits: The key benefit of being perceived as the thought/action leader within your industry and the preferred partner of choice within your (innovation) ecosystems is that your organization get the first look on new opportunities as well as the important heads-up on new directions within the industry.

Work with multi-layered approaches: Today, networking and ecosystems is not just organizations with its teams and people working with other organizations and their teams and people to form ecosystems. It is also the digital and virtual infrastructures of these companies and ecosystems. Furthermore, we need to have in mind that competition today is not between two or more companies, but between two or more ecosystems.

6. Tools

Current versus new services, systems and tools: What is already in place to facilitate digital transformation? How do we learn what else is needed? How do we get the new things and how do we bridge the new and the existing in ways that build competitive advantages? Getting the overview here is a job for the top executives. You might need new tools just to get this overview.

Tap into existing structures and opportunities for digital development: Many companies and service providers have been working on digital transformation for years. Just think of Watson in general (and their narrow approaches towards health and law) and the new partnership between IBM and Salesforce with regards to digital-driven sales structures. As above, you first need the overview and then you find out how to tap into what is already on the market and link this with your own efforts.

Metrics and KPI’s in a digital world: Many traditional metrics are outcome-driven in the sense that they are based on 1-3 year old decisions and the actions taken around these decisions. In the future, we need to balance traditional metrics and KPI’s with new ones that focus more on behavior in order to provide an overview of the corporate capabilities and a sense of the direction that the organization and its partners is taking. This is important in order to facilitate much faster strategy development processes and even faster responses to the markets.

Harness the power of big data: This will be the starting point for many organizations. You can start start small by forming data collection and insight teams and build up your analytical capabilities. But starting small does not mean that you should not invest heavily in this. If you are at this stage, you are years behind and you have to catch up fast.

Use digital to work smarter, not harder: What good are all the tools if they do not enable your organization to work smarter rather than harder?

Thanks!

Image Credit: Unsplash

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Ridiculous Discount on Charting Change eBook

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Ridiculous Discount on Charting Change eBook

Wow! Exciting news!

From now until July 28, 2023 you can get the digital version (eBook) of my latest best-selling book Charting Change for only $12.99!

Sorry, unfortunately this sale doesn’t have a discount on the hardcover.

I created the Human-Centered Change methodology to help organizations get everyone literally all on the same page for change. The 70+ visual, collaborative tools are introduced in my book Charting Change, including the powerful Change Planning Canvas™. The toolkit has been created to help organizations:

  • Beat the 70% failure rate for change programs
  • Quickly visualize, plan and execute change efforts
  • Deliver projects and change efforts on time
  • Accelerate implementation and adoption
  • Get valuable tools for a low investment

You must go to SpringerLink for this Cyber Sale:

  • The offer is valid until July 28, 2023 on the eBook only

Click here to get this eBook deal

Quick reminder: Everyone can download ten free tools from the Human-Centered Change methodology by going to its page on this site via the link in this sentence, and book buyers can get 26 of the 70+ tools from the Change Planning Toolkit (including the Change Planning Canvas™) by contacting me with proof of purchase.

*This offer is valid for selected English-language Palgrave eBooks and is redeemable on link.springer.com only. Titles affected by fixed book price laws, forthcoming titles and titles temporarily not available on link.springer.com are excluded from this promotion, as are reference works, handbooks, encyclopedias, subscriptions, or bulk purchases. The currency in which your order will be invoiced depends on the billing address associated with the payment method used, not necessarily your home currency. Regional VAT/tax may apply. Promotional prices may change due to exchange rates. This offer is valid for individual customers only. Booksellers, book distributors, and institutions such as libraries and corporations please visit springernature.com/contact-us. This promotion does not work in combination with other discounts or gift cards.






Bringing Yin and Yang to the Productivity Zone

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Bringing Yin and Yang to the Productivity Zone

GUEST POST from Geoffrey A. Moore

Digital transformation is hardly new. Advances in computing create more powerful infrastructure which in turn enables more productive operating models which in turn can enable wholly new business models. From mainframes to minicomputers to PCs to the Internet to the Worldwide Web to cloud computing to mobile apps to social media to generative AI, the hits just keep on coming, and every IT organization is asked to both keep the current systems running and to enable the enterprise to catch the next wave. And that’s a problem.

The dynamics of productivity involve a yin and yang exchange between systems that improve efficiency and programs that improve effectiveness. Systems, in this model, are intended to maintain state, with as little friction as possible. Programs, in this model, are intended to change state, with maximum impact within minimal time. Each has its own governance model, and the two must not be blended.

It is a rare IT organization that does not know how to maintain its own systems. That’s Job 1, and the decision rights belong to the org itself. But many IT organizations lose their way when it comes to programs—specifically, the digital transformation initiatives that are re-engineering business processes across every sector of the global economy. They do not lose their way with respect to the technology of the systems. They are missing the boat on the management of the programs.

Specifically, when the CEO champions the next big thing, and IT gets a big chunk of funding, the IT leader commits to making it all happen. This is a mistake. Digital transformation entails re-engineering one or more operating models. These models are executed by organizations outside of IT. For the transformation to occur, the people in these organizations need to change their behavior, often drastically. IT cannot—indeed, must not—commit to this outcome. Change management is the responsibility of the consuming organization, not the delivery organization. In other words, programs must be pulled. They cannot be pushed. IT in its enthusiasm may believe it can evangelize the new operating model because people will just love it. Let me assure you—they won’t. Everybody endorses change as long as other people have to be the ones to do it. No one likes to move their own cheese.

Given all that, here’s the playbook to follow:

  1. If it is a program, the head of the operating unit that must change its behavior has to sponsor the change and pull the program in. Absent this commitment, the program simply must not be initiated.
  2. To govern the program, the Program Management Office needs a team of four, consisting of the consuming executive, the IT executive, the IT project manager, and the consuming organization’s program manager. The program manager, not the IT manager, is responsible for change management.
  3. The program is defined by a performance contract that uses a current state/future state contrast to establish the criteria for program completion. Until the future state is achieved, the program is not completed.
  4. Once the future state is achieved, then the IT manager is responsible for securing the system that will maintain state going forward.

Delivering programs that do not change state is the biggest source of waste in the Productivity Zone. There is an easy fix for this. Just say No.

That’s what I think. What do you think?

Image Credit: Unsplash

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24 Hour Flash Sale on Charting Change

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Charting Change for an Outstanding 2023

Wow! Exciting news!

My publisher is having a 24 hour flash sale that will allow you to get the hardcover or the digital version (eBook) of my latest best-selling book Charting Change for 40% off!

I created the Human-Centered Change methodology to help organizations get everyone literally all on the same page for change. The 70+ visual, collaborative tools are introduced in my book Charting Change, including the powerful Change Planning Canvas™. The toolkit has been created to help organizations:

  • Beat the 70% failure rate for change programs
  • Quickly visualize, plan and execute change efforts
  • Deliver projects and change efforts on time
  • Accelerate implementation and adoption
  • Get valuable tools for a low investment

You must go to SpringerLink for this Cyber Sale:

  • The offer is valid July 8, 2023 only using code PALFLS23

Click here to get this deal using code PALFLS23

Quick reminder: Everyone can download ten free tools from the Human-Centered Change methodology by going to its page on this site via the link in this sentence, and book buyers can get 26 of the 70+ tools from the Change Planning Toolkit (including the Change Planning Canvas™) by contacting me with proof of purchase.

*This offer is valid for selected English-language Palgrave books and eBooks and is redeemable on link.springer.com only. Titles affected by fixed book price laws, forthcoming titles and titles temporarily not available on link.springer.com are excluded from this promotion, as are reference works, handbooks, encyclopedias, subscriptions, or bulk purchases. The currency in which your order will be invoiced depends on the billing address associated with the payment method used, not necessarily your home currency. Regional VAT/tax may apply. Promotional prices may change due to exchange rates. This offer is valid for individual customers only. Booksellers, book distributors, and institutions such as libraries and corporations please visit springernature.com/contact-us. This promotion does not work in combination with other discounts or gift cards.






Top 10 Human-Centered Change & Innovation Articles of June 2023

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Top 10 Human-Centered Change & Innovation Articles of June 2023Drum roll please…

At the beginning of each month, we will profile the ten articles from the previous month that generated the most traffic to Human-Centered Change & Innovation. Did your favorite make the cut?

But enough delay, here are June’s ten most popular innovation posts:

  1. Generation AI Replacing Generation Z — by Braden Kelley
  2. Mission Critical Doesn’t Mean What You Think it Does — by Geoffrey A. Moore
  3. “I don’t know,” is a clue you’re doing it right — by Mike Shipulski
  4. 5 Tips for Leaders Navigating Uncertainty – From Executives at P&G, CVS, Hannaford, and Intel — by Robyn Bolton
  5. Reverse Innovation — by Mike Shipulski
  6. Change Management Best Practices for Maximum Adoption — by Art Inteligencia
  7. Making Employees Happy at Work — by David Burkus
  8. 4 Things Leaders Must Know About Artificial Intelligence and Automation — by Greg Satell
  9. Be Human – People Will Notice — by Mike Shipulski
  10. How to Fail Your Way to Success — by Robyn Bolton

BONUS – Here are five more strong articles published in May that continue to resonate with people:

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Human-Centered Change & Innovation is open to contributions from any and all innovation and transformation professionals out there (practitioners, professors, researchers, consultants, authors, etc.) who have valuable human-centered change and innovation insights to share with everyone for the greater good. If you’d like to contribute, please contact me.

P.S. Here are our Top 40 Innovation Bloggers lists from the last three years:

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True Transformation Goes Across Not Top-Down Or Bottom-Up

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True Transformation Goes Across Not Top-Down Or Bottom-Up

GUEST POST from Greg Satell

In a disruptive era, the only viable strategy is to adapt and that is especially true today. With change seeming to accelerate with each passing year, every organization must transform itself. Those who are unable to change often find that they are unable to compete and soon disappear altogether.

There has been a long running debate about whether change should be top-down or bottom-up. Some say that true change can only take hold if it comes from the top and is pushed through the entire organization. Others argue that you must first get buy-in from the rank-and-file before any real change can take place.

As I explain in Cascades, the truth is that transformation isn’t top-down or bottom-up, but happens from side-to-side. Change never happens all at once and can’t simply be willed into existence. It can only happen when people truly internalize and embrace it. The best way to do that is to empower those who already believe in change to bring in those around them

Identify your Apostles

All too often, change initiatives start with a big kickoff meeting and communication campaign. That’s almost always a mistake. In every organization, there are different levels of enthusiasm to change. Some will be ready to jump on board, but others will be vehemently opposed. To them, change is a threat.

So starting off with a big bang may excite some supporters, but it will also mobilize the opposition, who will try to undermine the effort—either actively or passively—before you have the chance to gain momentum. Before you know it, your initiative loses steam and change dies with it.

So a better strategy is to start by identifying your apostles—people who are already excited about the possibilities for change. For example, when Barry Libenson first started his movement to transform Experian’s digital infrastructure from a traditional architecture to the cloud, he didn’t announce a big campaign right away. Instead, he found early allies that he could start with.

They weren’t enough to drive change throughout the organization, of course, but they did allow him to start small-scale initiatives, such as building internal API’s. The success of those brought in others, who brought in others still.

Don’t Try To Convince — Empower

Anybody who has ever been married or had kids knows how difficult it can be to identify even a single person of something. Trying to convince hundreds or even thousands is truly a fool’s errand, which is why those kickoff meetings and communication campaigns have so little effect. Everybody brings their own biases and prejudices.

However, once you’ve identified your apostles, you can empower them to bring in others around them. Unlike top-down or bottom-up efforts, people generally have a pretty good idea which of their peers may be receptive. As the network theorist Duncan Watts put it to me, viral cascades are largely the result of “easily influenced people influencing other easily influenced people.”

The revolutionary movement Otpor put this principle to work through its strategy of recruit-train-act in their effort to bring down the Serbian dictator Slobodan Milošević. First, they would recruit new members, usually through tactics like pranks and street theatre. Then they would train those recruits. Finally, they would encourage new members to take an action, no matter how small, because action is how people take ownership of a movement.

Wyeth Pharmaceuticals took a similar approach in its effort to bring lean manufacturing techniques to 17,000 employees in its manufacturing operation. Rather than try to indoctrinate everyone all at once, it started with just a few teams in a few plants. Once those initiatives were successful, other teams were brought into the fold.

In both cases, the results were extraordinary. Within a few years, Milošević was ousted and would later die in his prison cell at The Hague. Wyeth Pharmaceuticals would cut costs by 25% within a year (the company was later sold to Pfizer).

Constrain Your Movement With Values

While peer-to-peer movements can be immensely powerful, they can also spin dangerously out of control. The Occupy movement, to take just one example, inspired thousands of people in over 951 cities across 82 countries to protest income inequality, but then fizzled out almost as fast. It accomplished little, if anything.

In a similar vein, Circuit City’s Superstore electronic store format spread like wildfire in the 1980s and gained a well-earned reputation for exceptional service. As Jim Collins reported in Good to Great, the company went to great trouble and expense to ensure that its salespeople were factory-trained. By 2000, however, the firm began to falter. It went bankrupt in 2008.

In both cases, a failure to indoctrinate values was at the core of the collapse. The Occupy protesters, while passionate, were also often vulgar and undisciplined, which turned off many others sympathetic to their cause. For Circuit City, investing in training was a strategy, not a core value, and was easily abandoned when profit margins were under pressure.

Values are important not because they are nice things to say, but because they represent constraints. If you value inclusiveness, you don’t shout down those that don’t agree with you and turn off others that do in the process. If you value service, then investing in training is more than just a line item on an income statement.

Make no mistake. Values, if they are to be anything more than platitudes, always come with costs. If you are unwilling to incur those costs, then it isn’t something you truly value.

Surviving Victory

In 2004 and 2005, I found myself in the middle of Ukraine’s Orange Revolution. At the heart of the issue was a falsified election and millions took to the streets to see that the rightful president, Viktor Yushchenko, was put in power. Yet even though it was truly a grassroots movement, its ethos was top-down.

“In 2005 everybody just disappeared and let Yushchenko do what he wanted,” Vitaliy Sych, editor of the popular newsmagazine Novoye Vremya, told me. “They thought he was some kind of magician and things were going to happen right away.” The movement soon flamed out and Ukraine descended once again into chaos.

In 2013, a similar uprising, called Euromaidan, erupted in Ukraine. But this time, rather than centered on any one person or objective, the movement was rooted in adopting European values. While the country still faces significant challenges, democratic norms are no longer in question. Its most recent election saw a peaceful transfer of power, rather than turmoil.

Irving Wladawsky-Berger made a similar point about IBM’s historic turnaround in the 1990s. “Because the transformation was about values first and technology second, we were able to continue to embrace those values as the technology and marketplace continued to evolve,” he told me.

That’s what’s key to successful transformations. The answer doesn’t lie in any specific strategy or initiative, but in how people are able to internalize the need for change and transfer ideas through social bonds. A leader’s role is not to plan and direct action, but to inspire and empower belief.

— Article courtesy of the Digital Tonto blog
— Image credit: Pexels

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5 Tips for Leaders Navigating Uncertainty

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From Executives at P&G, CVS, Hannaford, and Intel

5 Tips for Leaders Navigating Uncertainty

GUEST POST from Robyn Bolton

“We have successfully retained the opportunity for improvement.”

When the CEO said this to kick off a meeting, I knew we were in for an adventure. He smirked at the corporate double-speak, paused for the laughter, then outlined all the headwinds facing the business. But the only thing I remember from that meeting was his opening line.

I think about it all the time. Because it seems to apply all the time.

And despite the turmoil brought on by a pandemic, a war, and an economic slowdown, we have successfully retained the opportunity to improve how we deal with uncertainty. 

That isn’t to say we haven’t improved over the past three years. In fact, at an event sponsored by NextUp, four executives from P&G, CVS, Hannaford, and Intel shared what they learned and how they changed while navigating uncertainty.

Listen more

Dave DeJohn, Director of Operations for Hannaford, talked about the importance of listening deeply and constantly to employees, especially those on the front lines. Consistent with its core values of family, community, quality, and value, store associates are trained that the customer is always right. However, as incidents of verbal abuse increased during the lockdowns, employee satisfaction and mental health declined. By closely listening and observing what was happening in stores, Hannaford’s leadership modified their customer service approach to “the customer is always right, within reason” and empowered employees to stand up for themselves and each other when faced with hostile shoppers.

Stronger relationships lead to stronger results

Every executive shared stories from the early days of working from home – technical glitches, kids invading calls, and even cats positioning themselves awkwardly in front of cameras when the human stepped away.   Far from being signals of a lack of commitment or professionalism, these moments transformed roles and titles into human beings, juggling all the things humans must juggle. Once people started seeing others as fellow humans versus bosses, peers, or subordinates, they connected on a human level and formed genuine and trusting relationships. Those relationships led to better collaboration, more effective troubleshooting, and better business results.

Concise concrete communication is critical

In periods of uncertainty, information is power. But it’s also constantly changing. For that reason, constant communication is a must. But in a large organization, communication often comes from multiple departments – employee relations, HR, health and safety, operations, and marketing, to name a few – and that can be overwhelming. For this reason, DeJohn learned that keeping every message concise (ideally the length of a tweet but no more than a short paragraph) and concrete (specific, tangible, tactical rather than high-level platitudes) proved critical to keeping people aligned and moving forward.

Just because you can, doesn’t mean you need to

Keris Clark, VP of Sales at P&G, spoke about the drastic shift in her work/life balance when she could no longer travel to see customers or attend meetings. Instead of taking the first flight from Boston to Seattle for a meeting and then a red-eye back home, she suddenly had time to work out, cook, and spend time with family. As travel became safer and invitations to far-away meetings came in, she thought more critically about whether or not to book the tickets. Like most of us, she still travels for some things, but it’s no longer the default option now that more people are used to video calls and other ways of working.

We can do things differently and still deliver

COVID’s effect on the supply chain is well documented, and Tiffiny Fisher, Chief of Staff and Technical Assistant for Intel’s America region, gave us a view into Intel’s situation in the earliest days of the pandemic. With fabrication, assembly, and testing sites throughout Asia, Intel had to work quickly to figure out how to continue operating while staying with government lockdown guidelines. Ultimately, hundreds of employees volunteered to leave their families and live in hotels near Intel facilities so that they could continue operating. It was a huge sacrifice by employees and probably not one that anyone would want to make again. Still, it proved that Intel, with the support of its employees, could quickly make massive changes to its operations while continuing to deliver results.

Uncertainty can be deeply uncomfortable, even frightening, even though we face it every day. Building the skills to navigate it and learning lessons about what works and doesn’t can make it easier. But if you still struggle, don’t worry. It just means you’ve successfully retained the opportunity for improvement.

Image credit: Pixabay

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Change Management Best Practices for Maximum Adoption

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Change Management Best Practices for Maximum Adoption

GUEST POST from Art Inteligencia

Change is inevitable but so often dreaded in the workplace. A successful transition requires planning and execution, and the ability to adapt quickly to those changes. Change management involves planning around a change to ensure its successful adoption. A well thought out and properly planned change management strategy can help ensure a successful and cost-effective transition to a new process or system.

First and foremost, it is important to manage expectations. Make sure people understand how the change will impact them, and how they can benefit from the change. It is essential to address any perception the stakeholders may have about the potential outcomes. Hopefully, they will all become supporters of the change and get on board with the goal.

Once expectations are managed, it is important to strive for maximum adoption of the change. This means understanding the people impacted by the change and their likely reaction. It’s tempting for leaders to rush the adoption but patience is necessary. Here are a few best practices to ensure change is adopted quickly and easily:

1. Start with communication

When introducing a change, communicate the “why” of the change. Explain why it is necessary, what the expected benefits are, and how it will help the organization succeed. This will help employees to understand the importance of the change and motivate them to get on board.

2. Involve the impacted stakeholders

It’s always helpful to involve those who will be impacted by the change from the beginning. Involving the impacted team in the change planning will encourage them to take ownership and help drive the adoption. They can provide good insight on potential pitfalls and how best to roll out the change.

3. Provide training

Good training can make the transition to the new process, system, or way of working much easier. Provide training before the change is rolled out to ensure everyone is on the same page. This will minimize confusion and eliminate any skepticism in the employees.

4. Have a plan

Effective change management involves having a solid plan for roll-out and clearly defined goals. Implementing a well-thought-out plan means not having to go back and re-do things as you roll out the change. A plan will help make sure everybody is in sync and on the same page.

5. Monitor progress

Monitor the progress of adoption and measure the impact of the change. This will allow you to make any necessary changes or adjust any existing plans. Monitoring progress is essential for ensuring a successful transition and adoption of the change.

There are many different approaches to change management, depending on the situation and what is needed for successful adoption. However, these best practices can be applied to most changes and greatly increase the likelihood of success.

To illustrate this, here are two examples of successful change management.

Case Study #1

A large manufacturing firm needed to replace their legacy accounting system with a new automated system. The company first involved stakeholders in the change planning process and held a series of workshops to ensure everyone understood the needs of the change. Training was provided to the stakeholders involved in the transition and a detailed plan was put in place outlining the steps to implementation. As the project moved ahead, progress was regularly monitored and feedback was sought from employees. The project was completed successfully with minimum disruption to business processes and no unplanned hiccups.

Case Study #2

A mid-sized consulting firm needed to change their customer relationship management (CRM) software. They went the extra mile and identified all key stakeholders in the transition process and clearly outlined the “why” of the change. They also created a timeline for the project to ensure all actions were taken in the right order. They provided extensive training and allowed employees time to get familiar with the new system before implementing it. The project was completed ahead of schedule and the transition was smooth, resulting in increased customer satisfaction.

Conclusion

Change can be a difficult transition, but by following the change management best practices outlined here, you can ensure maximum adoption of the change and successful transition to the new process or system. From communication and involvement of stakeholders, to monitoring progress, these are just a few practical change management best practices that can help you manage successful transitions.

Image credit: Pixabay

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