Category Archives: Psychology

Give Love and Truth to Everyone

GUEST POST from Mike Shipulski

If you see someone doing something that’s not quite right, you have a choice – call them on their behavior or let it go.

In general, I have found it’s more effective to ignore behavior you deem unskillful if you can. If no one will get hurt, say nothing. If it won’t start a trend, ignore it. And if it’s a one-time event, look the other way. If it won’t cause standardization on a worst practice, it never happened.

When you don’t give attention to other’s unskillful behavior, you don’t give it the energy it needs to happen again. Just as a plant dies when it’s not watered, unskillful behavior will wither on the vine if it’s ignored. Ignore it and it will die. But the real reason to ignore unskillful behavior is that it frees up time to amplify skillful behavior.

If you’re going to spend your energy doing anything, reinforce skillful behavior. When you see someone acting skillfully, call it out. In front of their peers, tell them what you liked and why you liked it. Tell them how their behavior will make a difference for the company. Say it in a way that others hear. Say it in a way that everyone knows this behavior is special. And if you want to guarantee that the behavior will happen again, send an email of praise to the boss of the person that did the behavior and copy them on the email. The power of sending an email of praise is undervalued by a factor of ten.

When someone sends your boss an email that praises you for your behavior, how do you feel?

When someone sends your boss an email that praises you for your behavior, will you do more of that behavior or less?

When someone sends your boss an email that praises you for your behavior, what do you think of the person that sent it?

When someone sends your boss an email that praises you for your behavior, will you do more of what the sender thinks important or less?

And now the hard part. When you see someone behaving unskillfully and that will damage your company’s brand, you must call them on their behavior. To have the most positive influence, give your feedback as soon as you see it. In a cause-and-effect way, the person learns that the unskillful behavior results in a private discussion on the negative impact of their behavior. There’s no question in their mind about why the private discussion happened and, because you suggested a more skillful approach, there’s clarity on how to behave next time. The first time you see the unskillful behavior, they deserve to be held accountable in private. They also deserve a clear explanation of the impacts of their behavior and a recipe to follow going forward.

And now the harder part. If, after the private explanation of the unskillful behavior that should stop and the skillful behavior should start, they repeat the unskillful behavior, you’ve got to escalate. Level 1 escalation is to hold a private session with the offender’s leader. This gives the direct leader a chance to intervene and reinforce how the behavior should change. This is a skillful escalation on your part.

And now the hardest part. If, after the private discussion with the direct leader, the unskillful behavior happens again, you’ve got to escalate. Remember, this unskillful behavior is so unskillful it will hurt the brand. It’s now time to transition from private accountability to public accountability. Yes, you’ve got to call out the unskillful behavior in front of everyone. This may seem harsh, but it’s not. They and their direct leader have earned every bit of the public truth-telling that will soon follow.

Now, before going public, it’s time to ask yourself two questions. Does this unskillful behavior rise to the level of neglect? And, does this unskillful behavior violate a first principle? Meaning, does the unskillful behavior undermine a fundamental, or foundational element, of how the work is done? Take your time with these questions, because the situation is about to get real. Really real. And really uncomfortable.

And if you answer yes to one of those two questions, you’ve earned the right to ask yourself a third. Have you reached bedrock? Meaning, your position grounded deeply in what you believe. Meaning, you’ve reached a threshold where things are non-negotiable. Meaning, no matter what the negative consequences to your career, you’re willing to stand tall and take the bullets. Because the bullets will fly.

If you’ve reached bedrock, call out the unskillful behavior publicly and vehemently. Show no weakness and give no ground. And when the push-back comes, double down. Stand on your bedrock, and tell the truth. Be effective, and tell the truth. As Ram Dass said, love everyone and tell the truth.

If you want to make a difference, amplify skillful behavior. Send emails of praise. And if that doesn’t work, send more emails of praise. Praise publicly and praise vehemently. Pour gasoline on the fire. And ignore unskillful behavior, when you can.

And when you can’t ignore the unskillful behavior, before going public make sure the behavior violates a first principle. And make sure you’re standing on bedrock. And once you pass those tests, love everyone and tell the truth.

Image credit: Dall-E

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AI Requires Conversational Intelligence

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AI Requires Conversational Intelligence

GUEST POST from Greg Satell

Historically, building technology had been about capabilities and features. Engineers and product designers would come up with new things that they thought people wanted, figure out how to make them work and ship “new and improved” products. The result was often things that were maddeningly difficult to use.

That began to change when Don Norman published his classic, The Design of Everyday Things and introduced concepts like dominant design, affordances and natural mapping into industrial design. The book is largely seen as pioneering the user-centered design movement. Today, UX has become a thriving field.

Yet artificial intelligence poses new challenges. We speak or type into an interface and expect machines to respond appropriately. Often they do not. With the popularity of smart speakers like Amazon Alexa and Google Home, we have a dire need for clear principles for human-AI interactions. A few years ago, two researchers at IBM embarked on a journey to do just that.

The Science Of Conversations

Bob Moore first came across conversation analysis as an undergraduate in the late 1980s, became intensely interested and later earned a PhD based on his work in the field. The central problems are well known to anybody who has ever watched Seinfeld or Curb Your Enthusiasm, our conversations are riddled with complex, unwritten rules that aren’t always obvious.

For example, every conversation has an unstated goal, whether it is just to pass the time, exchange information or to inspire an emotion. Yet our conversations are also shaped by context. For example, the unwritten rules would be different for a conversation between a pair of friends, a boss and subordinate, in a courtroom setting or in a doctor’s office.

“What conversation analysis basically tries to reveal are the unwritten rules people follow, bend and break when engaging in conversations,” Moore told me and he soon found that the tech industry was beginning to ask similar questions. So he took a position at Xerox PARC and then Yahoo! before landing at IBM in 2012.

As the company was working to integrate its Watson system with applications from other industries, he began to work with Raphael Arar, an award-winning visual designer and user experience expert. The two began to see that their interests were strangely intertwined and formed a partnership to design better conversations for machines.

Establishing The Rules Of Engagement

Typically, we use natural language interfaces, both voice and text, like a search box. We announce our intention to seek information by saying, “Hey Siri,” or “Hey Alexa,” followed by a simple query, like “where is the nearest Starbucks.” This can be useful, especially when driving or walking down the street,” but is also fairly limited, especially for more complex tasks.

What’s far more interesting — and potentially far more useful — is being able to use natural language interfaces in conjunction with other interfaces, like a screen. That’s where the marriage of conversational analysis and user experience becomes important, because it will help us build conventions for more complex human-computer interactions.

“We wanted to come up with a clear set of principles for how the various aspects of the interface would relate to each other,” Arar told me. “What happens in the conversation when someone clicks on a button to initiate an action?” What makes this so complex is that different conversations will necessarily have different contexts.

For example, when we search for a restaurant on our phone, should the screen bring up a map, information about pricing, pictures of food, user ratings or some combination? How should the rules change when we are looking for a doctor, a plumber or a travel destination?

Deriving Meaning Through Preserving Context

Another aspect of conversations is that they are highly dependent on context, which can shift and evolve over time. For example, if we ask someone for a restaurant nearby, it would be natural for them to ask a question to narrow down the options, such as “what kind of food are you looking for?” If we answer, “Mexican,” we would expect that person to know we are still interested in restaurants, not, say, the Mexican economy or culture.

Another issue is that when we follow a particular logical chain, we often find some disqualifying factor. For instance, a doctor might be looking for a clinical trial for her patient, find one that looks promising but then see that that particular study is closed. Typically, she would have to retrace her steps to go back to find other options.

“A true conversational interface allows us to preserve context across the multiple turns in the interaction,” Moore says. “If we’re successful, the machine will be able to adapt to the user’s level of competence, serving the expert efficiently but also walking the novice through the system, explaining itself as needed.”

And that’s the true potential of the ability to initiate more natural conversations with computers. Much like working with humans, the better we are able to communicate, the more value we can get out of our relationships.

Making The Interface Disappear

In the early days of web usability, there was a constant tension between user experience and design. Media designers were striving to be original. User experience engineers, on the other hand, were trying to build conventions. Putting a search box in the upper right hand corner of a web page might not be creative, but that’s where users look to find it.

Yet eventually a productive partnership formed and today most websites seem fairly intuitive. We mostly know where things are supposed to be and can navigate things easily. The challenge now is to build that same type of experience for artificial intelligence, so that our relationships with the technology become more natural and more useful.

“Much like we started to do with user experience for conventional websites two decades ago, we want the user interface to disappear,” Arar says. Because when we aren’t wrestling with the interface and constantly having to repeat ourselves or figuring out how to rephrase our questions, we can make our interactions much more efficient and productive.

As Moore put it to me, “Much of the value of systems today is locked in the data and, as we add exabytes to that every year, the potential is truly enormous. However, our ability to derive value from that data is limited by the effectiveness of the user interface. The more we can make the interface become intelligent and largely disappear, the more value we will be able unlock.”

— Article courtesy of the Digital Tonto blog and previously appeared on Inc.com
— Image credits: Pixabay

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What is Your Mindset? Fixed, Growth or Hybrid?

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What is Your Mindset? Fixed, Growth or Hybrid?

GUEST POST from Stefan Lindegaard

What does it mean to have a mindset? How does it shape your actions, and those of the people you interact with? Is it steadfast, or does it evolve? Could it perhaps be a fusion of elements? It’s crucial to understand mindsets as they influence not only our behaviors but also the behaviors of those we engage with, allowing us to better navigate the world.

Research defines “mindset” as a mental frame or lens that selectively organizes and interprets information, orienting an individual’s understanding of experiences and guiding their responses and actions.

This definition, adapted from Carol Dweck by Salovey and Achor, illuminates that our mindset, composed of our thoughts and beliefs, influences our perception of ourselves, our environment, and the broader world. Such understanding is vital in team dynamics, leadership, and organizational contexts.

Dweck identified two primary mindsets:

1. A fixed mindset, in which intelligence is viewed as static, leading to the desire to appear intelligent and influencing specific behaviors.

2. A growth mindset, where intelligence is seen as something that can be developed, sparking a desire to learn and driving diverse behaviors.

The growth mindset, characterized by the belief that abilities can be honed with consistent effort, is shaped by how we perceive and tackle five critical areas:

Viewing effort as a path to mastery
Demonstrating persistence in the face of obstacles
Seeing others’ success as a source of inspiration and learning
Embracing challenges
Welcoming criticism as an opportunity to learn and grow

However, we need to acknowledge that our mindsets aren’t strictly “fixed” or “growth” in nature. They’re typically a hybrid of both, influenced by the context and phase of our lives. It’s is also situational. Our response to situations can shift, revealing the dominance of one mindset over the other at different times. Recognizing this within ourselves and avoiding prematurely labeling others is vital.

A Few Cases, Examples

To give a practical example, let’s look at the world of education. Imagine a student who struggles with math. With a fixed mindset, they might think, “I’m just not good at math,” and subsequently put less effort into learning. However, if they adopt a growth mindset, they would perceive math as a challenge they can overcome with practice and effort. Using different strategies and seeking help when necessary, the student’s math skills can improve, highlighting the practical application of a growth mindset.

In the business world, Microsoft provides an excellent case study. Under CEO Satya Nadella’s leadership, Microsoft shifted from a fixed to a growth mindset. Nadella introduced Dweck’s growth mindset concept to the company culture, fostering innovation and collaboration. The shift, encapsulated in the motto “Learn it all” vs. “Know it all,” encouraged employees to remain open-minded, learn from their mistakes, and continually improve. This change in mindset led to increased employee engagement, innovation, and contributed to Microsoft’s recent growth.

In sports, athletes often exemplify the growth mindset. Consider basketball legend Michael Jordan. He was cut from his high school varsity team because he was deemed “not good enough.” Rather than accepting this as an unchangeable state, he viewed it as a challenge and redoubled his efforts to improve. His eventual rise to becoming one of the greatest basketball players of all time showcases how a growth mindset can lead to superior performance in the face of setbacks and criticism.

As I often say, “The essence of the growth mindset in an organizational context is to instill a mindset focused on continuous improvement rather than the need to prove that one is the best.”

Implementing the growth mindset in team dynamics is part of my work. However, it doesn’t stand alone. It must be complemented by other factors like fostering a learning culture, ensuring psychological safety, and expanding the comfort zone. All these components are critical to effective team, leadership, and organizational development.

If you have questions or interesting perspectives on these topics, I would be more than happy to discuss them. Get in touch!

Image Credit: Pixabay, Stefan Lindegaard

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Three Reasons Nobody Cares About Your Ideas

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Three Reasons Nobody Cares About Your Ideas

GUEST POST from Greg Satell

“Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door,” Ralph Waldo Emerson is said to have written (he didn’t) and since that time thousands of mousetraps have been patented. Still, despite all that creative energy and all those ideas, the original “snap trap,” invented by William Hooker in 1894, remains the most popular.

We’ve come to glorify ideas, thinking that more of them will lead to better results. This cult of ideas has led to a large cottage industry of consultants that offer workshops to exercise our creative capabilities with tools like brainstorming and SWOT analysis. We are, to a large extent, still chasing better mousetraps.

Still, one thing I constantly hear from executives I work with is that no one wants to hear about their ideas. The truth is that, just like all those mousetrap patents, most ideas are useless, very few are original and many have been tried before. So if you’re frustrated that nobody listens to your ideas, here’s why that happens and what you can do to fix it.

1. Your Ideas Aren’t Original

Having a new idea is thrilling, because it takes us to new places. Once we get an idea, it leads to other ideas and, as we follow the logical chain, we can see important real-world implications. The process of connecting the dots is so exhilarating — and so personal — that it seems unlikely, impossible even, that someone else had the same thoughts at the same time.

Yet history clearly shows that’s exactly what happens. Newton and Leibniz simultaneously invented calculus. Darwin and Wallace discovered the principles of evolution at about the same time. Alexander Graham Bell just narrowly beat Elisha Gray to the patent office to receive credit for inventing the telephone. Einstein beat David Hilbert to general relativity by a matter of weeks.

In fact, in a landmark study published in 1922, sociologists William Ogburn and Dorothy Thomas identified 148 major inventions or discoveries that at least two different people, working independently, arrived at the same time. And those are historic successes that are well documented. Just imagine how often it happens with normal, everyday ideas.

The truth is that ideas don’t simply arise out of some mysterious ether. We get them by making connections between existing ideas and new things we observe ourselves. So it shouldn’t be surprising that others have seen similar things and drawn the same conclusions that we have.

2. Others Had The Same Idea — And Failed

Jim Allison spent most of his life as a fairly ordinary bench scientist and that’s all he really wanted to be. He told me once that he “just liked figuring things out” and by doing so, he gained some level of prominence in the field of immunology, making discoveries that were primarily of interest to other immunologists.

His path diverged when he began to research the ability of our immune system to fight cancer. Using a novel approach, he was able to show amazing results in mice. “The tumors just melted away,” he told me. Excited, he ran to go tell pharmaceutical companies about his idea and get them to invest in his research.

Unfortunately, they were not impressed. The problem wasn’t that they didn’t understand Jim’s idea, but that they had already invested — and squandered — billions of dollars on similar ideas. Hundreds of trials had been undertaken on immunological approaches to cancer and there hadn’t been one real success.

Nonetheless, Jim persevered and today, cancer immunotherapy has emerged as major field of its own. Today, hundreds, if not thousands, of scientists are combining their ideas with Jim’s to create amazing breakthroughs in cancer treatment and tens of thousands of people are alive today because of it.

3. You Can’t Make An Idea Work By Yourself

One of the most famous stories about innovation is that of Alexander Fleming. Returning to his lab after a summer vacation, he found that a mysterious mold had contaminated his petri dishes, which was eradicating the bacteria colonies he was working to grow. He decided to study the mold and discovered penicillin.

It’s one of those stories that’s told and retold because it encapsulates so much of what we love about innovation — the power of a single “Eureka! moment” to change the world. The problem is that innovation never really happens that way, not generally and certainly not in the case of penicillin.

The real story is decidedly different. When Alexander Fleming published his findings, no one really noticed because it had little, if any, medical value. It was just a secretion from a mold that could kill bacteria in a petri dish. The compound was unstable and you couldn’t store it. It couldn’t be injected or ingested. You also couldn’t make enough of it to cure anyone.

Ten years later, a completely different team of scientists led by Howard Florey and Ernst Chain rediscovered Fleming’s work and began adding their own ideas. Then they traveled to America to work with US labs and improved the process. Finally, pharmaceutical companies worked feverishly to mass produce penicillin.

So it wasn’t just a single person or a single “Eureka! moment,” but a number of different teams of people, working on different aspects of the problem and it took nearly 20 years to make penicillin the miracle cure we know today.

The Fundamental Difference Between Ideation and Creation

While most ideas lead to nothing, some create enormous value. Calculus, the theory of evolution and the telephone made our lives better no matter who came up with them first. That’s not because of the idea itself, but what was built on top of it. Ideas only create a better future when they mix with other ideas. Innovation, to a large degree, is combination.

The stories of Alexander Fleming and Jim Allison are instructive. In Fleming’s case it was scientists at another lab that picked up the initial idea and did the work to make it into a useful cure. Then they went to America to work with other labs and, eventually, pharmaceutical companies to do the work needed to go from milliliters in the lab to metric tons in the real world.

One thing that struck me in talking to Jim Allison was how he described having the idea for cancer immunotherapy. He didn’t talk about a flash of brilliance, but said he slowly began to piece things together, combining the work of others with what he saw in his own lab. His breakthrough discovery was the culmination of a life’s work.

That was in 1995. It then took him three more years to find the small biotech company to back his idea. Clinical trials didn’t begin until 2004. FDA approval came through in 2011. Today, 20 years after the initial idea, he still goes to the lab every day, to combine his ideas with others and enhance the initial concept.

Kevin Ashton, who himself first came up with the idea for RFID chips, wrote in his book, How to Fly A Horse, “Creation is a long journey, where most turns are wrong and most ends are dead. The most important thing creators do is work. The most important thing they don’t do is quit.”

A good idea is not a mere moment of epiphany, but a call to action. It proves its value not by its elegance or through the brilliance of its conception, but in its ability to solve problems in the real world. So if you want people to start listening to your ideas, focus less on the fact that you have them and more on what value they can deliver to others.

— Article courtesy of the Digital Tonto blog and previously appeared on Inc.com
— Image credits: Pexels

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Six Key Habits of Great Leaders

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Six Key Habits of Great Leaders

GUEST POST from David Burkus

In a world of growing complexity and seemingly constant crisis, we need great leaders more than ever. But when you look at the stories in the press or check the staggering numbers of burnout and disengagement in surveys, it seems like fewer and fewer leaders are rising to the challenge. It starts to seem like becoming a great leader is too complicated and nearly impossible.

But when you survey people on what makes them appreciate and follow leaders, it turns out there are just a few simple habits that set great leaders apart. Simple, but not necessarily easy.

In this article, we will explore what great leaders do across six key habits that make them influential and their teams successful.

1. Promote Purpose

The first habit great leaders do is to promote purpose. Great leaders understand the importance of connecting the larger organizational purpose to specific projects and tasks. They are able to do more than regurgitate the mission statement of the organization. They can draw a connection between the organizational purpose and the work of their specific team. In doing so, they inspire their team members to see the bigger picture and understand how their contributions align with the overall goals. Furthermore, great leaders shift the conversation towards “who” benefits from the work and promote pro-social purpose. This helps team members feel a sense of fulfillment and motivation in their work, knowing that they are making a positive impact.

2. Clarify Vision

The second habit great leaders do is to clarify vision. A clear vision is crucial for the success of any organization, and great leaders excel at explaining what success looks like and where the organization is heading. They are able to paint a vivid picture of the world or the specific people the organization serves and what it will look like when the vision is achieved. Even when plans change, great leaders provide a clear vision of what a good job looks like. They use the concept of “commander’s intent” to communicate the vision of a successful mission, ensuring that even in constant turmoil, everyone understands the desired outcome and can align their efforts accordingly.

3. Create Accountability

The third habit great leaders do is to create accountability. Great leaders understand the importance of holding people accountable to their jobs and calling them up to a higher standard. They ensure that individuals are held accountable to the result, not just the tasks. By providing the necessary resources for individuals to achieve their goals, great leaders empower their team members to take ownership of their work and deliver exceptional results. Leaders provide autonomy to team members, allowing them to decide how the work gets done. But they’re also reminding everyone on the team that autonomy means greater accountability to the team, not less. They are leaders who hold their team to a higher standard and encourage them to perform even greater.

4. Provide Fair Feedback

The fourth habit great leaders do is provide fair feedback. Feedback is a crucial tool for growth and development, and great leaders excel at providing fair feedback. They tailor their feedback to the individual’s situation, skills, resources, and accountability goals. Great leaders give feedback that is in equal proportion of positive to negative, focusing on building upon the great things. Poor leaders often spend most of their coaching time on constructive criticism—which can be demotivating and decrease performance. Instead, great leaders create a balance between appreciation and constructive criticism to motivate and improve performance, ensuring that team members feel valued and supported in their professional growth.

5. Build Safety

The fifth habit great leaders do is to build safety, as in psychological safety. A psychologically safe environment is essential for fostering innovation and growth, and great leaders understand this. They provide feedback in a way that does not blame individuals for things outside of their control, encouraging transparent and honest conversations about failures to extract lessons and improve. By establishing a culture of safety, great leaders create an atmosphere where team members feel comfortable taking risks and learning from their mistakes. This leads to increased creativity, collaboration, and ultimately, success.

6. Develop Oneself

The final habit great leaders do is to develop themselves. Great leaders recognize the importance of continuous learning and self-improvement. They take responsibility for developing themselves as well as others. With a growth mindset, they actively seek out new information and skills, constantly striving to become better leaders. Great leaders understand that they need to develop themselves in the areas that their team needs in order to be better leaders. By investing in their own growth, they set an example for their team members and inspire them to also pursue personal and professional development.

The habits discussed in this article are what make great leaders worth following. They’re simple, but not necessarily easy. And they need to be done on a regular basis. But great leaders understand the importance of these habits and strive to incorporate them into their leadership style. By promoting purpose, clarifying vision, creating accountability, providing fair feedback, building safety, and developing oneself, leaders can inspire their teams to do their best work ever.

Image credit: Pixabay

Originally published on DavidBurkus.com on August 21, 2023

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Can Leaders Defy Gravity?

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Can Leaders Defy Gravity?

GUEST POST from Mike Shipulski

If you pull hard on your team, what will they do? Will they rebel? Will they push back? Will they disagree? Will they debate? And after all that, will they pull with you? Will the pull for three weeks straight? Will they pull with their whole selves? How do you feel about that?

If you pull hard on your peers, what will they do? Will they engage? Will they even listen? Will they dismiss? And if they dismiss, will you persist? Will you pull harder? And when you pull harder, do they think more of you? And when you pull harder still, do they think even more of you? Do you know what they’ll do? And how do you feel about that?

If you push hard on your leadership, what will they do? Will they listen or dismiss? And if they dismiss, will you push harder? When you push like hell, do they like that or do they become uncomfortable, what will you do? Will they dislike it and they become comfortable and thankful you pushed? Whatever they feel, that’s on them. Do you believe that? If not, how do you feel about that?

When you say something heretical, does your team cheer or pelt you with fruit? Do they hang their heads or do they hope you do it again? Whatever they do, they’ve watched your behavior for several years and will influence their actions.

When you openly disagree with the company line, do your peers cringe or ask why you disagree? Do they dismiss your position or do they engage in a discussion? Do they want this from you? Do they expect this from you? Do they hope you’ll disagree when you think it’s time? Whatever they do, will you persist? And how do you feel about that?

When you object to the new strategy, does your leadership listen? Or do they un-invite you to the next strategy session? And if they do, do you show up anyway? Or do they think you’re trying to sharpen the strategy? Do they think you want the best for the company? Do they know you’re objecting because everyone else in the room is afraid to? What they think of your dissent doesn’t matter. What matters is your principled behavior over the last decade.

If there’s a fire, does your team hope you’ll run toward the flames? Or, do they know you will?

If there’s a huge problem that everyone is afraid to talk about, do your peers expect you get right to the heart of it? Or, do they hope you will? Or, do they know you will?

If it’s time to defy gravity, do they know you’re the person to call?

And how do you feel about that?

Image credit: Pexels

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Secrets to Overcoming Resistance to Change

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Secrets to Overcoming Resistance To Change

GUEST POST from David Burkus

Employee resistance to change is one of the most perplexing and challenging issues that business executives encounter. Senior leaders have mapped out a change initiative and, in the process, gotten themselves excited about the future only to find the rest of the organization doesn’t share their enthusiasm.

This resistance manifests in various ways, such as decreased productivity, higher rates of employee turnover and transfer requests, attitudes, unauthorized strikes, or work slowdowns. And in trying to overcome resistance to change, leaders often make structured, logical arguments for why the change is needed.

Arguments that fail to persuade.

What’s often overlooked is that employee resistance to change is most likely due to the emotions behind the change, not the change itself. And in examining those emotions, the late Carl Frost offered four key questions that people ask themselves when they’re being asked to change. The answers to these questions determine their excitement, or resistance, to change.

In this article, we will explore how to overcome resistance to change by addressing the emotions behind it and we’ll offer advice on how leaders can answer those four questions.

Question 1: Do we know where we’re going?

A clear and compelling vision of the future is necessary to overcome resistance to change. It is important to paint a clear picture of what the future of the organization looks like and include the individual being asked to make the change in that vision. When employees can see themselves as a part of the future, they are more likely to embrace the change. Additionally, it is crucial to ensure that the vision is shared at every level of the organization. This helps create a sense of unity and purpose, making it easier for employees to align themselves with the change.

By providing a clear direction and involving employees in the vision, leaders can address the uncertainty and fear that often accompany change. When employees have a clear understanding of where the organization is heading, they are less likely to resist and more likely to actively participate in the change process.

Question 2: Do we know why we’re going there?

Communicating the reasons for the change effectively is essential in overcoming resistance. Employees need to understand the changes in regulation, competition, or the economy that necessitate the change. It is important to avoid nostalgia for the old times before the change, as this can hinder progress. Instead, leaders should focus on selling people on why the change is necessary and beneficial.

By clearly explaining the rationale behind the change, leaders can address any doubts or concerns employees may have. When employees understand the need for change and how it will positively impact the organization, they are more likely to embrace it and actively contribute to its success.

Question 3: Do we know we can get there?

Confidence in the organization’s ability to achieve the vision is crucial for overcoming resistance to change. Leaders must build belief in the organization’s capacity to reach the new future. This can be done by addressing concerns about skills, resources, and capabilities. It is important to create a plan to acquire necessary skills and resources, ensuring that employees have the support and tools they need to succeed.

By addressing concerns and providing the necessary resources, leaders can instill confidence in employees and alleviate their fears about the change. When employees believe that the organization has the capability to achieve the vision, they are more likely to embrace the change and actively work towards its realization.

Question 4: Do we know that there is better than here?

Individuals need to believe that the change will benefit them personally in order to lessen their resistance. Leaders should paint a compelling picture of the change in their role and how it will be better. It is important to show how the change will result in personal growth and improvement. Additionally, leaders should address concerns about sacrifices, extra time, and learning new skills.

By addressing the personal benefits of the change and addressing personal concerns, leaders can help employees see the value in embracing the change. When employees understand how the change will positively impact their own lives, they are more likely to overcome resistance and actively engage in the change process.

Overcoming resistance to change is crucial for successful change initiatives. By addressing the emotions behind the change and answering the four questions, leaders can increase excitement, self-efficacy, and confidence in the change. That helps the organizational change itself find success and (hopefully) that success empowers every employee to do their best work ever.

Image credit: Pexels

Originally published on DavidBurkus.com on August 7, 2023

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Nine Actions for Building a Great Team

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Which Resonates with You?

Nine Actions for Building a Great Team

GUEST POST from Stefan Lindegaard

Building a strong team is a multifaceted journey, and there are several key actions that can contribute to the growth and success of a team.

Reflecting on the nine actions for building a great team, which ones do you find your team focuses on the most?

Would you say it is:

1. Cultivating a growth mindset?

2. Enhancing psychological safety?

3. Mapping and engaging stakeholders?

4. Mastering difficult conversations?

5. Improving feedback processes?

6. Addressing individual motivations?

7. Injecting fun into your work environment?

8. Developing networking and learning opportunities?

9. Identifying trust drivers and barriers?

Share your experiences and let’s inspire each other on actions that can shape the dynamics and achievements of your team!

Team Building Stefan Lindegaard

Image Credit: Pexels, Stefan Lindegaard

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Four Forms of Team Motivation

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What Science Tells Us

Four Forms of Team Motivation - What Science Tells Us

GUEST POST from David Burkus

Keeping a team motivated is the one of the most important aspects of a leader’s job. It’s also one of the most misunderstood aspects of a leader’s job. Many organizations still equate “motivating your team” with “designing the right incentives.” But more than four decades of research into self-determination theory have revealed the limits of these types of extrinsic motivators and offers a wealth of insight into intrinsic motivation and how leaders can leverage it.

But even when expanding their perspective on motivation, many leaders still suffer from the misunderstanding of a binary choice between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. In reality, self-determination theory research suggests that motivation is better thought of as a spectrum with four points along the way: extrinsic, introjected, identified, and intrinsic.

In this article, we’ll outline these four forms of motivation and offer a glimpse at how to leverage the most overlooked form when motivating your team.

The Four Forms Of Motivation

1. Extrinsic Motivation

Extrinsic motivation refers to the external factors that drive individuals to take certain actions or adopt specific behaviors, whether it involves completing a task or achieving a personal objective. These external influences can take the form of rewards, promotions, prizes, and so on. Extrinsic motivation can work well in the short-term when the tasks being incentivized are clear and individuals know how to achieve them. However, extrinsic motivation often falls short in terms of providing genuine meaning. The impact of reward-based motivation tends to be inconsistent and frequently ineffective. In addition, when the path towards completion is unclear—extrinsic motivation tends to fall apart.

2. Introjected Motivation

Introjected motivation can be understood as an internalized form of motivation, similar to intrinsic motivation. However, it refers to a specific a sense of pressure to perform in order to receive validation or approval from significant individuals, such as bosses or influential colleagues. This type of motivation is more prevalent than commonly realized and impacts individuals in two distinct ways. First, individuals can be motivated to perform tasks to bolster their feeling of self-worth (introjected approach). Second, individuals can be motivated to perform tasks to avoid feelings of failure or diminished self-worth (introjected avoidance).

However, both forms of introjected motivation are difficult to sustain. In addition, introjected avoidance in particular can have long-term harmful effects—since it’s basically indistinguishable from emotional manipulation.

3. Identified Motivation

Identified motivation pertains to a type of motivation where individuals recognize or acknowledge the necessity of performing or completing a task, yet they have not yet taken action to fulfill this need. Identified motivation is what is felt when people may not be motivated to do a task but know that doing it is important. It is a potent form of motivation that primes individuals for action. And is especially powerful in a work context because relying on others to become motivated is generally impractical in most situations.

However, this form motivation is also quite underutilized because it requires connecting the work of an individual or team to something important enough to create a feeling of identified motivation. While most organizations have a mission or purpose statement—connecting specific tasks to that mission or purpose is often overlooked.

4. Intrinsic Motivation

Intrinsic motivation refers to internal drives that are subjective in nature, emerging from actions that align with personal values or bring pleasure in performing a task. It is experienced in the present moment when individuals engage in activities they find enjoyable or meaningful.

However, intrinsic motivation is subjective and can be challenging to manage and harness effectively, since so much depends on the specific person and what satisfies them. That is why, despite studies suggesting intrinsic rewards have a stronger motivating effect compared to extrinsic ones, there is no universally applicable method or approach.

Three Ways to Motivate Your Team

Looking at the entire spectrum of motivation, it’s pretty apparent that identified motivation is both powerful and underutilized for motivating your team. Intrinsic motivation is great, but it’s not possible all of the time. Some tasks are vital, just not enjoyable. When that is the case, identified motivation can become the motivator of choice. And there’s three specific ways to leverage identified motivation.

1. Provide Purpose

The first way to motivate your team through identified motivation is to provide purpose. Ultimately for introjected motivation to work, people have to feel the tasks they’ve been assigned are important. And the most effective way to help them feel that way is to demonstrate how they serve a bigger purpose. More specifically, connecting the team’s effort to a “prosocial purpose.” Identified motivation is most powerful when the tasks needing completion are seen as tasks that promote or protect the well-being of others (sometimes also called prosocial motivation). For leaders, this means answering the question “Who is served by the work that we do?” and then reminding the team of that answer on a regular basis.

2. Connect to Values

The second way to motivate your team through identified motivation is to connect to values. Once purpose is established, it’s important to make the shared values that undergird that purpose salient. You’re working for something specific in the world—because you share a certain set of values that dictate the change you’re working for. Those shared values can be a powerful way to leverage identified motivation when discussing seemingly unimportant tasks. Those tasks may not be enjoyable, but they’re critical to achieve the purpose and hence critical to staying aligned with shared values.

3. Add Autonomy

The third way to motivate your team through identified motivation is to add autonomy. For tasks that don’t have a specific set of instructions—and for tasks that are not intrinsically motivating—allowing people to have a say in the way they achieve the task can be a powerful way to motivate them. Autonomy is a powerful motivator not only because it allows individuals to adjust their tasks into ways they may find enjoyable, but also because it eliminates the feeling of manipulation that people may have experienced when they’ve felt introjected motivation in the past.

Motivating your team can be tricky—much of the common practice in organizations seeks to leverage less powerful, more difficult forms of motivation. But by focusing on intrinsic and identified motivation, you can give your team a renewed zeal and help them do their best work ever.

Image credit: Pixabay

Originally published on DavidBurkus.com on May 22, 2023

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Your Ability to Innovate Determined By Your Ability to Pause

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Your Ability to Innovate Determined By Your Ability to Pause

GUEST POST from Janet Sernack

Many of my coaching clients have recently shared their struggles with feeling tired, emotionally overwhelmed, and cognitively overloaded and are close to burnout. They attribute these issues to the pervasive and addictive nature of technology, exacerbated by the pandemic and divisive global conflicts, accelerating change and the rise of AI and hybrid work. As a result, many have retreated and frozen into a state of habitual, reactive ‘busyness.’ This affects their overall emotional, physical, and mental health and wellness. It also inhibits their ability to focus, create, invent and innovate and restricts their optimism, hope, and positivity about their future in an unstable and uncertain world.

The Coaching Opportunity

Coaching creates a unique opportunity to partner with people to develop their pause-power to identify the transformative actions to reverse this pervasive phenomenon to flourish in a world of unknowns.

A coaching session usually serves as a first step towards cultivating the pause-power needed to stop, observe, reflect and take valuable time out to rest, replenish, re-energize and reboot. This allows people to courageously notice, attune to, and express their true feelings and thoughts, to disrupt, dispute and deviate them to develop the pause-power required to heal and provide relief, hope and optimism for a better future.

Everyone must cultivate intentional pause-power to empower them to observe and understand their inner and outer worlds. This practice helps them remove distractions, stop multitasking, and break free from the ‘busyness’ that depletes their cognitive, emotional, and visceral resources, putting them in the driver’s seat of their mental and emotional well-being.

Self-reflection and reflective practice become potent tools, enabling people to move away from reactivity and short-term focus and towards taking the transformative actions to adapt, create, invent, and innovate.

Hitting Your Pause Button

Being adaptive, creative, inventive and innovative involves consciously taking your hands off the controls and encouraging yourself and others to notice and disrupt your habitual and addictive ‘busyness’ (time scarcity + task focus).

This awareness is the first step towards reclaiming your focus and attention so that you can engage with and interpret the modern world rather than try to control it or withdraw from it.

Being willing to take a break and hit the ‘pause button’ stops your continuous cycle of doing. It focuses your attention on breaking limiting beliefs or unresourceful patterns and provides a support structure for applying rigorous perception practices to our daily lives.

Using pause-power to create a place, as recently described by Otto Scharmer from the Presencing Institute:

“Between action and non-action, there is a place. A portal into the unknown. But what are we each called to contribute to the vision of the emerging future? Perhaps these times are simply doorways into the heart of the storm, a necessary journey through the cycles of time required to create change”.

What Does Pause-Power Involve?

A pause is created when you suspend activity, a time of temporary disengagement when you no longer move towards any goal. It can occur amid almost any activity and can last for an instant by taking a deep breath to get grounded, for minutes to become mindful or to take a rest, for hours to enjoy a well-deserved break, or for years to experience life in a different culture or place.

Intentionally pausing enables you to take time between your range of habitual, largely unconscious reactive responses; it helps our brain’s executive function utilize the valuable ‘empty spaces’ between stimulus and response and between different ideas. It creates a space open to options and choices for being, thinking and acting differently.

Doing this allows you to notice and disrupt unresourceful and habitual auto ‘stimulus-response’ default patterns, which usually occur when things go wrong, you make a mistake and fail, or you dive into blaming, shaming or avoiding others as part of our naturally wired defence mechanisms.

Radical Acceptance

Learning to pause is one of the critical steps in innovation because it helps you initiate a practice of radical acceptance. This requires embracing uncertainty, or ‘what is’ truly happening in the present moment, relationship, or situation, by accepting things just as they are.

“During the moments of a pause, we become conscious of how the feeling that something is missing or wrong keeps us leaning into the future, on our way somewhere else. This gives us a fundamental choice in how we respond: We can continue our futile attempts at managing our experience or meet our vulnerability with the wisdom of Radical Acceptance”.

By being willing to dive into an ‘empty space’ from an emergent process, you can unleash possibilities, opportunities, options, and choices towards identifying the transformative actions that create your desired future.

People who can artfully and skillfully facilitate creative conversations that funnel pause power and co-create valuable ‘empty spaces’ to occur can generate our imagination and curiosity to manifest glorious moments of insights required to emerge creative ideas.

Pausing also enables you to observe, pay attention, notice, and regulate how your overall nervous system impacts and manages your brain’s functions. This is key to being practical, resourceful, healthy, and productive in the face of volatility, complexity, uncertainty, and accelerating change in our hyper-connected world.

It also needs rest to do this. By applying our pause-power and giving ourselves some rest, we offer our bodies, hearts, and minds a chance to recharge, keep moving, and work towards taking the transformative actions required to build better workplaces and flourishing futures.

A Valuable Toolkit and Habit

This skill is valuable for everyone to reflect upon, cultivate and master. It is initiated by intentionally stopping by hitting an invisible cognitive ‘pause button’ to observe, pay attention, notice your inner experience, and see yourself as the cause of it.

Developing pause power involves six simple vital steps and questions:

1.Retreat from reacting to the situation – by stepping back into the present moment or time to notice, be with, allow, accept (radical acceptance), and acknowledge ‘what is’ going on internally and externally, and be willing to name it with detachment and discernment.

What is going on for me right now – how am I feeling about it?

2. Step up and out to disrupt yourself and create an opening, doorway, threshold, or empty space – to allow something new to emerge.

What can I learn from this situation?

3. Step up and out to disrupt yourself and create an opening, doorway, threshold, or empty space – to allow something new to emerge.

What can I learn from this situation?

4. Be willing to introduce and explore options and choices that allow you to deviate and refocus your attention on what really matters – taking a rest, having a holiday, completing a project, being a better person, getting a new job, or getting a promotion.

What are some of my options for change?

5. Be inquisitive, curious and open to reimagining, reinventing, and pivoting – an intention, mindset, behaviour, task, goal, or business focus to re-plenish, re-energize, re-engage and re-boot to mobilize yourself.

How might I feel, think or act differently to achieve my outcome?

6. Step out into the system’s edges – by being calm, hopeful and optimistic, to identify the transformative actions required to move towards and exploring new creative, inventive and innovative solutions for providing value in ways people appreciate and cherish.

What will I do next?

Engaging in a Looking Lab

As many of our ImagineNation community members know, I am currently writing a book on ‘Being Innovative.’ There is a whole chapter on developing pause power to help people engage what Christian Madsbjerg calls in his latest book “Look: How to Pay Attention in a Distracted World” (Riverhead Books) – a Looking Lab, to:

“Get away from your screens, turn off your notifications, go out into the wilds of reality, and look around. Let go of all filters—clichés, conventions, colour corrections, whatever they may be. Try to pay attention to the simple act of seeing.”

He reveals that “if we choose to look for them, there are invisible worlds all around us ready to reveal their magic. The seemingly mundane or average can appear extraordinary, but only if we take the time to notice and see it”.

This is a vital part of our remarkable human capacity to transform through the slow, patient act of observing, attending, noticing, replenishing, re-energizing, re-engaging, and re-booting to take the transformative actions that will help you make the world a better place and achieve your 21st-century growth and success differently.

Please find out more about our work at ImagineNation™.

Please find out about our collective learning products and tools, including The Coach for Innovators, Leaders, and Teams Certified Program, presented by Janet Sernack, it is a collaborative, intimate, and profoundly personalised innovation coaching and learning program supported by a global group of peers over 9-weeks, and can be customised as a bespoke corporate learning program.

It is a blended and transformational change and learning program that will give you a deep understanding of the language, principles, and applications of an ecosystem focus, human-centric approach, and emergent structure (Theory U) to innovation, and upskill people and teams and develop their future fitness, within your unique innovation context. Please find out more about our products and tools.

Image Credit: Pixabay

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