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Change Starts with Empathy

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(Even for Your Enemies)

Change Starts With Empathy

GUEST POST from Greg Satell

On September 17th, 2011, protesters began to stream into Zuccotti Park in Lower Manhattan and the #Occupy movement had begun. “We are the 99%,” they declared and as far as they were concerned, it was time for the reign of the “1%” to end. The protests soon spread like wildfire to 951 cities across 82 countries.

It failed miserably. Today, a decade later, it’s hard to find any real objective that was achieved except some vague assertions about “building awareness” and Bernie Sanders’ two failed presidential campaigns. Taking into the count the billions of dollars worth of resources expended in terms of time and effort, that is abysmal performance.

As I explained in Cascades, there were myriad reasons for #Occupy’s failure. One of the gravest errors, however, was the insistence on ideological purity and the lack of any effort to understand those who had different ideas from their own. If you expect to bring change about, you need to attract, rather than overpower. Empathy is a good place to start.

Finding Your Tribe

In 1901, before he became employed by the patent office, a young Albert Einstein put out an advertisement offering tutoring services in math and physics. Maurice Solovine, a Romanian philosophy student, responded to the ad but, after a brief discussion, Einstein told him that he didn’t need lessons. Still, he invited Solovine to come and visit him whenever he wished.

The two began meeting regularly and were soon joined by another friend of Einstein’s, a young Swiss mathematician named Conrad Habicht, and the three would discuss their own work as well as that of luminaries such as Ernst Mach, David Hume and Henri Poincaré. Eventually, these little gatherings acquired a name, The Olympia Academy.

Einstein had found his tribe and it became a key factor in the development of his “miracle year” papers that would turn the world of physics on its head in a few years later. It gave him a safe space to let his mind wander over the great questions of the day, formulate his ideas and get feedback from people that he trusted and respected.

This is a common pattern. Similar tribes, such as, the Vienna Circle, the Bloomsbury Group and the “Martians” of Fasori have, if anything, led to even greater achievement. So it’s easy to understand how those protesters descending on Zuccotti Park, finding themselves amongst so many who saw things as they did, felt as if they were on the brink of a historic moment.

They weren’t. And that’s what’s dangerous about tribes. Although they can lend support to a fledgling idea that needs to be nurtured, they can also blind us to hard truths that need to be examined.

Developing A Private Language

A tribe is a closed network that, almost by definition, is an echo chamber designed to develop its own practices, customs and culture. Perhaps not surprisingly, it is common for these networks to develop their own vocabulary to describe these unique aspects of the tribal experience and to make distinctions between members of the tribe and outsiders.

Consider what happened when Congressman John Lewis, the civil rights legend, showed up at an #Occupy rally in Atlanta. The protesters refused to let him speak. He left quietly and issued a polite statement, but an opportunity was lost and real damage was done to the movement and its cause. If John Lewis wasn’t welcome, what about the rest of us?

Later, the man who led the charge to prevent Congressman Lewis from speaking explained his reasons. He cited his suspicion of Lewis as part of the “two-party system,” which he felt had betrayed the country. Yet even more tellingly, he also explained that his main objection was due to the “form” of the event, which he felt was being violated.

It is common for tribes to fall into this kind of private language trap. The function of communication is inherently social and, if the customs and vernacular that you develop becomes so archaic and obscure that it is unable to perform that function, you have undermined the fundamental purpose of the activity.

Clearly, in any dialogue both the speaker and the listener have a responsibility to each other. However, if you consistently find that your message is not resonating outside your tribe, you probably want to rethink how you’re expressing it.

Shifting From Differentiating Value To Shared Values

Once you start separating yourself off and creating a private language for your adherents, it’s easy to fall into a form of solipsism in which the only meaningful reality is that of the shared experience of the tribe. Many aspiring revolutionaries seek to highlight this feeling by emphasizing difference in order to gin-up enthusiasm among their most loyal supporters.

That was certainly true of LGBTQ activists, who marched through city streets shouting slogans like “We’re here, we’re queer and we’d like to say hello.” They led a different lifestyle and wanted to demand that their dignity be recognized. More recently, Black Lives Matter activists made calls to “defund the police,” which many found to be shocking and anarchistic.

Corporate change agents tend to fall into a similar trap. They rant on about “radical” innovation and “disruption,” ignoring the fact that few like to be radicalized or disrupted. Proponents of agile development methods often tout their manifesto, oblivious to the reality that many outside the agile community find the whole thing a bit weird and unsettling.

While emphasizing difference may excite people who are already on board, it is through shared values that you bring people in. So it shouldn’t be a surprise that the fight for LGBTQ rights began to gain traction when activists started focusing on family values. Innovation doesn’t succeed because it’s “radical,” but when it solves a meaningful problem. The value of Agile methods isn’t a manifesto, but the fact that they can improve performance.

You Never Have To Compromise On Common Ground

One of the things that sticks in my head about my experiences during and after the Orange Revolution in Ukraine was an interview with Viktor Pinchuk. who is not only one of the country’s richest oligarch’s, but also the son-in-law of the former President and, at the time, a member of the Rada, the Ukrainian Parliament.

He was, by any definition, a full-fledged member of the “1%” that #Occupy took to the streets to protest. Before reading the article I would’ve expected him to be bitter about the abrupt shift in power. Yet he wasn’t. In fact, he explained that his biggest concern during the protests was that his own children were in the streets, and he feared for their safety.

The insight underlines one of the fundamental fallacies of failed change efforts like #Occupy and others, both in the streets and in the corporate world. They imagine change as a Manichean struggle between two countervailing forces in which we must either prevail or accept defeat and compromise. That is a false choice.

The truth is that any change we win by vanquishing our opponents is bound to be fleeting. Every revolution inspires its own counter-revolution. Lasting change is always built on common ground. The best place to start is by building empathy for your most ardent adversaries, not to give in to them, but to help you identify shared values.

After the Orange Revolution was over, we would learn that Pinchuk’s father-in-law, Leonid Kuchma, who was still in power, ordered the most reactionary forces in his regime to stand down. As it turned out, there were some places that even the famously corrupt leader would not go. In the end, he understood that his legacy, and therefore his interests, lay with the protesters in the streets.

— Article courtesy of the Digital Tonto blog
— Image credit: Google Gemini

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Values Determine Your Competitiveness

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Values Determine Your Competitiveness

GUEST POST from Greg Satell

When Lou Gerstner was chosen to lead IBM in 1993, he was an unlikely revolutionary. A McKinsey consultant and then the successful CEO of RJR Nabisco, he was considered to be a pillar of the establishment. He would, however, turn out to be as subversive as any activist, transforming the company and saving it from near-death.

Yet there was more to what he achieved than simply turning red ink to black. “The Gerstner revolution wasn’t about technology or strategy, it was about transforming our values and our culture to be in greater harmony with the market,” Irving Wladawsky-Berger, one of his chief lieutenants, told me.

Values are essential to how an enterprise honors its mission. They represent choices of what an organization will and will not do, what it rewards and what it punishes and how it defines success and failure. Perhaps most importantly, values will determine an enterprise’s relationships with other stakeholders, how it collaborates and what it can achieve.

Values Incur Costs And Constraints

At his very first press conference, Gerstner famously declared: “the last thing IBM needs right now is a vision.” It was an odd, even shocking statement for a new CEO charged with turning around a historic company. But what he understood, and few others did, was that unless he changed the culture to honor the values its success was built on, no strategy could succeed.

“At IBM we had lost sight of our values,” Wladawsky-Berger would later tell me. “For example, there was a long tradition of IBM executives dressing formally in a suit and tie. Yet that wasn’t a value, it was an early manifestation of a value. In the early days, many of IBM’s customers were banks, so IBM’s salespeople dressed to reflect their customers. So the value was to be close to customers.”

Gerstner had been a customer and knew that IBM did not always treat him well. At one point the company threatened to pull service from an entire data center because a single piece of competitive equipment was installed. So as CEO, he vowed to shift the focus from IBM’s “own “proprietary stack of technologies” to its customers’ “stack of business processes.”

Yet he did something else as well. He made it clear that he was willing to forego revenue on every sale to do what was right for the customer and he showed that he meant it. Over the years I’ve spoken to dozens of IBM executives from that period and virtually all of them have pointed this out. Not one seems to think IBM would still be in business today without it.

The truth is that if you’re not willing to incur costs and constraints, it’s not a value. It’s a platitude. “Lou refocused us all on customers and listening to what they wanted and he did it by example,” Wladawsky-Berger, remembers. “We started listening to customers more because he listened to customers.

Values Signal Trust And Credibility

In South Africa, the Congress of The People was held in June, 1955. The gathering, which included blacks, mixed race, 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,” Nelson Mandela would later write.

Yet despite its seemingly 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 was powerful because of how it signaled to outside stakeholders, such as international institutions, governments and corporations that they shared more with the anti-apartheid movement than they did with the regime.

It was because of those values that activists were able to successfully boycott firms, such as Barclays Bank and Shell Oil, that did business in South Africa. When those companies pulled their investments out, the dominoes began to fall. International sanctions and political pressure increased markedly and Apartheid became politically untenable.

Here again, values would play a crucial role. Much like Gerstner’s willingness to lose revenue on every sale to keep his commitment to IBM customers, Mandela’s commitment to the Freedom Charter, even during 27 years in prison, signaled to stakeholders—inside and outside of South Africa—that supporting his cause was the right thing to do.

Shared Values Drive Collaboration

In the 1960s and 70s, Route 128 outside of Boston was the center of technology, but by the 1990s Silicon Valley had taken over and never looked back. As AnnaLee Saxenian explained in her classic, Regional Advantage, the key difference had less to do with strategy, technology and tactics than it did with values and how the firms saw themselves.

Dominant Boston firms such as DEC, Data General and Wang Laboratories saw themselves as warring fiefdoms. The west coast startups, however, saw themselves as part of the same ecosystem and tended to band together and socialize. “Everybody worked for the same company — Silicon Valley,” Saxenian would later tell me.

This difference in values translated directly into differences in operational practice. For example, in Silicon Valley if you left your employer to start a company of your own, you were still considered part of the family. Many new entrepreneurs became suppliers or customers to their former employers and still socialized actively with their former colleagues. In Boston, if you left your firm you were treated as a pariah and an outcast.

When technology began to shift in the 80s and 90s, the Boston firms had little, if any, connection to the new ecosystems that were evolving. In Silicon Valley, however, connections to former employees acted as an antenna network, providing early market intelligence that helped those companies adapt.

When you value competition above all else, everyone is a potential enemy. However, when you are willing to forsake absolute fealty in the service of collaboration, you can leverage the assets of an entire ecosystem. Those may not show up on a strategic plan or a balance sheet, but they are just as important as any other asset.

Moving From Hierarchies to Networks

The truth is that IBM was not devoid of values when Gerstner arrived. It’s just that they’d gone awry. “IBM had always valued competitiveness, but we had started to compete with each other internally rather than working together to beat the competition,” Wladawsky-Berger remembers. Certainly it valued technology and profits, just not customers.

What Gerstner did was, as noted above, bring the company’s culture and values back into “harmony with the market.” The company no longer wielded monopoly-like power. It had to collaborate with a wide array of stakeholders. It was this realization that led it to become the first major technology company to embrace open source software and support Linux.

Traditionally we’ve seen the world as driven by hierarchies. Kings and queens ruled the world through aristocracies that carried out their orders. Corporate CEO’s outlined strategies that underlings would have to execute. Discipline was enforced through a system of punishments and rewards. Power was valued above all else.

Yet as Moisés Naím pointed out in The End of Power, “Power is easier to get, but harder to use or keep.” Therefore, the ability to attract has become more important than the power to compel or coerce. That’s why today, strategy has less to do with increasing efficiencies and acquiring resources and more to do with widening and deepening networks of connections.

Power no longer lies at the top of hierarchies, but emanates from the center of networks. What determines whether we will get there or not is our values.

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

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Create Dilemmas Not Conflicts for Successful Change

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Create Dilemmas Not Conflicts for Successful Change

GUEST POST from Greg Satell

In the summer of 1982, Poland was under strict martial law. The leaders of the revolutionary Solidarity movement were either in jail or in hiding. As the regime tightened its grip, any kind of protest risked arrest. People were demoralized, forced to sit in their homes with nothing to do but watch propaganda-laden “news” and old movies.

Yet the resident’s of Świdnik, a small city in central Poland, refused to take it sitting down. Instead, they walked. Every night at 7:30, when the evening news program began to spew the regime’s lies, they went for a walk and, just to put a fine point on the matter, some took their TV sets with them, in wheelbarrows and baby carriages.

It was fun—and funny. Similar “walking protests” soon spread virally to cities across Poland, which put the regime in a bind, they either had to shut the protests down or let people thumb their nose at the regime. This is what’s known as a dilemma action, a brilliant strategy that allows you to avoid conflict while at the same time putting your opposition into a bad spot.

Starting With A Shared Value Or Widely Held Belief

When we first start working with a team on a change initiative, they want to focus on what they’re passionate about, what differentiates their effort from the status quo. It’s something we all do. When we feel fervently about an idea, we want others to see it the same way we do, with all its beautiful complexity and nuance.

Yet to bring others in, we need to switch from differentiating values—what we love about an idea—to more widely shared values. For example, when we work with teams looking to move their organizations toward agile development, they often want to focus on the agile manifesto, because that’s what they’re passionate about. It rarely resonates with people outside the agile community, however.

Once they begin to focus on shared values, like better quality projects done faster and cheaper, it’s much easier to get people to come along. After all, who could argue with better results? That doesn’t mean that agile teams are abandoning the manifesto or hiding it in any way, they’re just not leading with it.

Shared values are also part of what made the Świdnik walking protests so powerful. As one of the protesters put it, “If the resistance is done by underground activists, it’s not you or me. But if you see your neighbors taking their TV for a walk, it makes you feel part of something. An aim of the dictatorship is to make you feel isolated.”

Designing A Constructive Act

Some years ago, I was brought in to rebuild a sales and marketing operation. It immediately became clear that the sales director was a big part of the problem. Not only was she still calling on clients herself and competing with her own salespeople, she was accounting for 90% of the revenues! Clearly, this wasn’t because of superhuman ability, but because she was assigning the best clients to herself.

It was obvious that if I was ever going to get things going in the right direction, I was going to have to get rid of the sales director, but that would be difficult. She was politically savvy, well liked and, because she accounted for so much revenue, was seen as critical to the viability of the company.

She had agreed to distribute her clients among the team and focus on managing instead of selling, but never seemed to get around to it. Put simply, she was sandbagging me. So I set up a sales call for one of the staff and a key client, which put the sales director in a position. She couldn’t object—it was what she agreed to—but if she acceded it would break her hold on the business.

It was similar to the action in Świdnik. Who could object to taking an evening stroll? When an action is seen to be constructive, it takes on the power of legitimacy. One of the mistakes changemakers often make is that in their anger they do something that is seen as destructive and lose credibility. That’s always a mistake.

Forcing A Decision

What makes a dilemma action so powerful is that it forces your opposition to make a choice. In Poland, the walking protests quickly spread beyond Świdnik to cities throughout the country. The communist regime had to decide whether to let them continue or to put a stop to them. If the protests continued, the the apparatchiks would look impotent, but if they took action against people going out for a simple evening stroll, they would look ridiculous.

My situation with the sales director was difficult because the onus was on me. I had to decide whether to continue to let her sandbag or to fire her without a clear cause. Designing a dilemma action got me out of that bind because it shifted the decision to her. She either had to give up the client (and then others) or to take a deliberately insubordinate action.

We often oppose change not because of any rational logic but because, for whatever reason, it offends our dignity, our identity and our sense of self. The response to a dilemma action is far more likely to be governed by emotion than a deliberate thought process. People are prone to lash out and overreach.

That’s what make a dilemma actions so effective. It calls a bluff. The opposition can no longer wait it out, but are forced to act and, because of how the action is designed, any action they take will hurt their cause and push change forward.

How Transformational Change Really Happens

One of the biggest misconceptions about change is that it comes about when those who oppose it are somehow persuaded. That almost never happens. Look back at any major transformation throughout history and the tide turned when those who opposed it discredited themselves by taking action that was widely judged to be objectionable.

In Gandhi’s Salt March, the British discredited themselves when they violently attacked peaceful protestors. In Birmingham, Bull Connor discredited himself (and Jim Crow laws) when he confronted children with snarling dogs and fire hoses. California’s Proposition 8 was seen as so discriminatory that it aided the cause of same-sex marriage.

We see the same type of thing in our work with organizations. Everybody has been in a meeting in which, after an hour or so of moving slowly to a consensus, someone who hadn’t said a word the whole time suddenly throws a hissy fit in the conference room. This type of behavior doesn’t come from any rational place, but is triggered by an offense to identity.

Dilemma actions give us clear design principles to induce opponents of change to discredit themselves, which they will not only do willingly, but with enthusiasm. The British in India, Bull Connor in Birmingham and anti-gay activists in California wanted to show the world who they were, they merely had to be given the opportunity.

When confronted with fervent, irrational resistance to change the optimal strategy is never to create conflict, but rather a dilemma for your opposition.

— Article courtesy of the Digital Tonto blog
— Image credits: Unsplash

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Igniting Innovation Through Shared Values

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From Mission Statement to Movement

Igniting Innovation Through Shared Values

GUEST POST from Chateau G Pato

As my colleague Braden Kelley works with organizations striving for meaningful change, he often sees beautifully crafted mission statements gathering dust on corporate websites. These well-intentioned pronouncements articulate purpose but fail to ignite the very innovation they hope to inspire. The critical missing ingredient? Shared values that resonate deeply within the organization, transforming a static statement into a dynamic movement that fuels creativity and drives impactful change.

A mission statement defines what an organization does and why it exists. While essential for clarity, it often operates at a strategic level, lacking the emotional connection needed to truly motivate individuals. Shared values, on the other hand, articulate how an organization operates, the principles that guide its decisions, and the behaviors it champions. When these values are genuinely embraced and lived by the people within the organization, they create a powerful cultural foundation for innovation to flourish. They provide a moral compass, guiding experimentation, fostering collaboration, and ensuring that innovation efforts are aligned with a larger, unifying purpose.

Think of shared values as the DNA of your organizational culture. They influence everything from hiring decisions and internal communication to product development and customer interactions. When values are clear, consistent, and deeply ingrained, they create a sense of psychological safety, where individuals feel empowered to take risks, challenge the status quo, and contribute their most creative ideas. Conversely, a disconnect between stated values and actual behavior breeds cynicism and stifles innovation, as individuals become hesitant to step outside the perceived norms.

Transforming a mission statement into a movement driven by shared values requires a conscious and sustained effort. It involves:

  • Co-creation and Internalization: Values should not be dictated from the top; they should be co-created with employees at all levels, ensuring genuine buy-in and a sense of ownership.
  • Living the Values: Leaders must model the desired values consistently in their own behavior. Actions speak louder than words, and any perceived hypocrisy will undermine the entire effort.
  • Integrating Values into Processes: Embed values into hiring, performance management, decision-making, and reward systems to reinforce their importance and ensure they are not just abstract concepts.
  • Storytelling and Celebration: Regularly share stories that exemplify the organization’s values in action, celebrating individuals and teams who embody these principles in their work.
  • Continuous Reflection and Adaptation: Regularly revisit and discuss the organization’s values to ensure they remain relevant and continue to guide behavior in a changing landscape.

Case Study 1: Patagonia – Innovation Rooted in Environmental Values

The Challenge: Maintaining Authenticity and Driving Sustainable Innovation

Patagonia, the outdoor clothing and gear company, has long been lauded for its commitment to environmental sustainability. Their mission statement reflects this, but it is their deeply ingrained shared values that truly drive their innovative practices. These values, centered around environmental responsibility, integrity, and not being bound by convention, permeate every aspect of their business.

The Values-Driven Innovation:

Patagonia’s commitment to environmental values fuels numerous innovative initiatives. Their “Worn Wear” program encourages customers to repair and reuse their gear, reducing waste and promoting a circular economy. They invest heavily in using recycled and organic materials, even when it’s more expensive or challenging. Their “1% for the Planet” initiative donates a percentage of their sales to environmental organizations. These aren’t just marketing tactics; they are deeply held principles that guide their product design, supply chain decisions, and customer engagement strategies. Employees are empowered to innovate solutions that align with these values, knowing they have the full support of the organization.

The Results:

Patagonia’s unwavering commitment to its values has not only built a fiercely loyal customer base but has also driven significant innovation in sustainable materials and business models. Their transparency and authenticity resonate with consumers who care about more than just the product itself. By living their values, Patagonia has transformed their mission into a powerful movement, inspiring other companies and individuals to prioritize environmental responsibility. Their innovation is not just about creating better products; it’s about creating a better world, and their shared values are the engine of this movement.

Key Insight: Deeply embedded and consistently lived values can be a powerful engine for driving innovation that aligns with a greater purpose, building brand loyalty and societal impact.

Case Study 2: Zappos – Cultivating Customer-Obsessed Innovation Through Core Values

The Challenge: Building a Differentiated Brand in a Competitive E-commerce Market

Zappos, the online shoe and clothing retailer, recognized early on that to stand out in a crowded market, they needed to offer more than just products; they needed to deliver an exceptional customer experience. Their mission statement hinted at this, but it was their ten core values, such as “Deliver WOW Through Service,” “Embrace and Drive Change,” and “Create Fun and A Little Weirdness,” that truly shaped their innovative approach to customer service and company culture.

The Values-Driven Innovation:

Zappos famously empowered its customer service representatives to go above and beyond to delight customers, guided by their core value of “Deliver WOW Through Service.” This led to innovative practices like no time limits on customer calls, surprising customers with free upgrades or gifts, and even helping customers find products from competitors if Zappos didn’t have what they needed. Their value of “Embrace and Drive Change” fostered a culture of experimentation and continuous improvement. Employees were encouraged to suggest new ideas and challenge existing processes. This values-driven culture fueled innovation not just in customer service but also in their supply chain, employee engagement, and overall business model.

The Results:

Zappos’ unwavering commitment to its core values created a legendary customer service reputation and a highly engaged workforce. This, in turn, drove significant customer loyalty and organic growth, ultimately leading to their acquisition by Amazon for over $1 billion. Their story demonstrates how a clear set of shared values, actively lived and integrated into every aspect of the business, can be a powerful differentiator and a catalyst for customer-obsessed innovation, transforming a transactional business into a beloved brand and a thriving movement centered around exceptional service.

Key Insight: Clearly defined and consistently reinforced core values can empower employees to drive customer-centric innovation, leading to exceptional experiences and strong business outcomes.

Igniting Your Own Innovation Movement

As we navigate an era of rapid change and increasing complexity here from our vantage point in Sammamish, the need for organizations to be agile and innovative has never been greater. The journey from mission statement to movement begins with a conscious effort to define, embody, and champion a set of shared values that truly resonate with your people and your purpose. By creating a cultural foundation built on these principles, you can unlock the collective creativity of your organization, foster a sense of shared ownership, and ignite a powerful movement that drives meaningful innovation and lasting impact. It’s time to let your values be the spark that ignites your innovation engine.

Extra Extra: Because innovation is all about change, Braden Kelley’s human-centered change methodology and tools are the best way to plan and execute the changes necessary to support your innovation and transformation efforts — all while literally getting everyone all on the same page for change. Find out more about the methodology and tools, including the book Charting Change by following the link. Be sure and download the TEN FREE TOOLS while you’re here.

Image credit: Unsplash

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