Clearly Communicate the Benefit for All

The day is warm for Green Bay, WI, especially since I’m running a marathon. Yes, me, the guy who three years ago wouldn’t have run if a lion was chasing me. Now here I am with more than 25 miles under my belt today and about a mile to go. I have this “Oh my goodness!” feeling. If nothing catastrophic happens between me and the finish line, I’m going to qualify for the Boston Marathon.

I make the curve just north of downtown and turn back southward. I can hear the crowd clapping for the finishers who are ahead of me. I cross under the Ray Nitschke Bridge where the race started. The crowd noise is getting louder. People along the way are yelling “Almost there!” as I race by. I break into a sprint.

There are some twists and bends in the course as we reach downtown. As I clear the last corner, I can see the balloon-filled archway of the finish line. Uh-oh, it looks a little farther away than I thought it was. It doesn’t matter. The burning in my legs and lungs doesn’t matter. I can see the clock and I can tell that I have more than 5 minutes of cushion in my time to qualify for Boston. I could stop right here and walk the rest of the way and still reach my goal. There’s nothing that is making me run this fast but me.

I hear another determined runner coming up behind me. I don’t have to beat this runner or this clock or anything…but nonetheless I kick it up to the next level. I can’t prove it, but I’m pretty sure that the last 100 meters of this 26.2-mile race were the fastest 100 meters I have ever run. As I burst across the finish line I hear the announcer call my name. A bright faced young woman is there to put a medal around my neck and wrap me in a reflective blanket. Despite the heat, my body temperature is all over the place. I stagger around with this stupid grin on my face. I have done it. The guy who was not a runner three years ago has qualified for the Boston Marathon. Oooooh-mah-gahwd! A previous non-runner has just qualified for Boston. Wow!

How do you spell success?

Think of a time when you successfully changed. It doesn’t have to be big change. Maybe you made a decision to drop a few pounds and you were successful. Or perhaps you gave up smoking, or other unhelpful habits. Maybe you changed your hair after years of wearing the same style or got a funky new frame for your glasses. What did you do to achieve the change, and why did you succeed?

Generally people change for one of two reasons. Either the pain of staying the same is greater than the pain of changing, or the pleasure of the new state is greater than the pleasure of the old state. And this feeling of pain-avoidance or pleaser has to be personal. It can’t be “Our stockholders will like us better.” It has to be meaningful to me, individually.

There’s an old, bad joke – How many psychologists does it take to change a light bulb? Only one, but the bulb really, really has to want to change. (It’s OK to groan out loud.) Change cannot be done “to” people or “for” people. It can only be accomplished with their full cooperation. To gain their cooperation we need them to understand the benefit to them personally of moving through change.

All of the great teachers I know begin their classes with “What’s in it for me?” or WIIFM. Successful change begins the same way. By helping every player understand what the personal benefit is to them, we gain their involvement. As an agent of change, you have created a clear and compelling case for change. You have also committed yourself and your leadership team to sustaining the change. Now it’s time for you to clearly communicate the benefit to all.

Self-esteem and Change

More than any other factor, people will gladly change if they understand how it will enhance their self-esteem. According to several studies, adults are most motivated to learn new behaviors that will enhance their:
· Self-esteem
· Self-perception
· Confidence
· Recognition among peers
· Quality-of-life

In facilitating change, we often don’t spend enough time thinking about what will motivate the employees to learn new behaviors. We assume they are already motivated. According to research by motivation expert Bob Nelson, there is a significant gap between what Managers believe motivates employees most and what employees say motivate them. Managers assumed people were motivated by money, but the highest motivators that they found are:

· Praise and recognition
· Personal and written thanks by one’s Manager for good performance
· Public praise for good performance
· Morale building meetings to celebrate successes
· Also, people felt best if their promotions were based on performance (as opposed to political abilities or longevity on the job). People want to be recognized for performance.

Notice that the motivators reported by employees were designed to enhance the self-esteem of the employee. Self-esteem is one of our strongest motivators for change.

So, here are the simple three steps I would encourage you to take when communicating the benefit to all.

· Communicate the benefits of change to the managers.
· Craft a communication plan that the managers can filter down to each individual.
· Frame the conversation around the self-esteem of the individuals.

In this way, you will communicate the benefit of change to all of your employees. This will motivate the employees to carry out a concrete implementation plan, which is the step we will discuss in the next blog posting.

Getting the Big Dogs to Lead: Creating Long-term Change through Leadership Commitment

I am sitting in deafening silence at a hotel dining room table with seven other peers, eating. Actually, I’m not eating at all. I am sitting with my mouth hanging open. The smell of my own defeat permeates the room causing me to lose my appetite.

I catch myself staring into space, close my mouth and paste on a fake smile, but soon the fresh mental wounds surface and I find myself sitting gate-mouthed again. I think to myself, “So this is what it feels like to be at the end of your career.”

Three hours ago I was a bundle of nervous energy cracking jokes and feeling like the king of capital. I had a fresh business plan, Excel spreadsheets that showed us “going positive” in the first year and lots of brash backers eager to glad-hand me. Then the presentation began.

It wasn’t so much of a presentation as a train wreck. I don’t know if you’ve ever had one of those days. I open my mouth to say something clever and instead the sound of a donkey braying comes out. I try to crack a joke to relax everyone and all they do is check their watches.

With the Sr. Executive team and my peers in front of me and a large screen with PowerPoint slides behind me, I struggle to make sense to anyone, including myself. The slides might as well be written in Swahili.

The harder I try the stinkier the presentation becomes. Soon the smell of desperation is in the air. It’s funny how the smell of desperation in front of a group of executives has much the same effect as the smell of blood does for sharks. Soon they are circling my thrashing body. “What are you saying?” one interrupts. “Just cut to the chase. What’s this damned thing going to cost us?” One after another the questions come in rapid fire fashion without giving me the courtesy of the time to answer.

Cleverly enough I’ve given them all a written copy of the business plan, wrapped in cellophane so they won’t be thumbing through it during my presentation. Now, just as the gloves come off, so do the cellophane wrappers, each person reading on his or her own. No one is even listening to me or looking at me any more. The meeting is over. The executives, who were supposed to stay for lunch, jump up en mass and exit the meeting leaving me there bleeding in front of my peers.

On his way out, one straight-shooting executive takes time out of his busy schedule to offer me a quick post-mortem (appropriate name for this dead presentation) on my time in front of the board.

“I’m going to be as surgical as I can with my comments,” he quips. “Is this a good idea? Yep, it looks like it probably is. Are we going have to do this? More than likely.“ He pauses and fixes me in his gaze. “That was the most piss-poor presentation I have ever seen in my life. Bar none.” With that he left me to the luncheon with my peers.

Two weeks later, much to my surprise, the board approved my idea and funded the program.

Fortunately, that was not the last time I had a chance to make a presentation in front of this group. They were generous and gave me other chances when the stakes were not so high. Along the line I learned a thing or two about getting executives to back your idea (mostly from listening to them).

The Goal: Change that Lasts

Please indulge me while I tell another quick story. Next to me on a very full flight from Detroit to Miami is a man and his 10-year-old daughter. In their conversation the man mentions that you used to be able to smoke on a flight.

She looks at him incredulously. “Nuh-uh!”

“Yeah,” he says. “When I used to book a flight I would tell them whether I wanted smoking or non-smoking.” He points out the residual ashtray in the arm of the seat. She stares at him with her mouth open, not wanting to believe what he says.

I hate to admit it, but I’m old enough to know that what he says is true. It’s incredible to think about today, isn’t it? You may be old enough to remember when non-smoking rules were introduced to the airlines and to the workplace. Maybe you can still picture a manager’s office or a conference room with an overflowing ashtray. If you walked into work tomorrow and saw something like that, you would wonder what planet you were on.

Can you imagine a time when we will return to smoking on flights or in our offices? No? Me either. This is a change that seems, at least in US and Canada to have stuck. Wouldn’t it be great if all of our change initiatives were this permanent?

Avoiding “Flavor of the Month”

Now let’s look at some change that didn’t stick. Here’s a fun idea. Read your corporate communications from 5, 10 or 15 years ago. What were we talking about as a company? Total Quality Management? Management by Objectives? Was the name “Edward Deming” thrown in for effect?

When some change initiatives come about, bold pronouncements are made, but eventually the head of steam behind the initiative becomes nothing more than a flash in the pan.

What does Flavor of the Month look like? The key ingredient to Flavor of the Month is a lack of commitment from the Sr. Leadership team.

And what about those workers who have to endure all of these change initiative? After so much change, some are barely able to suppress rolling their eyes with a sigh of “here we go again.” Endless cycles of change lead to change fatigue. Therefore, it’s critical that when you roll out a change initiative, you have Sr. Leadership buy-in.

Selling to the Big Dogs

As we saw in the last blog, real change begins with a clear and compelling case for change. There has to be a seriously driving business need. When the case is compelling enough, change is inevitable. Either we will change or eventually we will die. That’s pretty compelling.

The second step in creating permanent meaningful change is “Commit yourself and your leadership team to sustaining the change.”

I clearly understand that as a change agent, you might be an individual contributor, a manager, a director or a member of the corporate senior leadership team. Change leaders are not always at the top of the org chart. They can be at the bottom, middle or the top. So, getting the leadership team to commit to a particular direction may be a high calling, but it’s the job of the change leader, like it or not.

Since you started with the clear and compelling case for change, you’ve got a leg up. Leadership teams are all about the data. Oh sure, like any team there can be turf wars, food fights and other ugly sins at the top of the organization. But most Sr. Leadership Teams really want to focus on the data.

So, here are my top seven tips for selling to the big dogs:

1. Don’t let the group meeting be the first meeting. One smart manager I know said, “I’ve never held a group meeting when I didn’t know the results before the meeting even started.” In other words, hold individual meetings with the decision makers before the group meeting starts. Pre-sell them. Get their commitment before you even go into the group meeting.


2. Start with a crisp clear purpose of the meeting. State the purpose of the meeting and then ask the decision makers to confirm their understanding of the purpose. You are getting them to buy-into the purpose (e.g., make a decision today).


3. Play it straight. If you like to use humor to put others at ease…don’t.


4. Think through ahead of time where each person is coming from and what each person needs from you.


5. Predict the obvious questions. If you know what you’re going to be asked, you’ll know how to answer.


6. If you are asked a question you were not prepared to answer, feel free to say “I don’t know.” But then make a commitment for when you’re going to get an answer to the question.


7. Practice, practice, practice. Be sure to dry-run your presentation several times with someone who can provide you feedback.

And that’s it. Step one – Create a Clear and Compelling Case for Change. Step two - Commit yourself and your leadership team to sustaining the change. That way you avoid “flavor of the month.”

Next time we’ll talk about step three - Clearly communicate the benefit for all.

Create a Clear and Compelling Case for Change

Bottom Line First

If you don’t have time to read all of today’s blog, let me save you some time and give you the bottom line first:

1. Get the facts on the table and then trust people to do the right thing when confronted with the evidence.


2. Look for bottom-up guidance. If the people in your organization give you guidance, then they own the decision.


3. “Fair” is a huge concept. Without “fair,” there is no trust, and trust has a direct impact on the results.


4. It is your job to enroll people in your organization into the idea of change. It is NOT your job to persuade them, sell them or command them, but rather to see where they are coming from and then helping them understand the case for change.

Facts Rule!

In Good to Great Jim Collins describes break-through companies with sustained results. According to Collins, one of their secrets of success is “Confront the Brutal Facts.” Collins describes companies who are willing to take all of the facts, no matter how ugly, put them on the table, and then engage in raging debate.

Raging debate does not mean personal attacks, but rather attacking the facts and the issues until everyone has been heard. A clear and compelling case for change begins and ends with facts.

The world is constantly changing, this we know. Therefore as the facts change our businesses must also change, and we must change. If you are a change leader, this is your job, to explain not why people, processes and practices can change, but why they must change.

Fair Factor

Have you ever had a conversation with a child that ended with the sentence, “Because I said so?” If you’ve spent any time at all around children, I’m sure that phrase has come out at least once.

Why do we go there? Why pull out that trump card and slap it on the table? Mainly because we believe it is expeditious. It gets us what we want in the short term. But does it really get us the long-term buy-in you’re looking for?

Sarah Brosnan and Frans de Waal of Emory University conducted a study using Capuchin Monkeys. Capuchin monkeys like cucumbers, so the researchers taught the monkeys to exchange a pebble for a slice of cucumber. The monkeys learned to treat the pebbles like money, exchanging it for something they wanted. But the researchers played a dirty little trick.

They kept the monkeys in pairs. After a period of time, the researchers began to randomly reward one of the monkeys with a grape instead of a cucumber. Capuchin monkeys like cucumbers but they LOVE grapes.

As soon as the researchers began to differentiate the reward, the monkey who was treated unfairly reacted sharply. Sometimes they refused to take the cucumber reward. Sometimes they took the reward but threw it down. One monkey even threw away her pebble seeing no more use for it. The monkeys were so offended by the unequal treatment that they stopped playing the game.

Fair is a HUGE concept. Without a sense of fairness, you cannot build a sense of trust. And trust is everything.

Trust Takes Time

Patrick Lencioni explains the importance of trust in his book The Five Dysfunctions of a Team. According to Lencioni:

• A lack of trust leads to a fear of conflict.


• Fear of conflict stifles open debate.


• Since there is no open debate, people don’t have a chance to get their ideas on the table, which leads to a lack of commitment.


• A lack of commitment keeps people from being accountable. If they didn’t have input, why should they buy-in to the plans?


• Lack of accountability keeps a team from paying attention to results.

Therefore, a lack of trust leads directly to a lack of results.

If you fail to spend the time to really listen to people, you break trust. And broken trust leads to wasted energy and inefficiencies, which of course takes more time. So which one really takes more time, to engage people or to perpetually deal with unfinished conversations and the fall-out of broken trust?

Street-level Wisdom

You’ve probably heard the axiom, “None of us is as smart as all of us.” You might have even said it, but what does that mean? In the book The Wisdom of Crowds, James Surowiecki describes the four conditions under which crowds can be wise.

Diversity of opinion – Each person holds a small piece of the knowledge puzzle.
Independence – People form their own opinion independent of others.
Specialization – People draw on their own local knowledge, something no one else has.
Aggregation – Some mechanism exists for turning private judgments in to a collective decision.

Surowiecki argues that under these four conditions, the opinion of the crowd is greater than the judgment of any individual within the crowd. For example, when the contestants on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? phone a really smart friend, the friend gets the answer right almost 65% of the time. However, when the contestants poll the studio audience, the audience gets the answer right 91% of the time. While this might be a small example, Surowiecki makes a powerful argument throughout the book that none of us know as much as all of us.

So, why get the opinion of so many people in a company? If you’re only getting their opinion so that you can quickly come to consensus and get your change adopted, you’re missing the point. There are three points. Point 1 is, trust people to do the right thing when confronted with the facts. Point 2 is, people in your organization hold a lot of knowledge. Tap that knowledge and you’ll improve the chances of success. When people have an opportunity for input, when they truly feel heard, then they own the decision. If you decide for them without gathering their input, then they don’t own the decision, or the results.

Enrollment

Your job as an agent of change is to enroll others in a vision. This requires getting into the head of the person you are enrolling and really seeing things from their angle. Enrollment is more than being persuasive, or using your personal power. It is being empathic for the needs of others – being just as interested in their needs as you are in your own.

That’s why it’s your job to build the clear and compelling case for change. People don’t mind changing when they understand the compelling need for change.

Bottom Line

So your job, as a change agent, is to explain what has changed. What is new and different that demands changes in your organization? Why must we change? What will happen if we don’t change and what will happen if we do?

Give people the information they need to make a decision, listen to them, get their buy-in and then you’ll be ready to move on to the next step – commit to sustaining the change.

C-Level Thinking

I was walking briskly, almost marching through the hallways, head down, shoulders squared, my mind a thousand miles away…projects, timeline, massive coordination of disparate workgroups each with their own agenda. Suddenly rounding a corner I almost ran smack into a Senior Leader whom I admire a great deal. I staggered backwards, blushing as I realized what I had done.

He looked startled; barely hanging on to the bag containing his laptop. Who wouldn’t look startled when they almost got knocked on their butt by a coworker? He quickly gathered his composure, paused, smiled broadly and said a sentence that I don’t think I’ll ever forget. “Behold Tony Loyd, the agent of change!”

Here’s the funny thing. That exchange happened almost five years ago, and I remember it as if it just happened. Why is it that, with all of the full days I’ve had since then, all of the exchanges I’ve had with people, all of the places I’ve traveled and the experiences I’ve had, I remember this moment among all the other moments of my life?

Well, one quote that is oft attributed to Samuel Clemens (a.k.a. Mark Twain) is “I could live a month off a good compliment.” Since I can’t find an authoritative source for that quote, it might not have really been Mark Twain who said it, but it feels true nonetheless.

Last fall I went to a conference where the conference leader kept dropping the phrase “C-Level Executive” into the conversation. At first I didn’t know what it meant. Now it seems like everyone I talk to is salting their conversation with that phrase. In case you’re like me and you don’t really know what a C-level executive is, it’s someone with a “C” in their title like CEO, CFO, CIO or CLO. Get it? C-level; makes sense, doesn’t it?

This brings me back to the compliment I mentioned earlier. He used another C-word, “Agent of Change,” or as I like to say “Change Leader.” To me, being associated with positive change is the highest form of compliment. Honestly, I’d rather be known as a Change Leader than to hold any of the aforementioned C-Level executive titles.

And here’s another important c-word, “consensus.” Change leaders realize the value of building consensus. Nothing great ever happens without people’s consent. Obedience is not enough. There is such a thing as “brainless obedience” and “malicious compliance.” That’s not what changes the world. If you want to change the world, you’ve got to learn how to build consensus.

By watching smart change agents, I think I’ve boiled the art of consensus building to seven steps. Maybe I’ve missed something and if I have, feel free to add a comment to the blog.

Just like anything you read in any business publication, this is not a magic formula, but maybe you can think of it as a way to check-in to see how you’re doing when you’re trying to build consensus. In keeping with our theme, I’ve started each of the seven steps with a “C.” Here they are:

1. Create a clear and compelling case for change


2. Commit yourself and your leadership team to sustaining the change. Convince everyone that this is more than “flavor of the month”


3. Clearly communicate the benefit for all


4. Construct a concrete implementation plan


5. Chart new competencies needed to sustain the change


6. Craft job aids, and other performance support tools


7. Consequences, consequences, consequences – Create positive, immediate and certain consequences to reinforce the new behaviors

In the next few blogs, we’ll drill down into each of these seven steps for building consensus. I hope you’ll join me in the conversation. Feel free to post comments so we can make this conversation a two-way street. After all, knowing that you’re actually reading this and you want to participate, well, that’s the biggest compliment of all.

Reaction to Change

Give me Cigarettes and Give Me Death!

In Paris, France, on boulevard St-Germain is a statue of Danton, one of the leading figures of the French Revolution, his right arm outstretched in one of his famous orations. If you follow his gaze and where his right hand is pointing, you’ll find…a Starbucks. That’s right, within 100 meters of this statue in Paris, France is Starbucks Odéon, one of at least 9 Starbucks locations in Paris.

When Starbucks opened their first location in January 2004, I remember reading interviews with Parisians. One typical response was, “Why would I go somewhere to have coffee when I cannot smoke?” For many Parisians (32% of adults are smokers) the concept was absolutely foreign.

The other night when I visited the Starbucks Odéon the evidence would say that change has come to stay in Paris. With two floors and not an empty seat in the house, the place was packed!

Last year when my wife, Lynn and I visited Dublin, the whole city had gone smoke-free. What a great experience! We could go to a pub, have a pint or two of Guinness and never have to think about second-hand smoke. Eventually, it seems even Paris may go the way of smoke-free. Sacre Blu!

Change comes. It is as inevitable as the tides, even in countries as tied to their traditions as France. Everything is constantly in a state of flux. Change is the natural state of all things. As we’ve discussed in the last few blogs, it seems that the rate of change is picking up and we in turn must learn to be life-long learners in order to keep up.

In this blog we will look at three ways that most people react to change:
• Resistance
• Neutral
• Supportive

We’re going to start by looking at your own personal reaction to change. Then, we’ll examine the topic of what you can do as a change agent during times of transformation to help each type of person.

Your Personal Reaction to Change

Think about your personal reaction to change. If you are reading this blog, there is a good chance that you are an agent of change, therefore naturally supportive of change initiatives. But that does not mean that you always find yourself in the role of being supportive of change. If truth be told you might switch from supporter to neutral to resistor and back to supporter in a matter of minutes. So, what do I do if I find myself being a resistor?

First of all, give up the right to judge yourself. Organizations need all three types of people – supportive, neutral and resistors. Each is equally valuable as long as their positions are well thought-out and based on reason.

Resistors

Being a resistor is not necessarily negative. I mean, after all, I am writing today from France, home of the French Resistance movement during World War II. The French resistance movement was key to toppling the Nazi domination of Europe.

Sometimes it is a fact that “the Emperor has no clothes,” and someone has to say so. Therefore, you might find yourself honestly disagreeing with proposed change. A room full of “yes-people” does not really serve the interest of the company does it? So, it can be good to resist inappropriate change.

Supportive

Supporters are usually the early adopters – those who feel naturally at ease with change. You probably find yourself in this category most often. As I talk to change agents, these risk-prone people would be the first to admit that they need the neutral and the resistors to balance them – to keep them in check.

Neutral

Finally, there is often wisdom to wait just a beat before gladly adopting change. These are the neutral people. As a neutral person, you will not resist change simply on principle, but you will not support change just because some says so. Therefore, it’s sometimes wise to take a neutral position.

So, if you find yourself in any of these three positions, you might want to simply observe your position then say “My, isn’t that interesting?” in a non-judgmental way. Ask yourself if you have a reason for taking the position you have and then be willing to change should you find evidence to support such a move.

Now, let’s look at each of the three types of people from the perspective of the Change Agent. How can we best support and assist each type of person during times of transition?

Viva la Resistance!

I resist change even as I call for it.

- Mason Cooley, City Aphorisms, Fourteenth Selection, New York (1994).

Why would anyone bother to resist change? Change is inevitable, isn’t it? It seems not. Often the reason that people behave in a particular way, for example resisting change, is because of past rewards. Sometimes resistance works! Resistors resist for many reasons, but one of the main reasons people often resist is because they think they will eventually win. They think this latest change effort is the “flavor of the month” and will eventually go away.

Look back at your company’s history. Can you recall a time when pronouncements were made, themes were decided on, posters were printed and then the “new way” went away? This is not uncommon. Many change efforts die from lack of follow-through and resistors have been trained to keep their heads low and their mouths shut and just wait for the “new” way to fall back to the old way.

The second reason that someone may resist change is that they actually have a genuine, heart-felt disagreement with where the company is heading. These folks tend to be pragmatic and they’re waiting for someone to explain to them the practical benefit of the proposed change.

What is the best strategy for resistors when implementing change? Only give them 15% of your energy. And what do you do with this energy? Offer them a personal benefit to change. After all, if we learn to resist change because of previous reinforcement, we can also learn to adopt change because there is a reward in it for us.

Put It In Neutral

The next category is the “neutral” crowd. This is where you need to focus 70% of your energy. Election strategist know that in the primary elections you need to appeal to your base (the “supportive” group), but to win the general election you must win the neutral crowd, better known as the swing vote.

Think of it this way. You don’t have to win the “supporting” crowd. They already support you. Don’t waste too much of your time and effort with the resistors. They have already taken a stand. It is the Neutral crowd where you need to spend most of your time and effort.

The best way to win the swing vote is by convincing them of the clear and compelling case for change. They want to be sold, but they’re not going to support change without first understanding why.

Thank You for Your Support

Finally there is the supportive crowd. You cannot ignore them, so save about 15% of your energy for rewarding and reinforcing your supporters. Savvy marketers know that they need to spend time and money reinforcing the buying decision after the sale. The same should be said of smart change agents. We spend time reinforcing the decision to support the change, helping the supporters to feel smart for having supported us in the first place.

Next Time

In the next blog we will look at all of the building blocks for moving people from resistance to neutral to supportive. I call it “C-Level Thinking.”

Moving to Higher Ground

Just as in the last blog entry, let’s start with an intriguing quote:

“My message is that what’s happening now is just the tip of the iceberg…What is really necessary is for everybody to wake up to the fact that there is a fundamental shift that is happening in the way people are going to do business. And everyone is going to have to improve themselves to compete.”
- Rajesh Rao, founder and CEO of Dhruva Interactive as quoted in The World Is Flat, Page 191 (emphasis added)

Take a look at this picture.



In the picture, a man is walking forward, away from the camera, gait casual as if on a lazy morning stroll. Around him a few people have begun to realize what is happening and are beginning to pick up their pace looking for a place to run. He seems oblivious of the coming danger, though from his angle he has the best point of view.

This picture is from a Wickipedia article about the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami. Earlier in the day a quake of 9.15 magnitude had occurred about 160 KM (100 miles) away from the spot where this picture was taken. In the end, the death toll from the resulting tsunami would reach over 200,000 people, with deaths occurring as far away as 5000 miles from the epicenter.

I wonder how many of us are like the gentlemen in the picture, strolling along casually, not really understanding how an event happening 100 miles away, much less 5000 miles away could impact our lives.

In this blog I will talk about:
· The tsunami that is coming our way, initiated by the tectonic shifts in world markets
· What you can do to prepare yourself as an individual
· What you can do in your professional life to help your company to prepare itself

Here Comes the Big One!

I have limited myself to using only three quotes from The World is Flat - one at the opening of this blog, one just below to describe the coming tsunami and one describe what to do about it. So, here’s the quote I selected to describe the coming fundamental shift in the tectonic plates of commerce:

Page 125 – The advantages for manufacturing in China, for certain industries, are becoming overwhelming, added [Jack] Perkowski [of ASIMCO], and cannot be ignored. Either you get flat or you’ll be flattened by China. “If you are sitting in the US and don’t figure out how to get into China,” he said, “in ten or fifteen years from now you will not be a global leader.”

In your personal life, think of it this way. Any job that is manual and repetitive will be automated. Services jobs are going to India and manufacturing jobs are going to China…or Columbia…or the Czech Republic. Any job that is labor intensive will be outsourced or off-shored.

So, what are you going to do about it? Are you going to just stand there watching the tsunami come at you, or are going to climb to higher ground?

Learning to Learn is the New Survival Skill

On the front page of Cultureshift.com, I have a quote by Eric Hoffer. "In times of change learners inherit the earth; while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists."

Please stop and re-read that quote. Are we in “times of change?” I think we’d agree, yes, we are in times of dramatic change. So, it’s good to be a learner.

Here is my last quote from The World is Flat:

Page 236 – There is only one message: You have to constantly upgrade your skills…so, my advice to them [my daughters] in this flat world is very brief and very blunt: ”Girls, when I was growing up, my parents used to say to me, ‘Tom, finish your dinner – people in China and India are starving.’ My advice to you is: Girls, finish your homework – people in China and India are starving for your jobs.”

In other words, learning, or more precisely, learning-to-learn is THE critical competency for 21st Century workers.

The 19 December 2005 issue of Fortune magazine has a great article on Andy Grove. I’d recommend you read it because it beautifully illustrates the core competency of being a life-long learner. On page 122 Andy Grove is describing what happened at Intel when their core business, computer memory, had turned into a commodity overnight.

“…I turned back to Gordon [Moore, CEO of Intel at the time] and I asked, ‘If we got kicked out and the board brought in a new CEO, what do you think he would do?’ Gordon answered without hesitation, ‘He would get us out of memories.’ I stared at him, numb, then said, ‘Why shouldn’t you and I walk out the door, come back, and do it ourselves?’”

Andy Grove and Gordon Moore (of “Moore’s Law” fame) were ready to learn how to learn. The memory business had been very profitable for them. It was what Intel was known for, before they were in the microprocessor business, before they were “Intel Inside.” But they had to be ready to learn an entirely new strategy to survive.

Helping Your Company Survive

Obviously it’s a good thing if you learn to adapt and survive as individuals, but of course we’re not just individuals, we’re part of a community. This is especially true of the community we call our employer. We’re all in this together and we all have a role to play.

If you are a CEO, you might want to put a hard emphasis on the soft sciences. Most companies have specialists in Organizational Development, Industrial Psychology, Human Performance Improvement and Training & Development, yet we’ve usually viewed them as a necessary and moderately useful expense. If we’re really honest with ourselves, we’ll admit that sometimes we’ve regretted the dollars we’ve spent in the area of Human Resource Development (HRD). Just think what we could have done if we would have applied those budget dollars to “important” projects.

But now, these experts in human performance are becoming a core part of the leadership team. Many organizations are adding a Chief Learning Officer or other Human Capital leaders to the Senior Leadership team. The HRD department just got pulled from the back of the corporate consciousness to center stage.

If you are a Training Manager or other HRD professional, you may find yourself squinting in the unaccustomed glow of the spotlight. But, ready or not, here you are. Your CEO has some serious questions, and you’d better have some answers. You’re going to need to learn what the new competencies are and then help people in your organization achieve them.

Everyone is going to need new competencies, from Supply Management to IT to Skilled Labor. As an HRD specialist, you’re job is to lead your company into 21st Century competencies.

Next Time

In the next blog we’ll look at our typical reaction to change, and how we can choose the most useful path when change comes into our lives.

POW! Your World Just Changed

Here’s an intriguing quote:

“We're entering an age of acceleration. The models underlying society at every level, which are largely based on a linear model of change, are going to have to be redefined. Because of the explosive power of exponential growth, the 21st century will be equivalent to 20,000 years of progress at today's rate of progress; organizations have to be able to redefine themselves at a faster and faster pace.”
- Ray Kurzweil, Author of The Age of Spiritual Machines

So, this really smart guy says that the “explosive power of exponential growth” is happening right now. What do you think? Is that true? Is that what it feels like where you work or live? Is the rate of change “explosive?”

There has been some argument on this. Is the rate of change actually accelerating, or has it always been like this?

There are two fields of thought. Either it’s like compounded interest. Or, it’s like the sudden jumping of an electron from one orbit to the next.

In the compounded interest theory, the changes feed on themselves. The interest we gain today is folded back into the principle and more interest is gained on that. I’m sure at some time in your life you were on one side or the other of compounded interest, whether you were falling behind on a credit card, or watching your savings account grow. The power of compounded interest is awesome.

But the exponential growth that Ray Kurzweil is referring to in the quote above seems to be something else indeed. He uses the words “explosive” and “exponential.” While a savings account or a credit debt might feel like it is growing exponentially, it’s not really the kind of “POW!” that Kurzweil is talking about. He’s talking about a sudden impact, like the meteor that hit the earth and wiped out the dinosaurs.

So, I’d like to spend a little time today talking about this POW! effect. I’d like to explore that idea and see if it’s really true. Is our world really taking the kind of exponential leaps that are described above? Today we’re going to talk about:

An example of the POW! effect.
The scientific background of POW!
The lessons of POW!

What POW! Feels Like

In the 1990’s a friend of mine, Bill, owned an appliance store selling everything from stereos to refrigerators. He had inherited the business from his father and his grandfather.

One day around 1995 Bill was on vacation visiting his cousin in California. While there, they went into a Costco warehouse store. Bill was going down the aisle looking at televisions when he spied a model that he had just started carrying in his own store. Bill stared at the Television for quite a long time. Actually, he stared at the price for a long time. The television in the Costco store was selling for less than Bill had purchased his stock from a wholesaler.

For Bill, the pace of change was not exponential. It was more like a thunderclap. POW! When we talk about the accelerated pace of change, it’s best to not just think about all of the tiny changes that are happening incrementally around us, but also those sudden culture shifts that happen in an instant, as it did to Bill.

You might be thinking to yourself, “OK, that example is so 20th Century!” Fair enough. Let me give you an example out of today’s headlines.

I work for John Deere [HUGE disclaimer here. Whatever I say on these pages does NOT represent Deere & Company or any of their companies, employees or customers. I’m simply writing as a private citizen.] Today I open up CNN.com and I’m reading about the world trade talks being held in Hong Kong. There’s an article about India's Trade Minister Kamal Nath. In the middle of the article Nath makes this comment that, to me, is stunning.

"They (the U.S. and the EU) have to awaken to the transition that they are no longer farmers to the world," Nath says. "They're not competitive. You can't try being artificially competitive and thrust your subsidies down our throats."

For me, this is a POW! moment. Now, I know that the CEO of Deere has a plan. He’s been marching the company down the path of sustainable growth for a long time. But this is the most I’ve understood the clear and compelling case for change. POW! My world just changed. My mental map has shifted forever.

A Scientific Explanation of POW!

The type of POW! experiences described above are being played out every day. Andy Grove, former CEO at Intel was a scientist before he was a CEO, so he tends to take a scientific approach to how he runs a company. Mr. Grove in his book Only the Paranoid Survive, described what he calls a “Strategic Inflection Point”.

Said Mr. Grove, “…let me just say that a strategic inflection point is a time in the life of a business when its fundamentals are about to change. That change can mean an opportunity to rise to new heights. But it may just as likely signal the beginning of the end.

“Strategic inflection points can be caused by technological change but they are more than technological change. They can be caused by competitors but they are more than just competition. They are full-scale changes in the way business is conducted, so that simply adopting new technology or fighting the competition as you used to may be insufficient. They build up force so insidiously that you may have a hard time even putting a finger on what has changed, yet you know that something has. Let's not mince words: A strategic inflection point can be deadly when unattended to. Companies that begin a decline as a result of its changes rarely recover their previous greatness.”

Remember that Andy Grove was a scientist before he was a CEO. He brings his understanding of physics to the business world.

Let’s talk about how this works. Phyllis Kirk in The Magic of Quantum describes what she calls the Kirk Model of Chaos. There’s a picture of this below. There is an animated version here.



Let me describe this in my own words. A system is basically at stasis until it is acted upon by an outside force. For those of us in the corporate world, we recognize that we are always being acted upon by an outside force. Markets change, customers change, employees change and the very nature of our business changes.

These outside forces deposit energy into our system. The system has to do something with that energy, and so it begins a process of agitation (or as Ilya Prigogine calls, it, perturbation). Eventually, the amount of energy input exceeds the system’s ability to deal with it and it reaches this explosion point, or point of bifurcation. At this point, the system will do one of two things – it will either be destroyed, or it will evolve to a higher level.

Now here’s the interesting part. The factor that decides if you die or evolve, whether you get to reinvent your company or you file for Chapter 11 is whether you are a closed system or an open system. Closed systems die. Open systems live to see another day, only in a more advanced state.

And, here’s one more point I find very interesting. Ms. Kirk, recognizing the dramatic impact of this final point calls it “the explosion point.” In other words, POW!

The Gift of POW!

So, that’s it? We don’t have a choice? What if I don’t want to go through POW!? Well, get over it. Change is coming. As I said in the last blog posting, don’t fight the river.

Companies who themselves cannot guarantee their own survival cannot assure you of lifetime employment. And the job you have today will dramatically change in unpredictable ways, so all you can do is prepare yourself for it. Change is coming whether we are ready or not.

In the next blog we’re going to look at some of the forces that are causing this type of sudden and explosive change, this POW! More importantly, we’ll explore what we can do about it as individuals.

The Nature of Things

I arrive at work in high spirits on Monday morning and walk around the office to greet all of my employees. We are getting ready for our Monday morning meeting. After being off for the weekend, there’s some catching up to do. I enjoy this time of renewing our contact. It’s like the “break-fast” of work.

I duck into my office to fire up my computer so I can check my email before the meeting. As the dark screen springs to life and the email application comes up, my phone rings with the first crisis of the week. While trying to sort out the particular urgent need of the angry person at the other end of the phone, I glance at the number of unread email messages … 328. My heart sinks in my chest. Finally, I’m able to hang up, promising to get back to the caller with an answer this very morning. As I run to my meeting, I notice the light on my phone is flashing to indicate that, while I was on the phone, someone else had called and left a message. Whew!

I don’t know about you, but this is a typical day. Hundreds of emails arrive in my inbox every day. I receive 10 to 20 voice mail messages just for good measure, and this doesn’t even include the face-to-face interactions.

It used to be that I could go off on a two-week trip and, when I came back, the department secretary would hand me four or five pink slips of paper with messages from people who couldn’t make a decision without my input. Now, I leave my desk for five minutes and there are four or five voice mail messages awaiting my return. When you add all of the email, instant messages and … well, general interruptions, you begin to get a picture of my day.

I don’t know about you, but I’d really like it if the world would stand still for just one day. I realize that this is but a fantasy, since nothing stands still. Of course, this isn’t a new phenomenon. Three thousand years ago, King Wen wrote the I Ching, or “The Book of Change.” In the book, he describes the nature of change and offers to help its readers learn to be in harmony with change.

And of course, change is even more ancient than 3000 years. Just look at nature. Nature gives us examples of inevitability, such as the tide or the flow of rivers. These teach us that change is happening at all times, whether we are ready or not.

Our goal is to be in harmony with what is – don’t push the river. Even when change is sudden and violent, such as the shifting of the tectonic plates, it is still our job to be in harmony with what is.

In the next few weeks, we will explore change and how to thrive in times of transformation. I invite you to join me on this journey. Together, we will learn how to lead a culture shift. How do we dance with change, no matter how fast it comes?

In the next few postings, we’ll explore this together. I look forward to engaging with you to lead the culture shift to performance improvement.