Leadership

Peter Vajda has a great post over on Slow Leadership titled “Why People Resist Change” that is well worth the time to read.

Peter argues that the reasons people resist change is that they are ‘told’ to change….rather than being ‘asked’ to change.   He writes:

What’s the most common process for introducing change in our organizations? We hold a meeting. Tell people why the change is necessary and give our reasons for the change, the expected benefits and tell them be prepared to do it our way. Then, we become angry and frustrated as all heck when we experience their subsequent resistance and lack of buy-in. Usually, little or no change happens in the long run.

Now…in most instances, the management team have done their homework and really believe that the changes that they trying to implement are the best things for the organization…but they do a poor job of engaging their employees in creating these changes.  This ‘telling’ approach makes employees feel as if management doesn’t really care about them.  Again, Peter writes:

If those in charge take a ‘telling’ approach towards change, in essence they are saying to employees: “We really don’t appreciate you; we really don’t want to include you. You have to change, like it or not.” That’s the perception and we all know perception is reality — especially in workplace situations when change is the issue.

Think about the last time you were told that change was coming.  Were you in complete agreement that it was the right change and it was necessary?   If you are like most people, you might agree that change needs to occur but you aren’t sure that ‘this’ change is necessary or that the implementation of the change is quite right.

What would happen if you were involved from day one in the decision making process?  Peter suggests that:

If you would take the time — and be honest and sincere in your efforts — you could ask people for ideas and be assured they will come up with most of the solutions required for them to do their best, both for themselves and for the good of their team and organization…

….What would it be like if leaders engaged employees in the change process by inviting them to join in the decision-making and problem-solving leading up to the change?

Most organizations can’t involve every single employee in change initiatives but a good cross-section of employees would be better than nothing.  Ask employees what they think about the current environment and what needs to change…most times, they’ll come up with some excellent ideas for change that may have been missed by management alone.   Lastly,  engaging employees in creating change initiatives will normally bring about the proper sense of urgency and ownership required for the change(s) to be successful.

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I was reminded this past weekend by Bruce Henry that I sometimes push “publish” much too quickly on a blog post.

Go read my post titled “Leadership and Organizational Change” and specifically Bruce’s comment.  Bruce called me out on some of my comments in my post….and rightfully so.

I still stand behind the overall message of the post that good leadership and organizational culture shouldn’t need to ‘create a sense of urgency’ for change to occur….but I think I needed to expand on my thoughts.  The word ‘create’ is what makes me a bit squeamish about this because it makes me feel as though you should ‘conjure up’ some reason for urgency.  A good leader should have already instilled a sense of urgency in their group….perhaps the authors of the book could have used ‘instill a sense of urgency’.  If they had used that terminology, I probably wouldn’t be writhing this post (or the previous one!).

In addition, I made a few comments about leaders not needing to have political acumen and the ability to be persuasive…which are false.  As a leader you must have these skills.   But again, in the context of the book I was reading at the time, it felt a little ‘off’ to me when the authors talked about using politics to ‘win battles’ and ‘convince others’ that you are rights.

Bruce - Thanks for calling me on the carpet and making me think!

BTW - Every reader of this blog should go check out Bruce’s blog…he’s got some great stuff there.  While you are at it, check out Bruce’s company LiquidPlanner…maker of one of the most interesting and exciting project management tools I’ve seen in a long time.  I had the pleasure of having Bruce give me a demo of the tool a few months ago and was extremely excited about what I saw.

Just finished reading “Moose on the Table“by Jim Clemmer.

Before I get into the review, let me define “moose on the table.”  According to the author, it is a rephrasing of the old saying “the elephant in the room”…as in…the thing nobody wants to discuss (or can discuss, etc).

Jim Clemmer uses a fable to tell the story of an organization that is in need of leadership and change…but the ‘leader’ is brow-beater who only wants someone to agree with him.  The story follows Pete Leonard as he works his way through some issues at work and at home.  Pete attends a seminar and realizes that the way his boss is acting is forcing the organization down into the depths of failure and that he and the other folks need to make an effort to “face the moose”.

The author provides some concepts about how to deal with the moose on the table…some are novel and others aren’t but all are great ideas that can be implemented by anyone trying to approach solving a problem like a moose on the table.

The basic outcome of the story is this:  When a problem rears up, communicate and solve the problem rather than rather than talk around it, place blame for the problem or go into ‘pity city’ (e.g., poor me, etc).  Leadership and communication are key to solving the “moose on the table” problem.

This book is a good read and is short enough to finish quickly.  The concept is a good one and the story is engaging.  I’d recommend it to anyone out there who is dealing with a “moose on the table”.

NOTE: This book was provided by the publisher as an advanced review copy.

Michael Hugos had a really good post on CIO.com titled “Agility Means Simple Things Done Well, Not Complex Things Done Fast” that provided the best definition of “agility’ that I’ve found.  He writes:

Experience shows me (again and again) that agility is not about working fast but about finding elegantly simple solutions to business problems. You’ll know you’ve found an elegantly simple solution when the business people agree it solves their most important and immediate problems…

…because people can’t find these simple solutions, they mistakenly claim that agility itself doesn’t work. They come to this conclusion because they attempt to be agile by cramming complex solutions into short development cycles through working harder, longer, and faster…

…An elegantly simple solution (a robust 80% solution) doesn’t do everything (there isn’t time for that), just the most important things.

I found Michael’s article via George Ambler’s The Practice of Leadership Blog (great blog…check it out) in a post with the same title as Michael Hugos’.  In George’s blog post, he says (emphasis mine):

We spend too much time complicating our lives by trying to do too much, too fast! There seems to never be enough time to do something correctly, but always enough time to do it over again! Given to complexity of managing business, we’re prone to think that complex solutions, are better solutions. Instead we need to focus on implementing good enough solutions, solutions that bring about small wins. Small wins, if continually applied, in a thoughtful and strategic manner, quickly add up to significant results. Small wins are more manageable and have less of an impact if they fail. Seeking big wins are extremely difficult, prone to failure and require significant political will! Focus on the small wins…simple things done well… repeatedly provide true competitive advantage.

Hugos and Ambler have some amazing insight in these two passages.

The original intent of Michael Hugos article was to describe Agile development methods but I think it can be easily transferred to any piece of an organization, which is what George Ambler is pointing at in his post.  This is also what I’ve been trying to say in previous posts (see Simplicity equals Success, Is Perfect Worth It? and In Search of Perfection for examples).

Agility isn’t just needed for competitive advantage…it is required for survival.  Organization’s without agility will not survive…so why then do organizations and people still rely on heavy handed processes and bureaucracy?  I think it’s because they don’t know any better.

In order to bring agility into the bureaucratic organizations, a value must be placed on the ability to be agile…hopefully some of the research occurring today and in the near future will help.

How would you show the value of agility to your organization?

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I recently ran across a survey by Accretive Solutions (formerly Horn Murdock Cole, Dickson Allan, BF Consultants, and CFO Service) discussing the results of an Enterprise Risk Management Survey commissioned by Accretive Solutions and conducted by Harris Interactive.  The results aren’t necessarily surprising but are interesting.

Before we get to the results, for those that aren’t sure what Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) is, it is defined by Accretive Solutions as:

Enterprise Risk Management is an ongoing, company-wide process designed to identify, communicate, evaluate, analyze, address and monitor risks. It extends far beyond financial statements and accounting policies to include strategic, operational and compliance risks. A partial list of risks that fall under the purview of an effective ERM plan includes fraud, supply chain and business continuity plans, changes in the competitive landscape, IT security, changing compliance and regulatory requirements and personnel risks, including the potential for unethical behavior.

Some interesting results from the survey are (emphasis mine):

Thirty-nine percent of respondents to this survey of Executive-level decision-makers at Fortune 1000 companies labeled IT Security as their number one worry over the coming twelve months

Among IT Security threats, breaches via compromised wireless connections were chosen by 14 percent of respondents, while 12 percent chose hackers, and 10 percent chose stolen hardware.

At the same time that IT topped the list of likely headaches, it was also the number one functional area where executives reported seeing a shortage of talent, far outpacing needs in accounting, finance and taxation.

Interesting results…especially the third one. Perhaps this is good news for good IT folks out there?

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Recently, while reading a book on Organizational Change and Project Management, I noticed a disturbing pattern.

The book I was reading discusses the creation of a central project office to manage all projects within organizations (note…it is not the book I reviewed here) and looked interesting when I saw it at the local half-price book store.

The first chapter, which provided an overview of the the topics covered in the book, started off on a bad note.  The first few paragraphs eluded to topics like “create a sense of urgency”, “develop political acumen”, “find a champion” and “master the art of persuasion”.

These topics disturb me for a few reasons…but mostly because they make me believe that the authors are trying to ‘teach’ a reader how to ‘play the game’ rather than ‘change the game’.  Organizational change should be about changing the game rather than playing it.

The book continues on about processes and ‘tips’ for getting people to ‘buy in’ to the change that needs to occur.  The authors write about ‘projectizing the organization’ to add value and ‘creating a sense of urgency’ for employees so they understand how important the change is.

As I mentioned, I have a problem with this approach.

As a leader, If i have to ‘create’ urgency for change have I been doing my job? A good leader should already have people aligned with the necessary changes and have them ready to implement change. Steve Roesler over at All Things Workplace described leaders in a recent post titled “Leadership: Facilitating The Show You Are In” as:

People who are engaged with what needs to happen while orchestrating how to make it happen.

Steve is exactly correct.

As a leader, if you are engaged with your team (and they with you), you and your team should already have a grasp on what changes are needed and your everyone should fully understand why those changes are necessary.

If a leader is doing their job, there should be no need to ‘create a sense of urgency’…it should already exist.

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Where I come from (small town Oklahoma), silos are part of life for dairy farmers.  A silo is a good thing…it stores grains (we called it sileage) to feed cattle and can be found on most farms across the state.

Imagine my surprise when I first started working in large organizations.  I started hearing about ’silos’ and found that they weren’t quite as good as the silos I remember back home.

Silos in the corporate world are created for one thing…and one thing only: control.  If you want to control something within an organization, you build your little empire by building a silo around your piece of the business.  You don’t interact or communicate with other groups unless absolutely necessary, you make ‘getting things done’ as difficult as possible and you protect your ‘turf’ at all costs.

Today’s Dilbert Comic Strip (June 28 2008) had a nice commentary on the subject….and is somewhat true for some organizations.

Its funny because its true.

How does one build a silo/empire?  Easy.  Create a process and stick to it. When’s the last time you requested something be done and heard ‘well…that’s not our process…you’ll need to file a form to request that’.  Does that group that you were dealing with have a reputation for getting the job done?  More likely, that group is one that everyone hates dealing with precisly because they can’t get anything done quickly because of their ‘processes’.

I hate to say it, but ‘that’ group is usually the information technology group of an organization.  IT groups have a great deal of processes and compliance demands thrust upon them (PCI, SAS70, SOX, etc) which makes life difficult for all parties involved.  I think a lot of IT groups try to hide behind these processes rather than find ways to deal with them and get things done quickly.  Its easier to hide behind a process and let your self become process bound than finding innovative ways to work these new compliance issues and processes in to the organization so that they don’t slow everything down.

In a real-world silo, grain goes in for storage, sometimes waiting for weeks before being used. Mechanical devices pull the grain out of the silo and distribute it to the waiting cattle who then consume it.  Should we (the folks that need to get things done) stand around and wait for the farmer to turn on the feeder device or should we find a way to jump the fence and hit that ‘on’ button ourselves?  Why not start trying to remove some of the bricks at the base of the silo and see if we can’t open up some more holes…perhaps we can start to get things done quicker.

Rather than acting like Dilbert (or more accurately, his Pointy Haired Boss), lets start focusing on getting our jobs done.

I asked the following question on LinkedIn earlier this week and received some very insightful responses:

What are the top challenges in IT organization’s today?

In reading the various magazines, blogs and websites out there (CIO.com, etc) on the subject, I’ve come to the conclusion that there are many many issues facing IT groups today. What are the top challenges that most IT organizations are facing today? What is keeping CIO’s up at night in today’s environment?

If you haven’t tried out LinkedIn yet, you should…there are some great folks over there as well as some excellent information available in the Questions / Answers Section.

I received some excellent responses…and most were on target with my own thoughts.  Prior to asking the question, I thought that the issues that were in the front of many IT leaders were:

• Find and Keeping Talent
• Business / IT Alignment
• IT Strategy
• Outsourcing

The responses received from other LinkedIn users seem to back up my original thoughts.  There were other issues listed (System integration, Merger and Acquisition Due Diligence, etc) that were very interesting to see as well.

It’s interesting to get the feedback from people in the field on what they see as huge issues.  An interesting point to note, none of the responses seemed to be from CIO’s of an organization…all were from people who seem to be at a more tactical level than strategic level.

Why is this important?  To me, it says that there are a lot of people in IT with the business savvy to see the challenges that is facing them and their organization.  Why then are these same IT folks being told that they aren’t “business savvy” and need to start speaking “like business people“?  It sounds to me like there are plenty of business savvy people in IT but very few people on the ‘business’ side of things that have really reached out to these folks to get their opinions.

Any additional challenges for IT groups that have been overlooked (either in my post or in the responses on LinkedIn)?

In a recent posts, I’ve mentioned employee engagement (more on the topic here, here and here)…I’ve had a few emails from readers asking me to give some examples of how they could go about engaging the people on their teams.  There are no ‘right’ answers for this because every person is different, but as a general rule, the following factors would help:

1. Trust your team.
2. Make sure your team knows that failure IS an option.
3. Make your team members accountable for their actions

Let’s look at each of these factors in more detail.  Before you continue, please realize I am not an organizational design expert nor human resources expert…these are just some basic techniques that I’ve used in the past.

Trust your team

Trust your employees.  If you trust them to do their jobs, they’ll deliver.

Treat your team like the adults they are.  Stop using the employment model from the Industrial Revolution and let your team decide when and where they should work.  Look into Results Focused systems (such as Results Oriented Work Environment (ROWE), etc).

Make sure your team knows that failure IS an option

Failure will happen.  If you ensure that your team knows that it is OK to fail, and that you expect them (and yourself) to fail, you’ll be amazed at what they’ll be able to accomplish.  I touched on this subject in a previous blog post titled “Learning From Failure“…an excerpt from that post is:

According to a story recounted in a newsletter from the New & Improved website, Warren Buffett, the semi-celebrity CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, says that the act of making a mistake (and failing) is essential to the decision making process.  As an example of this, Mr Buffett once told David Sokol, the CEO of a Berkshire Hathaway controlled company, that:

David, we all make mistakes. If you don’t make mistakes, you can’t make decisions.

This comment was after Mr. Sokol told Buffett that they would have to write off $360 million for the year due to a project that didn’t work out as expected.

If you truly want to engage your employees, making them understand that failure IS an option is key.  If they know that they have the right to fail, they’ll put their heart and soul into their efforts.

Hold your team members accountable for their actions

At first, this may seem a bit out of place, but I promise you, it will help.  Think back to a time when one of your team-mates / employees / friends / etc weren’t pulling their weight on a task.  What was your reaction to finding out that they were able to ‘get by’ without doing as much work as you?  If you are like most people, you were a bit disappointed in the person responsible for managing / leading that task.

It’s very difficult for any person to maintain a positive attitude and love what they do if they feel like there are people who aren’t pulling their weight.  If you ensure that all your team members are held accountable for results, and that they must hold you accountable for results, then you’ll have a much happier team.

Conclusion

The three factors listed above will not immediately turn a dis-engaged employee into a happy and engaged one, but they will help you down the road of build a steady foundation for your team.  By trusting your team, holding them accountable and communicating that failure IS an option, you’ll have a team of people who are willing to dig deeper and do a bit more for you and the organization.