Organizations that thrive in constant change tend to have a large number of people who offer solutions for improvement. No matter what role you play in your organization you can be a leader of change. In fact, sometimes front line people have the best ideas because they are dealing directly with the customers. The truth is all people in an organization probably have great ideas for how to improve products, the work environment, or service delivery, but many of those great ideas never get any air time.

One reason could be that your idea wasn’t as well thought through as possible and didn’t include input from stakeholders. One of the top mistakes change leaders make is trying to “plant the wrong seed”. It usually happens when you don’t take the time to properly evaluate your idea before presenting it to others. Below is a short process you can use to choose an idea and to make sure it serves all those concerned.

The Vitare Process for Choosing the Right Idea for Change

What is Not Working?

What is happening in your area of work that isn’t working? Be as specific as possible. E.g., Planning committee meetings are ineffective; lack of follow up on the X campaign; poor communication between the development team and the sales team; having to use outdated software; etc. List at least 3 if possible.

What Can You Change?

Which of these is something that could actually change if you got buy-in from others? In other words, don’t choose something completely outside of your control like the weather and also don’t choose something that you could solve by yourself such as re-prioritizing your work. E.g., “Planning committee meetings are ineffective.”

Create Your Ideal Outcome

What is your ideal outcome? What is the opposite of what you wrote in #2? E.g., “Planning committee meetings are ineffective.” becomes “Make planning committee meetings more effective.”

List the Costs

What are the costs involved in staying stuck about this situation? How is this issue affecting other areas of work, home or personal life? It’s usually some version of: lack of well-being, lowered productivity, poor relationships, less creativity, negative attitudes, poor service, etc. E.g. we are way behind schedule, people dislike the meetings, people are getting annoyed with each other, etc.

List the Benefits

What might be the benefits of finding a new idea or solution? Again, it’s usually some version of improved well-being, better productivity and service, improved relationships, better vitality, more creativity and resourcefulness, etc.  E.g. we could get back on schedule, people will enjoy the meetings more often, the relationships of the team will improve, we will get more done in less time, etc.

Brainstorm

List as many ways as possible to create your ideal outcome. The more ideas the better. Include obvious, bad, good, mundane, silly or even weird ideas.

Choose the top 3 ideas

Look at the list above and choose your top 3.  Write out your possible solution below as succinctly as possible. E.g., Make meetings more effective by

1. Create an agenda
2. Get input from attendees about the agenda before the meeting
3. Establish guidelines for interacting during the meeting (e.g. staying curious, being on time, etc).

List Stakeholders

Make a list of all the stakeholders (all the people who will be affected by this solution). E.g. In addition to your team members, include those you serve and those you report to, etc.

Set the right intention

Make sure your solution will work for as many stakeholders as possible. Look at your top 3 ideas for a solution, then on a scale of 1 to 10 rate how beneficial this would be for all stakeholders? 1 = not at all, 10 = totally beneficial.

Improve the Idea

How could you alter the solution to be more beneficial for more stakeholders? For example, after standing in the shoes of other people on your team you may have a way to improve your idea even more. E.g. Assign a leader for each meeting and establish a series of guidelines for them to follow when both preparing for and facilitating the meeting.

Elicit Feedback from Stakeholders

People support what they help create. How can you best elicit feedback from key stakeholders? People love giving input on things that affect their lives. Plus, their input can further improve your solution and help increase buy in for all concerned. Send out a survey, bring it up for discussion, do a brainstorming session, make a phone call, etc. Ask for their feedback in this way:

1. State the problem in as factual and non-blaming a way as possible
2. List the costs
3. State your ideal outcome
4. List the benefits
5. Offer your solution as one possibility
6. Ask for their ideas as well

Use stakeholder feedback to further improve your idea.

In a previous blog post we explored the “The 7 Mistakes Change Leaders Make“, and how mistakes are necessary to actually develop success habits. Using the metaphor of the growing cycle we explored Mistake #1 which is “planting your idea in barren soil” and it’s obvious success habit which is to plant your seed in the right kind of soil — one with a nice Ph balance of both innovation and tradition.

Once that is done, now you are ready to plant the seed of your idea, which leads to another common mistake: choosing the wrong kind of seed. There are plenty of examples throughout history of “wrong seeds” being planted in fertile soil — in society, in organizations or within an individual. CBC TV is right now airing a documentary entitled Love, Hate and Propaganda, about leaders such as Hitler and Mussolini and how they manipulated a populace aching for change. Had their intentions been benevolent and focused on the common good, their ideas could have been sustainable. Unfortunately, they were planting the wrong kind of seed.

The Fast Ferry Scandal is another example of the wrong seed being planted in the right kind of soil. A major impetus for the program was in direct response to public complaints. Citizens wanted less waiting traffic and quicker transit times between Vancouver and Vancouver Island. The idea was planted in fertile soil, but the idea itself was flawed. The project had massive cost overruns and long delays. The ferries also created such a huge wake that shoreline eco-systems were being adversely affected. In the end, the ferries were sold for a fraction of their original price.

In contrast was Gandhi’s idea of a non-violent approach to attaining independence for India. Because it was the right kind “idea seed” it was both sustainable and led to other such successful approaches around the globe.  Another example was David Packard decades ago in the early days of Hewlett-Packard. In an era when bosses dwelt in mahogany-paneled sanctums, Packard took an open-door workspace among his engineers. He practiced what would become famous as “management by walking around.” Most radical of all for the time, he shared equity and profits with all employees. This seed of a great management idea ended up effusing the spirit of Silicon Valley even to this day.

Sometimes, however, the wrong seed can be transformed into the right one. An organization I worked with needed a culture change. They wanted to turn around a habit of complaining amongst staff. In response, the director of one department made it mandatory that staff only comment on what was good, what was working, and what they appreciate about any idea or project. What happened was that negative comments went underground and grew toxic. It was the wrong kind of solution. I helped them alter it. We decided to safely allow staff to comment in both negative and positive ways. They were encouraged however, to express negative comments in terms of what’s they’d like to see instead so that it was a solution-focused comment. This made all the difference to the idea “sticking” and an effective bottom-up communication process that improved all aspects of the department.

“People say that what we’re all seeking is a meaning for life. I think that what we’re really seeking is an experience of being more alive.” – Joseph Campbell, American mythologist

The metaphor of the growing cycle, is a useful one for change leaders. Creating fertile soil is your first task towards ensuring the seed of your idea can thrive. Have you broken down the old fears, learned from them, and therefore created a rich and “alive” environment that invites excitement?

Why people paid so much for tickets for the Winter Olympics

Some people paid as much at $750 to $1500 per ticket to see an event at the Olympic Winter Games here in Vancouver this week. When I surveyed these ticket buyers as to why they would spend so much on a two-hour experience I received the same general answer: “It’s so alive and exciting, and those kind of experiences are rare in life.”

An innovative way to bring awareness to your cause

Here’s another example. An innovative organization called Imagine 1 Day was seeking to gain attention for their cause: providing primary education for all children in Ethiopia. They organized a flash mob dance during the Winter Olympics games in downtown Vancouver. The idea was to teach a choreographed routine to a group of people who would then spontaneously break into that dance in a public area — an idea no doubt inspired by the Improv Everywhere events.

They invited people in their network and staged several rehearsals to teach a dance routine to the hit song, Dancing in the Street. They expected about 200-300 people to show up. In the end, over 3000 people learned the dance. The crowd took up an entire city block in Vancouver. Ten times more people than they ever expected to attend were there, and all of those people got to hear about their cause. Not only that but another thousand watched from the sidelines. Add to that all the videographers who posted it on YouTube. Even CNN reported on it. Why would that many people spent so much of their precious time and energy to learn a rather complicated routine and then drag themselves out on a cold and rainy day to dance it? I was one of the participants along with many of my friends. The answer seemed unanimous. Because it was exciting to be part of a huge group of people harmonizing our energies together doing something fun — all for a great cause. In short, it made us all feel more alive.

Here’s a short clip of the event:

Regardless of your opinion about an organization’s goals, Olympics Games or educating children in Ethiopia, creating an atmosphere of aliveness invariably attracts people and opens minds.

Trying to plant your seed of change in unbalanced soil

In the last blog post we talked about one of the main mistakes change leaders make–which is trying to plant the seed of change in unbalanced soil. When there is an over focus on protection at the expense of growth ideas can’t get traction. People have a deep need to feel alive, to grow and thrive. They also have a core need to feel safe and protected. The problem comes when those two needs get out of balance. The tendency in many organizations especially after an economic downturn, is for there to be an over focus on protection which tends to kill off growth and aliveness. Many organizations are not open to change because there is a long standing habit of operating mainly from a fear-based need to simply survive. This survival mindset may have some basis in reality but more often it is simply a bad habit of catastrophic thinking. As a change leader you may need to address this issue before people will be open to your idea for positive change. Organizations and individuals get stuck in protection mode due to perceptions. No change can occur unless you help stakeholders perceive the situation in a more growth-oriented way. This usually cannot be done with logic alone as fear is an instinctual emotion and therefore you will need a more “alive” approach.

Case study – focusing on growth and aliveness to change perception

For example, a privately-owned software company had a culture clash between the sales force and the product development and tech support teams. The owner felt that the majority of resources and decision-making power should lie in the hands of the sales force because they drove revenue. As a result, the sales team decided on timelines and deliverables without consulting the other teams.

Naturally, the stress levels and subsequent resentment within the development team grew. When the development team presented their concerns to the owner he simply asked them to “think more positively” — and you can imagine the response to that. The owner had tunnel vision about the structure and system needed for his company to survive. The previous two years had been a tough. Cash flow suffered due to an economic downturn and they had barely avoided bankruptcy. As a result all he could focus on was cash flow, and the sales force meant cash flow. Now that sales were flowing they were taking every contract without communicating with each other before signing the deal.

Meanwhile the product developers and tech support team suffered. Several of their best people quit. Back room gossip escalated. Interpersonal conflict grew. When the owner heard that clients were leaving because of the bad “vibe” there, he hired an HR person to sort things out. She tried everything from disciplining the gossipers to sending them off for motivational training to help them “get over their resistance to change”. Not surprisingly, the resentment just seemed to grow.

After assessing the situation we helped the HR person come up with a new tactic. She led a team building day with everyone in the company that started with a fun activity. Once they were relaxed and enjoying being together, she illustrated the growth potential of a more collaborative decision-making process. She addressed all concerns such as the fear that consulting with other team leaders would mean losing contracts. She provided facts to prove that an over-focus on sales was ironically costing everyone in terms of morale, productivity, customer service, employee health, and ultimately revenue. Even though it looked like the focus on sales was all about growth, it was coming from a fear-based mindset. She offered success stories of similar firms that were consulting with each other before signing deals and still thriving very well.To make a long story short, they found a way to restructured resources in a way that seemed more equitable to all concerned and decided that all team leaders would be consulted before signing any client contracts. In the end this allowed for much better external (and internal) customer service.

In the last blog post on The Top 7 Mistakes Change Leaders Make I mentioned the importance of looking at common mistakes as an entry point into exploring the success habits of great change leaders.

To recap, the top 7 mistakes I’ve noticed after 20 years of surveying and working with change leaders are:

1) Planting your idea in barren soil
2) Planting the wrong kind of seed
3) Not enough watering and fertilization
4) No stays
5) Letting the bugs and weeds take over
6) Lack of pruning
7) Letting it go to seed

In my upcoming book, The Change Artist Principles, I will explore each of these mistakes via case studies and how the mistakes made became the grounding agents that led to the successful adoption of new habits.

The first is trying to plant your seed of change in barren soil. Another way to look at it is an over focus on protection and safety at the expense of growth. According to cellular biologist and PhD, Bruce Lipton, most organisms operate in either protection mode or growth mode but cannot be operating in both modes at the same time. An organism (or an organization) that continually focuses on safety and protection cannot grow. Many change leaders won’t or cannot launch a change because the individuals (and thus the organization as a whole) get stuck in fight or flight mode far too often. This leaves no resources left over for growth. Here is a short 2 minute video in which Bruce Lipton explains the concept of protection vs growth:

How big is your organizational defense budget?

If decision makers in your organization have an unresolved trauma around change, then you will need to address this before you propose a growth tactic. While some amount of protection is useful to ensure survival, a large number of organizations have allocated most of their resources in that direction since the economic downturn. You can also see this phenomenon play out at the national level when a country overspends on defense and under-spends on areas that could help society grow such as the arts, research, education and social programs.

What is the mind set governing your organization?

The first step to this process is to get into the habit of testing the soil into which you want to plant your seed of change. It must have the right Ph balance of protection versus growth. Individuals must also maintain the right Ph balance in order to stay healthy. Think of the last time you felt stressed. It was probably because you perceived that your “safety” was at stake. The brain will more exclusively operate from the Reptilian Complex, or the fight or flight brain, not just when you feel physically at risk but also when you risk losing anything you care about: job, relationship; reputation, income, comfort, security, pride, etc. While in this state of mind your body will focus the majority of resources on surviving; running away or fighting. You have thus lost resources normally used for maintaining your immune system or for healing or detoxifying the body. If you stay in that fight or flight state for too long then you will likely experience some kind of disease.

Symptoms of organizational dis-ease

Similarly if an organization (or the collective energy of the individuals within it) perceive that its “safety” is at risk for too long then disease can set in. Organizational disease can take the form of customer complaints, office politics, system break downs, or employee attrition. Organizational dis-ease (or lack of ease) can then beget more disease as resources must be used to cover for people who are ill, to find a replacement for someone who quits, to mediate office politics, or to recover from a customer complaint. Boosting your organization’s “immune system” by balancing protection with growth can make all the difference. This allows more resources for areas such as system upgrades, team building, adding new positions, market research or product development. The first step is to uncover the underlying mind set governing your organization or company. Ask yourself right now: what is the balance between protection versus growth?

Two different perceptions of the same situation

It’s easy to see that you could choose a different perception by looking at how two different people react to the same situation. One person may perceive a move from one building to another as a horrible discomfort causing them sleepless nights. This perception came from a decision they probably made sometime in the past and which now colors their possible future. These decisions can always be changed. Another person might see the same move as an opportunity to de-clutter their work area, get to know new people, and be refreshed by a change of environment. What we perceive affects our experience which in turn affects our biology, which in turn affects our performance, and by association those we work with and those our organization serves. In further blog posts I will explore some of the more popular methods of re-mapping your brain around change–or making new decisions that will create less stressful perceptions.

Case Study: W.L. Gore & Associates

Here is a short case study about a company that has a good balance between protection and growth. After rigorous evaluation Fast Company magazine finally voted W.L. Gore & Associates as the most innovative company in America a few years back. You’ve no doubt heard of its most famous product: Gore-Tex fabrics, which have a transparent plastic coating that makes them waterproof and windproof but keeps them breathable. They also make over 1000 different other products such as synthetic blood vessels, Glide dental floss, the first floss that resisted shredding, and the Elixir guitar strings, which last five times longer than normal strings.

Gore is known for being as innovative in its operating principles as it is in its diverse product lines. For example, they create sustainable growth by making people feel safe to take risks. Since they are a privately owned company they don’t have to report their quarterly earnings, thus they happily allocate 10% of their resources to new initiatives and allow anyone in the company who wants to try a new initiative a generous amount of resources to develop it. Of course, some of those initiatives fail, but they expect that. And, when Gore people pull the plug on a failing initiative, they’ll still have a “celebration” with beer or champagne, just as they would if it had been a success. Because they know that lowers stress and validates trying new things and thus helps the whole company continue to grow.

What if I don’t work for a company with that kind of value system?

You may be asking “What if I don’t work for a company with that kind of mind set or value system—what can I do?” You don’t need to be the head of a company to influence these kinds of changes. The Change Artist Principles is designed to help people at any level of an organization see ways to make a difference. Stay tuned for further posts.

Good judgment comes from experience which comes from bad judgment. – Anon

Looking at the common mistakes of change leaders is a great entry into this topic because people often only achieve success through its opposite: failure. My upcoming book, The Change Artist Principles, focuses on the problems of leading people through change and how those problems are perpetuated sometimes and resolved at other times. Before we dive into the problems or the mistakes, it helps to have some context for using this approach.

You cannot have success without failure or persistence without resistance

Consider the concepts of success and failure. They are opposites yet related—you cannot know one without the other. Similarly, persistence and resistance are opposites and also cannot be understood without the other. Both sets of opposites appear over and over again throughout the change process. Our perception of any situation is relative, and we can only understand its nature by studying it through contrast. For example, in a universe in which everything is blue, you cannot discuss the concept of blueness because you lack contrasting colors

Failure and resistance got you where you are today

Let’s take another, more personal, example. Right now think of an area of life in which you have plenty of experience. Something you could honestly say you are “good” at. It could be in golf, or parenting, or graphic design, or interpersonal communication. You probably achieved that level of expertise through having some success, making some mistakes, resisting moving forward, then persisting through the challenging parts and then learning from them, then back around again through all those phases. You became good because you embraced these opposites. For whatever reason you kept practicing, working through your resistance, being persistent despite making mistakes and feeling a sense of failure sometimes, getting feedback, learning from the feedback and trying something new the next time. Chances are, for every step into your feelings of resistance you found renewed strength to persist. For every moment you sensed failure, you found a silver lining which renewed your belief in success.

New leaders too often get chastised for making mistakes

This may seem like obvious information, but in my role as a consultant I am continually amazed at how often people enter leadership roles with no training and then get chastised for making mistakes and then rebuffed for feeling resistant to trying new things. Good leadership thrives in an environment where you are allowed to make mistakes and then are encouraged to deconstruct them and create a new plan of action continually.

Mistakes are like grounding agents in an electrical current

The concept behind the word “Mistake” is simply an entry point into what I like to call “The Grounding Agents”. These are the pitfalls along the way that ground you into the actual realities of leading people through change, much like an electrical grounding cord. The positive charge is your vision of success and the grounding agent is that which keeps it grounded in the here and now. Both are necessary to make the machine of change work.  A Transformational Leader is one who creates a positive vision of change, expects to be met with grounding agents so that the interplay of the two (positive vision + negative grounding agent) can create a third entity. The third entity is the change that truly transforms those concerned. Using these skills, a 21^st Century Leader emerges.

The Top 7 Mistakes

This list of mistakes is based on 20 years of surveying and working with change leaders and those affected by their decisions. Through my research and experience it became clear that the same human mistakes were happening over and over again and that those who made them enough times persisted through the failure and resistance were the ones who achieved success, or what I like to call the Habits of Successful Change Leaders. In a nutshell here are the top 7 mistakes using the metaphor of the growing cycle.

1) Planting your idea in barren soil
2) Planting the wrong kind of seed
3) Not enough watering and fertilization
4) No stays
5) Letting the bugs and weeds take over
6) Lack of pruning
7) Letting it go to seed

We will explore each of these mistakes and failures in the next post using a couple of helpful metaphors.