“How do you explain to people that they need to change their working styles?” asked one leader. “Next week I need to give people some tough messages. We must change things radically to build a thriving business."
"Maybe it is my own fault. Sometimes I empathise with people so much that I delay making decisions, especially when these may cause pain.”
Leaders often choose between the following approaches when trying to implement ‘change’.
* Some urge their people to alter their ways and put everybody through a ‘change programme’. This approach produces mixed results.
* Some restructure the company – but it is essentially the same group of people sitting in different chairs. They also follow the accountant’s rule of ‘cutting costs by 10%’, hoping it will save the company. Strangely, they cut this percentage from both the growing and failing parts of the business.
* Some chose to 'build the new' rather than try to 'change the old'. They continue to perform good work with the present ‘cash cows’, but also build successful prototypes that embody the desired culture. The principles that emerge become the basis for the future company.
Imagine you are leading an organisation. Looking to the future, your leadership team is agreed on the preferred strategy.
You have a loyal work force, but some people are reluctant to embrace the future. Some will choose to move forward, but other won’t.
Being a moral person, however, you want to explain ‘the new rules of work’. You will then invite people to decide whether they want to contribute to the future culture.
How can you do this in an effective way? Here are three steps you may wish to consider.
1) You can invite people to explore the future world of work.
You will already have explored this theme in depth when clarifying the future strategy. Looking ahead to the next 2 – 3 years, for example, you will have asked the following kinds of questions.
“What will be happening in our sector? What changes will take place? What will be the social, market, technological and other changes? Who will be our potential customers? What will be the challenges they face? What will be their picture of success?
"What will these people want from the potential providers like us? What can we provide to help them to achieve success? What levels of service will they want? How will the service be delivered? What will they be prepared to pay for these services?
"How can we provide these services? What qualities must our organisation demonstrate? What qualities must the employees demonstrate?
“Bearing these answers in mind, what decisions must we therefore take to build a positive future? What must we then do to implement these decisions successfully?”
You will have answered such questions when formulating the strategy. The leadership team will carry the can for delivering the goals, so the strategy is not up for debate. But it is still vital to encourage your people to explore the future challenges.
Some people may already think this way; some may wait for direction; some may be ‘observer critics’ who will never be pleased. You want people to think ahead, however, and use their imagination. If you wish, gather them together and say something like:
“Looking ahead, everybody in this room is aware that we face many challenges. We have obviously already done considerable work on this theme and formulated our provisional strategy.
"Today, however, we would like to invite you to explore that possible future. We are not pretending this is a ‘democracy’. It isn’t. Certainly we in the leadership team have to take responsibility for delivering the goals. Nevertheless, we want to involve you in considering the qualities required to build a successful future.”
You can then position the first exercise. Invite people to go into groups and look three years ahead. They are to brainstorm the possible changes that may have taken place by then in their chosen field.
After completing the brainstorm, they are to clarify the events most likely to happen and paint a picture of that possible future. Invite people to present back the following exercise.
2) You can invite people to explore the qualities required to succeed.
Let’s assume that groups present back their ideas. Some people will provide excellent insights; some will reiterate ‘management speak’; some may make speeches pushing their own point of view.
When doing this exercise with a technology company, for example, I found the younger people were much closer to painting the future reality than the older employees (those aged 40!).
The latter had read the right business books, but they spent their time in internal meetings. The ‘youngsters’ spent 80% of their time on the road meeting pacesetting customers.
Listen to people’s ideas, then introduce the next exercise. You may want to say something like:
“Looking ahead, it seems that we are agreed the following things are likely to happen: a) __________; b) ___________; c) ____________.
"Let’s assume that many of these changes come about, though obviously nothing is certain in this day and age. We would like you to move onto the next stage. Bearing in mind what may happen, try tackling the second exercise.
This invites you to describe the qualities people and organisations must demonstrate to be successful in the future. So focus on two areas.
* The qualities that people must demonstrate. For example, they may need to have a certain attitude, develop particular skills, apply themselves in special ways or whatever.
* The qualities that organisations must demonstrate. For example, they may need to make good strategic decisions, provide quality service, manage their people by outcomes – rather than tasks – or whatever.
"Wherever possible, give specific examples. Over to you.”
3) You can invite people to explore how to stay ahead of the game.
Let’s assume that the groups present back their ideas. Many people will identify the spirit and skills that employees must show in the future. They will also have strong views on how organisation must relate to its own people.
The more challenging area will be how organisations should behave towards customers. Some groups return with answers such as: “The organisation must provide great service and deliver it brilliantly.”
But they are light on how to achieve these goals. That is okay, because later you can look at how to translate the principles into practice.
Listen again to people’s ideas, then introduce the next exercise. You may say something like:
“Looking at you what have written, it seems that people and organisations will need to demonstrate the following qualities to be successful.
"First, the people will need to: a) __________; b) ___________; c) ____________.
"Second, the organisations will need to: a) __________; b) ___________; c) ____________.
"Thankfully, these ideas are in line with our provisional future strategy! Otherwise we might be in real trouble. There are, of course, several other strands we need to cover in the strategy, but we can explore these at some later point.
“We would now like you to move onto the final exercise. Many organisations go through the stage of envisaging future scenarios.
"But then comes the hard part. There seems so much to do that people either procrastinate or produce long lists of tasks that have no coherent strategy. We need to stay ahead of the game. The themes we would like to cover are as follows:
* The specific things that we as individuals can do to be successful in the future.
* The specific things that we as an organisation can do to be successful in the future.
"Today is about exploring these ideas: it is not a ‘signing-up’ process. As we said earlier, there is a provisional strategy and today has shown there is lots of alignment in the organisation. There will be plenty of time for clarifying and committing to the actions plans.
"So, over to you. Present back what we can do to stay ahead of the game.”
How do people react to this exercise? Looking at when I have used it in the past, they tend to be extremely honest.
When put on the spot, they are prepared to clarify what they and the organisation must do to achieve future success. Some people will refuse to face reality, of course, but that is their choice.
Certainly you can communicate the strategy without involving people. This is an option and, at times, it may be appropriate. Sometimes you will simply communicate the strategy – the ‘what, why, how, who and when’ – and invite people to make clear contracts about their best contribution.
Other times it is useful to encourage them to explore the future world of work. People are then more likely to put their hearts and minds into delivering ongoing success.
Posted on Monday, January 30th, 2012 at 5:06 pm in Super teams, The Strengths Blog | RSS feed
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