Mike Russell

Jeff Panning laid out in a recent article a lot of good change impact factors to consider when managing a project.

There is one important point in his discussion that needs expansion.

Jeff noted “Decision: is a change management workstream required for your project?”

My take on that is it is more of a rhetorical question … I think the answer is always “yes” and to consider factors like he suggests.

The reason?

A project – by its very nature – is *intended* to produce change of some sort.

How you deal with that change is a major factor in whether or not your project succeeds or not.

Change management may not be a big “workstream” unto itself … but there should always be change elements in planning and execution.

And, as colleague Thomas Meloche has been writing about lately, organizational change almost always involves politics. This makes change management even more critical.

Ignore change and politics at your project’s peril 😉

Every leader has a number of issues to deal with and, sometimes, struggle with.

This does not make someone a “bad” leader … if a leader doesn’t have issues to handle at least sometimes, they are probably no longer needed and can move on.

The key question: is working an issue on your own the possible or best way to resolve it?

If on your own works, fine. Don’t be “guilted” into having a coach for everything by all the coach marketing you see, or have a coach just for appearances (unless needed for political reasons :-).

For those issues that are better addressed with independent perspective or require help getting past a stubborn roadblock, find a coach.

Group roundtables/masterminds can work too, if there is enough trust. Groups also typically work best when paired with 1-1 coaching in addition to group sessions.

If you want to find out more about coaching or a group approach, contact me to discuss your situation. We don’t require year-long or longer commitments … just enough time initially to help you work through your current issue(s). You can decide to continue after that if you wish.

P.S. Coaches can especially help with personal “head trash” and self-inflicted roadblocks in addition to organizational issues.

Colleague Dan Moody – who is a trained chef – had an interesting observation about work expectations (https://lnkd.in/exR_wuhJ). He contrasted the detailed instructions in cookbooks for those learning versus for those who are trained chefs. The latter are more like quick reference guides to different dishes with few if any detailed “how to” instructions or even quantities.

Organizational change approaches (especially ones like “agile” dealing with uncertainty), often make the problem worse by expecting people to do what they cannot.

Those approaches expect people to have sufficient expertise to effectively “inspect and adapt” existing culture, politics, processes and organizational systems to achieve desired change results. The problem is that they often don’t have that expertise, nor can they acquire it fast enough to fit change expectations. Using Dan’s example, we are handing them the highly trained chef version cookbook when they need the learner’s version.

There are ways to help people along to gain “just enough” expertise to change their particular areas of work. Those are usually rejected because the timeline often don’t fit with corporate impatience and lack of understanding what is being asked of people.

This is greatly amplified when a “transformation” is going on, affecting the culture and internal politics at large, many processes, and many organizational systems (if not all) at once.

Which is why there are so many requests and searches for change (or agile) “checklists” … in cooking terms, a specific recipe that, in theory, “anyone” can use with little or no experience. Unfortunately, there are no exact recipes that fit all organization situations and all organizations … only “trained chef” guidelines.

Hence the need for change “chefs” (or sensei, as a related concept) to help people make the change. Yet the current expectation in most organizations is for detailed cookbooks for their specific change, not chefs (experienced change agents) that can fit the cooking concept to the situation at hand and guide the learning chefs (learning change agents … effectively everyone) in sustainable change.

One of the best ways to deal with this paradox is a learning program that produces change as a product of the learning.

Ours are structured to do just that, with the benefit of also paying for themselves via ROI. Contact us to discuss how to apply the concept to your needs.

For organizations, values are more than just personal values.

Organizations need clarity on mission (purpose), vision (where are we heading), and values (how will we behave on the way there).

Here are some reasons.

• Growth, partnering, and M&A problems often come from a culture mismatch. And almost just as often, the culture mismatch stems from a values mismatch or misinterpretation.
• Values are critical in hiring. Hiring someone with different values for a key position will lead to conflict later. Hiring people with different values in any positions over time can lead to culture shift … and with not so good results if the values are different from what the founder, owner, or CEO intended.
• Values are also important from an execution perspective. Values are behind decisions and actions, and ultimately the culture. Even if the values are unstated, people – including customers – will assign values to the decisions and actions. Different values within an organization can lead to organizational schizophrenia and/or Jekyll/Hyde opposing behaviors.

There is a critical and unfortunately common problem, though. Just stating the value words and posting them isn’t enough. I’ve seen many cases where people see the words and agree with them, but interpret them differently … leading to different behaviors. Or the values are posted but that’s it … never referenced in day-day work.

A better approach:

• List the values in priority order.
• Define each word as intended for the organization.
• Provide examples of the values in action or behaviors.
• Continually and explicitly use the values when making decisions and in other important ways.

If there are no explicit values, then value discovery is the way forward. “Discovery” because there are already values in play since everyone is operating according to some set of values even if only their own. Not stating the values does not mean there are no values, just that it is highly unlikely there are common values. And that always leads to problems.

One of my favorite values DIY resources is Blanchard and O’Connor’s book “Managing By Values” (https://amzn.to/3Qcgc1P).

The book also includes another incredibly powerful tool for increased success and satisfaction: the C.E.O.S. framework (briefly explained in prior insights, in the “Managing By Values” book, and in my book Wrong Until Right – How to Succeed Despite Relentless Change).

If you want more help than just the book … or just want to discuss if values issues could be underlying current obstacles to increased personal and business success … contact us.

A frequent social media comment is that people leave managers, not companies. And that “Quiet quitting” is also due to managers.

Why are people leaders failing?

Commentators like colleague Dan Moody note that generally, zero resources are provided to train first-time people leaders how to function in this new role. This is then compounded by having zero community or support for 1st time people leaders where they can seek guidance as they encounter issues.

New people leaders are also often promoted in the first place for strong individual contribution: the skills that got them promoted are not the same skills they now need to succeed. In fact, many of the skills that earned a promotion actively can sabotage their leadership ability.

Agreed.

And what often continues and strengthens this negative people leader cycle is the expectation that the first priority of a people leader is doing the functional/technical work in their area.

A key solution is priorities

The real first priority of a people leader is to lead people.
Then do the other work.

The incorrect expectations are reinforced by the the people leaders’ own leaders, the performance management system, culture, etc. Along with the prevailing view (it seems like) that anyone can “lead” people.

Change those expectations, and I suspect that most people leaders, especially new ones, will be fighting for training, coaching and other support to succeed.

What you can do

Meanwhile, there are some relatively simple things that people leaders can do to increase engagement and productivity without huge increases in time or extensive training … or even changing anything about the company.

Contact us for a no-obligation initial review of your situation and what you can do to correct any leadership gaps.