Mike Russell

Sometimes starting with a better question can arrive at a better answer.

Here are a couple of questions I’ve seen for change management that need improvement or rethinking:

“Your change management team is struggling to stay organized. What can you do to improve collaboration?”

First, the question is a compound question … organization and collaboration aren’t necessarily the same issues.

More fundamentally, if a change management team has problems staying organized, then the problem is not about organizing steps or other tactics.

Namely, it’s the wrong team.

A change management team that can’t stay organized itself is useless to the organization. A change management team should be able to help everyone ELSE stay organized and reduce the chaos of change.

If it’s a capable team, then the disorganization cause is likely different individual purposes and priorities driven by forces external to the team. No internal organizing tactics can really fix that root cause.

Here’s another example:

“How can change management professionals build resilience in the face of adversity?”

One would hope someone in change management would neither go into the field without some degree of resilience or resilience skills to begin with … nor anticipate smooth sailing and no adversity with change. 🙂

If change management professionals cannot face change, how will they model facing change for others?

Don’t give in to the negative meme that “holidays are stressful” …

Instead, be e.a.g.e.r. for them:

👉🏻 Expectations: help others approach the holidays realistically and keep the big picture in mind … not even “It’s a Wonderful Life” was wonderful all the way through!

👉🏻 Appreciation – appreciate others and encourage them to do the same with others, even for something minor. The holidays are more about people than presents. Act if all the bad things that happened with others is in the past and deserves to stay there, rather than becoming a visiting ghost of Christmas past.

👉🏻 Generosity – give, especially in helping others reduce/avoid stress so they can be generous as well. Be generous in grace when others do annoying or stressful things … they may need extra attention to get past their own situations.

👉🏻 Enthusiasm – is contagious (at least with most people), so spread it. It’s hard not be be more enthusiastic/positive yourself if you do so.

👉🏻 Reframes – think in terms of “get to” vs. “have to” and help others do the same.

The more you focus on helping others get rid of stress, the stronger your ability to do the same.

Find something to enjoy, and enjoy it!

Suggestion: do your end of year reviews, retrospectives, lessons learned, and the like BEFORE holiday breaks, if you usually do it afterward.

Advantages:

✅  “Closes” the year before holiday, leaving your mind free to enjoy the holidays without background bothers and the potential stress.

✅  Allows your mind to work on things in the background … potentially providing new insights that a prolonged rest period can generate.

✅  You can make changes now that take energy and mental effort that might drain/reduce momentum at the beginning of the year.

If you do your annual review combined with planning before the end of the year, make room for an additional short plan review at the beginning of the year.

Why do that if you just “did” planning? To check if the second advantage above – new insights – means you may need some changes to your plans.

Don’t “race” into and out of a holiday period … let the holiday work for you while you don’t work 😀

“Learning to live with ambiguity and uncertainty is a necessary precondition for more opportunity. If you want to “win,” you need a pretty significant amount of ambiguity and uncertainty in you life.” – Taylor Pearson

(from a 2022 detailed article by him about the OODA loop https://lnkd.in/etDD3u32)

Does his statement resonate with you or repel you?

The key question is: whether or not Taylor’s statement is true or at least somewhat true.

His statement is probably the opposite of what people aim for. The common aim is more likely to reduce uncertainty in any form.

He suggests seeking or injecting uncertainty if you don’t have enough!

Is there uncertainty in your business? In your life?

How can you manage it?

Work with it?

Leverage it? (his main point in the quote)

 

P.S.

Lots of debate about “agile,” “agility,” etc. – including OODA as a specific approach – on LinkedIn and elsewhere. Including the theme that “agile” – whatever that means to the proponent – is dead.

“Agile” or OODA or whatever isn’t the underlying issue.

Uncertainty and what you do about/with it is.

Saw a LinkedIn article about “How can you develop your leadership skills with limited resources?”

It didn’t have my answer.

Answer: do volunteer leadership.

Bonus answer: this is a really GREAT way for youth to try out and improve leadership.

Benefits:

1. Learn by doing and getting real-world feedback … far, far more effective than just reading, taking courses, etc.
2. Leading volunteers is one of the hardest forms – if not hardest – forms of leadership. Doing well in this environment will position you superbly for better leadership in any non-volunteer organization.
3. You will identify quickly and accurately areas of current strengths and where you need development to improve as a leader … real-time assessments 😉 You can always augment with other formal assessments, reading (check the library and loads of free stuff online!) as needed.
4. If possible, find a senior leader or someone else to help mentor and coach you as you learn. Use online resources like ChatGPT, Claude, and other to feed situations you’re facing and get ideas … a form of online coaching (just don’t take the “advice” “as is,” just as you wouldn’t for anything else the AI LLMs provide!).
5. This is the lowest cost, highest payback development you can do. Time will always be an investment for developing skills, no matter how you go about it. Time actually leading is like gold for development.
6. Working in a volunteer-based organization will also expand your network in different and interesting ways.
7.  And, if a cause you support, furthers the cause!

Are any of these happening to your company?

❓ We aren’t acting fast enough to hold our ground, much less get ahead of our competitors

❓ We’re not sure how we can harness or even survive AI

❓ We want to grow, but where to start?

❓ We need to cut costs and take other measures to succeed … but any changes – or even hints of changes – are viewed with suspicion or fear of layoffs

❓ People aren’t willing to volunteer improvement ideas

❓ People wait to be told what to do

❓ Our chances of success have been dramatically reduced due to people problems

If so, you’re not alone. You’re also not in company you want to keep!

You need to move faster and respond better to survive and thrive.

However, you can’t work on everything at once. Time and money are scarce and maybe even consumed by just coping with the current condition.

Figure out what to work on first.

You must focus on a first few things that will make the biggest difference for your company now. The 80/20 levers that get your breathing room and accelerate success.

Want help?

Contact us to help you get out of the quicksand. Get a quick, free company self-audit to pinpoint your specific focus areas and get traction now.