The Happy Burro

“Change is hard.”  “Change or die.” “Just use the Kotter Model.” ”The only constant is change.”

Any of those help you execute change at your company? Not the theory, but the practice - the “how”?

Dr. Glenda Eoyang at the Human Systems Dynamics Institute taught me a great metaphor about change: “We cannot affect the plant, just the environment around it.”

Air

Make sure your communications: email, print, presentations, all elicit an ‘air’ of passion for the future vision and present that compelling need to change.  Straightforward, honest, and informative are all good ideas.

Water

To the physical body, water is life.  We’re composed of approximately 70% water.  Think of the water you use in the change environment as most important of all.  These are: visible management of all levels, inspired change agents, frequent updates to your teams.  And find out what they may be afraid of.  You’d be surprised at how personal change can be.

Soil

A lot of change efforts mean changing people’s work and location.  Think of the roots of the roses and how deep they go into the soil. You’ll want to honor that history, and value the past, when moving forward.  Ensure that you understand where people are coming from and how best they ‘take root’ before you attempt to change their soil. 

Sun

Celebrate small victories early in the change effort.  This brightness will energize and become a catalyst for the other elements.  Rarely in business do we take time to celebrate the accomplishment of goals and objectives.

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To close the loop, change isn’t hard, it is elemental.

For a great, indepth series on change management, check out Steve Roesler’s series here.

Joe Raasch :: Sep.27.2007 :: Change Management, Organizational Development :: 1 Comment »

“What do you do all day?”  “How is this report supposed to help me?”  “There is a lot of data here, but I’m not quite sure what you’re trying to tell me…”

Ever hear that in your organization?  With more businesses preaching data-driven decisionmaking and managing ‘by the evidence’, getting the right data ‘up’ to our managers is critical to the success of our companies as well as our careers.

What Does My Manager Need to Know?

I am going to assume (I know…I know…) that your manager trusts you to do your job - hence the reason you were hired, get paid, and still have that job.  This means they need the vital few, not the trivial many, when it comes to reports. 

I Have a Lot of Data…

Each company, department, even employee, has two or three core/primary tasks that define their existence.  In an interview with Warren Bennis, Jack Welch mentioned that he needs just three measures to run a business: customer satisfaction, employee satisfaction, and cash flow.  Are there other measures used? Of course.  Yet that is all Jack Welch needed to get a view of a company as big as General Electric.

It Is About Information, Not Data!

Some usual measures that are just data, and their actionable equivalents:

Usual:  average transaction per customer; Actionable: median transaction per customer. Why?  The spread might be pretty big.  See Seth Godin’s explanation on this.

Usual: score of 3.1 on a 1-5 scale; Actionable: score of 3.1 on a 1-5 scale, with a goal of (insert goal here).  Have an actual v. goal gives meaning and context to the measure.

Usual: List of our top 25 clients by revenue; Actionable: what drivers make these 25 the top 25? Understanding the levers of profitability give your the opportunity to increase that profitability.

You get the idea.  Provide actionable context.

Tell Me A Story 

Once you have your data transformed to information, think through what you want to tell your manager.  Highlighting successes and where you need help are what you’re supposed to do.  An executive summary with your usual reports give you the opportunity to direct your manager to what matters.

Examples: Our revenue increased 12% over goal due to the signing of three additional clients not in our forecast.  We missed budget this month by $2,300 due to the voluntary recall of our widget product.  You get the idea.

Remember, your manager has to tell stories too.  If they don’t have good information from you, what story will they tell?

Joe Raasch :: Sep.25.2007 :: Innovation, Leadership :: No Comments »

If only there was a simple, easy way to ensure positive organizational performance… 

There are books, seminars, CDs, DVDs, articles, blogs about: Career Management, Interviewing Skills, Individual Development Plans, Performance Consulting, Employee Engagement, Leadership Training, Management Training, etc.  They are all aimed at helping us improve the management of our organizational performance. The problem with a fair number of these concepts is that they make a key assumption that tends to prove false.  Read on for more.

In a recently published chart from McKinsey’s “The McKinsey Chart Focus Newsletter” (subscription required), a McKinsey team analyzed “upward of 100,000 questionnaires to uncover the practices of 400 business units in 230 companies around the world.”

Here is a chart of a global energy company detailing the correlation of financial performance and organizational performance:

The Chart (click on chart for a better view)

Build The Basics  According to McKinsey, (emphasis is mine) “the team eventually arrived at one winning combination: clear roles for employees (accountability), a compelling vision of change (direction), and an environment that encourages openness, trust, and challenge (culture). Nothing else came close in improving organizational performance.” 

Huh.  Tell people exactly what they need to accomplish (note: not how, just what), point them in the right direction (Change 101), and give them the latitude to do it.  That sounds so simple, so basic, so “101″! Easy analogy: don’t spend so much time picking out paint and appliances for your new house when you haven’t looked into pouring a stable foundation.  

Accountability: hold people accountable to the goals you set for them.  You do set goals for your teams, right?  

Direction: give clear direction for change.  You do set a vision and create that sense of urgency, right? 

Culture: give people what they need to accomplish their goals and accelerate change.  You don’t micromanage, do you? 

If This Is So Easy… 

…why aren’t businesses doing this?  Because this isn’t the fun work, the sexy work, the work you want to do each day.  Career Management, Leadership Development, seminars, workshops.  All the interesting work that actually relies on one assumption:  you’ve taken care to establish the accountability, direction, and culture as a foundation for success.  

Joe Raasch :: Sep.18.2007 :: Change Management, Employee Engagement, Leadership :: 4 Comments »