Engine For Change

Thu 17 May 2012

Grow the roses of success

Posted by April K. Mills under Driving Change
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We’ve been sold a lie. The lie is that organizations (or children) can and should be perfect.

In organizations, this need for perfection induces people to run from anything labeled failure.

In children, it induces them to run from any new learning that they may not get right on the first try.

So few of our attempts in life work out on the first try. If we know that is true, but we still buy into the perfection myth, then we just won’t try. Our organization will fall into a status quo and our children will lock themselves down at one achievement level and climb no higher. We can’t seem to see that as we run farther away from failure we are actually getting closer to it with every step.

Over the years, some kids movies have fought against the perfection myth. Below are two examples of this fight.

If you haven’t seen Meet the Robinsons, enjoy this little clip where failure is celebrated as a virtuous, necessary step, providing you “keep moving forward.”

In this song from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, we’re reminded that failure produces some of our best learning, if only we’ll admit it as a failure and learn from it.

In organizations, you can create an ability to learn from failure by modeling your own ability to learn from it.

In your team meetings, celebrate your failures along with your wins and highlight what you’ve learned from your failures.

Create safe ways for your teammates to fail and learn. Safe failures have consequences you and your teammates can recover from.

There is no perfection in people or in organizations and without admitted failure there is no learning, so let’s embrace our own failures, learn, and be better tomorrow.

Let’s grow our own well-earned roses of success.

Why not try?

Tue 15 May 2012

Reality eats the ideal for breakfast

Posted by April K. Mills under Context
[2] Comments

Reality eats the ideal for breakfast.

Many fashionable improvement methods start with a step to describe the ideal state. This step locks the thinking of the group into a battle between the less-than-ideal current state and their gem of a dream for their future. Diligently the workers toil to bring the flawed reality closer to the ideal. Sometimes they have enough power to force reality into conformity, most times they do not. Problems ensue. This is the province of systems thinking and western Lean.

During the two day Advanced Practitioner Seminar from Cognitive Edge, David Snowden expertly explained another way to change. By focusing on the reality of today as it is, and attempting to make tomorrow better with an eye toward the horizon, you can create more lasting, powerful, successful change. This is the province of complexity theory and eastern Lean.

I’d never drawn the two, reality and the ideal, into such sharp contrast an Snowden did. By pulling apart the two, I could see where previous change efforts succeeded or failed based on their reliance on reality or on the ideal.

The most famous, in the small circle I frequent, is the origin story for IMSTRONG, a strengths training course a group and I designed several years ago. That course sprang from the ashes of a failed attempt to classify an ideal state of change implementer knowledge. When the ideal list proved impossible to create, we lurched around a bit in our current reality and stumbled upon a neat mixture of Gallup’s Strengthsfinder 2.0 and Buckingham’s Trombone Player Wanted. It reminds me of the old commercials for Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups where the man with chocolate bar accidentally trips and falls into anther man holding a jar of peanut butter. [Great. Now I want a peanut butter cup!]

On the other hand, I can also remember failed change efforts where I so passionately wanted people to adopt the ideal set of behaviors that I fought with all my might to gain the authority to compel them to behave “right.” Those efforts failed miserably, as all driving people efforts eventually do. Now, seeing it even more sharply held in contrast to driving change and accepting reality, my need for the ideal at all costs appears all-the-more foolish.

We’ve been lured to believe, by books and consultants who sell us on their expert knowledge and our near-divine power that the ideal is possible if only we’ll push hard enough. We’ve got to give in to the messiness of reality and make of it what we can. When we do, we’ll no doubt be happier and it’s entirely likely we’ll be very, very successful too.

Let’s try some reality for a change. Who’s with me?

This post is derived from a portion of my learning at last week’s Advanced Practitioner Seminar from Cognitive Edge.

Sat 12 May 2012

Conditioned to change

Posted by April K. Mills under Context, Opportunities
[2] Comments

When I was growing up we often hosted my mom’s extended family at our house for holidays. It was a running joke amongst the family to guess how my mom would have rearranged her living room furniture. You see, we didn’t have much money growing up, so my mom would redecorate by moving around the things we already owned. At least once a year we had a whole new living room, of sorts.

I share that story because it wasn’t until a few weeks ago that I realized how my mom’s penchant for rearranging furniture conditioned me to be comfortable with change.

In a class, the instructor asked us to test our aptitude for change by moving our office garbage can to the opposite side of our desk. He told us to pay attention to how many times we tried to throw something away in the old location before our brain rewired to remember to turn the new directions before letting the piece of paper fall from our hand. I found I was rewired after only one or two false tries. Others took much longer to look in the new direction.

I can’t say that my mom’s rearrangements is the sole cause of my love of change, but it certainly didn’t hurt.

Therefore, in honor of Mother’s Day, I dedicate this post to my mother who helped me become the engine for change I am today. Thank you Mom, for everything!

Tue 8 May 2012

And now I’m going to…

Posted by April K. Mills under Opportunities
1 Comment

…rethink a lot of what I’ve been doing for a very long time.

That’s a great thing to say after only two days of learning. Rarely are we offered opportunities to so quickly expand our minds.

Thank you to David Snowden and team for putting on a fantastic Advanced Practitioner Workshop in their Cognitive Edge thinking and methods.

I can now say I better understand the world as it is, not as we may hope it would be. I’ve been cured of idealism and grounded in a more knowable reality.

I can’t possibly synthesize all my learning into a blog post so quickly, so I’ll merely leave you with the tease of my above statements. Know there is more to come.

If you can’t wait for me to blog, check out the content at Cognitive Edge. Post a comment about your favorite find. Maybe I’ll build my first posts around your favorite themes. It’s more fun to enjoy the learning together.

Sun 6 May 2012

New Eyes

Posted by April K. Mills under Quote of the Week
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The true journey of discovery lies not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.” Unknown

Thu 3 May 2012

Your time has come

Posted by April K. Mills under Leading Change, Opportunities
[2] Comments

Ahead of one’s time: Fig. having ideas or attitudes that are too advanced to be acceptable in the present.: – so says the idioms portion of thefreedictionary.com

I’ve blogged about time a lot here at Engine For Change. In fact, of the 418 posts, 181 contain some reference to time. That’s 43%.

Yet, I don’t seem to have touched on the true, twitch-inducing, frustration-generating power of first being ahead of your time and then being forgotten in the moment.

When you are driving change, often you’ll try and fail or try and succeed at things that your organization will hardly notice for years.

Then, years (hopefully not decades) later, when the organization catches up, you’ll watch as person after person shows you the shiny new thing they found.

You’ll know its not new at all (you were the organization’s expert at Solution A in 2004), but they are right that it is new to them now in 2012. Often, the fact that it is new to them is all that matters).

In these moments where the organization catches up to and discovers a place you’ve already been, maybe you’ll want to gloat. Okay, but don’t gloat for long.

Instead, celebrate their find, encourage them to find the best places/concepts/details within their new find, and then challenge them to drive change with all their new energy.

Yes, you were ahead of your time. Noted. Now, your time has come so let’s get to driving some change.

Tue 1 May 2012

The failed model of executive-led change

Posted by April K. Mills under A RANT!
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I think about things that other people think are odd. For example, I’ve wondered for years why it is that almost all business books and nearly all consulting pitches assume that the reader or receiver of services is an executive (the .01 to .1% of employees of an organization). That led me to wonder why I, clearly not an executive, was reading all these books or reviewing all these consulting pitches.

Here’s what I’ve come up with: Executives get to okay large book orders or approve massive consulting contracts. Therefore the books and the services go where the money is. And I, the non-executive, was reading all of this stuff because if you want to read about change management you don’t have any other sources to go to other than these executive-centric tomes.

While the monopoly of the executives continues in books and consulting, its strangle hold on the idea marketplace is relaxing. Non-executives are connected via Twitter and LinkedIn and name-your-platform like never before. I don’t need to ask my boss if I may learn from Seth Godin or Daniel Pink or name-your-guy-or-gal today. I can just follow them digitally, let their ideas fill my mind, and (here’s the important part) act on what my new thinking tells me.

In most organizations, I’d wager a guess that most truly meaningful changes begin at a level far below the executives. So, for the other 99.99% or even just the other 99.9% of us that toil away in organizations, there must be something that helps us understand how we can make a meaningful, sustained difference in our organization.

The best thing I’ve found to date (though I’m still diligently looking, and taking suggestions for where to look) is the concept of driving change. Nowhere does driving change presuppose you possess any level of organizationally-offered power. Instead it starts with the premise that you have power inside you to impact those around you, and if you’d only use it, you could make a difference.

That seems so simple. So quick. So it-can’t-possibly-be-enough. Yet, I really think it is.

Richard Feynman didn’t have to be appointed a great teacher. He just was one.

Martin Luther King Jr didn’t work his way up the hierarchy of civil rights leaders. He acted, boldly and in his own way, and people followed.

Heck, one of my heroes, Admiral H. G. Rickover had to be saved by Congress several times from impending forced retirements because the people guarding the ladder in the Navy would rather not have his outcomes (safe, effective nuclear powered vessels) if it meant they didn’t have to be bothered with him. He didn’t let their failure to bestow organizational power to stop him from achieving what he believed was right and essential for his country. We remember him as a four-star admiral, but he started driving change long before he wore any stars.

Don’t let business books and consulting sales pitches lull you into thinking that until you’re an executive you can’t make a difference in your organization. The power to lead, drive, and win change already exists inside you. Are you bold enough, brave enough, strong enough to let it out? When (not if) you try, I’m right here with you.

Let’s drive some change together. I bet you’ll be glad you did.

Mon 30 Apr 2012

Ideas are not the hard part

Posted by April K. Mills under Quote of the Week
No Comments

Ideas are not the hard part. The most valuable people in any organization are the people who lead change.” – Kevin Gerald

How are you valuing the people who are leading change in your organization?

You don’t have to be the CEO, the Board President or even a supervisor to show someone they have value in your organization.

What about a thank you?

What about telling the change leader how much the change means to you?

Even better: What about helping them lead change?

[Thanks to Dwight Otis for liking Mr. Gerald's page. Without your "like" I never would have found the quote. This "quote of the week" stuff is easy with good friends like you.]

Thu 26 Apr 2012

The words are spreading

Posted by April K. Mills under Opportunities, terms
No Comments

This week I got an e-mail survey at work. The body of the e-mail read, in part:

Consistent findings from the Office of Personnel Management’s Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey (FEVS) show that Federal employees are dedicated and committed to their work. As a dedicated Federal employee, your feedback about the workplace is essential in addressing areas of challenge and celebrating areas of strength in your agency.
This is your opportunity to drive change [emphasis mine]. The FEVS offers you the chance to express your thoughts and opinions regarding your job, agency, and the workforce as a whole.”

More than a few of you loyal readers who are also government employees forwarded along the e-mail to show me that the words “driving change” are spreading.

Now, if only we could spread the concept behind the words to more people who are yearning for a way to create real, transformational change in the organizations.

Are you willing to tell a friend about Engine for Change? Please do.

Let’s see how many new friends we can get for the Facebook page or how many new readers we can get coming here to visit. Let’s do a little driving change of our own and choose to share Engine for Change with one more person this week.

Thu 26 Apr 2012

Celebrating an exciting, better future

Posted by April K. Mills under Guiding Coalition
No Comments

I read a story today that touched me. It read:

After World War II, a group of humanitarians placed orphan boys in tent cities to care for them. Though they were well cared for, the boys would wake up at night with nightmares. A psychiatrist surmised that their fear was because they had such an uncertain future.

He decided to feed the boys a big meal each night then give them each a piece of bread. He instructed them to hold the bread in their hands so it could be their breakfast. Somehow just holding in their hands a piece of bread helped them sleep all night.

In our large organizations, the bread in our hands is our belief in an exciting, better future. We create and offer that bread to others through our willingness to step forward and lead transformations that we and others can choose for ourselves. The Gallup organization found that if employees say they have hope in the future then 70% were engaged with their work. In contrast, only 1% were engaged with their work if they didn’t have hope.

In our Guiding Coalition, we transform our organization. We get to make it better together. From that purpose, our efforts spring forth success after success. We spread hope in a better future.

On Friday, two teams will share how they are spreading into our organization in small and significant ways their version of hope in the future. I can hardly wait to announce the team leaders and welcome them to share their stories.

Years ago, other teams gave the same type of presentation. You can watch their passion for transforming the organization spill forth in videos at this link. You can start with this one.

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