Engine For Change

For years I’ve carried, on a little card in my day planner, John Kotter’s lists of emotions that drive change and emotions that stall change.

I mentioned this card before, but didn’t list the emotions.

Do what you can to live the emotions that drive change, and though those around you are mired in the emotions that stall change, you will succeed.

Think of the emotions that drive change like a rising tide.  As John F. Kennedy said:

A rising tide floats all boats.”

Emotions that drive change:

• Faith
• Trust
• Optimism
• Urgency
• Reality-based pride
• Passion
• Excitement
• Hope
• Enthusiasm

Emotions that stall change:

• Anger
• False pride
• Pessimism
• Arrogance
• Cynicism
• Panic
• Exhaustion
• Insecurity
• Anxiety

If you want to read more, check out John Kotter’s Heart of Change (p. 180 in the hardcover).

Seth Godin launched his new book Linchpin this week.  I think I’ll be buying it this weekend.  Wondering why I’m in such a rush?  Check out these excerpts from the Amazon.com write up.

There used to be two teams in every workplace: management and labor. Now there’s a third team, the linchpins.

These people invent, lead (regardless of title), connect others, make things happen, and create order out of chaos. They figure out what to do when there’s no rule book. They delight and challenge their customers and peers. They love their work, pour their best selves into it, and turn each day into a kind of art.

Linchpins are the essential building blocks of great organizations. Like the small piece of hardware that keeps a wheel from falling off its axle, they may not be famous but they’re indispensable. And in today’s world, they get the best jobs and the most freedom.

As Godin writes, “Every day I meet people who have so much to give but have been bullied enough or frightened enough to hold it back. It’s time to stop complying with the system and draw your own map. You have brilliance in you, your contribution is essential, and the art you create is precious. Only you can do it, and you must.”

Plus, Steve Holt, an Engine for Change follower and fast friend of mine,  is featured in this image inside the front cover.  Congratulations Steve for being a Linchpin.

Think you know a Linchpin?  You can nominate your own at whoisthelinchpin.com

Some authors say at least 60% of change efforts fail to achieve lasting results.

In “Why Process Improvement Projects Go Wrong,” Professor Satya Chokravorty shares how and why a majority of Six Sigma implementations fail.

Professor Chokravorty found:

…that when confronted with increasing stress over time, these programs react in much the same way a metal spring does when it is pulled with increasing force—that is, they progress though “stretching” and “yielding” phases before failing entirely. In engineering, this is known as the “stress-strain curve,” and the length of each stage varies widely by material.

After explaining a typical story of stretching, yielding and failing, Professor Chokravorty provides four actions managers or executives could take to eliminate the failure of the change initiative.

1. Keep an expert embedded in the change longer.
2. Tie all team member pay to the success of the change effort.
3. Teams should have no more than six to nine members and project timelines must be no longer than six to nine weeks.
4. Executives need to directly participate in team projects not just “support” them.

While, as an engineer who studied stress-strain curves,  I’m entertained to read a business article applying the curves to change management, Professor Chokravorty’s suggested steps to eliminate Six Sigma failures leave me disappointed.

All the actions offered are versions of coercion (e.g., orders, fear of negative consequences, removal of positive consequences) to externally compel someone to change.  I’ve previously defined these as driving people to change actions.

Why not try driving change instead?

Driving change is choosing a change for yourself and clearing the obstacles for others to internally choose the change too.

Read below the fold for how I’d translate the four actions above into driving change actions.

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“There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.” Henry David Thoreau

Catch the quote of the week here or on Twitter (@engineforchange).

…the person who tries, fails and tries again.

At work last week we celebrated the success of an issue I’d been working on for nine years.

Some wins come quickly.  Some don’t.

For those hard to achieve changes, the only way to someday win is by being willing to try, fail and try again.

For a current events reference: Look at the New Orleans Saints. The franchise is over 40 years old and only now are they on their way to their first Super Bowl. For the first few decades, Saint’s players endured one losing season after another, yet they knew the only way to win the Super Bowl someday was to keep playing.

You can make a difference.

Are you going to?

Why not try?

From Zappos.com:

At Zappos.com, our #1 focus is our company culture. We believe that if we get the culture right, most of the other stuff, like great customer service and an enduring brand, will happen naturally on its own.

We found that “Tribal Leadership” describes many of the steps that we took intuitively to build the Zappos culture. We’re offering it for free to help others build great company cultures as well!

I’ll admit I just found the link tonight (thanks Hilbert!) so I haven’t listened to the book.  While I have no personal recommendation to offer, if you’re craving something to listen to on your way to work, this may meet your needs.

Click on this link to get the book (note: You’ll have to create a Zappos.com account to get to the book).

Now for a new feature: “Your Thoughts?”

I’ll post something someone short and ask you for your thoughts. As they are your thoughts, anything goes.

This is a good place to practice commenting in public.  I’d venture a guess that if you can’t comment on your own thoughts to strangers on a blog, you’re probably not in practice to comment well on others’ thoughts in public.

Here’s the thought to ponder:

If you want to go quickly, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.

What should you do if you want to go far quickly?

[Thanks to Hilbert for the thought to ponder.]

For years I’ve carried around a business card with John Kotter’s emotions that work for and against change written on the back of it. Pulling out the card and reading it helped me build a habit of recognizing when I was adding to or robbing from the change I was trying to drive.

Because of my previous card carrying experience, I’ll admit to being open to Ralph Soule’s recommendation that I print and carry a card on how to practice inquisitive and active leadership.  I’ll be printing mine today.

If you’re looking for a system to practice to improve your leadership (of yourself first and then others), then check out both his blog post and the additional material at the link.

Both are well worth the read.

Are you looking for ways to get more done without working longer hours?

What if you could multiply one hour of work into 10, 100 or even 1,000 or more?

If you’ve ever read a blog (since you’re reading this I think it’s safe to assume you have), or read a book, or watched a video you’ve experienced the multiplication of one or several hours of work into hundreds or thousands of hours of enjoyment.

Blogs, books and videos are some examples of scalable work.

Work is scalable if, once you’ve created it, someone or many people can use it many times without you investing any more of your time. For example, I’ve invested an hour in this post, but it could be read by 1, 10, 100 or 1,000 or more people and I wouldn’t have to invest another minute.

If you’re driving change, or just trying to tell people about the upcoming Career Fair, I’m guessing you have more people to win over than time to do it.  You need scalable solutions.

How do you find them?

For starters: look for things you’re doing in person that would work well on video, on a blog or in a podcast instead.

What’s your most limited resource?

Are you recycling the limited resource’s time through the same old thing (e.g, bringing class after class to hear the expert trainer only when the expert trainer is available)?

Or are you leveraging the limited resource’s time (e.g., taping their training) and multiplying their impact (e.g., playing the video alone or pairing the video with a more available trainer leading discussion)?

Could you post a podcast of an important message instead of asking every manager to repeat it?

Could you start a blog or social networking site to reach more people than you usually run into in the hallways in a day?

Should you write a book, an article, an e-mail for mass forwarding?

You can make some things scalable, so put your effort into scaling them and take them as big as they will go.  When you’ve got limited time and lots to do, why not try?

Look below the fold for the scalable solution I tried and how well it worked.

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In my non-free time I run a Guiding Coalition.  It’s a group of 35 people, from all levels of the organization, committed to bringing about the future of the organization through our own initiative.  Those 35 people form four teams with 13 sub-teams, made up of more than 250 members.

The Guiding Coalition is based on John Kotter’s 8-step Leading Change model and has been working well since 2006.

In the Guiding Coalition, people want to come to meetings. You can’t beat that draw when you’re driving change.

As it is Friday night and my brain’s not up for hard thoughts, I decided to search Google for what other organizations have a Guiding Coalition.

Here’s a short list (in Google results order):

Project on National Security Reform has a Guiding Coalition.  Its members include one of my favorites: Speaker Gingrich.

[Gratuitous inclusion of a picture of Speaker Gingrich and me.  We were at National Review's Conservative Summit in Washington, D.C. in 2007.  The story of that opportunity taken is posted here and here.]

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My mom, an Avon rep, will find it interesting that Avon apparently has (or had) a Guiding Coalition.

Dallas’ Global Day of Prayer has a small Guiding Coalition.

Kansas Leadership Center held a Guiding Coalition retreat to set their agenda for change.

Circles of Support in Gettysburg, PA has a Guiding Coalition.  Apparently several chapters of the Circles of Support organization drive their change through a Guiding Coalition.  Here’s another chapter in Minnesota.

Sauk County, Wisconsin’s Comprehensive Plan has a Guiding Coalition driving it.  I can’t tell how well it worked as their last minutes are from July 2009.  When I visit Wisconsin this August I’ll have to check on their progress.

Queensland, Australia has their Department of Education and Training using a Guiding Coalition to lead change in their school systems.

Georgetown College (in Kentucky) has a Guiding Coalition leading only their diversity efforts.

I can’t tell if NASA has a Guiding Coalition or if they crushed it under the weight of this horrible PowerPoint presentation.

The University of British Columbia has a great list of Guiding Coalition members.

That’s probably a long enough list for one night of looking, though I only got through “Results 21 – 30 of about 1,370,000 for guiding coalition”