Engine For Change

Have you ever caught yourself in a meeting thinking, “How does that guy know about that and I don’t?”

Have you ever toured a new place and wondered, “Why didn’t my boss show me this sooner?”

Have you ever left training saying, “Why didn’t the company send us to this years ago?”

If you’ve had those moments, you’ve seen what you’re missing by waiting for others to drive you to learn.

You don’t have to wait.

You can drive your own learning.

There are lots of ways to drive your own learning, but if you’re more interested in steps that in multiple strategies, you can try these four steps.

Step 1: Choose to drive your own learning.  It really is that simple to start.

Step 2: Read.  You’ll have to read books if you want to learn at a fast pace.

Step 3: Create opportunities to see new things and meet new people.  This step varies depending on your strengths.  If seeing new things and meeting new people sounds awful to you, focus on finding a person who likes those things who’s willing to bring back all the best information to you.  It’s not an ideal set up, but it’s better than nothing.

Step 4: Find the training you need and figure out a way to get it. Often finding training is easy; figuring out a way to get it is harder.  If at first you’re told no, don’t give up.  Find another route.

Step 5: Practice with the books you’ve read, the people you’ve met, the places you’ve been and the things you’ve been told.  Only through practice will you get better at anything.

Are you willing to drive your own learning?

If you’re nodding at the computer screen, fabulous.  I’m sure you won’t be disappointed.  If you want some hints or tips on Steps 2 through 5, let me know.

If you’re shaking your head, wondering if driving your own learning will make any difference for you, maybe hearing what it felt like for me to come to Step 1 and what I’ve done since, will push you off the fence.  You can check out my story below the fold.

If you’re not interested in driving your own learning, let me know if you change your mind.  I’ll be here.

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There are more colors in nature than in any size box of crayons.

Yet, with a box of eight crayons, including one crayon called Blue, you can show an ocean or a sky, a naval officer’s uniform or a Blue Angels jet.

But, sometimes one blue crayon isn’t enough.  You need more variety of blues to show the details.  When setting off a robin’s egg from the sky, one blue crayon won’t do.  When drawing a naval aviator standing in front of a blue jet against a sparkling blue sky, one blue crayon isn’t enough.

In any drawing, you must have enough colors to show the details you want.  Maybe you need the box of 96 crayons, with its 15 varieties of blue: cerulean, cadet blue, blue green, navy blue, midnight blue, denim, pacific blue, steel blue, wild blue yonder, turquoise blue, robin’s egg blue, periwinkle, sky blue, cornflower and blue.

The same is true with words.  When you’re making the word “culture” or “improvement” or “communication” do the work of 15 better suited words or phrases, you’re losing the details in a sea of blue.

Beware the times when one blue crayon isn’t enough.

For a neat look at language, check out the introduction to Stuart Chase’s Tyranny of Words.  See page 4 of the Look Inside at Amazon.  “Idealism” gets the blue crayon treatment.

I took Cognitive Edge up on their offer to be a guest blogger.  You’ll find my Cargo Cult post again there.

Seth Godin, always adding sensible levity to a situation, asks bureaucrats to put a name on every policy.  And, why not?  Like Godin says, in small companies, you can find the owner, or the one woman in the marketing department.  But, in an organization of 10,000 or 25,000, finding who wrote a document is harder, even if you’re in the organization.

Taking responsibility for your work starts with put your name on your work.   Don’t just put your name on some of your work; put your name on all your work.  Your responsibility is not just to your technical documents or your personnel records; it extends to everything you do.

If you’re not willing to put your name on a document, you shouldn’t publish the document. The rule really is that simple.

Own what you’ve created, even if others won’t. If your boss insists on taking all names off of a document, while that’s her decision ultimately, voice your concern, as you can, and retain your copies with your name on them.  Write the documents as though your name would be on them, for it is your work regardless.

(Note: Rules call for a boss’ name to be on some documents.  That’s not the same as producing a document with no name on it.  If you prepare a document for your boss’ signature, you’re responsible to make your boss’ signature mean the most it can through your efforts.)

When you get a presentation that has neither a name or a date, ask who wrote it and when. Put that information on your copy.  You never know when you’ll need to call that person to ask for more information.

If the presentation or letter came from a top officer or manager, ask who on the staff prepared the document.  Later, if you’ve got a question, while you’re not likely to get your question answered by the big boss, Sue in Accounting will probably take your call.

Adding authorship to documents is a slow process in any bureaucracy, but if you start with your sphere of influence (your presentations, those of your co-workers and friends, those you receive personally), you can start a new trend.

The Heath brothers (Chip and Dan) will soon have a new book out, Switch (due out February 16).

Here’s a quick, new years resolution-themed look at their new book.

I’m still working my way through their last book, Made to Stick.

Seth Godin shares the:

Evolution of every medium

1. Technicians who invented it, run it
2. Technicians with taste, leverage it
3. Artists take over from the technicians
4. MBAs take over from the artists
5. Bureaucrats drive the medium to banality

While I agree this evolution is typical, it isn’t the end.

I’ve seen an evolution go the other way.  Here’s my list:

Re-invention of a medium

1. Passionate people drive change amongst the bureaucrats.
2. Leaders see the change and embrace it.
3. The artists amongst the organization begin to thrive, casting light on those around them.
4. Change spreads to the technical people, as the technology supporting the change arrives.
5. People forget the place used to be so bureaucratic.

I write that list from my experience driving change amidst a huge bureaucracy.  All are not transformed, but many are nearing the turn of step 2 and some are already, joyfully to step 5.  Remember: not everyone goes at the same pace.

If I hadn’t seen it, I wouldn’t believe it.  But if it can happen once, it can happen again.  Re-invention is possible.

And, I’m an engineer.  I should know.

You’ve got to love someone out encouraging others to drive change. Enjoy “Without Them” and “Welcome to the Frustration Decade (and the Decade of Change)”.

I’m typically an impatient person. But tell me a good story about an incredible (or even a mildly interesting) journey and I will sit in rapt attention. For example, I never get bored reading, watching or listening to anything about Lewis and Clark’s journey to the Pacific ocean.

I think my fascination with any journey is why I love driving change.

I once thought (and my naive’ reading of many business books led me to believe) that change is a near instantaneous process of: Boss reads a book Monday,  implements changes on people Tuesday, is showered with praise from now cheerful people Wednesday, gets big promotion to corporate headquarters Thursday and is celebrated at farewell party Friday.

Turns out, it doesn’t usually work that way.

When I was slogging through a partially successful (and terribly slow) implementation of Theory of Constraints or failing at my first Guiding Coalition attempt, I didn’t realize that I was on a journey.

Now that I’m older and wiser, and know how to drive change (versus drive people to change), I enjoy the journey and–surprisingly enough–I drive a whole lot faster toward my destination.

Plus, now when I hit a snag, a pothole or a tree, I don’t get discouraged.

Those things happen on a journey.

So I pick myself, look around for what or who I’ve still got with me and–most importantly–keep going.

[How do I do this?  I can't quickly explain, so I'll borrow some pictures. Think Jim Collins' flywheel and Stockdale Paradox mixed with Stephen Covey's  Be Proactive and Circle of Influence.]

I won’t say today that I’ve really reached the destination of my journey.

I’m not quite ready to yell with Clark, “Ocean in view!”

But…if I tilt my head and take a deep breath, I can smell the scent of salt water a little ways off; and now and then I’ve seen a few gulls fly overhead.  So, I keep driving.

If you love a good journey, consider driving change.

If you love a good journey story, keep checking this blog.  I have a few good journey stories to share.

If you’ve got a journey story you want to tell, let me know. I’ll consider posts from guest bloggers.

Keep driving your change, maybe that ocean is closer than you think.

Post Updated (4 January – based on a comment):

On Tuesday, when Steve Holt showed me David Snowden’s Cynefin model, the model intrigued me.   If you’ve read my Motivation Perspective file, you’ll know I love a good model.

Since Tuesday, between parties, other posts and a sledding trip, I’ve been unable to get Cynefin out of my mind.  Unable to do any actual reading on the topic, I used my short burst of time to chase down a few links in the hope that I’ll be able to paw through the info this week.

I’ve found David Snowden, multi-ontology sense making (yes, that term is supposed to scare you on first look), cynefin (a Welsh word)  cognitive edge methods and a wiki too.

If you’re interesting in learning more about Mr. Snowden and his work, you can click through the links above, or find them all neatly stacked at my new Delicious hosted links page.

[Note: For all of you with an Input strength, you'll love the linking and sharing features at Delicious.]

Through my work with large organizational change, I’ve learned that I need new terms to describe two very different change methods, driving change versus driving people to change.

I’ve found driving change produces both near and long term success while driving people sometimes creates near term results but rarely produces long term success.

With the difference in results, you would think most people trying to make a change would be driving change. Yet most  are daily driving people.

How can you tell which one you’re doing?  First you need to know the descriptions and definitions of each term.

I intend to make a sharp and immediate distinction between the term driving change and the term driving people.

Let’s picture something together.

You and 20 other people live in the middle of a huge forest.  Last night the forest was hit by a terrible storm.  The only road to get out of the forest was in bad repair before, but surveying the damage this morning you see newly downed trees and whole sections of road were washed out by the overflowing streams.  The goal is to get the 20 people and you  out of the forest.  You aren’t the boss.  You’re just one of the 21 people.  But, the boss has instructed you to get everyone out of the forest, including him.  What do you do? (more…)