Engine For Change

Just in case you thought I was making all this “driving change” stuff up, check out this quote from Dale Carnegie’s 1936 hit, How to Win Friends and Influence People,

If a man’s heart is rankling with discord and ill feeling toward you, you can’t win him to your way of thinking with all the logic in Christendom. Scolding parents and domineering bosses and husbands and nagging wives ought to realize that people don’t want to change their minds.  They can’t be forced or driven to agree with you or me.  But they may possibly be led to, if we are gentle and friendly, ever so gentle and ever so friendly.

Give them a change they can choose.  Lead and allow them to follow.  Go first and maybe you’ll win them.  Why not try?

It’s hard to believe I’ve been blogging at Engine for Change for ten months already.  In honor of those ten months, here are my favorite five posts.  Which posts make your top five?

1. Driving Change versus Driving People to Change
2. Cargo Cult with video
3. When One Blue Crayon Isn’t Enough
4. One Man Show
5. Cassandra

Coming in a close sixth was Supercharge Your Strengths.

If you’re new to Engine for Change, you could read all 162 posts or you could start with these five (or six).  It’s up to you.

To my avid readers out there, your challenge is to post which post (that’s a fun line to write) of the 162 is your favorite.  I can’t wait to hear what you think.

Seth Godin writes in a post titled, “Change and its constituents,” (subtitled: there are two and both are a problem) that people in an organization are broken up into two groups,

People who fear they will be hurt by a change speak up immediately, loudly and without regard for the odds or reality.

People who will benefit from a change don’t believe it (until it happens), so they sit quietly.

And that’s why change in an organization is difficult.

Not surprisingly, a three line post is too simplistic.

Some people who fear or are hurt by the change do speak up, but they aren’t always resisting your change. Often, they are trying to tell you about obstacles that they honestly see from their perspective and you don’t from yours.  The information they are trying to get to you can be very valuable.  Listen to them.

Not everyone who benefits from the change sits silently, quietly waiting until it happens.  Often, these people will get engaged with your change if you give them an opportunity.  Invite them in.

Underneath all of Mr. Godin’s assessment of people and change is the notion that you are doing the change to them, creating some forcing function that will push them from their current happy (or unhappy) home and force them to move to somewhere else.  Mr. Godin writes his post assuming, as I think most of the world assumes all the time, that people are trying to change in one way, by “driving people to change.”  If you constrain yourself to that type of change, then Mr. Godin’s closer to the mark about how people would respond, but he’s still incomplete in his assessment when he leaves out entirely what happens when you “drive change” instead.

When you see someone driving change, you’d see a diverse array of people encountering the change and they are exhibiting a rainbow of behaviors relative to the change.  Some will support the change.  Some will fight it.  All will have a good reason, from their perspective, for taking the action they are taking, even if that reason is irrational fear of what they don’t know and haven’t bothered to ask about.

The point of all this: The world of driving people to change is simple, easy categorized and hopelessly ineffective (in this Mr. Godin and I completely agree).

The world of driving change allows an individual to bring their unique perspective on the change to bear on implementing the change, so it naturally draws out the hidden obstacles and finds your quiet, waiting supporters.

Let’s drive change.

Who’s with me?

I found this tonight in my grandmother’s old church cookbook, a possession I treasure in so many ways:

Good humor makes all things tolerable.”

Life happens.  How you respond to life makes all the difference.

Laugh a little.

It’ll help.

In 2004, my husband set out to climb Mount Saint Helens.

He had to drive to base camp, route find through a boulder field and trudge through ash fields of pumice as deep as sand on dunes all the while rising toward the peak at a staggering angle.

Maybe he wanted to give up along the way, but he didn’t.  He climbed over boulders.  He slogged on through the pumice.  He kept climbing.

He made it to the top and took this photo from the peak.

Most changes you’ll drive are best equated to a brisk stroll down a sidewalk.

Other changes are like climbing a volcano: work just to get to the start, boulders along the way and sand to slow you down, plus mental and physical exhaustion close to or beyond anything you’ve ever experienced.

Someday you’ll find your volcano of a change.  I hope you’ll want to climb it.

The journey will be long, difficult and fraught with perils, known and unknown.

Many people will encourage you to stick with the safety of the sidewalk strolls–or even tell you just to stand still.

Don’t listen to them!

Don’t fear the journey.

Drive change up that volcano and keep climbing.

Why not try?

When you’re driving change, you don’t get to order people out onto a path you’ve never been on.  You must go first.

Going first can be scary, but it can also can be the best opportunity you’ve ever had to set the example.

You’re out in front, all alone and everyone is watching. Most people have to pay to gain that much attention.  You’re getting it for free by choosing to act, and act first.

So, march out ahead and set the example.

If you believe in mentoring, get a mentor (or several) and find a mentee (or several).

If you know that meetings that end on time or early are the best meetings to attend, then make your meetings end on time or early every time.

If you crave processes you can count on, then build routine into your routine and stick with it even when you don’t feel like it.

Set the example and drive your change.

You will never get to where you want to be unless you head in that direction.” – Unknown

Typically, when people are implementing change they feel confident about the destination they’ve chosen, but they seem quite awful at heading in that direction.  My observation is that they struggle with heading in that direction because they’ve rarely seen someone actually drive themselves toward a destination.

To be successful, you’ll act in ways you have never seen a leader act.  You’ll choose to turn your operation from a follow the rules at all cost operation into one driven by individual initiative.  Until your people assume creating change is their job and not yours, they won’t move toward your destination on their own.  Your goal is an organization filled with people who view the new, harder jobs as part of their jobs and  get excited to do them.

Rather than (Option 1) first barking orders then whipping–or at minimum having your underlings threatening to whip–those that don’t comply, instead you must (Option 2) discuss the destination and outline what steps you are taking to get yourself there first, to make ready the way for others.  Maybe this option would work even better if you shared the stage with their beloved local manager, who they trust more than you and who will be around to see them through the day to day challenges.

Rather than (Option 3) sending out hordes of auditors to seek out failure to comply, you would instead (Option 4) visit the work sites every two weeks for two months to inspect what you expect, supporting and praising the good behaviors and questioning and removing obstacles creating bad behaviors.  And Option 4 might be even better if you brought one of the budget department folks with you, so if you saw an obstacle, the people knew the funding would be on its way to fix it.

Don’t believe me that these behaviors would work to send you toward your destination?  Just try running the two scenarios through my motivation perspective mapping method. Which options move you in the direction you desire?

I’m encouraging you to try the mapping method for yourselves. If just one of you posts a comment saying you tried the method then I’ll follow up this post with a detailed proof of how I used the mapping method to create the four options.

Choose your destination. Find your heading.  Drive change!

[Thanks to Lyndee for including this week's quote as the tag line on her e-mails.]

People driving change accomplish a lot but often receive little personal acclaim for their work.

Tonight, the acclaim was monumental.

It was my honor to be among a group of six Guiding Coalition alumni recognized as Kitsap Peninsula Business Journal’s 40 Under Forty.  These six were recognized for much more than just their Guiding Coalition work, but notably all were members of and leaders in the Guiding Coalition movement at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard and Intermediate Maintenance Facility.

Congratulations to Jenna McGrath, Chelsea Grace, Lisa Foster, Maria Finch and Brett Anderson, members of the 2010 KPBJ 40 Under Forty.  You’re making a difference in your community.  You’re truly driving change!

Thanks as well to all the Guiding Coalition Support Team members in attendance at tonight’s recognition ceremony.  It’s your commitment to our work that makes all the difference!

Friday I brought in a few gifts to work, specifically books that screamed out at me that they must be delivered to several of my friends.  I could tell they were unexpected by the recipients and brought a bit of joy to their day.

Always one for perfect timing, I found this post about gifts on Seth Godin’s blog only days after my gift giving spree.

Giving a gift, just because you thought of the other person, is one of best ways I’ve found to refuel your engine, draw you closer with the people you care about, and keep you determined to drive change.

What gifts (of your time, attention, or possessions) have you given lately?  Why not try it and see how it feels?

Thanks to Danny for sending this one my way:

Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.” – Winston Churchill

Find your passion.

Set your destination.

Drive change.

Each failure, each obstacle and each frustration builds within you the strength you’ll need to reach that destination you seek.

Don’t ever lose your enthusiasm; keep driving change.