Engine For Change

Back in 1982, during his last testimony before Congress as an active-duty naval officer, Admiral H. G. Rickover claimed he coined a term, “Say-Do.”  He meant the term to refer to those people who say they are going to do things, receive praise from the people who hear them say they will do things, yet never actually do things.  Admiral Rickover claimed he continued to look vainly for those people who actually do what they say.

Those comments lead me to believe that Admiral Rickover would approve of those of us who are driving change (choosing a change for themselves and clearing the way for others to choose the change too).

There is no passivity and no posturing in driving change.

You are either acting to bring your change into the world or you aren’t driving change.

Thank you to all my friends out there driving change.

You balance the world full of “Say-Do” experts and give me hope every day.

On most days, the hardest part of driving change is admitting people’s right to their own free will.

You might be saying to yourself, or to whomever will listen, “Why don’t they…” or “How could they…”

In the rush for results, we want others to do things now. Now. Now!

The reality is, they must choose to act. All you can do is set the example of what action looks like.

Start moving, thinking, asking questions, drawing pictures, sharing your story, and making your change.

You’ll be surprise how quickly others will fall in behind you.

Why not try?  You won’t change a thing if you don’t.

Every day do something that will inch you closer to a better tomorrow.” – Doug Firebaugh

Today I read a joyous e-mail.  In the e-mail, a team lead celebrated a hard-fought-for success and thanked the team members who helped the team win.

For years to come, that team lead will remember this win.  That’s the great part about capturing and celebrating your wins; they stick with you.

What’s your favorite driving change win?

I find it hard to pick a favorite, but one of my best wins happened last March when I listened to Professor Kotter praise the great people of our Guiding Coalition.  They work so hard and truly deserved his praise.

Now that I went first, it’s your turn.

What’s your favorite win and why?

No matter how you think best, whether in pictures or in words (in print or spoken), if your change is stuck behind an obstacle, find someone else passionate about your change and talk yourself through the obstacle.

Draw them the diagram or write out a few paragraphs and e-mail your writing to them, or have a nice conversation with them.

Don’t pull away from others as your change bogs down (which it will from time to time).

Instead, engage your other change believers and talk yourself through it in the way that works best for you.

You’ll be surprised how fast that big obstacle shrinks down to nothing when you work through it (or over it or around it) together.

Why not try?

How many times have you had a whole new set of obstacles appear in front of you just when you thought you had a change completed in your organization?

Too many times to count?

Me too.

At those moments you may have felt like sitting down and giving up or turning around and going back to the start, abandoning your hopes of ever implementing your vision for your organization.

It’s at those moments that I think of Captain Meriweather Lewis, high atop Lemhi Pass on August 12, 1805.  Captain Lewis, his co-captain William Clark and their Corps of Discovery had journeyed the many miles from St. Louis, fighting the waters of the mighty Missouri River the whole way.  Early in the day on August 12th, Captain Lewis and a small band had found the headwaters of the Missouri and according to Lewis’ journal,

McNeal had exultingly stood with a foot on each side of this rivulet and thanked his god that he had lived to bestride the mighty & heretofore deemed endless Missouri.”

After the momentous moment of discovering the headwaters of the Missouri, Captain Lewis climbed higher onto the ridge, hoping to see the mountains give way to the Pacific Ocean.  With the early mountain winter quickly approaching, Captain Lewis hoped to see the foam and waves and smell the salt air.

Instead, Captain Lewis was greeted with the sight of row upon row of mountains, stretching out before him and his weary party.

He said,

…we proceeded on to the top of the dividing ridge from which I discovered immense ranges of high mountains still to the West of us with their tops partially covered with snow.” – Captain Meriweather Lewis, August 12, 1805

It would take the captains and their party until November to reach the Pacific.  In the meantime they would fight through early mountain snows, near starvation, terrible river rapids (so terrible the Indian tribes would line the shores to watch the strange men drown–none did), and unceasing rains.

If the Corps of Discovery could make it beyond Lemhi Pass, out to the Pacific and back to St. Louis, then you and I can certainly pull ourselves up when a new batch of obstacles appear and continue our journey toward implementing our visions, our changes.

Why not try?

This week I found two fabulous, free booklets titled Innovation in Government and Leading Innovation in Government.  The booklets were published by the Partnership for Public Service.

If you’ve got ten minutes to flip through them, you should check them both out.

Let me know what you think.

[Thanks to Rosalie for sending me Innovation in Government.]

I’ll admit it.  I’m a sucker for helping someone out, especially someone interested in driving change.

That willingness to get involved in new situations often presents me with the most interesting opportunities and challenges I never would have found on my own.

Some would say that I’m taking on other people’s drama out of some superficial need to appear helpful.

I’d say instead that I’m allowing myself to go on micro-trips into someone’s perspective on a problem and seeing if, when looking from their vantage point, I can see solutions they can’t yet see.

I find the whole process fascinating.  It’s a bit like having someone hunting for a fugitive in the woods call me in as the tracker.  The tracker will see clues in the dirt that the novice would miss.  That’s what I like to think I’m doing.  Plus, each opportunity to use my “tracking skills” hones my skills all the more.

So, this week I say thank you to all my friends and co-workers who provide me seemingly endless strings of opportunities to help out.  I am truly grateful.

Are you looking for opportunities to help out others in their efforts to drive change?  If not, why not?

See my Opportunities Taken post if you’re looking for ways to find these opportunities in your week.

I don’t know what’s the matter with people: they don’t learn by understanding, they learn by some other way–by rote or something.  Their knowledge is so fragile!” – Richard Feynman

You can win sometimes by mimicking the driving change behaviors, but you’ll never be truly successful.  If you want to win almost every time, study driving change.  You’ll be glad you did.

Refresher

Refresher 2

Refresher 3

Initiative is a little like creativity in that both require curiosity.  Not the search for the “right” answer, as much as an insatiable desire to understand how something works and how it might work better.  The difference is that the creative person is satisfied once he sees how it’s done.  The initiator won’t rest until he does it.” – Seth Godin, Poke the Box

Driving change can be done by the creative person that is excited to see it working, but it is the initiators amongst us that harness the “how it works” of driving change and create truly memorable results.

In my experience, there are multitudes of people happy to see change happen for every one person that asks me “How did you do that?”

If you are one of those “how did you do that?” people, then this blog is for you.  We aren’t just talking about positive change here, we are showing each other how it is done.

If you are just getting started on driving change, check out the founding post on the differences between driving change and driving people to change.  You must be able to know the definitions well enough to label change situations you encounter as either one or the other before you can go much further with your driving change education.