Engine For Change

No two people will perform a task the same, with the same passion, the same speed or the same curiosity….

…unless you force them all to behave one way.

When we drive people we force our best and our worst to conform to the same standard, often lowering what the best can accomplish to make the standard universal for our worst.

But when you start driving change, you can allow for variability, in fact you are capitalizing on its power.

You no longer define the starting line, finish line, path and speed.  Instead, you offer the opportunity to race and watch to see where people end up.

Some (probably a lot more than you expect) will surprise you with their speed, their choice of path, and how lofty they set their finish line.

If you want to find the best leaders in your organization, stop making them all lead the same.

Allow a little (or a lot) of driving change to happen and watch who takes off.

Harness the power of variation amongst the people of your organization and you’ll be surprised how much you can accomplish.

Things do not change; we change.” – Henry David Thoreau

Change begins within ourselves.

If we aren’t willing to change, why should we think others will gladly change?

Stop driving people.

Start driving change.

It was true before Thoreau and it is true today; we change then the wonderful starts to happen.

Just when you think you’ve talked to all the groups you need to talk to, shared your change story with all the important stakeholders, and publicized your change effort to death, you’ve really only just begun.

Whatever the reason, people forget what they hear only once, can hardly repeat what they’ve heard twice and can only sometimes act on what they’ve heard for the third time.

Keep talking. Keep sharing.  You’re never done spreading your message.

So, enjoy the conversations and keep driving your change.

Last year I published a set of posts called the 2010 Leaders Series.

For all you new Engine For Change readers and recent additions to the Guiding Coalition, here’s a rundown of the posts you missed.  The posts cover a range of topics change leaders should know about, all with a driving change perspective.

Feel free to leave comments about which post was your favorite or what topics you would like covered in more detail.  I’m at your service.

Follow Your Passion — Be Your Sun — Behave Yourself — Set the Example — You — Welcome — In need of more Velcro — Very Frustrated —  Seeing What’s Possible — Minutes and Hours — That’s My Agenda — Track Your Work — “They”

Quotes of the Week — Change Lovers — Go! — Finding the Proof

For Top Level Managers —  Is that the brake or the gas?

It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people’s minds.” – Samuel Adams

Find your tireless minority and let your change journey begin.

There is a story that mediators tell about two children fighting over an orange.  It’s a good story to know.  I’d repeat it here, but instead I’ll send you to MediationTools.com to read about it.  Read it first, then come back to this post.

The point of the story is to show that there is often a win-win solution hidden in a situation we assume must be a win-lose.

Today, with my three-year-old son, we had our very own orange story.

Teddy and I have been fighting over his habit of stripping the pillow cases off of his pillows.  He doesn’t take the pillow cases off every now and then. He takes them off every day.  Since he doesn’t have the dexterity to put the pillow cases back on, that is left to me to do at least once daily if not several times a day. As a full-time working mom with two young kids and one on the way, I am not in the mood to repeat chores with such a frequency.  I’ve been at a loss for what to do to get Teddy to just leave the pillow cases on.

Today we had a breakthrough.

Rather than cajoling him once again to PLEASE leave the pillow cases on the pillows, I asked him, “What do you do with the pillows without the pillow cases?” His response surprised me.

He said, “Nothing.  I want the pillow cases.  I pretend they are lions and fight them.”  I knew he was pretending to fight something, but I had just assumed it was the pillows.

“So, all you want is pillow cases?” I could hardly believe what he was telling me.

“Yep,” he said in a sing-song little boy voice.

“Oh.” I replied.  All this time I had assumed that he wanted the pillows.  I don’t have any more pillows to give him to use, so I’d assumed we were at a loss for solving this problem without him giving in to me, as his mother, demanding he leave the pillow cases on.  Now that the issue shifted to pillow cases, something I have plenty of, we didn’t have a conflict.

I agreed to dig a few extra pillow cases out of the linen closet and he agreed to leave the pillow cases on his pillows. Problem resolved.  Win-win.

It’s funny how even in the smallest disagreements we can be reminded of the power of the win-win.

Thanks Teddy for reminding me of that lesson.

I’m off to speak to a small group at Boeing in Seattle today about the differences between change management and change leadership.

Over at Forbes.com there is a great, short video by Dr. John Kotter on the important differences between the two.

Update: The day was a great success and lots of fun.  I need to post more about it, but after such a long day, I’m choosing rest first and blogging later.  Thanks to Mike Novick and Pat Wilson for hosting me.  I always enjoy our chances to chat about organizational change.

Life is either a daring adventure or nothing. To keep our faces toward change and behave like free spirits in the presence of fate is strength undefeatable.” – Helen Keller

Last May I posted a long discussion about the importance of drawing pictures:

If you want to succeed a driving change, practice drawing pictures.  Specifically, practice drawing pictures of either what the future looks like or what the journey to the future looks like.”

Today I was back at it, drawing more pictures in an attempt to bring two sides of an issue closer together.  We attempted to draw a picture that both sides could see themselves in.  We’ll know next Friday if our picture worked.  I can’t say if it will for sure, but I can say for sure that if either side had stuck to only talking the two sides would never agree.  The pictures in their heads are just too different.

That picture drawing exercise got me thinking again about the impact Dan Roam’s book Back of the Napkin has had on my life.  Before I read his book I rarely drew pictures to get my point across. Now, that seems to be almost all I do.  Why? Because pictures are powerful tools, especially when you are trying to communicate brand new concepts, which is much of what you do when you are driving change.

Here’s a video where Roam discusses part of his premise:

And here’s a video (handheld camera so beware the picture bouncing) of the last five minutes of a recent speech.  Both videos are worth a quick look.

SXSW 2010: Dan Roam on Visual Thinking from Teehan+Lax on Vimeo.

I’ll probably be buying his two new books soon, Unfolding the Napkin and Blah Blah Blah. Why not continue to support an author that taught me so much in one quick book? If you haven’t checked out Dan Roam’s work, you really should. It will help you drive change. I can promise you it will.

Here are a few terms I’d never heard before today.

Enjoy the laugh.

Bozone (n): The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating.

Dopeler effect: The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.

H/T to Ralph (via Henrietta)