Engine For Change

Age is not a particularly interesting subject. Anyone can get old. All you have to do is live long enough.” – Don Marquis

As I blog on the eve of my birthday, my thoughts turn to age and how organizations (if they were conscious beings) seem fascinated with age.   You have the young-up-and-comers and you have the aged sages.  How dull!

I loathe the fact that how old you are seems to matter more than whether or not you have a good idea, a workable idea, one that will make the organization more effective toward its goal.  We give away more awards in categories with Under 40 or Career Achievement (read: Retirement Award), but fewer for best idea or most transformative solution.  Perhaps because age is easier to certify than best or most, but who said it had to be easy?

Now, I could only be saying that because I’m aging myself into the hole where I’m not the young bright eyed one nor am I old enough to be considered the sage, but I don’t think that’s it.  I think we focus, unconsciously, on the age of the person giving us the idea instead of purely on the idea.  We test first for credibility based on age, before credibility based on physics, or accounting or name-your-field’s-important-aspect.

Next time you catch yourself judging an idea in part by how old the person is offering it, pause. Stop yourself. Then start thinking about the idea again.

We can only retrain our minds one at a time.

Let’s drive some change. Shall we?

As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.” – John Fitzgerald Kennedy

Happy Thanksgiving!

There are real consequences for employing a driving people philosophy in its fullest measure.  Sometimes you get fired.

Last night I read with much interest the Naval Inspector General Report on the conduct of Captain Greg Thomas when he was Commanding Officer of Norfolk Naval Shipyard.  Captain Thomas was relived of duty earlier this year and official fired in late October.  Navy Times and other news agencies covered the story.

According to nine of the 45 employees the Naval Inspector General interviewed, Captain Thomas regularly used profane language and was heard to say to subordinates, “I am about to fire you.”

The tale of Captain Thomas’ behavior is an interesting case study because it is clear that Captain Thomas was driving people at Norfolk.

Remember:

Driving people: using some coercion (e.g., orders, fear of negative consequences, removal of positive consequences) to externally compel someone to change.

It appears from the report that when his subordinates failed to respond to his coercion or threats, Captain Thomas applied more pressure and upped the negative consequences he suggested.  It’s a sad tale, but entirely predictable as the result of employing the driving people philosophy to its fullest measure.   It’s interesting that some of the news reports include this claim by one of the interviewees:

“He believed that at some point someone was going to ‘snap under pressure’ being applied by” Thomas, the report said.

The sad part of this story is that there remains a shipyard of over 8,000 people with a mission to do (repairing, modernizing and maintaining the U.S. Atlantic Fleet) that still needs to be done, and done better.

Now that the report is out, and it seems that driving people will not be tolerated, what are managers left to do if they want to improve performance?  For a lot of the manager–in all industries, not just military commands–driving people is the only skill they have.  They could be thinking of Captain Thomas and saying, “There but for the grace of God, go I,” because most of them have employed various coercive tactics over the years, probably even some of the same ones that got Captain Thomas fired.

What is a manger to do?  You won’t be surprise to hear me say that they could try driving change for a while.

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

It won’t be easy and they’ll have to start the change within themselves first (an untenable prerequisite for some I’m sure), but if they want to achieve the results that their nation truly needs from them, then I don’t know what other options are left to them.

Why not try driving change?  It just might (okay, it will) work.

What do you think?

When you encounter people who seems lost or dead to change, don’t give up on them.

Instead, drive change and watch how you just might revive them through your example.

You will revive the forgotten man.

Why not try?

A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan executed next week.” – General George S. Patton

Stop planning. Start driving your change.

Check out this link at Vimeo to see a video of the first five minutes of my presentation at the Theory of Constraints International Certification Organization (TOCICO) conference in New York in June.

Hopefully the five minute tease will be enough to motivate you to buy the DVD with the full one hour presentation or buy access to the video at TOCTV.

For those readers at PSNS & IMF, I have a copy of the video. Just e-mail me at work to arrange for a viewing.

Never give up, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn.” – Harriet Beecher Stowe

I had the best intentions to write a post about the value of assuming the best intentions in others, but…

…I ran out of time today, so I found you an excellent post on the topic already written at Why Lead Now by Adam Morris.

Check out their other posts too.   I bet you’ll like what they have to say.