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.]
