Category Archives: Change Principles

Change Principles, Culture, Dialogue, Integrity, Leadership

Engaging people in change – why bother with mind, emotions and matter?

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Our brains process rational, physical & emotional responses to the wider world
Our brains process rational, physical & emotional responses to the wider world in which we live, work, learn & adapt.

There is plenty of material which draws us to consider the rational and emotional aspects of change. There is also plenty of conjecture available (on the web, dare I say) about the functioning of the human mind in relation to work.

We have already mentioned elsewhere on this blog site how easy it is to shrug off the importance of emotions at work. Emotions, rather than being dealt with and utilised, are often herded into one of two extreme boxes; ‘negative’ feelings (e.g. fear, discouragement, depression, disillusionment, upset) on one hand, or ‘positive’ feelings (e.g. celebration, recognition, encouragement) on the other.

However if we are sharing opinions or ideas or even managing more complex changes in the workplace, we should take more care to consider the importance of the emotional engagement of colleagues.

Rarely does rational argument win the day; often either physical elements (e.g. hierarchy) or emotional elements (e.g. engaging support) are also needed.

As Seddon states, time and time again, change is a normative process. What does he mean by this? What IS ‘normative’? Normative status is based upon our social understanding and values – we stick to what we stick to; we believe what we believe. Until these perspectives (or ‘paradigms – there is that word again!) are challenged and a person is willing to re-educate themselves, then different possibilities will often remain rejected or ignored.

Change has to be an experiential process and part of that process is to ‘un-learn’ previous thinking. It is possible to do this – even world -class golfers can unlearn and re-learn how to hit a golf ball in order to make significant improvement. Nevertheless this is a difficult thing to do. A person has to be ready and willing – emotionally engaged – to want to make the change. And that is just to change a golf swing!

STRATEGIES FOR CHANGE    –    which will work best?

Power ~ Coercive

BUT…

Assumes that people are generally compliant so will usually do what they are told or can be made to do. Change is achieved by exercising authority and by imposing sanctions. Relies on authority, and the ability to police future actions.

 Empirical ~ Rational

BUT…

People are rational and will follow self-interest — once those interests have been revealed to them. Change is based on the communication of information and offers of incentives. Focuses on incentives, which need to work over the long term.

Normative ~ Re-educative

*TRY THIS APPROACH!

People are social creatures and will follow cultural beliefs, traditions and values. Change is based on redefining and reinterpreting these norms & values, and developing people’s commitments to new ones.

If you encourage people to seek knowledge and identify changes that will be helpful, you steer their learning towards the issues which people need to learn in order to make things better.

 

Further Reading:

Bennis,W. G., Benne, K.D. and Chin R. (1969) The Planning of Change. Holt, Rinehart & Winston, NY

Jacobs, C.J. (2009) Management Rewired: Why Feedback Doesn’t Work and Other Surprising Lessons from the Latest Brain Science, Penguin Group Portfolio, NY

Seddon, J. (2005) Freedom from Command and Control, Vanguard Press, Buckingham, UK.

Sherkenbach W.W. (1991) Deming’s Road to Continual Improvement, SPS Press, Knoxville, TE

 

Change Principles, Myths

Counter-intuition: the key to change?

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Like it or not, our brains are biologically structured to process information in two distinct ways (more actually, but we will focus on two here). On one hand we can process huge amounts of routine, familiar information, whilst on the other hand we are also adept at processing novel information.

Having a brain that can quickly process vast amounts of routine information is very helpful; it allows us to work on auto-pilot when we want to think about other things. If we step out from a dark hallway onto a busy, sunlit street, we do not feel overloaded with information. Instead we fit what we see, hear and smell into our mental models (‘paradigms’ in the technical jargon) and filter the information to best understand what is happening and where we are – and we go about our business of the day.

Much as this might be a strength, it can also be a hindrance. Even the predators of human prehistory adapted successful strategies to exploit this weakness. The crouching tiger hidden in the bushes can easily remain unseen to the unsuspecting passer-by until it is too late…

tiger in the bushes
You probably will not see the tiger until it makes a move

Fortunately we are not simply data-processors; the architecture of our brain provides other capabilities. If we perceive something unfamiliar, such as the backfire of a car engine, we notice it. If a carnival procession turns into the street we notice it. We adapt both our expectations and our behaviour. If movement is noticed in the bushes we ready ourselves for fight or flight – let’s hope it is not a tiger!

Learning works on this counter-intuitive level. John Seddon often talks about revealing counter-intuitive truths to open people’s minds to change. Neuroscience describes this as ‘cognitive dissonance’; stopping our mind from processing automatically and setting us up to restructure our thinking.

Charles Jacobs (2009) suggests that change is as much about re-structuring thinking as it is changing things like IT systems, team members, job descriptions, terms and conditions, performance measures or budgets. The latter are all methods which , although familiar ‘instruments of change’, are misunderstood or poorly executed. Furthermore just implementing new ‘stuff’ can be observed by somewhat cynically by employees as either management tinkering or a lame or half-baked compromise. The result is little or no lasting change.

A game-changing approach is more effective. Jacobs’ describes how Mahatma Gandhi chose to meet violence with non-violence, breaking the cycle of escalation and opening a different dialogue for change.

In managing change, we need to take more account of what needs to be done to change people’s minds. According to Jacobs, to “stop the way people are thinking now and create a new way of thinking that will drive the behaviour we need to achieve the future…”

 

Further Reading:

Deming W.E. (1993) The New Economics, MIT CAES, Cambridge MA.

Jacobs, C.J. (2009) Management Rewired: Why Feedback Doesn’t Work and Other Surprising Lessons from the Latest Brain Science, Penguin Group Portfolio, NY

Seddon, J. (2005) Freedom from Command and Control, Vanguard Press, Buckingham, UK.

Change Principles

The beauty of learning – nothing is wasted

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Spider WebThe term ‘learning organisation’ first gained popularity in the 1990s and is, unusually in the faddish world of  ‘management-speak’, one which seems to have endured. What is a ‘learning organisation’ and why try to become one?

An organisation that learns is best able to adapt. It finds out what works and what doesn’t and, most importantly, does something with that knowledge.

However, a learning organisation doesn’t just accrue information. Some organisations appear to be addicted to data – searching for the ‘facts’ before decisions can be made. This is NOT a characteristic of  a learning organisation since it will cause one of two problems (or both): either the organisation will boil itself to death in trivia and noise and not pick up the important signals;  or statically churn data without adapting – paralysis by analysis. This is not learning.

A definitive feature about learning is that it involves proactively seeking out knowledge; to make good judgements based on insight. If we want people in our team, department or organisation to start learning, then we should steer them towards good judgements based on insights from analysis. The statement ‘costs are out of control’ is an opinion. However, if we define costs and out of control, we can then test that hypothesis and progress in our understanding (Scholtes 1998). This requires new disciplines of thought. For Deming, part of this transformation is about getting managers to see themselves as experimenters who lead learning.

The Learning Cycle (adapted from Scholtes 1998)
The Learning Cycle (adapted from Scholtes 1998)

A good way to represent this type of approach is the Deming Wheel (or Shewhart Cycle, as Deming labelled it) Plan-Do-Study-Act; the never-ending cycle of learning (Scholtes 1998). Deming called for a change from ‘opinions’ to hypotheses which we can test, understand and then apply to our work activities.

Scholtes explains the phases of learning. ‘Plan’ and ‘Act’ are the stages of developing and reviewing theories and hypotheses. ‘Do’ and ‘Study’ are about application – work and the examination of work and outcomes. The phases of thinking and doing are intrinsically linked.

“There is nothing as practical as a good theory”
Kurt Lewin

Further Reading:

Drejer, A. (2000)”Organisational learning and competence development”, The Learning Organization, Vol. 7 Iss: 4 pp. 206 – 220

Scholtes, P. R. (1998) The Leader’s Handbook: A guide to inspiring your people and managing the daily workflow, New York: McGraw-Hill

Senge P. (1990) The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organisation, Doubleday, New York.

 

Other references:

Lewin, K. (1952) Field Theory in Social Science: Selected Theoretical Papers, p. 346. London: Tavistock.

 

Change Principles, Excellence, Myths

Once again – the impact of incremental change

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murrayIn the light of previous sporting posts it would seem improper not to refer to Andy Murray’s historic men’s singles tennis victory at Wimbledon – the first by a Briton in 77 years. Can we link his achievements with ‘change and improvement’?

One key element worth reflecting upon is Murray’s level of improvement in the last 12 months since working with new coach Ivan Lendl. This period has seen Murray win Olympic gold and also achieve a first grand slam title at the US Open; an ascencion in the sport which culminated in Sunday’s epic Wimbledon final. Ahead of these breakthrough achievements, Murray’s quote following the 2012 French Open is notable:

“There’s not been one radical change. A lot of it is minor details. But if you pick 10 small things to work on and change, that can turn into a big difference.” Andy Murray

This reminds me of a previous post; British cycling coach Dave Brailsford applies the same philosophy in bringing his team to world-conquering levels of performance. They key is that these cases hold a common belief in learning and continuous improvement – they see significant change as a set of small, relevant (and often testable) improvements – working on the system to improve capability.

Change which is focused on these aspects enables you to influence your success; work on what you CAN influence in the reasonable hope that improvements will overcome the factors over which you have no control (like the weather or how well the other person is playing). More effective thinking like this may help our teams, our services, our performance, our generation of knowledge to become even better.

Covey, S. (1989) 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Simon & Shuster, New York, NY.

Deming, W.E. (1993) The New Economics, MIT CAES, Cambridge MA.

Juran, J. (1989) Juran on Leadership For Quality, The Free Press, NY

 

Change Principles, Integrity, Leadership, Myths

Integrity – wholeness and cohesiveness

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Culture change is not something that you 'do' to people
Culture change: not something that you ‘do’ to people – unless you want to risk negative consequences

Dennis Bakke highlights in his book ‘Joy at Work’, the difference between saying to workers, ‘we really care about your welfare because we do,’ and the suggestion, ‘we care about your welfare because that will make you work harder for us’. The former offers a sense of value, the latter is more cynical.

The sentiment of valuing people has natural  appeal – caring about the people who work with us simply makes sense. But at work – what does caring about people really mean?

Many organisations have ‘people programmes’ or ‘culture change’ initiatives. Do these help?

As John Seddon has often said, respect for people is not a point of intervention – it is not something you ‘do’ to people. Deming repeatedly talked about two things concerning people – the need to maintain dignity and self-esteem. Anything that robs people of these two factors is counterproductive (and as Deming also emphasised,  disrespectful).

The culture that appears in any organisation – the behaviours, ways of being, talking and doing – is a symptom of the way things are set up in the organisation (the ‘system’ as Deming would call it). The fall-out from an organisation’s culture (too numerous to discuss here), can be positive or negative.

As an example, a familiar type of negative fall-out might be the lack of career development for women; this could well be a symptom of the way things are set up in an organisation, such as:

  • access to flexible working
  • provision of parental leave
  • plans for recruitment
  •  how people’s ideas for improvement are implemented
  • Whether managers consider career development for staff
  •  how unacceptable behaviours is challenged
  •  how often peer groups have a voice in organisational decision
  •  how career breaks are understood and managed
  • time invested in succession planning
  •  How many women are in senior, influential roles
  • how performance is measured now
  •  how achievement is measured over time

Even this short list clearly extends to things beyond people’s general value for female workers. Furthermore if you just work on people’s value for female workers and yet do nothing about the influences in the system, then nothing will change – it might even make things worse.

So, to be able to manage a team or a wider organisation with integrity, there is a need to deal with the whole system – being purposeful in dealing with change. Otherwise we just end up doing things that have no impact.

The start point is to value people anyway. The work is to improve the organisation (as a system) to deliver its purpose.

Culture change – towards one that is whole and cohesive – will follow.

 

Reading:

Bakke, D.W. (2005) Joy at Work: a revolutionary approach to fun on the job, PVG, Seattle, WA.

Deming W.E. (1993) The New Economics, MIT CAES, Cambridge MA.

Seddon, J. (2005) Freedom from Command and Control, Vanguard Press, Buckingham, UK.

Change Principles, Myths

Metamorphosis: significant change requires energy

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My son and I have been monitoring the frogspawn in our garden pond since April. It has been fascinating to see the tadpoles hatch, then grow into monstrous alien-looking aquatic denizens. Suddenly in the last couple of weeks they have started sprouting limbs, then their feet and toes have lengthened becoming mobile. Body shapes change, the tails shorten and a new form develops.

This is interesting stuff, but the biggest talking point in our family has been the observation that the reasonably big, fat tadpoles end up turning into relatively-speaking quite tiny froglets. Why is this?

Clearly the metamorphosis takes energy; the gut system changes the body shape of the animal, but all of the excess (most obviously the tail) has to be reabsorbed to fuel the transformation. The result is a smaller animal – but one which is much more adaptable, capable and resilient – and which, as it moves out of the pond, hunting and feeding, soon outgrows its original tadpole form.

The moral of the tale is, hopefully, obvious – with change, you don’t get something for nothing. If we want change to happen we need to expect an investment – to put something into the change.

Remarkably, however, investment in change does not primarily mean money and resources. Initially, the resources are within us.

What change certainly requires, as in the frog, is an investment by us – a renewal in our thinking
– and that takes EFFORT.

The effort is expressed in establishing new thinking, in questioning ourselves, in being open to new ideas (which stretch our minds or challenge our emotions), and in getting into new habits through practice.

Of course it is always easier to do nothing and sit on the proverbial sofa…

…watching the same problems occur again and again.

Further reading:

Coppin, A. and Barratt, J. (2002) Timeless Management, Palgrave MacMillan, NY

 

 

Change Principles

Stuck in a rut? How to reinvigorate your team

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  • Are the same old issues arising in your team?
  • Have you joined a team that is stuck in its ways?
  • Is the team intimidated by new challenges which seem like one step too far?
  • Have you ever felt “we’ve been here before“?
  •  Are the moaners still moaning?
  • Would the team, if honest, say that they are stagnant, uninspired, or just jogging along?

What would make a difference; how can things change; are people the problem or is it something else?

In the words of Douglas Adams: DON’T PANIC1

All teams go through various stages of development, from confidence to crisis, from challenge to success, from discomfort to familiarity, from suspicion to support. These cycles can occur in any order, sometimes a positive progression forwards but occasionally involving backsliding and disillusionment. A third common state is no change at all – being stuck in a rut – for months, or years.

The classic observation on team development was made by Bruce Tuckman and his memorable ‘Forming-Storming-Norming-Performing’ model. It is helpful because it sets out some of things to address which will help to oil the wheels of positive team development.

Clear goals, clear ground-rules (i.e. the ways we work together, talk to each other and use the time and space that we share), clear roles. These are the simple building blocks of effective teams. These things give space for individuals to get on with the work that they do alone and to interact effectively in the things that they need to do together. Clarifying these things as a team should also give space for people to raise questions or challenge things which don’t work well or appear to have little purpose.

So change the way the team works without meddling with the people in it. This gives everyone the choice to make progress alongside their colleagues – which, frankly, most people are quite happy to do.

Reading:

Tuckman, B.W. (1965) Developmental sequence in small groups. Psychological Bulletin 65, no.6: 384–99.

Tuckman, B.W. and Jensen M.A. (1977) Stages of small-group development revisited. Group and Organization Studies 2, no. 4: 419–27.

Optional bedtime reading:

1Adams, D. (1979) The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Pan Books Ltd., London.

 

 

Change Principles, Leadership

Still no ‘instant pudding’

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In my first blog 18 months ago I mentioned that when we consider change “we should see things as a human system: people, the work that we do, the interactions we have with each other, the physical environment that we create and use. These are the routes to change.”

Don't go for the "quick mix-quick fix"
Don’t hope for the “quick mix – quick fix”

This is great because as humans we have the privilege of choice; we can be proactive and make things happen.

The down side is that this situation is by its nature complex – other people might not feel the same as us and may put up barriers or counter-proposals.

As a consequence, to make things change, we need to encourage people to change – or at least the people who have an impact on outcomes (note: trying to change people who cannot affect change is a sure-fire route to getting unpopular AND will fail to have impact in any event – so don’t make people the problem).

To encourage people to change we need to change their thinking, how they value people, how they understand why results occur, how systems work (or don’t work), how to distinguish between ups and downs, between real improvements and one-off blips in performance.

People may have an epiphany and see new ways to operate, other people may more gradually understand the need for a new perspective. Either way new thinking has to be embedded in our habits and ways of working and this usually takes practice.

This is consistent with Herrero’s (2006) suggestion that new behaviours are needed FIRST  to support proposed changes in processes and systems.

Quoting his mentor Deming, Donald Wheeler tells us  that “The [new] way of thinking – has to be cultivated. This will take both time and practice. There is no instant pudding. There is no shortcut.”

To effect change is to do it… and to keep doing it. To be the change … and sticking to it.

As Wheeler says “There’s nothing to it but to do it.”

 

Further Reading:

Herrero, L. (2006) Viral Change, meetingminds, UK.

Wheeler D.J. (2000) Understanding Variation: the Key to Managing Chaos, SPC Press, Knoxville, TE

Change Principles, Excellence

Tell me – what’s your purpose?

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sub purposeTo be clear about our work – namely, who we are serving, how to do the work, how to change, what improvement looks like- we need to be clear about one thing:

WHAT IS OUR PURPOSE?

Peter Scholtes was one of the clearest writers on this concept; for him, like Deming before, everything starts with purpose;  “Without a purpose there is no system”.

Until we have clarity of purpose, all we are doing is completing sets of tasks. ‘Purpose’ should be embedded in our thinking about work, people and organisations.

Scholtes offers a very clear analogy to illustrate the importance of purpose:

“Cleaning a table cannot be a system until the purpose of the clean table is made clear. A table clean enough to eat on requires one system of cleaning. Clean enough to dance on requires another. Clean enough to perform surgery on requires yet another. Everything starts with purpose.

“What is your purpose?” is the most useful question one can be asked. 

When thinking this way, work is transformed from being seen as tasks to carry out, to become a reason to do something which adds real value; a framework for making decisions and seeking ways to improve.

Read more:

Deming, W. E. (1993) The New Economics for Industry, Government, Education, second edition. MIT CAES, Cambridge MA.

Scholtes, P. R. (1998) The Leader’s Handbook: A guide to inspiring your people and managing the daily workflow, New York: McGraw-Hill

Scholtes P.R. (1999) The New Competencies of Leadership, Total Quality Management, 10: 4&5, S704-S710.

Change Principles

‘Design team work carefully’ – but how?

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By Cindy Vallance @cdvallance

Simon Black’s latest blog highlighted key principles for how groups might work better. His first principle – ‘design team work carefully’ will provide a strong foundation for success in maintaining and improving team effectiveness. But how? There are a range of techniques that can be used to assist in designing team work.

A useful starting point is role analysis. Role analysis? Isn’t this the job of Human Resources? Yes, often job descriptions are created as part of a central HR function. But work, and especially work with others, is never as simple as following a printed job description that more often than not is created at a single point of time and then simply filed away.

It is all too often the case that mutual demands, expectations and obligations of interdependent team members are never openly discussed. Each individual may wonder why others do not seem to be doing what they are ‘supposed’ to be doing even though all individuals are performing as they think they should.

The technique of role analysis can be effectively used to help teams and groups work together. How does it work? Individuals first each analyse their own role in the group. A few questions to ask:

What is the rationale for the role – why does it exist?
What is the role there to achieve?
What are the specific duties of the role?
What are the expected behaviours of the role?
How does the role contribute to the achievement of the group’s goals?
How is the role related to other roles in the group?

The next step is for individuals to explain their understanding of their role within the group. Other group members can then share their expectations of the role. Expectations and obligations can be modified and agreed through discussion so that all reach a common understanding.

At the conclusion of this process, the individual holding the role assumes responsibility for preparing a brief written summary (a role profile) consisting of the activities of the role, the obligations of the role to the other roles and the expectations of the role from the other roles. Sharing this summary back with the group is the final step.

Each individual then ends up with a better understanding of what their own role is, what the perceptions and expectations of others are, and how all roles fit together. Role profiles are not static but can be modified as needs change over time.

Effective use of the technique of role analysis can reduce role ambiguity (am I supposed to be doing that or is it your job?), role conflicts and misunderstandings. The technique can also help ensure commitment to the individual roles that have been collectively and collaboratively defined.

Next time, another technique for group working…