I couldn’t help but think of the University of Kent during a recent trip to France. I stayed at a hotel one night that had an intriguing history.
The hotel was once a wing of a fortified castle constructed in the 11th century by Robert de Dreux, grandson of Louis VI, King of France. The castle was passed down through various royal family members and enjoyed by kings, from Louis XII to Charles IX, for 200 years through to the 16th century. Its history then became more volatile until the 18th century when the castle was inherited by Philip Egalite who in his efforts to seek approval from the Republicans ordered the partial demolishment of his own chateau and sold many fixtures and furnishings from the castle. The present chateau, once a wing of the Royal castle, rose again through restoration in 1863 and was ultimately converted to a hotel in 1956. Further refurbishment was continuing when I stayed there; rooms were being redecorated and a spa was being added to the site that will include underfloor heating (harkening as far back as Neolithic times). Restoration work was also underway on the existing ruins to preserve a lasting legacy for those who visit.
So why did this make me think of Kent? For me, the castle/chateau and its many transitions throughout history tell me a story of survival and of success. The chateau has reinvented itself multiple times while still retaining an appreciation and sense of its colourful and rich history.
When I came back to work, I couldn’t help but notice afresh the building and renovation work happening here at Kent and the hive of activity within the walls where staff and students are making decisions about what actually happens here.
As we continue to find our way through times of uncertainty for the higher education sector, what buildings, traditions, practices and offerings will we retain and what will we change to meet the needs of our future students? As we think about Kent’s 50th anniversary in 2015, we are given the opportunity to consider what our story has been and what our story will be 5, 10, or 50 years from now. What will Kent look like – a crumbling ruins or an exceptional destination that is proud of its heritage and that looks unwaveringly to its future? I personally firmly believe that our collective talents, knowledge, and commitment will serve us well in preserving Kent for generations to come.
Having sneaked the Tour de France success of Bradley Wiggins into my last blog I cannot resist a reference to the London 2012 Olympics. Team GB’s successes have be encapsulated by the achievements of the track cycling team which virtually swept the board in the velodrome. Members of other national teams questioned how this level of achievement was possible.
Consistent excellence – but how?
I am no cyclist, but for what it is worth I can recall the machine-like efficiency of the East German (GDR) athletics teams of the late 70s and early 1980s, particularly the dominance of the women (there was a similar story in the Olympic swimming pools during that era). A decade or so of women’s athletics was dominated by the stereotypical ‘East German shot putter’. Sadly it was a factory driven on the fuel of anabolic steroids; after reunification of Germany the coaches, who had fed drugs to thousands of unwitting athletes, were discovered and convicted of intentional bodily harm of athletes, including minors. The coaches had attempted to impose control on the athletic system by introducing a new approach (systematic drug-based training programmes), but ultimately they failed themselves and tragically failed the athletes in their charge, many of whom suffered lifelong side-effects from the drug programme.
Most certainly, GB cycling’s head coach Dave Brailsford has achieved success without resorting to the approach of the former GDR coaches. He has used a better way. Instead of imposing a command-and-control structure on his athletes, he has developed a ‘system’ and more importantly, he appears to be applying systems thinking in the way that he manages the team. Every part of the team; cyclists, coaches, physiotherapists, equipment, clothing, catering, hotels, planning, finance, even the families of the athletes are considered part of that system.
“It was attention to detail that gave us the advantage over the other teams. We considered everything, even the smallest improvements, to give us a competitive edge. It was the accumulation of these small details that made us unbeatable.” Dave Brailsford, Team GB
Big leaps are an accumulation of many small improvements
The smallest things can be significant influencers. For example, each British cyclist has to bring his or her own pillow and mattress to a championship. A minor detail, but it is all about a much bigger factor – ‘sleep’, which governs athlete well-being, recovery and preparation. Being settled with the right pillow means more hours of comfortable sleep which impacts race performance. A pillow does not guarantee a good night’s sleep, but it improves the chances and the possibility of a fresh athlete on the day of the race.
So what does this mean for us in progressing our changes and improvements? It suggests to me that any organisation would benefit from a culture of learning and continuous improvement; work on what you CAN influence in the reasonable hope that it will overcome the factors over which you have no influence. As Juran (1989) said – focus on the vital few rather than the trivial many to achieve your purpose then, as Senge (1990) urges, always keep an open mind to unexpected outcomes and be ready to understand what else needs to be done to improve.
Juran J. (1989) Juran on Leadership For Quality,The Free Press, NY
Senge P. (1990) The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organisation, Doubleday, New York.
In my most recent blog I discussed the ambitious vision, purpose and values that those in the Social Sciences Change Academy are working to exemplify, individually and collectively.
But are aspirations sufficient? Of course not. Ideas make us feel good only for the amount of time we are in a room talking about them or only for the amount of time it takes to share an email with yet another good idea.
We could…we should…why don’t we?…
That is not to say we shouldn’t share good ideas. The last thing we should do is stop the flow of creativity that can lead to positive changes. But whose responsibility is it to implement these good ideas? Who are the “we” that we so often reference?
I have written quite a lot about self awareness and personal responsibility in these blogs. I firmly believe that what each of us does is key to our collective success. There is a common expression that there is no “I” in team (in English at least), but every action within every team’s plan needs an “I” to make it happen.
If I have an idea for something that should happen or change it is my responsibility to take the next step to try and make it so.
If it is in an area within my range of responsibility to make happen then ‘the buck stops with me.’ If it is a simple thing I can do on my own then I should just get on with it. If it is more than a one person job and I have people within my immediate frame of reference that I can galvanise, then I need to determine how to get these people on board to agree and to support putting the idea into action.
If my idea is one that is beyond the scope of what I can personally do anything about to make happen but I truly believe in it, I still need to find a way to influence people who can then decide to make it happen.
If it is an idea I really care about, I must not give up.
But successful implementation is one of the most difficult parts of change and a significant reason why change efforts so often fail. So what do we need to do? Here are some simple questions to ask ourselves
What is the outcome I/we want to achieve? (vision)
Why should I/we do it? (purpose and values)
How should I/we go about achieving it? (implementation plan)
And on the implementation plan…for the team this must include: what will happen, when it will happen, and who will take responsibility to make it happen. The implementation process for each person within the team is the same: what I will do, when I will do it, and my commitment made real by reliably delivering on what I have promised.
How should I/we track progress? (project management)
How will I/we know if we have succeeded? (evaluation/reflection/adjustment)
So how do we turn aspiration to implementation? It is up to me… It is up to us.
It has been encouraging to see some positive action coming through this summer with new people being engaged in change activities. In our experience this year the Change Academy team has noticed that, on occasion, things have moved more slowly than expected in our first year. Is this normal?
We should be encouraged to hear that experienced practitioners often see that change efforts go through a ‘lull’. This appears to be caused by a typical learning curve experienced by people going through organisational transformation (Scholtes 1998). This can be attributed to the steps made by people experiencing the change.
If we challenge ourselves with new concepts, we are faced with the question – how do we do this? We move from a state of ‘unconscious incompetence’ (we didn’t know that we didn’t know) into ‘conscious incompetence’ (now we KNOW that we don’t know). It’s like learning to ride a bike; until we sit on it and make our first push forwards (and start wobbling, panicking and falling) we don’t really understand that we don’t know how to do it. With new experience and insight, now we truly KNOW that we don’t know how to ride! That experience leads us to consciously learn more: to balance and shift our weight, to steer (but not over-steer!), to pedal left and right.
Steps to competence – (Adapted from Drejer, 2000)
At that point it appears that people can sit in a lull, where we mull over how to put the new concepts, ideas and learning into action. Scholtes suggests this lull can take a year.
Deming is more frank:
“It does not happen
all at once.
There is no instant pudding.”
However, once people have got their heads in gear (I know, another cycling analogy) thereafter they are able, with conscious effort, to apply the new thinking in their work. Over time, with continued effort, this new level of competence becomes unconscious – a habit. As long as we keep our eyes open and purposeful in our efforts, we will not slip into complacency. Instead our proficiency will progress into expertise and we can look for other challenges.
More reading:
Drejer, A. (2000),”Organisational learning and competence development”, The Learning Organization, Vol. 7 Iss: 4 pp. 206 – 220
Scholtes, P. (1998), The Leader’s Handbook: A guide to inspiring your people and managing the daily workflow, New Yok: McGraw-Hill.
It is important to focus on relevant priorities when navigating through change. Few things are more irritating to people than being forced to implement changes which don’t deal with the issues. Consider the things that might really occupy people’s minds;
* what does it mean for me?
*are my ideas being heard?
* will things be better?
*will work be more effective?
*do we agree that these are priorities?
* will new costs replace the old ‘bad’ ones?
*will users’ complaints be addressed?
*will changes add any real value?
*will this just create more layers of ‘work’?
If we ignore obvious issues we risk establishing a norm where honesty is avoided in conversations. This leads to people wrongly assuming that honesty should be traded-off against ‘support for change’ such that people fall into ‘towing the party line’. Unfortunately, over time, a lack of openness undermines trust. More fundamentally, there are more immediate operational effects, since filtered discussions block learning and improvement. Previously we have pointed out that (quoting Basil Fawlty) the ‘bleedin’ obvious’ can be unhelpful. This is true if noticing the obvious is not followed by thinking about the issues- seeking symptoms not causes.
It would be more helpful to stop ignoring the ‘elephant in the room’; we should stop pressing on regardless or merely ‘just doing our best’ in the face of genuine difficulties. Nevertheless, it does take effort to change; we need new types of knowledge and skills. People need to establish new ways of thinking and working, to share ideas, to identify and test recommendations, to communicate those ideas and implement relevant action. The good news is that all of these things can be learned.
There are also some useful ways to analyse problems which help to identify priorities, such as 80/20 thinking (see Barratt and Coppin 2002), which Joe Juran was the first to identify as a “universal principle” applicable to many fields; focus on the ‘vital few’ rather than the ‘trivial many’. It is helpful to be ready to seek knowledge (and get some hard data) before plunging headlong into well-intentioned but mis-directed effort.
Read more:
Coppin, A. and Barratt, J. (2002) Timeless Management, Palgrave MacMillan, NY
Juran J. (1989) Juran on Leadership For Quality,The Free Press, NY
Last week’s blog focused on the importance of values. But some wonder, wouldn’t they be pretty much the same for any organisation? The reality is that the subtleties count.
For instance, compare these: The UK army’s values are: courage, discipline, respect for others, integrity, loyalty and selfless commitment whereas the 2012 Olympic/Paralympic values are respect, excellence, friendship, courage, determination, inspiration, and equality. Yes there are some similarities (courage, respect), but some real differences too in the words as well as the intent behind the words. For instance, courage in the sports arena undoubtedly looks quite different from courage on the battlefield. However, both of these organisations have determined that choosing these values to inform their actions is useful. Many organisations today share this view.
To bring values closer to home, how can we make these real at the University of Kent? Well, here is one example. Back when the Social Sciences Change Academy group first gathered in September 2011, we decided at a grassroots level some values that were important to us – in fact, so many values we had difficulty remembering them all (after all, 11 values is a lot and we even added a 12th – learning – based on our collective experiences this past year).
LESSON 1 – most people can likely remember no more than seven key words; five or six values are much more manageable than twelve.
And how did we get from twelve values to our final five? It was quite simple really. Firstly, we refined our existing purpose and vision through a lively discussion with everyone taking part and working to ensure we didn’t get too precious about who came up with which idea. We ended up with some refinements to our working statements created this past year.
Our Purpose
To encourage a stronger community of learning through collaboration between students, academic staff and professional services staff.
Our Vision
We will be stronger by working together through times of complexity, ambiguity and uncertainty. We will inspire creative partnerships that deliver positive organisational change.
LESSON 2 – leaving egos at the door to allow for an open discussion is critical in obtaining consensus on purpose and vision.
Finally, with our purpose and vision in mind, we individually voted on our top 5 from the 12 values we had developed. We used post-it-notes to write these down, and then posted them up on the wall. We then counted them up and took stock. We found there was some repetition with wording when we considered values compared to our purpose and vision and after some further discussion, ended up with the following five values.
It is our goal to exemplify these values, both in our day-to-day behaviours as well as how we approach activities within the Social Sciences Change Academy initiative and with regular check ins against our purpose and vision.
LESSON 3 – take the time to set strong foundations and then use this as the basis to develop something the group believes in and can be proud of.
What kind of environment might we build if we all did our best to live these values at the University of Kent?
Usain Bolt didn’t fit the ‘norm’ for championship sprinters, but his performances redefined ‘what good looks like’
Early in my career I was fortunate enough to work with some very good change experts who introduced me to some very useful ideas which have proven to be very enduring.
One perspective was to understand ‘what good looks like’. Although essentially straightforward, this is not about the obvious. In the world of work, what ‘good looks like’ is about how ‘good’ actually works. Good is good because it is effective (not because it is trendy or fits current norms).
Look beyond the outward signs of ‘good practice’ (i.e. methods) and seek the inward signs: symptoms versus causes, stability and control versus instability and chaos, integrity versus game playing and politicking.
The best change leaders engage people’s attitudes and mindsets before discussing methods; they are able to engage with feelings and emotions. Human beings are emotional entities and, to put it bluntly, we don’t behave rationally. This happens because we process logic through the intricate filters of emotion and experience. If we ignore emotions of working people, we are unlikely to get their support. Charles Jacobs (2009) suggests that we engage people with the story of change, not merely the logical argument. Why? “Because people are more likely to change when the motivation comes from within, and when we ask rather than tell” (Jacobs 2009).
We need to emotionally own and engage with the change on our own account. As Coppin and Barret (2002) put it, “whether we believe we can or we can’t, we’re right” – we need people who chooseto make change happen. They remind us of the words of George Bernard Shaw:
“People who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they they want, and if they can’t find them, make them.”
Or to paraphrase Ghandi: “…be the change you want to see in the world.”
Read more here:
Coppin, A. and Barratt, J. (2002) Timeless Management, Palgrave MacMillan, 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
People may differ in look, make-up and role, but can still share a few, common, underlying values that last.
There is a growing discussion in our institution about the ‘values’ and the principles which we should use to run the organisation, make decisions and design the future. Few people would argue that ‘values’ are irrelevant – even politicians dare to refer to them when there is a moral outrage or a disclosure of unethical behaviour.
However as Edgar Schein (the man credited with inventing the term ‘corporate culture’) noted back in the 1980s, what an organisation says are its values are not necessarily the same as its ACTUAL values. This makes sense because in reality, organisations don’t have values – it is the people within them that carry and interpret values, on an individual or collective basis (probably both).
Actual values are represented in rules, policies, conversations and behaviours (including our decisions to ignore or break rules); these are the things which are followed by people on a day-to-day basis. Values may be stated or unstated, but because they guide the way people think and work, it is the actual, enacted values which most accurately describe the culture of the organisation (rather than the common wish-lists included on posters or corporate websites).
One challenge is to understand what those actual values are and then to decide if any need changing. The consistency and integrity of stated and actual values is not just a conversation topic; it has impact on performance and results. If we say we value innovation, then that must be reflected in the innovative way we work, the innovative services or products we offer and the innovative skills and mindsets of people that are recruited, retained, developed and promoted.
However, if an organisation claims to be innovative (or ‘encourages innovation’), yet has rules, sets budgets or makes decisions which are constructed such that they prevent or discourage people from innovating, it is clear that:
i) innovation is not a meaningful value at all.
ii) staff will be demotivated; a lack of integrity in ‘values’ creates cynicism and undermines trust.
iii) mismatches between ‘what we say’ and ‘what we do’ de-stabilises people, decisions and work.
To make matters worse, it is likely that points i, ii and iii combine, discouraging otherwise innovative staff even further, thereby making the organisation even LESS innovative than might have been the case had ‘innovation’ never been promoted in the first place.
This is why it can be so damaging if values and vision are addressed, discussed and promoted by an organisation without the full and consuming understanding and commitment of the leaders who wish to see them implemented. It can never be a paper exercise, because the negative the consequences are real.
So if we are going to talk values in our organisation, we need to do this with integrity and care – based on very clear thinking. If our thinking is muddled, our message will appear confused. Confusion runs the risk that our value system will be considered either unauthentic or ill thought-out; either of which reduces the credibility of what we say.
This presents several challenges. How do we make sure that the values we espouse are internally consistent (with each other) and how are the same values externally validated through our own behaviour (and shown to be authentic)? This might seem to be a significant challenge, but there is a silver lining:
If we see inconsistencies in values and behaviour that others see, by changing our behaviour and creating helpful, meaningful consistency, we will show that we are serious and this will influence other people, accelerating the change.
By working hard to fall behind clear values, and re-set the rules, policies, conversations and behaviours in the institution, leaders can have a big impact on culture. Some organisations have been transformed this way in relatively short periods of time.
Leaders need to develop a good ‘cultural radar’ and be aware of how people’s behaviours match (or do not match) the desired values of the organisation – and be ready to challenge where necessary.
With the correct thinking it is possible for Leaders to develop conversations with everyone about shared values. These conversations can occur in any meeting, or at set-piece events such as a ‘management forum’, a strategic presentation, a new-employee induction event, or at an all-employee ‘town hall’ gathering). Conversations should enable constructive challenge concerning how things work now and what might be an agenda for change. The change agenda should be set at a practical level, addressing aspects of service delivery, budget setting, recruitment and promotion, for example.
Everybody should be expected to maintain integrity in the way that they operate against the communicated values. This includes being courageous enough to challenge inconsistencies when they become apparent and having a healthy and supportive debate when new or unexpected issues arise to challenge our previous assumptions.
Integrity starts with ourselves, then flows out to others with whom we work; it builds trust.
Read more on Organisational Culture:
Schein E. (2004) Organizational Culture and Leadership, John Wiley and Sons, NY
In his most recent blog, Simon Black posted a wordle that highlighted topics from his recent blogs as part of the Change Academy initiative. Change, people, values and behaviours all feature heavily. I thought this was a great idea so decided I would do the same. Here is my own completely unedited blog wordle:
Not surprisingly, given my recent blogs, trust features predominantly. Also included is an emphasis on creating a thinking environment. The big question in my mind is what we can now accomplish if we have so far managed to build a foundation of trust based on thinking with others.
Our group is meeting this week to discuss our activities since first coming together last autumn and to consider where to focus our energies in the coming year. To date, it has been very much about embedding an ethos of collaboration – consciously working to increase partnerships between students, academic staff and professional services staff in everything we are already doing. After we meet, I will report back to share some further detail about what we have done and what we are hoping to do.
One thing we have discussed is how we should try and get the word out about this way of working that takes into account a wide diversity of perspectives and provides equal opportunities for all to express their views.
If you have enjoyed reading these blogs over the past few months and following our twitter link @cdvallance, then spread the word and share these links with your colleagues – both staff and students. Perhaps also think about commenting within the blogs since we do want these to be a forum for discussion as well as self reflection.
And check back to hear our plans; we want to hear from you on these as well.
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The hotel was once a wing of a fortified castle constructed in the 11th century by Robert de Dreux, grandson of Louis VI, King of France. The castle was passed down through various royal family members and enjoyed by kings, from Louis XII to Charles IX, for 200 years through to the 16th century. Its history then became more volatile until the 18th century when the castle was inherited by Philip Egalite who in his efforts to seek approval from the Republicans ordered the partial demolishment of his own chateau and sold many fixtures and furnishings from the castle. The present chateau, once a wing of the Royal castle, rose again through restoration in 1863 and was ultimately converted to a hotel in 1956. Further refurbishment was continuing when I stayed there; rooms were being redecorated and a spa was being added to the site that will include underfloor heating (harkening as far back as Neolithic times). Restoration work was also underway on the existing ruins to preserve a lasting legacy for those who visit.
