Tag Archives: values

Finding space to relax, flow and perform

June 30, 2014 Simon Black Leave a comment

Many of us have had an experience of ‘getting in the zone’ with work – in the office, in the garden, in physical pursuits, in sport, in artistic or musical endeavor. Things just hit the spot and we are performing at our peak…satisfaction is part of doing it.

As Brian Clough, the outspoken, but assuredly talented European Cup Winning football manager once said “Remember this…you can’t do anything to the best of your ability unless you relax. Nobody can. Nobody can…you’ve got to relax, then it ‘oozes out of you’ – IF you’ve got anything in you.”

Csikszentmihalyi emphasises this idea in his book ‘Flow’, where he describes the phenomena as:

intense and focused concentration on the present moment
merging of action and awareness
a loss of reflective self-consciousness
a sense of personal control over the situation or activity
a distortion of your awareness of time, one’s subjective experience of time is altered
experience of the activity as intrinsically rewarding

Can we ever hope to get close to this in the world of work? On the basis of Csikszentmihalyi’s ideas, three things could be considered in the way we design work:

Goals are clear (we know what and why we need to get on with the work)
Feedback is immediate (if we are, or are not, doing things correctly – we see it ourselves)
There is a balance between opportunity and capacity (we can do it and we have permission)

Of course we also have to be bothered about the work. We have to care – the goals of the work should relate to our own purpose. This idea, in relation to Quality, is explored in Robert Pirsig’s famous philosophical fiction book ‘Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance’ (Pirsig highlights this book “…should in no way be associated with that great body of factual information relating to orthodox Zen Buddhist practice. It’s not very factual on motorcycles, either.”).

People should have a sense of purpose, should care about their work, should have their own goals, sources of feedback and the capactity and opportunity to perform. Maybe managers should reflect on this the next time that they: don’t allow people to make decisions; give jobs to people who lack capability; offer their own ‘feedback’ in the absent of decent measures which staff could use for themselves. There are lessons for us all…

Incidentally, Zen and the Art…’ was rejected by 121 publishers before finally being accepted (a world record for a bestseller). It has since sold more than 5 million copies. There is probably something in that for another blog…

Reading:

Brian Clough on British Success in Europe. National Football Museum’s ‘Kicking and Screaming’ project. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olVNwDK3UD8

Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1990) Flow: the psychology of optimal experience, Harper Perennial, New York.

Pirsig, R.M. (1976) Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An inquiry into values. Corgi, London.

***this is the 100th post since we launched this blog in November 2011***

Change Principles, Culture, Excellence, Leadership, Service, Trust

Should we say it again? People are not the problem.

June 6, 2014 Simon Black Leave a comment

Deming famously stated “I should estimate that in my experience most troubles and most possibilities for improvement add up to the proportions something like this: 94% belongs to the system (responsibility of management), 6% special.“. In other words people-related ‘fault’ will be part of the minority 6%.

This statement tends to set people into a degree of hand-wringing ifs and buts: ‘surely he meant this only in a manufacturing system’, ‘ what about the difficult people?’, ‘ what if they are incompetent?’, ‘I am sure folks are the problem 40% of the time’ etc…

Chip and Dan Heath share a trivial, but insightful example in their book ‘Switch’. They discuss a situation (part of a research exercise) where moviegoers eat significantly more popcorn if they are given large buckets, than if they are given small buckets. To the outsider it looks like the people are ‘Popcorn Gorging Gluttons’ and we may feel that we should judge them as so. In reality, their behaviour (eating excessive amounts of popcorn) is driven by the system – the size of bucket they have been given. Change the bucket for a small one and their behaviour changes – they seem like moderate consumers. The system is the problem (large buckets), not the people.

“But aha – surely it’s their fault that they choose to scoff down the popcorn!”. True, we are sentient beings and can make choices (for example, I would hope that people who are aware of supermarket sales floor design are less likely to buy excessive amounts of fresh baked goods, fresh fruit and ‘buy-one-get-one-free’ items). I am not suggesting that we should excuse everyone of their behaviour 95% of the time. There are other things to consider – for example do we run on autopilot too often (Do we let the chimp drive the car? More for a later blog I think…)?

However as a start we need to be honest enough to examine our own assumptions as placed upon others and how we judge their behaviour. As the Heath brothers suggest, to do this we need to encounter a deep-rooted phenomenon identified in psychology.

Kendra Cherry explains -“When it comes to other people, we tend to attribute causes to internal factors such as personality characteristics and ignore or minimize external variables. This phenomenon tends to be very widespread, particularly among individualistic cultures.“

In Psychology this is known as the fundamental attribution error – we automatically assume that the person’s internal characteristics are the cause of behaviour even when other possible influencing factors are present in the situation.

So let’s pull away from assumption and open our minds to what is really happening with people.

Further Reading:

Deming W.E. (1982) Out of the Crisis (p315), MIT CAES, Cambridge MA.

Heath C., and Heath, D. (2010) Switch: when change is hard, New York: Random House

Peters S. (2012) The Chimp Paradox: The Mind Management Programme to Help You Achieve Success, Confidence and Happiness. Vermillion, London.

Other links:

Cherry, K. (2014) Attribution: How we explain behaviour. http://psychology.about.com/od/socialpsychology/a/attribution.htm

Excellence

Fun and the nonsense of work

December 16, 2013 Simon Black Leave a comment

A colleague recently made me aware of the Volkswagen brand campaign ‘The Fun Theory’ which illustrates how fun can be related to choices people make in life by presenting some light-hearted ideas to change mundane tasks such as throwing away litter or climbing stairs. For example against the question “Can we get more people to choose the stairs by making it fun to do?”, their electronic stairway piano made 66% more people choose the stairs over the escalator (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SByymar3bds&app=desktop).

funtheory sequence 2 — Initially people prefer the escalator…sound pads are fitted to the stairs…more people use the stairs!

Of course ideas around fun at work are not particularly new: Douglas McGregor talked about Theory Y managers assuming the people value work as an activity as natural as play. Deming – a statistician by trade, the godfather of Systems Thinking and Statistical Process Control and at first impression someone who would appear fairly austere by today’s standards, always opened his seminars with ‘we are here to have fun‘. Although in person he was actually someone with a strong sense of humour and a dry wit, more importantly, Deming always talked about the need (not the nice to have, the need – it was essential) for people to have “ joy in work“: it is one of his most distinctive and quotable catchphrases.

Let’s consider a couple of FUN: amusing, entertaining, or enjoyable [1]
definitions of fun and joy… JOY: a deep feeling or condition of happiness or contentment [2]

Clearly fun has roots in joy, whilst joy itself is a longer-lasting, life-permeating condition. Deming was clear about what should be done to bring joy back into work. Work should be designed such that it is a pleasurable experience, yet he recognised that most organisations design fun out of the experience. However fun (like respect) is not something that you ‘do’ to people – it is not the point of intervention. The trick is not to design fun back in as an add-on (like the piano steps), but instead to eliminate the things that take fun out of work – lack of purpose, lack of decision making, lack of information, inability to influence outcomes, inability to address the concerns of customers and users, inability to make the service improve, inappropriate comparisons of performance (celebration of irrelevant highs or castigation for lows which are outside our control), inbuilt sub-optimisation and inertia, judgement by uninformed outsiders or distant supervisors. Deming didn’t pull punches – these things were for him the forces of destruction.

Even people doing unimaginably difficult jobs in emergency services, terminal healthcare and humanitarian aid (to name a few), themselves gain deep satisfaction and joy in what they do. In these spheres, however, even people with a strong sense of vocation can be demotivated by the negative forces impinging on their work and can leave their professions. Fun and joy are central to the understanding of human psychology of work – and how we should design it.

To think otherwise is counterproductive. A lack of joy at work is a complete nonsense.

The Pale Blue Dot – paradigms and the big picture

November 1, 2013 Simon Black Leave a comment

We all know that the world is a big place, with lots of complexity and over 7 billion people living in it.
Let’s just stop for a moment and take a look at this photograph…

Taken in 1990 by the Voyager 1 spacecraft, this image is notable for the diagonal coloured stripes; but don’t be distracted – these colours are just artefacts of sunlight glancing off the camera housing. They are not the subject of the photograph.

The most important piece of the image is however, the nearly unnoticeable speck of blue just over halfway down the brown stripe on the right. This is Earth.

Carl Sagan, astrophysicist, astronomer and author, pointed out that: “all of human history has happened on that tiny pixel, which is our only home” (speech, Cornell University, 1994).

So what shall we think about when we return to work on Monday?

Rather than worry about the wider world and the vastness beyond it, we should perhaps take note of Stephen Covey’s suggestion and focus on our Circle of Influence, namely the things close enough to us that we can do something about. If we proactively work on what we can change in ourselves it will cause a ripple outwards and increase our influence to inspire and change others.

Integrity – wholeness and cohesiveness

July 3, 2013 Simon Black Leave a comment

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, Excellence

Features of a high performing team

January 28, 2013 Simon Black 1 Comment

In the past I have made a several links (some more oblique than others) to celebrated efforts and achievements of sportspeople over the past year including Bradley Wiggins, Usain Bolt, and the British Cycling team and the London 2012 Olympics.

Bradford City ‘picked up the ball and ran with it’ by working together, playing to their strengths, committing effort, taking responsibility, keeping discipline, and always believing the dream!

After a pulsating year of sporting moments in 2012 and having previously prodded at the excesses of football management, I simply cannot miss the chance to celebrate the achievements earlier this month by a humble, honest lower league football club. Bradford City FC are close to my heart, having spent many occasions at their Valley Parade home in years gone by and since then, despite a move down south, I have been able to follow their tortuous progress through financial misfortune and near-collapse with nevertheless genuinely joyful moments amongst a few hundred Bradford faithful as a regular ‘away’ fan down south) …

In the early weeks of 2013 lowly Bradford City, a club that have been in the doldrums of lower-league football for over 10 years, set the media alight with successive victories against Premier League opposition in a winning run that has taken them to a major Cup Final for the first time in 101 years. This gives the team a further chance to shine in front of 90,000 fans at Wembley, the national stadium. At the time of their only previous success, winning the FA Cup in 1911 (a week-and-a half after the Titanic had sunk in the North Atlantic), the site at Wembley was still a rural landscape of fields and woodland copses. Bradford are the first 4th tier (lowest division) team to reach any final in England for 51 years. The story is well documented elsewhere, but it is worth noting that Bradford’s entire squad of players was assembled for a total of £7500 of transfer fees – in a world where opposition players in the Premier League teams which were defeated to reach the final cost millions (often tens of millions) – EACH.

How is this possible? Surely it is a matter of assembling a team of the best, to achieve success? Bradford illustrates that there is an alternative model – to build the best team you can with what you have. And how? To get the team members to prepare and focus on the things that matter. For Bradford this was all about playing to strengths, taking responsibility, keeping discipline, committing effort, working together, and of course always believing that they could achieve the dream! As the team’s winning run extended from August 2012 against lower league opposition through to a thrilling December night against the big-guns of Arsenal and later Aston Villa in the January semi-final, all of the team’s values and actions were validated and rewarded through the results that they achieved together. This builds both self-belief and belonging which enables performance; a difficult blend to achieve purely through big-money signings. In Premier League teams this process usually takes years to achieve – with a lot of waste and at great expense! It is not just a matter of ‘chemistry’, but rather a matter of focus and action.

So in our teams let’s focus on our goals, our various roles, how we work together at a practical level and how we build positive working relationships based on mutuality and trust.

Conversations, Not Just Words

October 15, 2012 cdv 1 Comment

By Cindy Vallance @cdvallance

One of my favourite thinkers in the areas of innovation, strategy and change leadership is Harvard business professor, Rosabeth Moss Kanter .

A blog she wrote has relevance to the Social Sciences Change Academy and to the University more widely. It’s entitled Ten Essentials for Getting Value from Values and in it she first confirms what we all know – that the ‘values’ words contained in vision and mission statements and in strategic planning documents across many organisations are eerily similar and are usually somewhat generic (eg. respect, trust, equality, etc. – in fact, some of the same words we have used in describing what we say we care about within the Social Sciences Change Academy).

What can we possibly take from sets of words that could be used to describe any organisation? I agree with the view of Rosabeth Moss Kanter; the value comes not from the words themselves but from the conversations and dialogue that they have the power to initiate.

I was in a meeting very recently where we discussed ‘inclusivity’ and ‘diversity’ as two words that underline what we want to achieve at U of Kent in supporting the student experience. To me, these words describe the values of what the group is working to achieve. As Professor Moss Kantor states “Values are aspirational, signaling long-term intentions that guide thinking about the future.” But how do we make time for these conversations that make values real over time? Aren’t we all just too busy getting the work done? Here are just a couple of options:

One way is to intentionally combine different sets of individuals across a range of roles and functions in project work so that a larger group can contribute to work to be done – individuals who are perhaps beyond the range of what sometimes may seem to be ‘the usual suspects.’ Be sure to include discussion on the values underpinning the work from the outset.

Another way is to find out what others are up to. This then can help us make values connections across seemingly disparate areas. An easy way to do this is through social media. One of the biggest benefits I find from twitter, for instance, is that it gives me quick access to a range of what is going on within and outside U of Kent.

In 10-15 minutes, I can read the latest newsletter from the School of Anthropology and Conservation (@SACA_Kent), catch up on Kent Union Sabbatical Officer Kenny Budd’s most recent blog (@kbuddinyourface) and see at a glance what the THE (@timeshighered) has to say about the latest HE league tables. I can often then have more productive conversations because I know a little to start with about a wider range of activities than I would otherwise have time to explore; how else would I know that a big long term priority for @KentUnion is an improved facility – for, you guessed it, conversation, meetings, and network development.

What can we all do? Get a conversation going about values. Having coffee or lunch with someone we don’t normally interact with is a simple way to start. What are they working on? What is important to them? How might this intersect with the work we are doing? Values then start to become both real and shared.

Change Principles

How quickly can you build a new spirit of change? Lessons from London 2012

October 9, 2012 Simon Black 1 Comment

One of the interesting background stories from the London 2012 games has been the clear build up of enthusiasm by the public and their engagement with the games, its values, the experience and excitement of the competitions, support for the athletes and the appreciation for the venues and facilities. It is easy to forget in the afterglow of what has been, arguably, the best games in Olympic and Paralympic history, that this enthusiasm was not always apparent in the public or in the media.

I remember back in 2005 when the bid was announced by the International Olympic Committee. I was working in a college with hundreds of young people present. Yet I could only find one other person, an older staff member (who I heard scream out in delight from down the corridor when the announcement was made on the BBC) who was remotely enthusiastic about the winning bid – even the young people were unimpressed. Of course few can forget the impact and shock of the London bombings the following day, but the actual build up to the whole event thereafter remained low key – even the post Beijing festival in St James’ Park seemed a tiny bit lame (performances by ‘M People’ and ‘Scouting for Girls’ spring to mind).

Subsequent years saw a progression of non-stories (about hitting budgets and targets with little to moan about). Various celebrity charity cycle rides which aimed to culminate in a finish at the then-to-be-completed Olympic Park where left stranded next to hoardings and barriers, unable to enter the site due to ‘Health and Safety’. Initially there were worries about who would take over the stadium and how facilities would be maintained and the increasing costs to taxpayers. Later, when the ticketing system came on line, there was a tangible sense of cynicism – would the Games just be the preserve of the wealthy, merely rolling its customers over in a marketing runaround… and what the heck should MY family-of-four do with the disappointment of just two tickets to the women’s volleyball?

Wind the clock forward to 2012 itself and the sight of David Beckham traveling with an entourage to Greece to collect the Olympic flame sniffed a little of a media circus (would he even be in the GB football team?). At that stage the prospect of the Olympic torch touring around the country seemed a little…well…desperate.

But what actually happened? When the torch relay started out thousands upon thousands of people turned out to watch it. Slowly across the country more and more people wanted to be a part of the experience. This is partly a cultural phenomenon in the UK – ‘being there’ – but there did appear to be genuine enthusiasm from people who went, a surprising sense of belonging shared with family and friends (my parents stumbled upon the relay at Mount Snowdon by complete accident, but were genuinely caught up in the excitement of the event).

Despite this, as the Games came closer, the media doom-mongers jumped on security shortfalls, controversial anti-aircraft missile sites and rumours of ticket touting. In the preliminary football matches (played in the days before the opening ceremony) there was tangible delight in how the South Korean flag was presented for the North Korean women’s football team at Hampden Park stadium. A few days later and outcry followed apparent swathes of empty seats at venues in the early days of the Games.

But somehow the Games came together in spectacular fashion. One great surprise being the impact of volunteer ‘games makers’ who were the engine room for festival spirit and a warm welcome. Spectator interest grew – I witnessed 80,000 people turning up to watch women’s football match – unheard of in the history of the sport.

The Games were a success on pretty much every front.

In the lull between the Olympics close and the Paralympics there were attempts to bleakly reflect on the stars who had refused to perform at the closing ceremony (Led Zeppelin, Manic Street Preachers, Elton John) although most of the reasons were legitimate. There was a suspicion that frankly, the Paralympics would fail to ignite the same feeling of excitement (what with tricky ticketing procedures, lack of ATM machines for the blind etc, etc, etc).

But somehow the Paralympics DID raise the same spirit and enthusiasm. The whole 2012 experience was a fantastic festival of sport. How on earth was this possible? It seems that we can learn a few things:-

A long term vision
Sebastian Coe’s team somehow generated a clear vision of the event and its style; even the garish logos, mascots and colour schemes (blue hockey pitches? Rather ‘un-Olympic’, surely!) really did work

A strong sense of values
The volunteers embodied this in their behaviour and support of the public – and it rubbed off on the people visiting the events

A belief in the user community
The organisation aimed to make things straightforward for spectators; you had a train pass but no-one checked it – there was trust. Event organisers understood that spectators were part of the event, not just bystanders or observers. The athletes themselves were made welcome and provided with excellent services.

A healthy avoidance of other agendas
The focus was on the games, rather than politics or (mostly) economics. Protest and dissent were not so much quelled, but rather left to look out of place. Interestingly the Games appeared not to be a good platform for launching any kind of lobbying.

A consistent message built over time
The sense of what the Games represented was built up over time, but the core issues always endured.

Encouragement and feedback
Along the way the team needed to know that they were on track, on budget, the GB sportspeople needed to know that they were building their competition performances ready to ‘peak’ at the right time. Operational teams used test events and scrutinised feedback. Plenty of learning was applied in the build-up and throughout the Games (even the security procedures were changed over time – if you observed them closely).

Of course this is not a definitive checklist for navigating change, but it is worth consideration.

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

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

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

Change Principles, Excellence, Integrity, Leadership

Consistent thinking and values – the key to integrity

July 5, 2012 Simon Black 3 Comments

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.

Change the words – keep the message

June 11, 2012 Simon Black 12 Comments

It is 7 months since the Change Academy team started these blogs, in which time we have have covered a lot of ground. There is a tendency in change initiatives to get trapped in a web of jargon – using a lot of buzz-words without understanding the message.

So, to informally test this out lets have a look at a wordle created from my blogs of the past few months:

John Macdonald (1998) talks of a mischievous attempt by engineers at Honeywell bust the jargon culture. Their ‘buzzword generator’ included three columns of words, where a choice of one from each column generated plausible (but nonsensical) buzzwords, such as’ parallel synchronised timephase’ or ‘compatible policy projection’ to throw into discussions with colleagues.

To put a positive slant on his idea, lets play a similar sort of same game in reverse, using phrases suggested by this Wordle, and instead look to get some value from the message:

‘People need change’ – we are adaptive creatures and getting stuck in a rut appears to lead us to boredom (at least in work). Boredom reduces creativity and improvement; the rut deepens. On the other hand change (though perhaps stressful) energises people; new ways of working get noticed and new behaviours rub off.

‘Theory changes behaviour’ – theory is often presented as the opposite to ‘being practical’, but actually this is not the case. Theory shapes thinking and your thinking shapes your behaviour, so useful theory should change behaviour in useful ways.

‘Things values see (better)’ – if we define our values (rather than relying on what we assume to be values), we open up new conversations that begin to challenge what happens round us. We start to see dis-functional working relationships and inappropriate practice and this allows us to raise questions and make challenges on things that previously never hit the radar. Our organisation becomes more alert and ‘alive’ to new things.

‘Work suggests approach’ – people who do the work know the work, warts and all. Their knowledge should be used to identify and implement improvements. Often change initiatives involve implementing great new ideas or benchmarks from other organisations which fail to work in the context of our own organisation. Don’t impose outside solutions until you know what is actually happening to the work on the ground and why it occurs. Only then are you going to get on the correct route to improvement.

Although this is just a bit of fun, change can be a serious business – always remember to keep your mind open and your feet on the ground.

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