A.D.K.A.R.

 

Awareness represents a person's understanding of the nature of change, why the change is being made and the risk of not changing. Awareness also includes information about the internal and external drivers that created the need for change, as well as "what's in it for me."

Desire represents the willingness to support and engage in a change. Desire is ultimately about personal choice, influenced by the nature of the change, by an individual's personal situation, as well as intrinsic motivators that are unique to each person.

Knowledge represents the information, training and education necessary to know how to change. Knowledge includes information about behaviors, processes, tools, systems, skills, job roles and techniques that are needed to implement a change. 

Ability represents the realization or execution of the change. Ability is turning knowledge into action. Ability is achieved when a person or group has demonstrated capability to implement the change at the required performance levels.

Reinforcement represents those internal and external factors that sustain a change. External reinforcements could include recognition, rewards and celebrations that are tied to the realization of the change. Internal reinforcements could be a person's internal satisfaction with his or her achievement or other benefits derived from the change on a personal level.

Jeffrey M. Hiatt

ADKAR: A Model for Change in Business, Government and our Community. 2006. Prosci Research. p.2,3

establish a clear starting point

A vision is a statement about what the leadership agrees a company could reasonably stretch to be in a generation--a 30-year aspiration... if the statement doesn't contain "to be," it's not a vision statement. For example: "We wish to be the largest bicycle manufacturer in the United States as measured by sales within 30 years..."

"A mission is what you wish the company to be over the next three-to-five years." Again, it should contain "to be." Your mission sets a shorter-term agenda for steps that will allow you to someday achieve your vision...

"Objectives (interchangeable with 'goals') are what you want to have."

Not "be." "Have."

The key is to sift through all the possible metrics and KPIs to determine the goals that most define success. Dunkin's mission was to be "the dominant doughnut and coffee provider in each and every market" in which it competed. Its early objectives?

• To have earnings per share grow at 15-to-20 percent per year.
• To have store-level economics achieve at least a 15-percent return on investment on average.
• To have debt never total more than three times EBITDA...

Strategic initiatives are, "the four-to-six most important tasks an organization must execute in order to bridge ever-scarce resources to achieve stated objectives..."

Tactics are, "the four-to-six action steps needed to support the achievement of each department's strategic initiatives..."

Jeff Haden, quoting Robert Rosenberg - CEO of Dunkin' Donuts'

"Think Company Vision Statements Are a Waste of Time? How Dunkin' Donuts' CEO Created a Plan to Recover From Disaster," by Jeff Haden. Inc. Nov. 17, 2020

weighing up the consequences

It was my fault, she sobbed. And it was true, no one could deny it, but it is also true, if this brings her any consolation, that if, before every action, we were to begin by weighing up the consequences, thinking about them in earnest, first the immediate consequences, then the probable, then the possible, then the imaginable ones, we should never move beyond the point where our first thought brought us to a halt. The good and the evil resulting from our words and deeds go on apportioning themselves, one assumes in a reasonably uniform and balanced way, throughout all the days to follow, including those endless days, when we shall not be here to find out, to congratulate ourselves or ask for pardon, indeed there are those who claim that this is the much-talked-of immortality, Possibly, but this man is dead and must be buried. 

Blindness by José Saramago. English translation 1997. p.71

not knowing everything

Move and the way will open. – ZEN PROVERB

At the start of many important endeavors, you’ll often think: How can I do this? I don’t even know enough to begin. It’s a common excuse, and it’s often a mask for cowardice. When we say that we don’t know what to do, it’s often not information we’re lacking, but courage.

When we begin, we sometimes lack the skills, knowledge, and experience to carry out even the most basic tasks. Of course we do. If we had the experience we needed, we’d already be done.

Not knowing everything cannot be an excuse for not doing anything.

Resilience: Hard-won Wisdom for Living a Better Life by Eric Greitens. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. 2015. p.39, 47 

response-ability

Accountability breeds response-ability. Commitment and involvement produce change. In training executives, we use a step-by-step, natural, progressive, sequential approach to change. In fact, we encourage executives to set goals and make commitments up front; teach and apply the material regularly; and report their progress to each other. 

If you want to overcome the pull of the past - those powerful restraining forces of habit, custom, and culture - to bring about desired change, count the costs and rally the necessary resources. In the space program, we see that tremendous thrust is needed to clear the powerful pull of the earth's gravity. So it is with breaking old habits.

Breaking deeply embedded habits - such as procrastinating, criticizing, overeating, or oversleeping - involves more than a little wishing and willpower. Often our own resolve is not enough. We need reinforcing relationships - people and programs that hold us accountable and responsible. 

Remember: Response-ability is the ability to choose our response to any circumstance or condition. When we are response-able, our commitment becomes more powerful than our moods or circumstances, and we keep the promises and resolutions we make. 

Stephen R. Covey

Principle-Centered Leadership. 2009/ RosettaBooks. 

google leadership evaluation

Here are Google's leadership evaluation questions (a scale of 1 (strongly agree) to 5 (strongly disagree)):

1. My manager gives me actionable feedback that helps me improve my performance.

2. My manager does not "micromanage" (get involved in details that should be handled at other levels).

3. My manager shows consideration for me as a person.

4. The actions of my manager show that he/she values the perspective I bring to the team, even if it is different from his/her own.

5. My manager keeps the team focused on our priority results/deliverables.

6. My manager regularly shares relevant information from his/her manager and senior leaders.

7. My manager has had a meaningful discussion with me about career development in the past six months.

8. My manager communicates clear goals for our team.

9. My manager has the technical expertise (e.g., coding in Tech, selling in Global Business, accounting in Finance) required to effectively manage me.

10. I would recommend my manager to other Googlers.

11. I am satisfied with my manager's overall performance as a manager.

Then Google employees are asked to complete two other questions: 

12. What would you recommend your manager keep doing?

13. What would you have your manager change?

The evaluation spends almost no time assessing a manager's knowledge, skill, and experience. All but one question focuses on soft skills: communication, feedback, coaching, teamwork, respect, and consideration.

What you know matters, but communicating, delegating, creating a sense of autonomy and purpose...that matters a lot more.

Granted, you could argue that possessing superb technical skills is less important for Google's team managers; after all, it's easier for Google to recruit and retain incredibly skilled people than it is for many companies. 

But that argument misses the larger point. While most employees need some degree of training early on, the emphasis soon shifts from what they know to how they use their knowledge and skills.

Jeff Haden

"Here's How Google Knows in Less Than 5 Minutes if Someone Is a Great Leader" Inc. November 18, 2020

when we have a vision of what we can become

How do we develop desires? Few will have the kind of crisis that motivated Aron Ralston, but his experience provides a valuable lesson about developing desires. While Ralston was hiking in a remote canyon in southern Utah, an 800-pound (360 kg) rock shifted suddenly and trapped his right arm. For five lonely days he struggled to free himself. When he was about to give up and accept death, he had a vision of a three-year-old boy running toward him and being scooped up with his left arm. Understanding this as a vision of his future son and an assurance that he could still live, Ralston summoned the courage and took drastic action to save his life before his strength ran out. He broke the two bones in his trapped right arm and then used the knife in his multitool to cut off that arm. He then summoned the strength to hike five miles (8 km) for help. What an example of the power of an overwhelming desire! When we have a vision of what we can become, our desire and our power to act increase enormously.

Dallin Oaks

"Desire," General Conference. April 2011

vision/action

Workplaces that are characterized by any or all of competing agendas and conflict (no alignment on direction), politics and bureaucracy (low quality of execution), and where work is "just a job" (low sense of renewal), aren't just unhealthy for sustainably delivering bottom-line results - they are unhealthy for the human soul. As the Japanese proverb goes, "Vision without action is a daydream. Action without vision is a nightmare."

Scott Keller and Bill Schaninger

Beyond Performance 2.0: A Proven Approach to Leading Large-Scale Change. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 2019

 

the eight step process of successful change

 Set the Stage

1. Create a Sense of Urgency

Help others see the need for change and the importance of acting immediately.

2. Pull together the Guiding Team

Make sure there is a powerful group guiding the change – one with leadership skills, credibility, communications ability, authority, analytical skills, and a sense of urgency. 

Decide What to Do

3. Develop the Change Vision and Strategy

Clarify how the future will be different from the past, and how you can make that future a reality.

Make It Happen

4. Communicate for Understanding and Buy In.

Make sure as many others as possible understand and accept the vision and the strategy.

5. Empower Others to Act.

Remove as many barriers as possible so that those who want to make the vision a reality can do so.

6. Produce Short-Term Wins.

Create some visible, unambiguous successes as soon as possible.

7. Don’t Let Up.

Press harder and faster after the first successes. Be relentless with initiating change after change until the vision is a reality.

Make It Stick

8. Create a New Culture.

Hold on to the new ways of behaving, and make sure they succeed, until they become strong enough to replace old traditions.

John Kotter

Our Iceberg Is Melting: Changing and Succeeding Under Any Conditions. St. Martin's Press. 2005. p.130, 131

go to work and help

If a man were poor or hungry, [some] would say, let us pray for him. I would suggest a little different regiment for a person in this condition: rather take him a bag of flour and a little beef or pork, and a little sugar and butter. A few such comforts will do him more good than your prayers. And I would be ashamed to ask the Lord to do something that I would not do myself. Then go to work and help the poor among yourselves first, and do all you can for them, and then call upon God to do the balance.

John Taylor

Journal of Discourses, vol. 19, p. 340 as found in Prophetic Statements on Food Storage for Latter-day Saints by Neil H. Leash. Cedar Fort. 1999. p.127

practice these essential basics

Our [HBR Leader’s Handbook] research [interviews with over 40 successful leaders of large corporations, startups, and non-profits] pointed to six leadership skills where practice was particularly important. These are not mysterious and certainly aren’t new. However, the leaders we talked with emphasized that these fundamental skills really matter. Aspiring leaders should focus on practicing these essential basics:

1. Shape a vision that is exciting and challenging for your team (or division/unit/organization).
2. Translate that vision into a clear strategy about what actions to take, and what not to do.
3. Recruit, develop, and reward a team of great people to carry out the strategy.
4. Focus on measurable results.
5. Foster innovation and learning to sustain your team (or organization) and grow new leaders.
6. Lead yourself — know yourself, improve yourself, and manage the appropriate balance in your own life.

Ron Ashkenas and Brook Manville

"The 6 Fundamental Skills Every Leader Should Practice" Harvard Business Review. Oct. 24, 2018

prioritizing your work as a leader

"...author Stephen Covey coined Eisenhower's Urgent/Important Principle in his book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. The tool is based on the way President Dwight D. Eisenhower prioritized the tasks that demanded his attention. This principle recognizes that tasks typically fall into one of four quadrants--and that we tend to complete them in this order:

1. Urgent and Important: Things that are important to do and need to be done now.
2. Urgent and Not Important: Minor tasks that are time-sensitive. It feels good to check these off our lists, but they aren't really critical.
3. Important and Not Urgent: Things that need to be done but don't have to be done immediately.
4. Not Urgent and Not Important: These tasks are neither important nor time-sensitive."

"A few years ago, I began organizing my to-do list into the following buckets (I have put them in recommended order and outlined my thinking for each):

1. Urgent and Important:  Do them because you have to, and delegate where possible to get tasks done right.
2. Important and Not Urgent:  This is the most important bucket because these things move us toward our big-picture achievements. The key to getting these tasks done is to make time each day or week to move toward your goals. 
3. Urgent and Not Important: Get these off your plate and don't let them distract you. Keep your eyes on the prize!
4. Not Urgent and Not Important: Do your best to avoid these entirely."

Robert Glazer

"Start Acheiving Your Long-Term Goals With This President's Task Management System", Inc.com, 20 Nov 2018

walk the talk

Inspiring leaders walk the talk. They have character and conviction. They live by a different moral compass. They back up their words with action...

On October 2, 1994, the 49ers were losing to the Eagles 40-8. Head coach George Seifert pulled [Steve] Young from the game. Years of pent-up frustration boiled to the surface. Young was livid and visibly argued with the coach. While it was out of character for Young to show such anger publicly, the players began to perceive him in a different light. They saw a fiery leader committed to winning. The “Steve Young Rant” became a rallying cry for the rest of the season.

Five days later the team played in Detroit. Young got hit so hard an excruciating pain shot up his leg. “Writhing in pain” Young crawled on his elbows to the sideline. The doctors were worried he had injured a nerve and told him not to play. Young overruled them. As long as he could walk, he wanted back in. Two plays after crawling off the field he jogged back to the huddle and completed 17 of 20 passes, leading a come-from-behind victory. “Dude, you really are crazy. You did the death crawl,” one of his teammates said. Young had cemented his leadership role.

The 49ers played like a team with a new conviction. They won the next ten games and ended the season with the number one offense in the league. Young was named MVP, but didn’t feel a sense of accomplishment. In the locker room he gave the speech of his life:

“It’s 34 days to the Super Bowl. We need to make a commitment that every day we do everything we can to put the flag on top of Everest. Let’s go make some history!” Everyone roared. Young had become the leader everyone wanted to rally behind, but only after his actions during the season gave them a reason to follow him.

“Perception is reality. I had worked hard my entire career to establish myself as a leader. But I wasn’t a leader until I was perceived as one. You become a leader in times of trouble,” says Steve Young. “Leaders emerge when things don’t go well. When everyone else starts pointing fingers, a leader takes responsibility.”

Carmine Gallo 

"Hall Of Fame QB Steve Young On Leadership, Character And Conviction" Forbes. Nov. 2, 2016

get action!

"Black care rarely sits behind a rider whose pace is fast enough," [Theodore Roosevelt] declared in one of the most self-revealing lines he ever wrote. Get action! It was the old Roosevelt family cure-all - for illness, grief, self-doubt. Seize the moment! 

David McCullough

Brave Companions: Portraits in History. Simon and Schuster, 1992. p. 62

inspire others

If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.


John Quincy Adams

"50 Inspiring Quotes on Leadership for Everyone" Time. July 1, 2015

heroes actions involve courage

Today the word "hero" has been diminished, confused with "celebrity." But in my father's generation the word meant something.

Celebrities seek fame. The take action to get attention. Most often, the actions they take have no particular moral content. Heroes are heroes because they have risked something to help others. Their actions involve courage.

James Bradley

Flags of Our Fathers: Heroes of Iwo Jima by James Bradley with Ron Powers. May 2000. p.260

do the right thing

As one of [George Washington’s] ablest biographers put it, his fellow burgess knew that [Patrick] Henry could be counted on to say the magnificent thing, whereas Washington could be counted on to say little, but do the right thing.

Joseph J. Ellis

His Excellency: George Washington. Alfred A. Knopf. 2004. p.64

learning through action

"There is only one way to learn," the alchemist answered. "It's through action. Everything you need to know you have learned through your journey.


Paulo Coelho
The Alchemist, HarperCollins 1993. p.132

in command of his conduct

“I walked with my friend, a Quaker, to the newsstand the other night, and he bought a paper, thanking the newsie politely. The newsie didn’t even acknowledge it.

“ ‘A sullen fellow, isn’t he?’ I commented.

“ ‘Oh, he’s that way every night,’ shrugged my friend.

“ ‘Then why do you continue to be so polite to him?’ I asked.

“ ‘Why not?’ inquired my friend. ‘Why should I let him decide how I’m going to act?’

“As I thought about this incident later, it occurred to me that the important word was ‘act.’ My friend acts toward people; most of us react toward them. He has a sense of inner balance which is lacking in most of us; he knows who he is, what he stands for, how he should behave. He refuses to return incivility for incivility, because then he would no longer be in command of his conduct” (“Do You Act—Or React?” condensed from the Chicago Daily News).

Sydney J. Harris

Chicago Daily News (as quoted in "Adversity,” by Dallin H. Oaks. Ensign, Jul 1998, 7

I said; he did

Early in my career, a woman who worked both for myself and a partner passed away suddenly. I expressed my heartfelt grief to her family and sent eloquent condolences and genuine concern.

My colleague, meanwhile, flew into action. He took a plane to the family’s side, helped arrange funeral services, and set up a scholarship for her child’s education. And he did it all quietly and without fanfare. Though well-intentioned, my words were far less effective and helpful than his decisive actions. I said; he did.

Joel Peterson

"In A Great Business, People Trump Things." Forbes Magazine. 10/17/2012