the world revolves around change

The world revolves around change. Birth and death, growth and destruction, rise and fall, summer and winter. It’s never the same from one day to another no matter how much it might seem that it is.

“No man ever steps in the same river twice…” – Heraclitus

Our minds would love to predict and plan for everything that’s going to happen. But it’s simply not possible. And these expectations not only have a negative effect on our emotional state, they actually leave us less powerful than we really could be. 

It’s so much more effective to simply take things as they present themselves, to live in the moment (like there’s another moment you could live in), and solve issues and items as they arise, than to constantly expect.

It’s not that I’m anti-planning (I most certainly am not), but the stone-cold attachment to the plan (and all the expectation therein) is a little like falling out of a rowboat and continuing to row even through you have no oars and no boat under you anymore. Your plan (and image) of how this should have gone is no longer relevant but you still struggle to reconcile the space between your expectations and reality. 

Life can be like that at times. On some occasions you have to realize that the game has changed (sometimes dramatically so) and you need to pivot. Deal with your reality.

Wake up, you’re in the water. Stop waving your arms about and paddle to shore, dammit!

Gary John Bishop

Unfu*k Yourself: Get out of your head and into your life by Gary John Bishop. Harper One. 2017. p.175. 176

every player wants organization and discipline

Jim O’Brien said the Suns will warm up quickly to Vogel. They will appreciate his basketball knowledge and preparation, whether it be for a game, practice or drill. They also will be drawn to his personality and see that his positivity is genuine. He will hold everyone accountable and he will expect to win.

“Jack Ramsay said once that every player he had ever come into contact with wants organization and discipline,” said O’Brien, referring to the Hall of Fame basketball coach. “And I think they do. But when that organization and discipline and plan comes from a guy that really is ultra-respectful to other human beings, it’s a great combination.”

Doug Haller

"What does Frank Vogel bring to the Suns? His former Pacers give a glimpse," The Athletic. June 21, 2023

open-source change management

Open-source change management embraces employees as active participants in change planning and implementation. It requires three shifts in thinking:

• Involve employees in decision-making. This isn’t about allowing employees to vote on every change; it means finding ways to infuse the voice of those most impacted into your planning. Gartner research has found that this step alone can increase your change success by 15%. It makes change management a meritocracy, where you increase the odds that the best ideas and inputs are included in decision-making.
• Shift implementation planning to employees. Leaders often don’t have enough visibility into the daily workflows of their teams to dictate a successful change approach. And leaving the workforce out of change implementation can increase resistance and failure. Gartner research has found that when employees own implementation planning, change success increases by 24%.
• Engage in two-way conversations throughout the change process. Instead of focusing on how you’ll sell the change to employees, think of communications as a way to surface employee reactions. Holding regular, honest conversations about the change will allow employees to share their questions and opinions, which will drive understanding and make them feel like they’re part of the commitment to change. Gartner research has found that this step can increase change success by 32%.

Cian O Morain and Peter Aykens

"Employees Are Losing Patience with Change Initiatives," Harvard Business Review. May 9, 2023

change happens

In any business environment, change happens.

Let’s rephrase: In any business environment, change should happen. It shows you're committed to the kind of growth and evolution it takes to stay modern, relevant, and competitive.

Countless factors make change inevitable. Think of technological advancements, globalization, cultural shifts, and shifting economies. And since nobody's corporate goals include falling behind or growing stale, embracing change is a must.

But what kind of change are we talking about here? Change can include things like:

• Introducing new software or updating marketing practices
• Updated business processes
• A full-on restructuring
• Leadership changes
• Updated thinking
• Budget constraints
• Shifts in strategy

These all fall under the umbrella of organizational change. If you’re already on board with shaking things up, you’re ahead of the game. And you're not alone.

According to Gartner, 99% of all organizations have undergone a major organizational change in the last three years. But big or small, change doesn't happen naturally. Therefore, effective change requires a clear action plan.

Emily Smith

"7 Organizational Change Management Frameworks That Stick," Remesh Blog. October 10, 2021

volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous

Since the end of the Cold War, the military has used the acronym VUCA to describe our global environment: one that is volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous. In response to this new normal, the military has developed several approaches we can apply to make it easier to do what matters on our own everyday battlegrounds.

One is captured in the military mantra "Slow is smooth. Smooth is fast" - meaning, when you go slow, things are smoother, and when things are smooth, you can move faster. This is particularly true in conflicts where the ability to move in a coordinated fashion while staying alert to possible threats from every direction - and often while carrying weapons - is key. If you stop or move too slowly, you become an easy target. "but if you move too fast, you get surrounded and outflanked," as consultant Joe Indvik writes.

Indvik continues, "If you look closely at how elite infantry move, it looks like this: somewhere between a walk and a run, underscored by quick but careful footfalls, with weapons raised while rhythmically scanning the battlefield in all directions."

Less experienced infantry, he says, "will often zealously sprint into battle and give the impression of momentum." The problem with this approach is that as soon as they are in danger they will have to sprint to take cover at the first chance they get, and may end up in a place they haven't had time to survey or assess.... "Like the proverbial hare, this cycle of sprint-and-recover may seem fast in the moment, but long-term progress through the environment is slow and plagued by unidentified threats."

When you go slow, things are smoother. You have time to observe, to plan, to coordinate efforts. But go too slow and you may get stuck or lose your momentum. This is just as true in life and work as it is on the battlefield. To make progress despite the complexity and uncertainty we encounter on a daily basis, we need to choose the right range and keep within it.

Greg McKeown

Effortless: Make it Easier to do what Matters Most. By Greg McKeown. Random House. 2021. p. 139, 140. See also "Slow is Smooth, Smooth is Fast: What SEAL and Delta Force operators can teach us about management" by Joe Indvik.

get busy with the present

If the daily grind is wearing you down and you worry you’ve been in the same job too long, spare a thought for 100-year-old Walter Orthmann, who’s been at the same company a record-breaking 84 years. 

Guinness World Records Ltd. announced that the Brazilian sales manager holds the official record for the “longest career in the same company” after verifying in January that he’d been with the same textile firm for more than eight decades.

The centenarian began working as a shipping assistant at Industrias Renaux SA, now named RenauxView, a year before the outbreak of World War Two, when he was just 15 years old. He was quickly promoted to a position in sales, an area where he remains to this day. 

For a little context, the median number of years that U.S. workers had been with their current employer in 2020 stood at 4.1, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. 

So what’s the secret of Orthmann’s exceptional career? 

“I don’t do much planning, nor care much about tomorrow. All I care about is that tomorrow will be another day in which I will wake up, get up, exercise and go to work,” Guinness quoted him as saying. 

“You need to get busy with the present, not the past or the future.”

De Wei Dexter Low

"This Manager Sets Record by Working for Same Company for 84 Years," Bloomberg. May 4, 2022

preparation

Preparation, I have often said, is rightly two-thirds of any venture.

Amelia Earhart

Last Flight

The World's Foremost Woman Aviator Recounts, in Her Own Words, Her Last, Fateful Flight. Crown Publisher. 2009. As found in 2022 Great Quotes From Great Leaders Boxed Calendar: 365 Inspirational Quotes From Leaders Who Shaped the World. 

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

having a plan counts for nothing

Having a plan counts for nothing unless those above you are made confident that you can execute. As the leader, you maintain communications connectivity up, not just down. 

Jim Mattis

MATTIS, J. (2019). CALL SIGN CHAOS: Learning to lead. S.l.: RANDOM HOUSE. 62

we don’t eat it all; we don’t plant it all

“We don’t eat it all; we don’t plant it all.”

I Am the Grand Canyon: The Story of the Havasupai People by Stephen Hirst. Grand Canyon Association. 2007. p. 50

Note: In the past, the Havasupai grew their corn in the canyon and then, in the winter, moved up to the plateau to live and ranch. Corn is carried with them for food. The corn may be stored in three chambers: that in the first is eaten during the winter, that of the second during the spring planting period, and of the third, only a little may be eaten, not all. This remainder is saved against the contingency of flood, etc.

go slow to go fast

Leaders should borrow an important concept from the project management world: Go slow to go fast. There is often a rush to dive in at the beginning of a project, to start getting things done quickly and to feel a sense of accomplishment. This desire backfires when stakeholders are overlooked, plans are not validated, and critical conversations are ignored. Instead, project managers are advised to go slow — to do the work needed up front to develop momentum and gain speed later in the project.

The same idea helps reframe notions about how to lead organizational change successfully. Instead of doing the conceptual work quickly and alone, leaders must slow down the initial planning stages, resist the temptation and endorphin rush of being a “heroic” leader solving the problem, and engage people in frank conversations about the trade-offs involved in change. This does not have to take long — even just a few days or weeks. The key is to build the capacity to think together and to get underlying assumptions out in the open.

Maya Townsend and Elizabeth Doty

"The road to successful change is lined with trade-offs," strategy+business. November 2, 2020.

beware of optimism bias

Beware of optimism bias: the expectation that the best possible outcome will emerge. This accounts for why divorce rates in the western world are around 40 percent, yet when you ask newlyweds to rate their likelihood of divorce they are most likely to put it at 0 percent…. It also explains why, as our colleagues Chris Bradley, Martin Hirt, and Sven Smit describe, “One of the most emblematic outputs of the dreaded strategic-planning process is the ‘hockey stick’ forecast – the line that sails upwards on the graph after a brief early dip to account for up-front investment. These hockey sticks, confidently presented by executives pitching their new strategy, are easy to draw but they don’t score many goals. What tends to happen in reality is that the strategy fails to meet the bold aspirations and is replaced by a new one. 

Being aware of such biases doesn’t help one avoid them. As Dan Ariely, one of the foremost thinkers in the field, declares, “I am just as bad myself at making decisions as everyone else I write about.” Fortunately, however, there are a number of proven and practical tools to minimize biases in decision-making. These include, among others, the following: the “pre-mortem” (generating a list of potential causes for failure of a recommendation and working backward to rectify them before they happen); “red team-blue team” (assigning one person/group to argue for, and one to argue against, a decision); “clean-sheet redesign” (developing a system from only a set of requirements, free from considerations related to current investments or path); and “vanishing options” (taking the preferred option off the table and asking, “What would we do now?”). Importantly, simply ensuring you are engaging a diverse team in decision-making will reap significant rewards – which research reveals can improve decision-making quality by more than 50 percent.

Scott Keller and Bill Schaninger

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

iterative trial and error

While the process was difficult and time consuming, Pete and his crew never believed that a failed approach meant that they had failed. Instead, they saw that each idea led them a bit closer to finding the better option. And that allowed them to come to work each day engaged and excited, even while in the midst of confusion. This is key: When experimentation is seen as necessary and productive, not as a frustrating waste of time, people will enjoy their work – even when it is confounding them. 

The principle I’m describing here – iterative trial and error – has long-recognized value in science. When scientists have a question, they construct hypotheses, test them, analyze them, and draw conclusions – and then they do it all over again. The reasoning behind this is simple: Experiments are fact-finding missions that, over time, inch scientists toward greater understanding. That means any outcome is a good outcome, because it yields new information. If your experiment proved your initial theory wrong, better to know it sooner rather than later. Armed with new facts, you can then reframe whatever question you’re asking....

There is an alternative approach to being wrong as fast as you can. It is the notion that if you carefully think everything through, if you are meticulous and plan well and consider all possible outcomes, you are more likely to create a lasting product. But I should caution that if you seek to plot out all your moves before you make them – if you put your faith in slow, deliberative planning in the hopes it will spare you failure down the line – well, you’re deluding yourself. For one thing, it’s easier to plan derivative work – things that copy or repeat something already out there. So if your primary goal is to have a fully worked out, set-in-stone plan, you are only upping your chances of being unoriginal. Moreover, you cannot plan your way out of problems. While planning is very important, and we do a lot of it, there is only so much you can control in a creative environment. In general, I have found that people who pour their energy into thinking about an approach and insisting that it is too early to act are wrong just as often as people who dive in and work quickly. The overplanners just take longer to be wrong (and, when things inevitably go awry, are more crushed by the feeling that they have failed).  There’s a corollary to this, as well: The more time you spend mapping out an approach, the more likely you are to get attached to it. The nonworking idea gets worn into your brain, like a rut in the mud, It can be difficult to get free of it and head in a different direction. Which, more often than not, is exactly what you must do.

Ed Catmull

Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration. Random House 2014.

better than a perfect plan

General George S. Patton

When you think about it, all business activity really comes down to two simple things: Making decisions and executing on decisions. Your success depends on your ability to develop speed as a habit in both....

A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan next week.

General George Patton said that, and I definitely subscribe to it. Do you remember the last time you were in a meeting and someone said, “We’re going to make this decision before we leave the room”? How great did that feel? Didn’t you just want to hug that person?

The process of making and remaking decisions wastes an insane amount of time at companies. The key takeaway: WHEN a decision is made is much more important than WHAT decision is made.

If, by way of habit, you consistently begin every decision-making process by considering how much time and effort that decision is worth, who needs to have input, and when you’ll have an answer, you'll have developed the first important muscle for speed.

This isn’t to say all decisions should be made quickly. Some decisions are more complicated or critical than others. It might behoove you to wait for more information. Some decisions can’t be easily reversed or would be too damaging if you choose poorly. Most importantly, some decisions don’t need to be made immediately to maintain downstream velocity.

Deciding on when a decision will be made from the start is a profound, powerful change that will speed everything up. In my many years at Google, I saw Eric Schmidt use this approach to decision-making on a regular basis — probably without even thinking about it. Because founders Larry and Sergey were (and are) very strong-minded leaders involved in every major decision, Eric knew he couldn’t make huge unilateral choices. This could have stalled a lot of things, but Eric made sure that decisions were made on a specific timeframe — a realistic one — but a firm one. He made this a habit for himself and it made a world of difference for Google.


Dave Girouard
"Speed as a Habit." First Round Review. 7/21/2015

prepare organizations for change

[Leaders] don’t make plans; they don’t solve problems’ they don’t even organize people. What leaders really do is prepare organizations for change and help them cope as they struggle through it.

John P. Kotter

What Leaders Really Do. Harvard Business Review. December 2001.

long term planning

One of the most frequent mistakes that overmanaged and underled corporations make is to embrace long-term planning as a panacea for their lack of direction and inability to adapt to an increasingly competitive and dynamic business environment. But such an approach misinterprets the nature of direction setting and can never work. 

Long-term planning is always time consuming. Whenever something unexpected happens, plans have to be redone. In a dynamic business environment, the unexpected often becomes the norm, and long-term planning can become an extraordinarily burdensome activity. That is why most successful corporations limit the time frame of their planning activities. Indeed, some even consider "long-term planning" a contradiction in terms.

John P. Kotter
“What Leaders Really Do.” Harvard Business Review. 1990.

managing vs. leading

Companies manage complexity first by planning and budgeting-setting targets or goals for the future (typically for the next month or year),establishing detailed steps for achieving those targets, and then allocating resources to accomplish those plans. By contrast, leading an organization to constructive change begins by setting a direction - developing a vision ofthe future (often the distant future) along with strategies for producing the changes needed to achieve that vision.

Management develops the capacity to achieve its plan by organizing and staffing-creating an organizational structure and set of jobs for accomplishing plan requirements, staffing the jobs with qualified individuals, communicating the plan to those people, delegating responsibility for carrying out the plan, and devising systems to monitor implementation. The equivalent leadership activity, however, is aligning people. This means communicating the new direction to those who can create coalitions that understand the vision and are committed to its achievement.

Finally, management ensures plan accomplishment by controlling and problem solving – monitoring results versus the plan in some detail, both formally and informally, by means of reports, meetings, and other tools; identifying deviations; and then planning and organizing to solve the problems. But for leadership, achieving a vision requires motivating and inspiring – keeping people moving in the right direction, despite major obstacles to change, by appealing to basic but often untapped human needs, values, and emotions.

John P. Kotter
“What Leaders Really Do.” Harvard Business Review. 1990.

reasons why change efforts typically fail

1. People leading the change think that announcing the change is the same as implementing it.

2. People’s concerns with change are not surfaced or addressed.

3. Those being asked to change are not involved in planning the change.

4. There is no compelling reason to change. The business case is not communicated.

5. A compelling vision that excites people about the future has not been developed and communicated.

6. The change leadership team does not include early adopters, resisters, or informal leaders.

7. The change is not piloted, so the organization does not learn what is needed to support the change.

8. Organizational systems and other initiatives are not aligned with the change.

9. Leaders lose focus or fail to prioritize, causing “death by 1,000 initiatives.”

10. People are not enabled or encouraged to build new skills.

11. Those leading the change are not credible. They undercommunicate, give mixed messages, and do not model the behaviors the change requires.

12. Progress is not measured, and/or no one recognizes the changes that people have worked hard to make.

13. People are not held accountable for implementing the change.

14. People leading the change fail to respect the power of the culture to kill the change.

15. Possibilities and options are not explored before a specific change is chose.

When most people see this list, their reaction depends on whether they have usually been the target of change or the change agent. Targets of change frequently feel as though we have been studying their organization for years, because they have seen these reasons why change fails in action, up close and personal. The reality is that while every organization is unique in some ways, they often struggle with change for the same reasons.

When change agents look at this list, they get discouraged, because they realize how complicated implementing change can be and how many different things can go wrong. Where should they start? Which of the fifteen reasons why change fails should they concentrate on?

Over the years it has been our experience that if leaders can understand and overcome the first three reasons why change typically fails, they are on the road to being effective leaders of change.

Ken Blanchard

Leading at a Higher Level: Blanchard on Leadership and Creating High Performing Organizations. FT Press. 2010.

let the sparks fly

One of the biggest stumbling blocks for anyone trying to accomplish something is perfectionism—the need to get it exactly right before taking the next step. But the best leaders realize that perfection is impossible, and pursuing perfection often stands in the way of what's most important: progress. Leadership requires making consistent strides, no matter how big. And the quicker the stride, the greater the progress.

Don’t buy into the notion that you can take a giant leap if you spend enough time carefully mapping it out. By the time you get done planning, others will have lapped you twice and already taken that leap you spent months mulling over. Opt instead to "just go" and let the sparks fly. You will make mistakes. But in the process, you'll learn quickly and keep moving—refining your skills and igniting new levels of creativity you didn’t know you had.

Erik Wahl

"5 Traits of Creative Leaders (and how to become one)." Fast Company. 8/17/2015