Monday, November 30, 2009

Dealing With Resistance: The Constant Struggle - part #1

THEME: Fall 2009 From Vision to Action Executive Roundtable Report

FOCUS: Dealing With Resistance: The Constant Struggle - part #1


Monday morning: November 30, 2009


Dear friends,


Last week, I shared the following quote by Robert E. Quinn: “Excellence is a form of deviance. If you perform beyond the norms, you disrupt all the existing control systems. Those systems will then alter and begin to work to routinize your efforts. That is, the systems will adjust to try to make you normal.”


Right now, many people in many different organizations are feeling the pressure to be “normal.” Exploring new ideas and new ways of working outside the box are not always welcome during tumultuous times. People seek order and predictability when they are in a continued period of instability.


When we push change or excellence, we, at times, encounter resistance. Realizing that people do not resist change as much as loss of control, we come to understand that what people are resisting is the loss of identity, values and self-worth that comes when orderly and predictable systems and patterns of work are changed.


There are days when we as leaders get so wrapped up in our work that we forget that change is a process, not an event. Gene E. Hall and Shirley M. Hord in their book, Implementing Change: Patterns, Principles, and Potholes, Allyn & Bacon, 2005, note that there are significant differences between the development and the implementation of change. An organization does not change until the individuals within it change. Therefore, facilitating change needs to be a team effort.


Every week, I meet leaders and organizations that are not prepared for resistance. As I mentioned before, people don’t resist change. They resist the loss of control and/or identity, and the pain that comes with this loss. But too many times, when encountering resistance, we as leaders focus on attitude when in reality those we are working with may need new knowledge, skills, and support .


Recently, Kevin Cashman in his book, Leadership From The Inside Out: Becoming a Leader for Life, Berrett-Koehler, 2008, reported that the Saratoga Institute did research on poor interpersonal skills. After interviewing 19,700 exiting employees and their bosses, they discovered that 85% of bosses said that former employees left for more compensation and opportunity. On the other hand, 80% of the exiting employees said they left because of poor relationship, poor development and poor coaching from the boss. It is important that we as leaders recognize that resistance starts with the health of the relationship between a leader and a follower. Unhealthy relationships increase the potential for resistance.


Therefore, I encourage leaders to expect resistance. As Jeffery D. Ford and Laurie W. Ford, in their article, “Decoding Resistance to Change”, Harvard Business Review, April 2009, point out, “Resistance is, in fact, a form of feedback, often provided by people who know more about day-to-day operations than you do.” As they continue, “Dismissing the feedback deprives you of potentially valuable information, costs you goodwill, and jeopardizes important relationships.”


This week, I encourage you to discuss the subject of resistance and loss, plus practice receiving feedback.


Have a marvelous week,


Geery


Geery Howe, M.A.
Consultant, Executive Coach, Trainer in
Leadership, Strategic Planning and Organizational Change

Morning Star Associates
319 - 643 - 2257

Monday, November 23, 2009

Achieving Consistent Execution: The Essence of Success

THEME: Fall 2009 From Vision to Action Executive Roundtable Report

FOCUS: Achieving Consistent Execution: The Essence of Success


Monday morning: November 23, 2009


Dear friends,


Every day customers experience multiple moments of truth. The first happens when they choose a good or service from an organization. At this point, the process of making the decision and the actual purchase is based on perception, marketing, and/or past experience. The second happens when they actually utilize the good or service. Here, the customer has an expectation and the question is whether or not this expectation is fulfilled or unfulfilled through the process of using the good or service. Finally, the third moment of truth is when the customer reflects on whether or not the good or service lived up to its brand promise and/or their expectations. Depending on the good or service, how employees work with the customer also has a big impact on these moments of truth.


If we are seeking consistent execution on the employee side of the formula, then we, as leaders, need to do four things. First, we must create a micro-climate for consistent execution. Second, we need to engage employees within this environment. Third, we must enable the whole organization to support execution, i.e. create a macro-climate for consistent execution. Fourth, we need to implement and maintain the use of operational metrics and a productivity improvement system to make their execution better.


When we create a micro-climate for consistent execution, we need to remember that all organizations have a macro level of culture and a micro level of culture. We forget some times that the micro culture always trumps the macro culture just like status quo always trumps strategic change.


Furthermore, we need to remember the words of Robert E. Quinn who wrote: “Excellence is a form of deviance. If you perform beyond the norms, you disrupt all the existing control systems. Those systems will then alter and begin to work to routinize your efforts. That is, the systems will adjust to try to make you normal.”


Ronald Heifetz, Alexander Grashow, and Marty Linsky in their new book, The Practice of Adaptive Leadership: Tools and Tactics for Changing Your Organization and the World, Harvard Business Press, 2009, note that “status quo functions elegantly to solve a stream of problems and opportunities for which it has already evolved.” However, they continue, “overtime, the [micro] culture ... becomes deeply ingrained, self-reinforcing and very difficult to reshape.”


Characteristics of a healthy micro-climate include the ability to engage in crucial conversations, focus on the achievement of collective results, the recognition that the responsibility for the organization’s future is shared, and the institutionalization of reflection time and continuos learning.


To grow this kind of work environment, leaders need to hold more strategic dialogues and stop under-communicating who we are?, what we believe?, where we are going?, and how we are going to get there? Furthermore, in order to engage employees within this environment, we need to remember the advice and counsel of Marcus Buckingham in his book, The One Thing You Need to Know ... About Great Managing, Great Leading, and Sustained Individual Success, Free Press, 2005, who wrote: “To excel as a manager you must never forget that each of your direct reports is unique and that your chief responsibility is not to eradicate this uniqueness, but rather to arrange roles, responsibilities, and expectations so that you can capitalize upon it. The more you perfect this skill, the more effectively you will turn talents into performance.” This translates into clarifying expectations and making sure people have the materials and equipment they need to do their work right. It also means employees receive recognition or praise for good work, and have a supervisor, or someone at work, who seems to care about them as a person, and encourages their development.


When we seek to engage the whole organization to support execution at both the micro and macro levels, we must realize that in the end, it all comes back to the micro-climate. This week, first focus on improving the health of the relationships between the managers and their direct reports, and second continue to building healthy teams.


Have wonderful week,


Geery


Geery Howe, M.A.
Consultant, Executive Coach, Trainer in
Leadership, Strategic Planning and Organizational Change

Morning Star Associates
319 - 643 - 2257

Monday, November 16, 2009

Leading Through Complexity: The Core Four Actions - Part #4

THEME: Fall 2009 From Vision to Action Executive Roundtable Report

FOCUS: Leading Through Complexity: The Core Four Actions - Part #4


Monday morning: November 16, 2009


Dear friends,


The last of The Core Four Actions seems simple but it is a complex leadership activity. As it states, “What you provide, activates and energizes.” The first verb, “provide”, focuses on what we supply or make available to those who report to us. To understand what leaders make available, we first need to understand the concepts of “activate” and “energize.”


The word “activate” means to “to set up or formally institute (as in a military unit) with the necessary personnel and equipment.” I like to think of this in the context of making sure you have the right people with the right equipment working on the right problems. Think Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman in their book, First, Break All The Rules: What The World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently, Simon & Schuster, 1999, where they explain the importance of matching talent with opportunity.


The word “energize” means “to put forth energy” or “to make energetic, vigorous, or active.” When we dig deeper into this concept, an important clue to it’s meaning is found in the definition of “vigorous” which means “to make strong.” When something is energized, it is made stronger and often with this increased strength comes an intensity of feeling and commitment.


So when implementing the fourth of the The Core Four Actions, many leaders think about creating SMART goals, realistic timelines, short term wins, functional and cohesive teams, empowered people, and continued talent development. Everyone of these is mission critical to short and long term success but they only deal with the surface. When leading through complexity, there needs to be more.


First, with complexity comes confusion. Therefore, successful leaders create clarity around what is our competitive advantage. They recognize that customers choose us for a reason. They delve deeply into this reason and make sure all know it and remember it when days are full and busy.


Second, with complexity comes overload. Therefore, they prioritize work and clarify who is responsible for what and by when it needs to get done. The combination of these two factors limits confusion and reinforces the focus on factors that make a difference.


Third, with complexity comes arrogance and hysteria. Some people tend to down play the difficulties and think it is no big deal while others go nuts and blow everything out of proportion. Therefore, leaders provide opportunities for in-depth strategic dialogue where they do not shy away from constructive ideological debates and conflict. This level of communication strengthens the organization and helps it to avoid the “hubris born of success”, a term from Jim Collin’s recent book, How The Mighty Fall and Why Some Companies Never Give In, HarperCollins, 2009.


Finally, with complexity comes sloppiness. Working outside their comfort zone due to complexity, some people do not always get everything done or done well. Poor leaders let this slip by and do not take notice. Exceptional leaders provide a structure so that all are held accountable for their behaviors and actions. This is very important because it does not let a precedent get set which could end up becoming a cultural norm.


When we as leaders embrace the fourth of The Core Four Action, namely “what you provide, activates and energizes”, we are position the organization for sustainability in the midst of complexity.


This week reflect on what you provide different groups of people and the organization as a whole. Does it activate and energize?


Have a fantastic week,


Geery


Geery Howe, M.A.
Consultant, Executive Coach, Trainer in
Leadership, Strategic Planning and Organizational Change

Morning Star Associates
319 - 643 - 2257

Monday, November 9, 2009

Leading Through Complexity: The Core Four Actions - Part #3

THEME: Fall 2009 From Vision to Action Executive Roundtable Report

FOCUS: Leading Through Complexity: The Core Four Actions - Part #3


Monday morning: November 9, 2009


Dear friends,


The third of the The Core Four Actions states “What you steward, endures.” For many people, stewardship is the monthly tithe at the church, or the occasional reminder that a good farmer cares for the soil as much as the crops. For some, it is an act of doing nothing about something that is completely intangible.


When we go to the dictionary and look up the word “steward”, it states that stewardship is “a responsibility to take care of something one does not own.” Reading it this morning, I am reminded of what James Belasco and Ralph Stayer wrote in their book, Flight of the Buffalo: Soaring To Excellence, Learning to Let Employees Lead , Time Warner, 1994: “The primary purpose of strategic planning is not to strategically plan for the future, although that's an important purpose of the exercise. It is primarily to develop the strategic management mind-set in each and every individual in the organization. The purpose of the process is not only to produce a plan. It is to produce a plan that will be owned and understood by the people who have to execute it.” One huge learning for leaders who embrace stewardship is for them to recognize that we really do not “own” the organization’s mission, vision, or core values. We are caretakers of them. The same goes, on one level, with the strategy and the strategic plan. We do not own strategy as a possession as much as take care of it and make sure that it is not loss in SOP and tactical execution.


For me, stewardship is a proactive and thoughtful leadership action revolving around the following four words: intention, integration, intensive and interactive. First, successful stewardship is the intentional management of key ideas, systems, and perspective. Too often, senior leaders and midlevel managers forget that having a strategic plan is not executing a strategic plan. The later requires discipline while the former requires patience.


Second, successful stewardship is integral to the development and execution of strategy. Through stewardship, we decide what business we are in and what business we are not in. And this is no small piece of work.


Third, successful stewardship is an intensive act of leadership. Every day, it seems we have to balance our history, our present obligations, our expectations and our challenges plus our future desires, hopes and visions. Every word we as leaders speak and every action we take, or do not take, sets a precedent within the organization and in the community. To balance all of these expectations, we have to consciously manage what is most important, i.e. the strategic nexus.


This leads us to the fourth key point about successful stewardship. It is interactive leadership. Think strategic dialogue. For example, in many no-profits, being successful has been a qualitative measure. If we had a good story to tell, we were successful. With the changes that have taken place in the last number of years, now successful non-profits have to be both qualitative and quantitative. We need to share the stories and the metrics. To do this, we need to engage with staff at all levels, listening and sharing about what is most important, and explaining how we measure our success in this new environment.


This week, remember that stewardship is intentional, integrated, intensive and interactive.


Have a fantastic week,


Geery


Geery Howe, M.A.
Consultant, Executive Coach, Trainer in
Leadership, Strategic Planning and Organizational Change

Morning Star Associates
319 - 643 - 2257

Monday, November 2, 2009

Leading Through Complexity: The Core Four Actions - Part #2

THEME: Fall 2009 From Vision to Action Executive Roundtable Report

FOCUS: Leading Through Complexity: The Core Four Actions - Part #2


Monday morning: November 2, 2009


Dear friends,


It was a simple and yet comfortable office as we sat down together that afternoon in the early 90’s.


“Geery,” he commented. “I know rural heathcare in the midwest is not fancy, but we need a vision. We are dying for a vision.”


We sat quietly for a couple of moments and then he said to me, “We need to become the Embassy Suites of healthcare in our community. We need to deliver individualized service, personalized care, and exceptional medicine.”


I smiled because the birth of a vision is always special. The next afternoon he shared this vision with the executive team and many people agreed. They shared their thoughts about the best hotels they visited and how the quality of the service was critical. They talked about what the words “individualized”, “personal” and “exceptional” meant to them. With time, coaching and guidance, people became engaged, and the vision grew and evolved.


The second of The Core Four Actions states “What you envision, guides.” When we review the Dictionary definition for the word, “envision”, we find the following meanings: “to picture”, “to form in the mind”, “to exercise the powers of judgment, conception, or inference”, and “to have in the mind or call to mind a thought.” This morning I am reminded of a quote by Marcus Buckingham about leadership. As he wrote in his book, The One Thing You Need to Know ... About Great Managing, Great Leading, and Sustained Individual Success, Free Press, 2005: “You must become adept at calling upon those needs we all share. Our common needs include the need for security, for community, for authority, and for respect, but for you, the leader, the most powerful universal need is our need for clarity. To transform our fear of the unknown into confidence in the future, you must discipline yourself to describe our joint future vividly and precisely. As your skill at this grows, so will our confidence in you.”


I also am reminded of something that William Bridges in his book, Managing Transitions, Da Capo Press, 2003, pointed out, i.e. during transitions people need the following:

- The Purpose: the answer to the question “why?”

- The Picture: the look and feel when we reach the goal

- The Plan: the step-by step goals of how we are going to get to the above picture

- The Part: clarity about our role in the process


When confronted with the challenges and complexity of this fall, we as leaders need to generate a picture which will guide us. A good vision, according to Dan Cohen in his book, The Heart of Change Field Guide: Tools and Tactics for Leading Change in Your Organization, Harvard Business School Press, 2005, offers a compelling, motivating picture of the future and serves several important purposes. First, it clarifies the general direction of change by providing a kind of motion picture - a living, dynamic illustration - of the behaviors required for success at all levels. Second, it helps identify the behaviors that must be encouraged as well as those that must be eliminated. Third, a good vision helps pinpoint key performance measures, and motivates people.


Neeli Bendapudi, professor, and Venkat Bendpadudi, senior lecturer at The Ohio State University’s Fischer College of Business in their article “How to Use Language that Employees Get”, September 2009 issue of the Harvard Business Review, write: “In our research on executives who have instilled a great sense of purpose in others, introduced powerful brands, or managed successfully in turbulent times, we’ve found that they often use terms and metaphors that resonate with their employees.” This is the essence of a great vision and the second of the The Core Four Action. When you build a great vision, it resonates with all involved. They not only hear it. They feel it.


This week, begin the process of building a vision that people can utilize. If you need help, please do not hesitate to call. I would be glad to be of assistance.


Have a great week,


Geery


Geery Howe, M.A.
Consultant, Executive Coach, Trainer in
Leadership, Strategic Planning and Organizational Change

Morning Star Associates
319 - 643 - 2257