When we seek to help people connect with the path forward, we need to engage them in the change process. The quickest way to do this is to create a series of planned short-term wins, because they generate credibility for long term efforts. John Kotter in his seminal book, Leading Change (Harvard Business School Press, 1996) writes that “a good short-term win has at least three characteristics.” First, “It’s visible; large numbers of people can see for themselves whether the result is real or just hype.” Second, “It’s unambiguous; there can be little argument over the call.” Third, “It’s clearly related to the change effort.”
Upon reflection, I think we can build on Kotter’s insight by re-reading the following book: Sutton, Robert I and Huggy Rao. Scaling Up Excellence: Getting To More Without Settling For Less (Crown Business, 2014). As they write, when big organizations scale well, they focus on “moving a thousand people forward a foot at a time, rather than moving one person forward by a thousand feet.” They achieve this success by doing the following two actions. First, they “spread a mindset, not just a footprint.” Our challenge in helping people connect with a path forward that is unclear is to figure out the mindset in advance before focusing on generating multiple short term wins.
Second, Sutton and Rao remind us that “scaling requires addition and subtraction.” The problem of more is also a problem of less. Therefore, we as leaders need to deal with those problem people before they spread toxicity as we move forward to execute a series of planned short term wins.
A major insight from the book, Scaling Up Excellence, comes later in the book when the authors state that in order “to spread excellence, you need to have some excellence to spread.” This has multiple implications on so many levels, but when it comes to having people connect and move forward the goal of a planned short term win is to create pockets of excellence upon which you can build and scale change.
As we plan and create a series of short term wins, we have to do some serious work ourselves, namely we need to embody the change. For me, the first and only step to embodying change involves in-depth studying and learning. This is more than reading one book and calling it done. This involves reading and studying a subject, and then entering into dialogue to gain greater depth of understanding.
A wonderful example of this concept took place not too long ago when one of my clients realized that he did not fully understand the concept of white fragility. He knew he needed to grasp how this and other social justice issues were playing out on his team and within the workforce. So, he dedicated 5 hours a week listening to podcasts and forums plus reading articles and books on the subject. Next, he visited with people so that he could move from unaware to aware and hopefully over time to a better understanding. As he said to me, “my goal is to learn about the blind spots in my life” when it comes to issues around race and social injustice.
As Herminia Ibarra in her book, Act Like A Leader, Think Like A Leader (Harvard Business Review Press, 2015), writes “Sustainable change in your leadership capacity requires shifts in three areas: finding new ways of doing your work/your job; expanding your network through new relationships; connecting to and engaging with people.”
The path forward may not be clear right now, but we can be clear about the choices we are making to help people move forward. Generating planned short term wins and embodying the desired changes are good first steps in the journey.
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