Create And Maintain Pockets Of Excellence Within Change
When people call me about wanting to make changes happen within their organization, the word “excellence” often comes up in the conversation. In particular, these leaders and change agents want to achieve a new level of excellence. They want to be the best at what they do.
During such visits by phone or in-person, I routinely share two insights about the idea of excellence that others have not thought about in advance of making changes take place. The first insight revolves around the following quote by Robert 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.”
What many leaders do not understand is that when an individual, team or department achieves a new level of performance, i.e. what is often termed as excellence, they are going to run into conflict with the normal operating systems or SOP within the company. We must remember that most systems are designed to achieve a series of regular outcomes and to control a variety of variables. Furthermore, when a new level of excellence is achieved, those involved have more likely changed the inputs to the system, changed the actual system, or focused on new or different outcomes. And as a result of these actions, they have moved to a new level of performance.
However, systems, and at times the creators or owners of these systems, will react to this “disruptive” outcome. They will define this level of excellence as a source of disequilibrium or even chaos. They will want to restore order and protect the system, and ultimately themselves, from the pain and work of adapting to a new level of excellence. In short, the system will make it difficult to sustain a new level of excellence and try to make the new outcome a “one and done” in order to return to “normal.”
The second insight about excellence comes Robert Sutton and Huggy Rao in their book, Scaling Up Excellence: Getting To More Without Settling For Less (Crown Business, 2014). As they write, “To spread excellence, you need to have some excellence to spread.” While this may seem like a Captain Obvious statement, referencing again the work of Tom Peters, you will be surprised by how many leaders and change agents do not grasp the magnitude of this insight.
First, most organizations do not have a pocket of excellence to build upon or any examples of excellence at the operational levels to build upon. They, instead, seem to believe that excellence will just overtake the entire organization like a virus upon the introduction of a new strategic plan. They also assume that all involved will instantly change their behaviors and their mindset about current ways of working in order to embrace the “new” idea of excellence. They also forget that most people, who are working each and every day within the business, more likely believe they are doing good work, if not excellent work. Therefore, to be told we are seeking a “new level of excellence” is framed up as a criticism of their current level of work by those who are doing the actual day to day work.
Second, when it comes to the idea of spreading excellence, people want to see the new model actually work before they commit to the in-depth work of changing their daily routines and embracing a new way of working. Time and time again as a consultant, I have sat in meetings where a new level of excellence has been achieved by a particular group, and listened to the dialogue between these people and others who need to move in that direction. Rather than the leaders and change agents leading the process, the front line supervisors and their staff step up and explain what they did and how they did it. They respond to the questions and give accurate, realistic and specific answers. There is no corporate fluff and fancy words, just honest answers to complex questions.
It all reminds me of a saying I heard years ago when working with nursing leadership within hospitals who were seeking better and more holistic patient care. As they told me, “a native talks to a native differently than they talk to a tourist.” For example, a newly diagnosed patient with cancer will share different things with another cancer patient rather than with their doctor or nurse. This is the reason why doctors and nurses strongly advocate for people in a health crisis to become part of a support group. Here, they will meet other “natives” and learn more about the whole journey, not just the specifics related to their treatment plan.
In summary, I get why leaders and change agents want to create a new level of excellence within their organization. This can be generated by external factors and internal realizations about the need of their organization to adapt to the changing trends within the market place. Still, before they embark on a journey to a new level of excellence, all involved should pause and reflect on whether or not there is “some excellence to spread,” and whether or not the systems within the company will support this spreading or alter and begin to routinize these efforts in order to make things “normal” again.
Celebrate Planned Short term Wins
As leaders and change agents begin to comprehend the role of excellence within organizational change, they often move into the development and execution of SMART goals. The first thing we need to understand is that the word goal means so many different things to so many different people. There is rarely consensus on the meaning of this term. And when there is no common language, as I pointed out earlier, we end up swirling the Tower of Babel, wondering why we are not achieving great outcomes.
Second, when I have gotten called in as a consultant to figure out why change is not working, it always comes down to the SMART goal not being very smart. They tend to be binary in nature, i.e. as in done vs. not done. They also do not generate a series of planned, short term wins.
John Kotter, in his seminal work, Leading Change (Harvard Business School Press, 1996) notes that short-term wins create credibility for long term efforts. As he explains, “A good short-term win has at least three characteristics: It’s visible; large numbers of people can see for themselves whether the result is real or just hype; It’s unambiguous; there can be little argument over the call; It’s clearly related to the change effort.”
As he continues in his book, The Heart of Change: Real-Life Stories of How People Change Their Organizations (Harvard Business School Press, 2002), when we produce sufficient short term wins, sufficiently fast, we “energize the change helpers, enlighten the pessimists, defuse the cynics, and build momentum for the effort.” One critical element to doing this is for the planned short term wins to come early and fast plus be as “visible as possible to as many people as possible” and “penetrate emotional defenses by being unambiguous.” Furthermore, when these planned short term wins are meaningful to others, they “speak to powerful players whose support you need and do not have yet.”
Recognizing Kotter’s expertise in this area, I want to add three things from my own experience as it pertains to this subject. First, for someone to be successful in creating and executing a goal that generates a series of planned short term wins, those involved need to understand why this is the goal and what difference achieving it will make. This is not very common in the process of creating goals.
Second, ownership of the goal is very important. This is equally rare because ownership only happens if there is a safe space for ownership to take place. We, as leaders and change agents, forget that achieving a goal requires us to step outside our comfort zone. And the first thing we often feel is uncomfortable and incompetent when we are outside our comfort zone. Now, that is a loosing combination of feelings! Therefore, we must create safe space during the goal creation process in order for ownership to be developed.
Finally, we need to think of the whole goal setting and execution process as a four stage process rather than just a two stage process. Those four stages are the following: preparing to set a goal, setting a goal, executing a goal, and evaluating a goal. When we generate planned short term wins during the execution stage and later evaluate them as they pertain to the overall strategic plan for change, we strengthen the ownership of the changes and the capacity to create future changes as the market continues to evolve. In short, creating planned short term wins and then celebrating them is mission-critical to short and long term change.
Build On Strengths
“If you want to turn talent into performance,” explains Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman in their groundbreaking book called First, Break All The Rules: What The World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently. (Simon & Schuster, 1999), “you have to position each person so that you are paying her to do what she is naturally wired to do. You have to cast her in the right role.” This begins when leaders and managers choose to not eradicate people's uniqueness. Instead, they build on it. As they further explain, “People don’t change that much. Don’t waste time trying to put in what was left out. Try to draw out what was left in. That is hard enough.”
Margaret Wheatley in her book, Turning To One Another: simple conversations to restore hope to the future (Berret-Koehler, 2001) understands this point about building on strengths, but adds an important insight. As she writes, “But I alone can’t ask to be seen fully for who I am and my unique value. If I want you to acknowledge my gifts, I have to be curious about yours. I have a responsibility to look for and honor yours. We create enough space for our own self-expression only by inviting in everybody else’s uniqueness.”
She further expands our understanding of building on strengths when she notes, “Whenever we get past categories, and stereotypes, when we greet each other as interesting individuals, we are always surprised by who we are. I’m sure you’ve had the experience of stereotyping someone because of their appearance, and then being surprised when they didn’t fit that judgement…. Bernie Glassman, co-founder of the Zen Peacemaker Order, says the only thing we have in common is our differences. When we understand that, he says, we discover our oneness.”
For leaders and managers to be successful during organizational change, we need to teach and coach others on how to avoid eradicating uniqueness in their people and teams plus help them to see the best in people. This will begin when we no longer accept stereotypes and instead focus on the unique value each and every person brings to work, and to society as a whole.
With this foundation of building on strengths, trust will build in and among the people involved in change as well as with those in management and leadership positions. And this is a major step to making the desired changes sustainable over time.
Translate Vision Into Reality
"People underestimate their capacity for change,” writes John Porter. “There is never a right time to do a difficult thing. A leader's job is to help people have vision of their potential.” And the most challenging element of helping people to have vision of their potential is to translate that vision into a picture which they can carry with them each and every day.
This work of translating vision into reality may sound simple, but it is not easy. It takes discipline and focus. It is based on the brilliant insight that William Bridges wrote many years ago: “The picture in people’s head is the reality they live in…” And our job as leaders and change agents is to paint a better and more complete picture. Rather than talking about “here is the work you need to do,” we need to paint the picture of “here are the outcomes of the work you are doing the work.” Again, the picture inside people’s head matters.
Being a leader and a change agent is a complex journey in the world of organizational change. When you start with yourself and do your own homework, plus build common language with others, you create the capacity for a new beginning. When you understand that co-creation yields co-ownership and later co-evolution, then you can sell the problems and as a result create and maintain pockets of excellence within the larger change cycle. Finally, when you celebrate planned short term wins and remind all leaders and managers to build on the strengths and uniqueness of all involved, then you have created to potential to be successful in the short and the long term.
As an old Irish proverb states, “A good beginning is half the work.” With thoughtful and careful preparation, organizational change is possible, and you as a leader and change agent can be successful. Start by creating a good beginning and be mindful as the journey unfolds before you.
© Geery Howe 2022
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