Alicia McKay's Blog, page 28

Only Fools Rush In

Imagine proposing at the first introduction.

At the Magiq Conference dinner on Monday night, I had attendees do exactly that, by proposing marriage to the person next to them. Unsurprisingly, it was a bit of a leap, even for those who already knew each other!

Engaging people in change is a bit the same.

We can't go straight to total commitment and participation without earning our way along - courting, if you like.

In a time pressured environment, it's easy to rush the part of the change process where you achieve buy in. It’s the bit that gets left off, or condensed, or maybe tacked on at the last minute.

"Wise men say only fools rush in.” – Elvis Presley

I'm the first one to tell you that action matters. But skipping through the parts of the process that get people on your side when you roll out new strategy, programmes, projects is not the ticket - process matters.

Like dating, there’s a process to earn your way through.

First, you need to attract your target's interest, by being appealing and grabbing their attention.

Next, you need to prove the benefits of getting involved – kicking off the honeymoon period. With change, this stage is about understanding key problems and suggesting how you might be able to help.

This zone is absolutely critical for those of us rolling out business-wide change, like new enterprise software.  Deploying a solution before we engage users and deeply understand their needs is one of the leading causes of implementation failure - with two thirds of large-scale digital change ending up a big flop.

Once you have some commitment, your job is to deliver and hold up the promised bargain. You’ve sucked them in, you’re in an exclusive relationship, the honeymoon period is over – it's time to walk the talk. Establish a strong foundation by staying the course and ironing out issues early. 

If you play your cards right, with genuine, deliberate communication at each step - who knows, maybe you'll have real engagement on your hands...

Are you trying to rush in?

Til next week

-A

PS - If you want to learn more about engaging teams in change, you should pop along to my webinar on this at 3pm today!

Can't make it but want to listen anyway? Request a copy of the recorded session

 

All Change Is People Change

I have a theory about change: All change is people change.

Without support, change dies, or it doesn’t get started at all. Without the buy-in from people in your workplace, change doesn’t get out of the idea stage. We end up looped in a cycle of planning, thinking and more planning – but stay trapped in the starting blocks, and don’t see anything actually… happen.

In designing a piece of work with MBIE recently, we got to talking about the Deliverology framework, designed in the UK. Deliverology is a striking and almost embarrassing method for public service transformation. Why is it embarrassing? Because we need it in the first place!

The framework, now applied globally, follows a simple, powerful process to get ideas moving into implementation.

Make no mistake, the need for this initiative is very real. Thanks to shifting priorities, political pressure, difficulty in measuring success and a track record of failure, getting ideas into implementation is no small feat. I’m all about this stuff – I even wrote a book about it! 

As you can imagine, there’s all sorts of theory that sits behind the Deliverology method – implementation requires lots of technical components, like alignment, accountability, resourcing, monitoring and reporting. 

The most powerful and effective piece of the Deliverology puzzle, however, is in the establishment of a ‘delivery unit’ – a small team of people who are focused exclusively on getting key things done and pushing boundaries. Basically, a “Get Shit Done” crew.

This paints an interesting picture. Despite all of our cleverness and thinking, the most important driver to getting things moving is in the people. 

“He aha te mea nui o tea o? He tangata, he tangata, he tangata” – Maori proverb

(What is the most important thing in the world? It is people, it is people, it is people.)

I had a timely reminder of how critical this is, in working with a client just this week. This community-facing unit is part of one of NZ’s largest public organisations, where corporate compliance, process and BAU gobble up ever-increasing amounts of time.

They have a new staff member starting shortly, tasked with changing the way programming is designed and delivered. Their plan? To intentionally keep that person out of key meetings for the first few weeks – basically, keep them totally under the radar - before they get trapped in the wheel! Change by stealth.

Why are they doing this? Because they know the only way to get things moving is to have the right people doing the right stuff – and avoiding the wrong stuff!

The client example above is a best-case scenario – taking someone fresh and keen and letting them loose in the right direction. Most of the time, it’s not that easy. Generally, the people we’re working with come with baggage – history, habits, fears and preferences. Bringing the rest of our team on board with new strategies, tools, policies or structures means tackling those things head on.

Stinks of hard work, doesn’t it? Yeah. But people really are the key – whether you’re pushing boundaries or nudging edges. Despite a fear-inducing article popping up every few months telling us that the robots are going to take all our jobs, right now our efforts depend on the actions of humans. It stands to reason then, that if you can’t get people behind you and shifting in the same direction, you’re not going to get where you’re going.

If you want stuff to happen differently, you need the people that do stuff to change what they’re doing. 

Whether you’re driving technology change, process change, service delivery change, or any other kind of shift, we need people to come on the journey, and we need to make it possible for them to make ideas real. 

Have you neglected the people aspect of change?

Til next week!
-    A

Playing the Long Game

When it comes to parenting, it’s what we do that counts, not what we say. When my two eldest girls reached 7 and 11, I decided it was time to institute a more formal approach to pocket money. The girls selected a few age-appropriate chores, above and beyond their normal expectations, and we negotiated a weekly amount to compensate them for their efforts. 

A few years later, we are at the point where the girls remember their Saturday jobs pretty consistently and do a fairly good job of them. But this wasn’t always the case! It took a few goes for us to get it right.

Apparently, just writing the list and agreeing the pocket money together wasn’t enough for them to develop new habits and do a half decent job of the dusting. (Honestly, HOW DOES THAT LOOK CLEAN TO YOU?!)

I realised after the first couple of frustrating failures that I was being unrealistic in my expectations – if I wanted the kids to take ownership of their new responsibilities, they needed me to support them through teaching, reminders, and monitoring. It’s not a quick win (damn it) but it is something worth taking the time to get right, as they learn more about how to contribute to and run a household, and develop skills that will serve them for the rest of their life. 

“The pessimist complains about the wind. The optimist expects it to change. The leader adjusts the sails.” -John Maxwell 

The lesson? Embedding change and progress takes time and effort.  

Over the last two weeks, I’ve written communicating change to your teams in a way that promotes engagement and creates meaning to build buy-in. The first part of this is the ‘tell’ – the need to provide conviction and clarity about the change you want to see in your organisation and the importance of making it a reality. The second is in the ‘ask’ – asking the right questions to shape meaning and make strategy real.  

The final piece in the puzzle is the largest and considers the need for support – how do we embed longer term change in the way we work and deliver outcomes? 

Change is constant – how many times have you heard that lately? It's a cliche because it's true. Sometimes it feels like we’ve just rolled out something new when the next big thing hits. But when we take our finger off the pulse, and expect things to run smoothly without any additional tweaking or support, change dies.  

Just like I couldn’t expect my girls to just instantly become expert dusters who remembered their chores every week without my input,  we can’t expect our teams to stay the course unless we lead by example and provide consistent support. 

In the spirit of asking better questions, it’s about asking: 

“What’s working?”
“What isn’t working?”
“How can I help you to do this?”  

More importantly, it’s about practising what we preach – if you’re not modelling the importance of doing this stuff and getting it right, why would your people?  

Are you providing the support your teams need?  

Til next week! 

- A 

Ask Better Questions, Get Better Answers

Last week I wrote about the time and place for a more directive leadership style. The leadership pendulum has swung heavily toward facilitative leadership in the last decade or two, favouring a consultative and empowering approach to strategy and change. Despite this, it remains critical, even in 2019, for leaders to be able to provide clear boundaries, direction and expectations in times of change and uncertainty.

For those of you who were deeply uncomfortable with the idea of telling, you’ll be pleased that this week I’m talking about the time to ask.

The thing about asking, though, is that not all questions are created equal.

All too often, I see misdirected or shapeless team or community consultation. Leaders come out with a new strategy or initiative and then ask for ‘feedback’ or include questions like ‘is this right?’ or ‘did we miss anything?’

Here’s my quick thoughts on questions like that:

1.       Going to the effort to tell people about a new direction and then immediately undermine it by asking if it’s right is a bit dumb

2.       If you didn’t engage with parts of your business to develop your priorities and direction in the first place, it’s a bit late now.

Instead, we need to be asking questions that get useful answers and outcomes, and provide clear scope for engagement.

Because when you ask better questions, you get better answers!

I wrote recently about making meaning in the context of letting go – allowing people the autonomy to shape their own version of your reality. Making your thinking meaningful to others is one of the most important steps in driving new behaviours, because, a bit like election promises, strategy and change only starts to appeal when people can understand what it means for their own lives and how it connects to the bigger picture.

“We run this company on questions, not answers.” – Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google

When it comes to change communication, the logic works the same in the other direction as well - feedback for leadership teams is only meaningful in the context of what it will mean for your people and organisation.

In plain English, it’s about saying: “Tell us what this means, so we can better understand what our thoughts look like in practice.”

To say my youngest daughter is strong-willed is the understatement of the century. If I don’t make an effort to understand her frustrations and address them, there is no chance of meaningful communication between the two of us.

My eldest girls will swallow (bitterly, at times!) the occasional “because I said so” but Harriet? No way. If I don’t take the time to understand the source of her problem (and there’s a lot of them. The food I serve. The clothes she wears. The order we do anything in…) then we both wind up upset, disengaged and not liking each other very much.

What I’ve learned with her is that it really only takes a few good questions and a genuine attempt to understand her fury to change the game entirely – and that authenticity is critical. She’ll smell a token question a mile away. And so will your teams.

I was going to write you a little list of good ‘asks’ and then I realised that one of my teams has done a far better job than I could have!

Here’s a great collection of questions from a team at Auckland Council who are rolling out a new strategic direction to their wider management team.

The question they were asking was  “What do our teams need us to ask them?” (good question eh…)

How can you ask better questions, to get better answers?

When to Ask:

-          When it’s time to make change more real and meaningful to your teams

-          To add more detail to the ‘how’ part of your strategy implementation planning

-          When there is some scope for nuance and change

-          When you have time to reflect on the feedback

-          When teams are competent and autonomous

Til next week!

-          A

Time to Tell: When To Be A More Directive Leader

The way we understand strong leadership has undergone a real transformation over the last decade or two. Traditional ideas about a military-like model of the authoritarian, hierarchical leader have been replaced by a more democratic, consultative ideal.

While nobody is advocating a return to autocracy, it is worth asking the question:

Has the pendulum swung too far?

Creating workplaces and cultures with engaged, autonomous teams that get results requires an intentional, considered approach to leadership communication. Getting people involved and engaged in strategy and change is the same.

Books on leadership all trend toward a facilitative, participatory communication style – encouraging us to ask, coach, enquire and empower. These are critical skills for an emotionally aware leader, especially in the long term.

However, there’s still an important place for leaders who tell, particularly in times of change and uncertainty. People aren’t afraid of change – but they do struggle with uncertainty. In the most uncertain of times, teams need as much clarity as possible about what’s coming and what will be required of them – and a failure to provide that can lead to disengagement, cynicism and insecurity.

“There’s still an important place for leaders who tell, particularly in times of change and uncertainty”

I’m current working with a team of senior public leaders to roll out a new strategic direction, who are finding new ways to manage change communication. Rather than assuming that high participation is intrinsically ‘good’, the team has been experimenting with a full toolkit. Together, we are learning that authenticity in leadership means respecting the time, intelligence and needs of your team - by being honest and respectful about the scope for involvement at different stages of the change process. 

In some role-playing exercises for this last week, it was surprising how many of us found it initially difficult to stand up and say things like “Here’s what we need to do” and “These are my expectations of you.” Even more surprising was the reaction of the others in the room – “I felt safe” “I appreciated the clarity”.

“A genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus, but a molder of consensus”  Martin Luther King, Jr.

In times of urgency, uncertainty, or compliance, facilitative leadership can be damaging. Not only because it provokes further unease, but because it can be seen as disingenuous. Over the last 20 years, the public sector has been increasingly encouraged to consult and engage with their communities over policy and direction. This has been largely positive – except when it hasn’t. Communities aren’t stupid. They know when you are ‘consulting’ for compliance rather than participation. And your teams are the same.

The IAP2 Spectrum of Public Participation has six steps – from inform, all the way through to empower. The initial thinking behind the spectrum was as a guide to select the appropriate level of engagement to suit the task at hand – but somewhere along the line, we got the idea that more participation is always better. Operating at the ‘empower’ end of the spectrum demands a huge amount of time and effort from leaders, from staff, and from communities and should be used in circumstances that would genuinely benefit from that level of participation, not as a blunt force instrument.

Using the right tool for the job is critical in a changing, ambiguous environment. Knowing when to tell can be the difference between aligned teams with a clear sense of purpose, or uncertain, disengaged teams who are struggling to take charge of their roles.

Directive leadership looks like this:

-          Setting clear goals and expectations

-          Providing information

-          ‘Bottom lines’

-          Defined roles and responsibilities

-          Planning and scheduling

-          Monitoring and accountability

-          Guiding and showing expertise.

Are you asking, when you should be telling?

When to  Tell:

-          In times of great uncertainty

-          When there is no real scope for change (compliance)

-          Under urgency

-          When facing new or unexpected challenges

-          When teams have low autonomy or experience

-          To set the boundaries of a new strategy or approach

Til next week!

-          A

 

People Want to Connect

Last week I wrote about how to get people interested in your strategy and change initiatives, and the importance of being real and using plain language to make this happen.

But there’s a piece missing in there about whether we want to connect in the first place – and why.

An effort to connect people to your bigger picture assumes a couple of important things:

1)      If you don’t get your people on your side, your whole change process is going to go nowhere

2)      People want to be connected with.

Both of these things are true, and this week I want to dig a bit deeper on the second point.

I recently conducted a bit of an informal science experiment to this effect. I spent a few days in Melbourne with an old friend a few weeks ago, greatly enhanced by a couple of waterfront beers on a Thursday night. A discussion about talking to strangers led to my hypothesis that pretty much all people – even the most cynical and hostile (in fact, especially the most cynical and hostile) – want and need to connect with others.

We seriously get in our own way on this front. So much of the apprehension and doubt we have about talking to strangers is a reflection of our own fears and hang-ups, rather than a representation of the way people are likely to respond to us.

“…people simply want to connect – especially if we make it easy for them. The key is to soak up the discomfort for both of you.”

Ultimately, this conversation led to an hour or two, as we made our way through the CBD, of sporadic conversations with people next to us.  Whether it was conversation at the traffic lights, connection over a shop counter, asking for directions on the street, or making new friends outside a burger bar, we actively connected with the people around us, to see how they responded.

One particularly good conversation at a convenience store included a full reveal of the experiment, where a lovely Irish fellow and I both agreed that people simply want to connect – especially if we make it easy for them. The key is to soak up the discomfort for both of you. After a couple of beers, I’m quite happy to do that, it seems.

(Full disclosure, there was one person who was baffled and mildly fearful of my attempt to chat. I possibly went a bit sales-y on that guy…. But every other person we spoke to was helpful, polite, friendly and happy to share!)

“Communication is merely an exchange of information, but connection is an exchange of our humanity.”  Sean Stephenson, Get Off Your ‘But’

It was a great experiment, and one that makes me think a lot about how we handle connection with our teams and colleagues. There is so much lost potential for connection inside our professional lives – somehow, the need to fulfil this key human drive has lost status inside long to-do lists of ‘more important’ work and we’ve converted it into conversations about buy-in, engagement and communication.

In his book Social: Why Our Brains are Wired to Connect Matthew Lieberman has some interesting research about the way our brains work, which supports my little Melbourne experiment. Lieberman argues that connecting with other people is a primary need – even more fundamental than our need for food or shelter. Lieberman argues that while schools and workplaces go to great lengths to minimise social ‘distractions’, this is actually counterintuitive, and shuts down a powerful part our brain that can be harnessed for learning, productivity and wellbeing.

I had lunch with a client and friend recently, who was talking about the frustrating and distant leadership style of an old boss – “if she had just made the effort to connect with us, we all would have behaved so differently.” Have you had an experience like this – with a boss, or a staff member?

Lieberman suggests that good leaders are strong on the interpersonal front – we know this one – but that they also look to social motivators to lead, like opportunities for connection and a sense of fairness.

I genuinely believe that people don’t get up in the morning wanting to be unhelpful, cynical or disengaged. They certainly don’t get up and come to work with the intention to get in the way – in fact most of them are motivated to do a good job, and want to be supported to do that.

Unfortunately, we can make that unnecessarily difficult, by turning human instinct into a transactional process that benefits no-one.

The antidote? Connect with people – in a real way – first.

Before attempting to “build buy in” “promote engagement” or “facilitate progress” consider the more human aspects of your interaction!

How to: Connect More Meaningfully at Work (Plain Language Version)

-          Talk to people about things other than work

-          Ask them what they think about things

-          Learn things about them that you remember later

-          Share your own vulnerability and embarrassment

-          Soak up potential discomfort for them so you can both live in a safe space. Beers optional.

Til next week

-          A

Getting People Interested in Change

Every time I walk into a workshop with a new group, I have a job to get out of the way: establish credibility and generate interest.

Is this partly because I’m a young chick with far too much energy instead of a boring old dude? Yes.

But more than that – it’s because I’m usually there to talk about strategy and change, and both of those things get a bad rap. They’re boring, the workshops are usually a talk-fest and people are fatigued – seen one, seen them all.

And honestly, they’re not generally wrong.

With my teenager, getting her to put down her phone and make eye contact is not always easy. Her attention is predicated on self-interest, and I’ve got a short amount of time to prove I’ve got something to say she might care about.

Teams in the workplace are no different – they’ve got a million other things to care about right now, and whatever you’ve got to say probably involves work, so it better be interesting.

“We need to stop interrupting what people are interested in and be what people are interested in” – David Beebe

One of the most effective ways to break through the barrier is simple but overlooked: speak the same language! Speaking in language people can connect with is proven to be one of the most effective ways to establish trust and build a positive reputation. The idea is all about ‘processing fluency’ – familiarity makes it easy to trust what you’re saying.

Did you know that 40% of the cost of managing business transactions is spent on problems due to poor or misunderstood communication?

It’s because we talk in buzzwords and suck all the authenticity out of it.

If you can speak in Plain English and you’re really onto a winner – research has found that the more concrete language you’re able to use (i.e. less jargon and fewer buzzwords) the more trustworthy and truthful your statements appear. Governments across the world know this, including NZ, who support the Plain Language awards. Companies have figured it out too – British Telecom claim to have cut customer queries by 25% by switching to plain English!

I hear a lot of leaders complain about cynical and disengaged teams, but I suspect cynicism might not be the problem – a history of boring, crappy delivery might play a role. In the words of Mick Mooney – “assume positive intent” – put yourself in their shoes, and make it easy to be heard.

-        A

How to generate interest and establish credibility:

·       Connect quickly to things others care about for the familiarity effect

·       Use plain, concrete language to foster trust

·       Be real – teenagers and teams both smell inauthenticity a mile away

Make Meaning By Letting Go

Making your thinking meaningful to others is one of the most important steps in driving new behaviours.
 
A bit like election promises, strategy and change only starts to appeal when people can understand what it means for their own lives – and how it connects to the bigger picture.

Ironically, while politicians seem to get this, public officials don’t always join the dots. 

In Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, Dan Pink outlines three key elements to motivation:

1)    Autonomy – The desire to have control of our lives
2)    Mastery – The urge to improve 
3)    Purpose –  The desire to be in service of something greater.

“Let it go, let it go” – Elsa, Frozen

This theory applies beautifully to engaging people and teams in strategy and change initiatives.

In my ‘Tell, Ask, Support’ framework for strategy implementation, there are three levels of communication. Each level calls for different levels of engagement, and require different styles of leadership -  some that are more direct, and others that are more facilitative.

Meaning sits square in the middle – it’s about asking, not telling. Discovering the ways that your thinking will impact and inspire others, and drawing on that meaning-making process to drive momentum

Applying Dan Pink’s theory, it looks a bit like this:

1)    Autonomy – Let go of your preconceived ideas about what change and process will be necessary and be genuinely open to the interpretation of your team
2)    Mastery – Let people run with and build on your thinking in ways you didn’t imagine (this is where the magic happens)
3)    Purpose – Use intrinsic motivational forces by tapping into the broader importance of strategy, rather than relying solely on external rewards and accountabilities.

In many cases, good leadership is simply letting go!