Wisdom JournalBy William Seidman
Have you ever wondered how a leader, even one with transformational skills, can sustain a change without intense labor?
Read my article, “Using the Principles of Neuroscience to Sustain Long-Term Transformational Change, in which I answer this and other questions on sustaining long-term change.
By William Seidman
What are we really recommending when we talk to executives about “courageous leadership”?
Commit to a vision. Believe in your vision — and the fact that it will require some disruption to achieve –in order to get others to commit to it. Courageous executives have the courage of their own convictions.
Try new approaches and new ideas. Have the courage to actually allocate resources to learning and becoming good at the new idea. There’s often huge pressure to continue to do the old thing. Willingness to push toward an often undefined outcome is essential to my definition of “courage.”
Wholeheartedly pursue the goal. It’s human nature to fear change. Someone in your organization is likely to resist, and we’ve seen many executives abandon their initiatives as soon as anyone pushes back. This isn’t conviction! Persistence in the face of resistance is essential.
Combine these attributes and you have a courageous, forward-looking executive leading an organization that’s likely to vastly outperform the competition.
By William Seidman
Cerebyte did a session on courageous leadership at ISPI (International Society for Performance Improvement)’s recent conference that got really good reviews. Here is the gist of the session:
We told executives that we will guarantee that their vision gets implemented.
We asked the attendees at the session if they thought such a guarantee was a good thing or a bad thing. After some serious thought, they said that it was a good thing, but that it might not be credible.
We shared that in our experience working with executives, that such a guarantee was actually a bad thing.
Attend carefully to the wording of the guarantee: “We will guarantee that their vision gets implemented.”
Whose vision are we guaranteeing? Who is now accountable for the quality and impact of the vision? They are, and many don’t like the idea.
Many executives are used to having an unresponsive organization which gives them a reason — some would say an excuse – for the ineffectiveness of their vision.
Guaranteeing that their vision gets implemented scares many executives.
By William Seidman
April 19th-22nd, Cerebyte went to San Francisco to participate in ISPI’s annual conference: a great meeting with attendance up about 50%. The energy was terrific. We contributed two sessions: a 90-minute one on Persuasive Technology, which packed the room and had everyone staying — unusual for ISPI.
ISPI has a fun tradition they call Bagel Barrel (aka Cracker Barrel) - three 20-minute high-energy expert-hosted roundtable discussions. We hosted “Leading the Courageous Organization.” Our focus was on the four areas of courage that executives need to lead a change:
Participation was fantastic and we had a lot of fun.
Having said that, we missed some of our colleagues from last time who couldn’t attend our session this year, including Sarah Ward, Jon Revelos, Molly Wankel and Paul Neiminen. Hope to see all of you next year!
By William Seidman
I recently worked with a management team that was in extreme pain. They wanted immediate relief. I got them to admit that it had taken several years to create this painful situation.
It’s human nature to hope that a workshop and a simple prescription — a piece of new software or a brief training — will heal everything. Sometimes I’m asked for a redesign of an entire business process.
But I often find that what is actually wanted is some analysis and some conclusions that justify moving the problem from the suffering team to either another one, or … anywhere else!
When revenue targets are fixed, headcount and other costs are declining, and the core of the business process is dependent on unreliable software, the math won’t work, and neither will the logic.
There is an out though. It is to step back and do a deep redesign based on these parameters. That’s what we proposed. It’s not lightning-fast, though, and the team wanted something quicker-acting.
They decided that, rather than really repairing some deep damage, that they’d do some shuffling of the pain and hope it solves the problem. My prediction is that they will be back talking to us again in 2 months. The pain will be worse, and now they will have lost 3 months.
It’s a scary way to manage.
By William Seidman
We at Cerebyte are excited to be partnering with CHOICE Regional Health Network to help this dynamic organization identify the best practices of hospital and social service case managers in Washington. Oregon, and Ohio - while also protecting the interests of hospitals, care providers, social service agencies, and communities.
CHOICE’s vision is “better health for everyone at less cost,” and it describes itself as “a non-profit coalition of rural and urban hospitals, practitioners, public health clinics, community health centers, behavioral health providers, and other partners dedicated to improving the health of our community.”
We’ll be focusing on coordinated care and using our patented TRANSFORM process for wisdom discovery and, then, training of CHOICE’s case managers. I hope to report here on the steps we’ll be taking as we work with CHOICE.
By William Seidman
Training Magazine has published ”A Grassroots Approach to the Challenge of Organizational Change, ” written by Mike McCauley and me, in its latest issue. We invite you to have a look and let us know what you think.
By William Seidman
The International Society for Performance Improvement (ISPI) San Francisco conference is April 19th through the 22nd at the Marriott Marquis. We’re presenting on Persuasive Technology Wednesday, April 21st at 10:30 AM. The following day, Thursday April 22nd at 8:30 AM, we’ll be talking about the need for Courageous Leadership in Change.
We went to ISPI last year; it was a great conference and we hope to see you there next month.
By William Seidman
We’re working with a company that wants to change the way it does training.
Instead of the old dull Power Points, they asked us for a highly interactive type of training.
We agreed and designed an interactive approach that does not rely on Power Points.
The managers looked at it and were reluctant to even try it! Turns out they were much more comfortable with Power Point presentations and wanted to use them — staying in the old comfort zone which they agree isn’t effective — if only to show why they didn’t want to use them.
Is this logical?
No, but it’s human nature.
Every level of an organization needs to step out of its comfort zone at times for real change to occur. Leaders can model this. It isn’t easy, but leadership must be willing to try new things — at the risk of some discomfort — for performance to improve. Most of us don’t want to do things we’re not already good at, but it’s just this kind of willing, open experimentation that can lead to effective change.
By William Seidman
I’m working with a group of very competent, smart managers now. I’m coaching them to unlearn certain practices that, frankly, aren’t working anymore.
Our challenge: to change the culture of the company from one that fills orders and generally meets customer expectations — a transactional approach — into one that anticipates future needs and can propose new and creative solutions that please customers and energize managers. (And can still fill those orders!) This new approach can be called transformational.
While the managers I’m working with may talk about making the organization transformational, like so many of us they tend to return to their comfort zone and stick with same-old, same-old business processes that are fundamentally transactional.
They’re constantly surprised when they don’t achieve their objectives.
Do you want your company to merely meet needs — or to be a vitally important resource?
Fortunately, these managers are learning the Cerebyte approach and to think and to function like positive deviants – transformationally. We coach managers to think like their best positive deviants: that’s where the creativity is.
Managers who are empowered to think freshly are happier and more productive. We know that fresh thinking is an art and a craft that can be taught and learned.
