|
|
The question, “What are Change Management Consultants?” gets the answer, from me:
“Conduits”.
: a means of transmitting or distributing <a conduit of information>
: a natural or artificial channel through which something (as a fluid) is conveyed
Merriam-Webster
What is the best way to control things within organizations? Stand in the middle of the exchange of information.
What causes status quo to build up over time? Layers and blockage and rules.
What gets in the way of change? Poor communication and interaction.
What would help move change forward? Something that unclogs these barriers. Or maybe a fat pipe with enough pressure to push past clogs? Maybe an actual person who can both dodge the clogs and clear the reason for the blockage?
We are conduits when we go back and forth with information refining the interpretation each time. I have many exchanges where I must explain one sides perspective while gathering information from the listener to feed back. That gets repeated in both directions. (This is interesting… a change practitioner could actually BE the stoppage if they do not handle this correctly. I have seen this happen with internal change agents).
We are conduits for good energy. We take the energy and carry it with us, around anything or person that may sap it.
We are conduits for interpretation of end states. We carry explanations of leadership perspective much more powerful than anything we can put in a newsletter or email.
We do the same thing when the flow needs to go in the other direction from stakeholder to leadership. We don’t hesitate after flowing through the invisible pipe to call things out (with perspective wrapped around the exchange).
At times we are also the valve that controls the flow back and forth. Those are the times when, I think, we push the boundaries. CM practitioners should guide rather than control. Sometimes we have to release a little pressure to do what we do well.
Change Management consultants are the conduit for information which creates clarity and exchange to speed up communication and effort.
Technorati Tags: change management blog, change management consultant, Conduit, Garrett Gitchell
For the first time I had to veer away from my favorite definition spot Merriam-Webster and take a Google definition. My blog, I get to cherry pick. :-):
Advocate or promote (a belief or course of action): “Davis wanted to proselytize his ideas”.
Top of the Google search (where do those come from?)
I cherry picked to avoid the definitions with religion in them. But let’s face it. Some practitioners follow certain templated approaches with a “religious” fervor. And just like with religion some eventually question and ask. In the case of the marketed-templated approaches it is, “does this look good on my resume”. Obviously with religion it is a heavier questioning statement.
It seems that if you are going to proselytize anything that might have to do with change management it better REALLY make sense. If someone can find flaws in your conviction you won’t be able to make the sale (yes pun intended). If you are proselytizing an approach rather than showing how your approach provides a solution you are either a poor salesperson or drinking some Kool-Aid.
To be fair: Odds are good my approach has a little proselytization mixed in to explanations. The one thing I know I am an evangelist for is figuring out and describing end states. You would be hard pressed to show me that does not make sense, so I satisfy my own rule.
If you proselytize the need for people to interact cross functionally to talk about end states and change paths then save us a spot at a pew.
If your proselytizing gets to honesty about status quo and its well built barriers for change then what time is the sermon?
If your proselytization shouts loud and strong to the congregation that change is about people doing what they do well (and probably learning to do more, well) then hallelujah!
If you learned your proselytization techniques during that certification program…I am guessing the basket is about to pass our way.
Proselytizing can be a great thing. Because it carries energy and conviction- two things that are valuable for big change. It can also be a bad thing if it is outward and self serving. Proselytize for good/success when it comes to change management.
Technorati Tags: change management blog, change management consultant, Proselytize
Does it say something about age if you immediately hum tunes when you see this word?
Although… I have this theory that kids like the stuff their grandparents liked. (What kid would be caught dead, say, listening to their PARENTS music). Many of my friends waited to have children. Their children like the same music (and our kids music, the good stuff at least, sounds a lot like ours). So a 12 year old could be humming tunes with this word too.
My own kids lend credence to this theory.
a : mental acceptance as true or real <give credence to gossip>
b : credibility 1 <lends credence to the theory>
Merriam-Webster
So “lending credence” to something means somehow reinforcing it.
An example supports a theory.
The words of an “expert” help make something seem true.
A model in charts, organized and marketed seems a good approach.
Someone says this is the best. You accept that.
See where I am going with this?
Credence to me (mostly because of that hard “d” right in the middle) is a word that should carry some significance. If you are adding credence to something there should be some accountability.
Credence feels like it should come with facts or opinion based on facts. In fact, I think, even the facts should be questioned. Digging into who created the number (oops- meant gathered or measured) lends credence to facts.
You can’t just say, “that’s a fact” without, well, some basis in fact.
I will leave it up to my readers to help me justify that statement. We could all use someone beside us to lend credence to the things we say and do.
Technorati Tags: change management blog, change management consultant, credence
Stay with me on this one…
This word surprised me and made me snicker. Our meaning for this:
to speak or express opinions in a pompous or dogmatic way
Webster
is right up there with the role of the Pope:
the state, office, or term of office of a pontiff
In fact it turns out you can be ELECTED to pontificate!
It is good to be the king (but maybe better to be the Pope).
I don’t need to get very far into this to make the connection to change management. When do we have pontification with CM?
- Practitioners
I have a special pontification warning in my head (I hope).
Some other practitioners I have seen do not have that signal. So they go on and on and on. I suppose that might signal (or, to be fair, represent) empathy. Although it is a little hard to be empathetic if you are talking all the time (empathy is about LISTENING). I have never thought pontification to be a good thing. I think CM as a profession suffers from some seriously bad group think.
Pontification is the last thing we need.
- Leaders
When it comes to change, apologies leaders for this dig, it seems like leaders are out to one up everyone with their knowledge. This is actually worse than the practitioner group think in that the leaders tend to parrot what they have heard or read.
So you get pontification with no context. (…not that pontification EVER has much context).
- Anyone enamored with a favorite methodology
(for some, enamored is exactly the correct word).
On and on they go about how THIS particular approach can SPEED CHANGE, enable people, empower the organization and spread change fairy dust on the world!
- Gurus
Same as the last one except, for some reason, people actually stop to listen.
- Trainers
They often like to listen to their own voice. Actually maybe, anyone who pontificates, likes to listen to their own voice.
Trainers are the smart ones- they get paid for this.
The next time you feel like you somehow got elected to talk and you are right up there in significance with the pope, take a breath and question whether you are pontificating. Everyone around you knows you aren’t the pope (and shouldn’t be going on and on).
Technorati Tags: change management blog, change management consultant, pontification, pope
Is an architectural concept where structural stability comes from the tension among parts.
It results in beautiful designs that barely look able to hold their own weight (and can carry many times more).
Make your own with straws here.
Things that are.. tensigrous (?)…hold energy inside that tension. So a toy designed with tensegrity will rebound after you squish it. Push in the right place and you can re-squish it.
A beautiful, cool and fun concept.
Unless, of course, the object full of tensegrity (if there are levels of tensigrousness) happens to be a STAKEHOLDER.
Stakeholder Tensegrity
This is the change concept that illustrates people who can go merrily along with change, apparently un-phased by fear or hesitation or pattern disruption and then revert right back to where they were when the tension is released. They play the game and when you turn your back (or leave in the case of externals- they know you will leave and they are patient) they skip right back to where they were.
It is stakeholder tensegrity that is partially responsible for the new trend toward change management AFTER the change and into the end state. They are patient, but usually can’t survive extended “pressure”. Change sustainability is often about outlasting the tensegrous ones.
Can you get ahead of this?
You can if it is possible to create a point of no return.
Is your change an IT initiative? That’s an easy one. At the crossover from one system or software to the next there is a point of no return. It is impossible for anyone to bounce back to where they were.
I am not one to advocate too much talk of transition, but this is a time when it might make sense. If you think your stakeholders would bounce back if they could, then create a point in the change process where that will be obviously impossible. Then be nice and communicate, hand hold and guide them past that spot.
Tensegrity is a beautiful concept, simple and complex at the same time- just like the stakeholders who want to go back to where they were. :-)
Technorati Tags: architectural concepts, architecture, stakeholder, stakeholder resistance, tensegrity
Cadence is a word used to describe sound in connection to rhythm.
Webster’s gives us:
1. a rhythmic sequence or flow of sounds in language
2. the beat, time, or measure of rhythmical motion or activity
Merriam-Webster
along with two other definitions that still have to do with sound.
Change practitioners have a way of getting to the “human-ness” of things. Using the word cadence to describe the pace and frequency of communications within an initiative is a great example of this. And it works. Communications themselves do not have their own sound (although they may contain sound… and comically some sort of cadence), but they might in some way create a little buzz (or more buzz depending on “cadence”). So the word fits. I have added it to my repertoire.
Cadence, for change management (and by extension operations) is the frequency of communications.
Yearly, Quarterly, Monthly, Weekly and irregularly occurring meetings are listed in a table or spreadsheet or as a series of bullets in a document (or done really well some sort of visual with links to supporting documents). You can map those communications to stakeholders, check against project level comms., line up with operational interaction and tweak with change specifics events.
- You may just find the “pace” of the organization does not currently fit your defined end states.
- You may see that you have created change/communication saturation.
- You may notice, somehow, you missed people.
- You may realize you are very virtual in your communications when, perhaps, you need to get people together.
- You can put what you think works for CM next to the way the organization is interacting now to find paths to guide toward new behaviors.
With all these different ways to look at your communication, maybe feel… hear… (if you are using the true definition of cadence metaphorically), you can sense the “Cadence” of your organization and your change.
So we have a new word in our language bank, or at least a new meaning- Cadence to describe the pace and frequency of communication(s).
Technorati Tags: cadence, change management blog, change management consultant, languaging, pace, rythym
Is there a word that sounds any more like sticking you neck in the sand, or digging your feet in, or just plain being obnoxiously stubborn?
:characterized by refusal to compromise or to abandon an extreme position or attitude
Merriam-Webster
The last US congress, the 112th, became the “dictionary definition” of this word with their inability to pass anything of substance (with a whole lot of wacky ideas pawned off as substantive). (What are the odds the 113th will be any different?).
This word is one of those words that is used with change incorrectly. Well maybe not this BIG word, usually it’s the synonym resistance. (Funny intransigence only has three more letters than resistance and yet my kids would say it is one of those BIG words- as in hard to learn and hard to remember the definition for… let alone spell). When one person thinks something should go one way and another is unwilling to go that way I do not think there is necessarily intransigence on the part of the second party (or resistance).
Intransigence might be an extreme example of resistance. Resistance does not have to have a position (it will certainly develop an attitude though). Resistance tends to be a desire to just stand still (or carry on as usual) when it comes to change. If intransigence was to refuse someone else’s position we might have a change word.
In almost all of the cases of “resistance” I see (or situations where another consultant would look for ways to reduce “resistance”) there is a very good reason for not participating- when the world is seen from the “resistors” viewpoint. It might be history that reduces trust, or structure that will not accommodate the change, or lack of prioritization that means it is mathematically impossible to add in or just an idea that does not make sense.
There is ALWAYS a reason to be resistant. And there may always be a reason for intransigence. For that person with their feet dug in, certainly.
When it comes to change don’t get all riled up about intransigence or the lighter form of resistance. Find out why. Change something else before you try to change the intransigent/resistant person.
Technorati Tags: change management blogs, intransigence, resistance to change
Since 1546 people have kept trying.
(Before that I am sure lots of people kept trying they just did not know what it was called).
: the action or fact of persisting
Merriam Webster
Change Management has some interesting forms of persistence:
- The persistence you need to explain and re-explain (and come back and explain again later).
- Carrying on when everyone else either does not want to or wants to spend a lot of time whining about it first.
- Pushing the understanding of change management it is a guide to get to end states.
- Constantly, and then “re-constantly”, illustrating that change happens at the individual level.
- Finding many ways to say change focused solely on the individual level will fail.
- Bringing yourself back to the center of all these dichotomies (tactics vs. strategy, people vs. the organization, this vs. that).
- Keeping change from being a competition (while keeping people competitive).
- Smiling. Smiles should never be forced so maybe it is the persistence of optimism that is needed.
The list for change persistence is much longer. I guess I should be pushing to add a few more bullets before I stop…
Technorati Tags: change management blog, change management consultant, change persistence
Change can have some pretty knotty elements.
“:so full of difficulties and complications as to be likely to defy solution <a knotty problem>”
Merriam-Webster
Those that “defy solutions” tend to be around some structural element that will make the change difficult. Not because the change itself is hard, but because structure will defy movement toward the end state.
Performance management is a knotty problem. Rarely, if ever, are the metrics for individual performance tweaked to match the change. That is knotty.
Governance can create a long train of recording tasks that ties the change up in …knots.
Vertical loyalty over “in this together” willingness can drain all the juice out of a change effort, by focusing energy on operational things rather than movement toward the end state- like a twig in the wrong place on a beautiful tree.
Internal politics weakens the tree and causes the branches to fall off in the wind- leaving a knotty scar each time.
Individual resistance can take all the nutrients out of the change like a privet stand in an otherwise healthy yard.
Sometimes there is a likeable solution hidden in the knot though. Peek inside those difficult, knotty, obstacles and see if there is something good looking out.
All of these are knotty issues that need to be addressed early on in the change. Letting these thing thrive is naughty.
Technorati Tags: change management blog, change management consultant, knotty change, naughty change
We might be stretching a connection here, but it is Saturday and that is now word day for horizontalchange.
The clouds are rolling in here in Northern California with daily temperatures that went from 103 to 90 to 80 to 70 to predicted rain. For us this is gloomy. Gloomy gets the imagination going. So today we are going with the invention of a completely imaginary world, a la the eyes of a child.
A paracosm is a detailed imaginary world, or fantasy world, involving humans and/or animals, or perhaps even fantasy or alien creations. Often having its own geography, history, and language, it is an experience that is developed during childhood and continues over a long period of time: months or even years.
Wikipedia (because my dictionary favorite Merriam-Webster does not consider it a word yet)
This is the kind of imagining that creates Harry Potter worlds (adults can be good at this too- and who knows maybe it does start in childhood).
Here comes the connection to change…
What kind of low level paracosms live, survive or flourish inside organizations?
- Walls built to keep the monsters out
- Conspiracy theories in the middle
- The peasants will storm the castle
- Fear
Walls built to keep the monsters out
The longer an organization exists the more likely they are to become insular, protective and isolationist. Clear signs this is happening?
-Anyone who comes in to help with change, as a consultant, or contractor must have references from an employee.
-“Procurement” systems get set up. (Efficiency and “control” are the excuses for this- the result is a wall between input and receiver).
-Less sharing of information.
-More functional measures, down to boss to report.
-People who stay forever (admirable in some ways, but frankly a little weird these days).
-Very close minded views of just about everything.
-Ya, but. Anything original gets a “Ya, but…” response.
This may all be the opposite of creating a fantasy world. From the outside these worlds looks a little fantastic- in their disconnect from other worlds created from connection instead of disconnect.
Conspiracy theories in the middle
Take this to the next level and people begin to make up things that could go wrong.
Close things up, disconnect and soon resources will become scarce.
Scarce resources create competition.
Really intense competition, the kind where individuals begin to lose a lot of control, tend to produce conspiracy theories.
The area where there is the least real control (lots of to-do task work, but not much leverage for plans and solutions) is the middle. The middle of big, closed off organizations is ripe for conspiracy. Conspiracy against each other. Conspiracy for the outside world. Conspiracy everywhere. The nice term for that is urban myth.
I you do not “get out of the house” (in this case the “walls” of the organization) you get really good at paracosmic creations.
The peasants will storm the castle
Environments ripe for paracosmists usually have a “wall” built in some way.
The most recent version of this (around for as long as businesses have been, but now becoming obvious) is the wall between the first horizontal and everyone else. We are back to that resource thing again. There are only so many roles at the top-lots of competition. It will be safer for those who scaled to that spot to put a little distance between themselves and the next in line.
If that wall gets built too strong; if that wall lets no one in for a long period of time (like our current business environment) the Dukes and the King start to get into their own paracosms. How strong is that wall really? How big are the gaps between us and them (how much more compensation, benefits, etc.)? Could it be that at some point those on the other side will not be able to take it anymore and stop trying to charge one by one? Could the wall be breeched by a group of them?
Is there is a chance, in this paracosmic world, that the peasants could storm the castle?
Fear
All of this happens because of fear and lack of real knowledge and input.
Our little kids creating paracosms may make worlds where everything goes right and life there, in that world, is just plain fun (yes that was mine).
Adults tend to add the monsters, aliens and fantastical creatures.
Larry over there in the next cubicle gets extra appendages and learns how to breathe fire. Come on, you know you have been there…
I am all for imagining. I am all for the creative use of our minds to go to strange places and worlds in order to bring back ideas and possibility. The key might be to go back and forth into the paracosm and the real world. Grab new reality, take it into fantasy and mold that into something helpful. When the paracosms get stronger than reality you have problems. Is your organization filled with REALLY good paracosmists?
Technorati Tags: Change words, fear of change, insular organizations, paracosm, paracosmists
|
|
RSS
Google+
LinkedIn
Twitter
YouTube
