Leaders support change

When you lead, you are supporting a team to move from point A to point B. This requires change. While this may sound obvious, it is worth remembering that change is often used as a noun… but it is, in fact, also a verb. Change is something we do, and the leader supports an environment where individuals can be innovative and initiate action toward a shared goal. 

In the article about the 6 essential leadership styles, I spoke of the commanding style of leadership as described by Daniel Goleman in his book, Primal Leadership. Leaders who command change are often met with resistance… Lots of resistance. If you want a change to happen, doing so via commandment is a sure way to make enemies and ruin morale. Let’s discuss three methods for creating change. Before talking about them, we have to talk about buy-in. 

Getting Buy-In

Organizational changes only work when individuals change. Individuals usually know what is best for them, so getting buy-in for the change can help mediate conflict when someone perceives the business needs are at odds with their personal needs. When individuals agree that changes are necessary, and have a hand in forming that change, you (the leader) will see less resistance, more creativity, more buy-in, and better results. Change can still happen without buy-in, but the process is messy, forced, and in extreme cases, wrought with tension and high emotions.

Getting buy-in is a topic all in itself. However, it starts with listening. Leaders do not have all the answers in a vacuum. They create a vision, indeed a shared vision, only after reflecting on experiences and listening to others. If you are a leader looking to make a change, then you must understand the environment you are stepping into and envision how it could be different. Listening helps you understand the experiences of others, and gives you insight into how things could be better.

Appreciative Inquiry

Let’s talk about our first method for supporting change: Appreciative Inquiry. The topic was written about in the book  Conversations Worth Having, by Jackie Stavros and Cheri Torres. It focuses on communication strategies for discussing what is desired as opposed to what should be avoided. The authors describe “great conversations” as being meaningful, engaging, geared to generating information and possibility, solution-focused, positive, and productive. Imagine how you feel after a conversation with these qualities versus one that feels judgmental, dictatorial, commanding, and negative. One will motivate you and the other will trigger negative and defensive emotions. If you want to be good at creating change, be inspirational and caring, not dictatorial and judgmental.

There are 2 practices of appreciative inquiry:

Positive framing – With this practice, challenges are named, looked at from a positive angle, and then framed in terms of results and ideal outcomes. The authors suggest doing the following:

  • Name it – What is the problem, or the thing you don’t want?
  • Flip it – What is the positive opposite of this?.. the thing you do want?
  • Frame it – What is the desired outcome? 

Positive framing lays a foundation for better relationships and positive workplace culture. Who doesn’t want more of those?

Generative questions – Be curious. When you are curious, you naturally ask generative questions. They focus on the best of what is and what might be. If you want to inspire engagement, you must ask questions. Doing this lights up the brains and creativity of others. Also, you can easily turn around a negative conversation by beginning to ask questions. Don’t fake your curiosity. Find a way to desire understanding and seek to find it. By the way, the topic of generative questions pairs nicely with The Coaching Habit, written by Michael Bungay Stanier. 

Appreciative inquiry will help you lean into problem-solving with a positive perspective, thus improving relationships, inspiring individuals, and increasing buy-in. 

 

Action Research

Action Research is means of inquiry where a person actively investigates and evaluates their work and efforts. “Actively” means you are taking action and reflecting on that action. Traditional research could be described as a researcher performing an experiment on others and watching the results occur. As an action researcher, you would ask “what am I doing? Do I need to improve anything?” and then create an action plan and time for reflection. As a leader looking to change an organization, you are part of the change required. Your questions simply replace the “I” with “we.” How do we improve? Is our way working? What can we do to be better?

Action research follows a cycle referred to as the “action-reflection cycle.” The steps are as follows:

  • Observe – Look at your current environment, actions, results, etc. Are they what you want? Are they aligned with your goals and vision?
  • Reflect – What could be done differently to move you in the desired direction?
  • Act – implement your action plan. 
  • Evaluate – Did your action plan work
  • Modify – What tweaks need to be made to keep you going in the right direction?

When you reach the last stage, you are essentially back at the beginning of the action research cycle. 

Design Thinking

Design thinking is a process commonly used for product design. It is popular in the design and software spaces as the process requires you to understand the problem before building a solution. Many product creators build solutions hoping to find problems for them to solve. This leads to wasted time and effort as you cannot be sure there is a worthy problem that customers want solved. Design thinking works to ensure you understand the problem you are trying to solve before ideating, building, and testing solutions. 

The process can also be effectively applied to organizational change. In the book The Designing for Growth Fieldbook, the authors walk the reader through 15 steps to get them from zero to making an effective change. These steps are separated into 4 stages and align with 4 questions:

  1. What is? Start by scoping your change initiative and figure out what is the current state of reality. Talk to people. Observe their behavior. Immerse yourself in the experience. The deeper you get into the scenario, the better able you are to identify where the problems exist and what could be better. At the end of this stage, identify your insights and get ready to imagine. 
  2. What if? At this stage you should have a good idea on what the problems are, and now you get to ideate on what is possible. Consider what would be best for your team or organization. Do you need to change your systems and processes? Do you need to change how your team communicates? What does the ideal state look like? Brainstorm your ideas, write them down, and create “napkin pitches” for each (write a brief pitch that could fit on a napkin).
  3. What wows? You have your ideas and your pitches. Go get feedback. Go back to the people you spoke with in the first phase and ask them about your ideas. Ask for input and reactions. Iterate on your ideas based on their feedback. In this stage, create simple prototypes and share them. This could be an outline of a new process, new conversational tools, or new was to track work. Do not put a ton of effort into polishing prototypes. They are simply meant to show stakeholders and individuals ideas for change and get their feedback. Once you have a short list of impactful ideas, get ready to implement them and test.
  4. What works? Test your ideas. Prototypes and napkin pitches will earn feedback, but the proof is in the pudding. Only by implementing and trying the changes can you really see what works. In this stage, continue the listening tour and implement tracking metrics to learn which of your solutions are effective.

Deisgn thinking is a system that will ensure you understand the right problems to fix before putting effort into solutions. Also, by going through the four stages, you can bring your team along with the process and increase buy-in. If they identify the problems which need solutions, and also co-create solutions, you are more likely to have an engaged team through the effort.

Which system is best?

You may be drawn to one system over another, so try each methodology as you see fit. Regardless of which system you try, lean in with curiosity and seek to understand the problems which need to be solved. 

Thanks for reading.

Until next time…

Clark

 

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