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Go Slow To Go Fast in Your Change Work
Read on to learn about adding another Critical Success Factor to put in place for your change work to work to the list of seven I have described in another article.
I got an email last week from my wife. It was one of those notes that’s been forwarded across cyberspace until it finds its way into your inbox. The story was about some guy who played his violin for 45 minutes in a DC train station at rush hour. 1,097 people passed by while he was playing. Only a half dozen stopped and listened. He collected $32.17 in tips. Scenes like this play out every day in train stations around the world.
But this day was different. So was the guy playing the music.
Partner with Your “Competitors” -- The Smartest Change Work to Do During the Economic Downturn
I recently did an interview with Michael Fischer from Lyondell-Basell about important change work to do during this economic downturn. The short list of to do’s is pretty straightforward:
Manage costs. Decrease them wherever possible
Protect your share of a shrinking marketplace
Conserve cash so that you can weather the financial storm
These make sense. But alone, they miss the mark.
There’s one good thing about times like these when the economy tanks. It encourages out of the box thinking. You get ahead by challenging fundamental assumptions. The more sacred the assumption, the more you need to call it into question.
What’s the most basic assumption in this economy?
Download the rest of "Partner With Your Competitors" in pdf format.
Getting Smarter In Leading Large Scale Change
I work with senior leaders in companies around the world. They lead organizations from very diverse industries. Some work in the private sector, others in the public. I have consulted with brand new CEO’s and those who have been in their position for a decade or more.
They all have four things in common.
- They are almost always over-scheduled.
- Meetings stack up on top of each other.
- They don’t get home from the office until late in the evening -- that’s if they are even in town.
- Few have time for anything besides golf outside of work -- and even most rounds at the course are dedicated to working on a new deal of some type with their playing partners.
The Radical Leadership Model of Coach John Wooden
Leadership is an essential element of any successful change effort.
I’ve written elsewhere about the new style of leadership brought by President Barack Obama and how to develop leadership in organizations through coaching.
So that led me to wonder what can we learn from coaching about how to develop better leaders?
I recently read an article on John Wooden in The Los Angeles Times. Within the same few days I saw a video of his leadership philosophy from the TED conference. Then I remembered a book I’d read with my son about the Coach’s implementation of his life lessons called My Personal Best.
How Viral Marketing Can Support Your Large Scale Change Efforts
The single greatest complaint I hear from people is that communication in their organization is lousy. I recently did a podcast on what to communicate to employees during the economic downturn. This article is about three good ways how to do that. People in them feel like they’re kept in the dark. Tough issues get glassed over. Even well intentioned efforts fall short of the mark.
Dan and Chip Heath, the brother team behind Made to Stick wrote a recent column in Fast Company on viral marketing. Their focus was on getting the good word out to customers about your products and services. The same advice works for communicating organizational change, too.
Collaborating to Create More Value: Leadership Coaching and Large Scale Change
There's lots to learn about how to create fast and lasting change from great sports coaches (see my post on the site about John Wooden's Radical Leadership Style.
I have known Bob Benwick for 15 years. We first worked together on a Real Time Strategic Change effort at a bank where he was the senior HR executive. Now he and his wife Bev have a coaching practice based in Vancouver.
Wouldn't It Be Great If All Our Teams Were This Good?
I've just returned from one of the best business trips in my life.
This past week I:
- Logged more than 3,000 miles in the air
- Flew to Indianapolis before getting in my rental car for an hour drive to my client
- Headed back to LA a couple of days later
- Flew to San Jose the next morning after seeing my wife for 13 hours between trips
- Arrived in San Jose and rented another car for the two-hour drive to have dinner with a prospective client and some colleagues
- Headed back to San Jose to a hotel after dinner, arriving around midnight
- Awoke to my alarm at 6 am the next morning, made my way to the airport for a 7:25 flight home...and discovered that the flight was canceled. What I most needed was sleep...
Pay Attention to What You're Good At
In the last week I’ve been struck by similar messages from:
- T.J. Simers (sports reporter for the LA Times);
- Martin Seligman (professor at Penn and former president of the American Psychological Association);
- Author, Marcus Buckingham
- Robert Aliota (the owner of Carolina Seal, a small company that makes custom-engineered parts for DuPont and John Deere);
- President Barack Obama;
- Federal Reserve Chairman, Ben Bernanke; and,
What in the world do these people have to do with each other?
They all have made a stand for something called “Positive Psychology.” In 1998 Seligman founded this field through an epiphany he had in his family garden. As he relates the story:
Business Development Lessons from my Daughter Alison
My daughter Alison is an “equestrienne professional.” That’s her picture below (says the proud Father). Ali has been in love with horses ever since she was 8 years old and had to clean stalls to earn riding time. You may wonder, “What is an “equestrienne professional?” Ali teaches riders, trains, cares for, helps buy and sell horses. My wife and I feel blessed that our daughter has found her calling so early in life – something she loves to do, does exceptionally well, and others value highly.
Learning To Live in a Jake 2.0 World
I have recently redesigned my web site. Stay tuned for the actual unveiling. (Btw, does anyone know why getting a web site revised or up and running takes longer than the gestation period of an elephant? For those who haven’t studied the baby making habits of these 5-ton creatures, it’s 22 months. That’s the longest of any land animal. Check the link out if you’re a doubting Thomas type.
Change doesn’t come easily. The new web site is part of a whole new way of working for me. Despite (or is it because of?) my extended labor of love with the site, I’m excited by the prospects of “Jake 2.0.” The web site is going to be a pretty lively place. There will be a steady stream of new articles, video-casts, webinar links, delicious tags, Twitter tweets (that’s code for sending Twitter messages), Facebook, LinkedIn updates, snapshots from client events, and lots of other useful, interesting stuff.