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What’s the first domino?
The Change Question: What’s the first domino?
The Change Question: What’s the first domino?
It is often exhausting to lead a change program.
People talk about being efficient.
But I like to be more blunt. I encourage laziness.
Not lie-around-and-do-nothing laziness–which I’m confident isn’t your style, anyway.
But strategic, don’t-just-be-busy, laziness.
The first domino, a metaphor I heard from Tim Ferriss who was quoting Greg McEwen, is about identifying the thing that, if done, removes or solves or reduces many other downstream efforts.
If I get Person A on board, I don’t have to work to get Persons B through L on board, because they go where Person A goes.
If I have people learn Skill X, they won’t need further training on Topic Y and Z, and I can halve the amount of time spent training Skill C.
If we let this crisis burn out on its own accord, we’ll save resources for other priorities and it will remove one of the barriers to change.
If we transform this business unit, we’ll be able to prototype an approach to change, and we’ll recruit champions for the change, so it will be easier to persuade other business units to opt in.
Do you have a good “first domino”? Hit reply and let me know, and I’ll share some in future newsletters.
And if you’re into actual dominos, you’ll love this.
Pod Wisdom: Stop Lying to Your Employees About Change (It's Making Things Worse)
Margaret Heffernan, from the Change Signal episode "Why Leaders Keep Making Change Harder":
“If you treat people like grownups, they are very, very much more likely to respond as grownups.
And if you treat them like children who can't understand the truth, then they're going to start responding like children.
So you're better off to just call it as it is and move on from there.
If cost reduction is part of it, fess up, say so. Be honest about what the upsides are for whom.”
Listen to my full conversation with Margaret now
Margaret Heffernan is the author of many books, including Unchartered: How to Navigate the Future. She has led organizations through change, and now coaches senior executives on the same.
Overcome the Toughest Workplace Challenges with Relational Curiosity
Tense conversations, feedback that doesn’t land, and frequent miscommunication—these challenges are exhausting and all too common.
The latest research paper from Box of Crayons, Navigating a Fractured Workplace, uncovers the root of these issues and reveals how Relational Curiosity can foster trust, strengthen collaboration, and help teams thrive.
Download the white paper today and take your first step toward a stronger, more connected workplace.
Box of Crayons is a Change Signal sponsor.
The Last Word: George Bernard Shaw
"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man."
~ George Bernard Shaw (talking about humans and not just men)
Which change do you like most?
The Change Question: What’s your preferred type of change?
The Change Question: What’s your preferred type of change?
Successful transformation needs a lot of things to go well.
You’re typically trying to implement your organizational and structural changes on the one hand, and asking people to behave differently on the other.
They’re both called “change” but the truth is they’re quite different disciplines.
It’s not dissimilar to the relationship between Newtonian and quantum physics. Yes, they’re both called “physics.” Yes, between them, they describe the universe. But … they don’t actually seem to be that compatible.
You’ll have a preference between them, a bias towards the relative importance of one over the other.
That’s fine, if you’re aware of it.
But if not, you may find yourself “playing to your strengths” and overcommitting to the catalyst of change you know best and find most comfortable.
If you know your preferred type of change, you can check that you’re not over-indexing on what’s most familiar.
Pod Wisdom: Pim de Morree on designing change experiments
Pim de Morree, from the Change Signal episode "You Don’t Need 99% of Change Management Models":
“When it comes to what makes a good experiment to run in an organizational transformation, I'd say a couple of things.
One, keep it kind of small and simple. In many cases, when you ask people, “What would you like to change?” it's always the big things that are way beyond their control.
So if you're working in one specific department, you don't want to start completely reducing the hierarchy in the entire organization or getting rid of a policy that's dictated by another department.
Start smaller because most influence can be had in what's happening in your team or your department and experiment with that. Show some progress and then start, to bring other people on board with this transformation.
And then make sure it's also not too lengthy.
It depends on the focus, of course, but make sure it's a short timeline such as one to three months.
That way you have enough energy to complete the whole thing, and then properly evaluate it. Then you can then run your second experiment. If it takes too long, people just get lost in either complexity or they just get bored with it and don't have the energy anymore.”
Listen to my full conversation with Pim now
Pim de Morree is co-founder of Corporate Rebels. Corporate Rebels has been recognized by Thinkers50 as a leading practitioner on change, in particular about self-managing organizations.
Overcome the Toughest Workplace Challenges with Relational Curiosity
Tense conversations, feedback that doesn’t land, and frequent miscommunication—these challenges are exhausting and all too common.
The latest research paper from Box of Crayons, Navigating a Fractured Workplace, uncovers the root of these issues and reveals how Relational Curiosity can foster trust, strengthen collaboration, and help teams thrive.
Download the white paper today and take your first step toward a stronger, more connected workplace.
Box of Crayons is a Change Signal sponsor.
The Last Word: Richard Rorty
“A talent for speaking differently, rather than for arguing well, is the chief instrument of cultural change.”
~ Richard Rorty
What’s your move?
The Change Question: What's your signature move?
The Change Question: What's your signature move?
There are two sides to your hard-won experience.
No doubt, you’ve collected some scars from transformation projects of the past. As they say, “Wisdom enters through the wound.”
Inevitably, those “lessons learned” have firmed up your understanding of what does and doesn’t work. If you’re up on your cognitive biases, you’ll know it’s “survivor bias” with a dash of “illusion of explanatory depth” … and maybe (for others at least 🙂) a little of the Dunning-Kruger effect.
The danger lies not in what you know, but in having that inform and become your default response.
So what’s the change challenge for you right now?
This absolutely might be the time to deploy that signature move.
Show us your best stuff.
It might also be the time to come up with something new, and stop relying on your old tricks.
Pod Wisdom: Katy Milkman on Imaging the Future
Katy Milkman, from the Change Signal episode "The High School Secret to Org Change":
“One of the first things I'd suggest doing is what's called a premortem.
We all know about postmortems: something goes badly or dies, and you try to evaluate what went wrong after the fact. A premortem is really the same thing, except it's before death.
Before launch, sit down and imagine we're a year out from this launch, and we realize it's been a massive failure. What are the most likely reasons that it was a massive failure? Can we imagine what would have caused that?
By anticipating those possible weaknesses in our strategy, we're starting to understand those are the obstacles that are in our way, and we can dodge them because of the premortem we've done with strategic thinking. Do that premortem in order to be able to tailor your strategy and better understand what are the risks that you face and how you can overcome them.”
Listen to my full conversation with Katy now
Professor Katy Milkman is the author of How to Change and host of the delightful Choiceology podcast.
Overcome the Toughest Workplace Challenges with Relational Curiosity
Tense conversations, feedback that doesn’t land, and frequent miscommunication—these challenges are exhausting and all too common.
The latest research paper from Box of Crayons, Navigating a Fractured Workplace, uncovers the root of these issues and reveals how Relational Curiosity can foster trust, strengthen collaboration, and help teams thrive.
Download the white paper today and take your first step toward a stronger, more connected workplace.
Box of Crayons is a Change Signal sponsor.
The Last Word: Rainer Maria Rilke
“Where something becomes extremely difficult and unbearable, there we also stand already quite near its transformation.
~ Rainer Maria Rilke
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