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How’s your team holding up?
The Change Question: How’s your team holding up?
The Change Question: How’s your team holding up?
Your team might be a little more eloquent than I was as a teenager.
(“How was school?” “Good.” “How are you?” “Good.” “Everything OK?” “Mmmmm.”)
But maybe not much.
We’ve ritualized the check-in until, often enough, it’s become an empty exchange.
“How are you doing?”
“Well, you know.” “It’s nuts, right?” “Oh, sigh, fine I guess.” “Busy.” “WTF, but what can you do?”
And that’s (too often) the way you answer the question yourself.
And, what can you do?
Sometimes, not much. It’s worth saying that up front.
But bringing the questions — “How are they doing? And how am I doing?” to your attention, getting a little closer to the truth, and being more present to what’s there, is more helpful than you might suppose.
There are clues in their/your vibe. Compared to normal, do you experience …
Slow breath vs held breath
Calm vs frenetic
Supple vs brittle
Wide perspective vs narrowed focus
Still vs twitchy
Light vs heavy
If you were to ask some questions to learn more, to diagnose more specifically what might be going on, then perhaps …
What do you feel responsible for?
How would you want to shift your load?
What do you (still) have capacity for?
What would make things easier?
What’s hard right now?
You don’t have to fix it
The fear of tapping into those vibes and asking those questions is sometimes the anxiety, the dread, that you’ve got to make everything alright for everyone. That’s an impossible task, a crushing burden.
If you can do something, great.
As with all change, sometimes small moves can make a big difference.
But often, seeing and sharing what’s hard can bring its own measure of relief.
Pod Wisdom: The two change muscles every leader must develop
Dan Heath from the Change Signal episode "You’re Over-Flexing This Change Muscle":
"We have what I consider to be twin muscles. One bicep is the problem-solving bicep. That's the dumpster fire chasing bicep. And we work that thing all the time... And then we've got another bicep that's the success spotting and reproducing bicep that is just sad and weak and flaccid because of lack of use. But their power, their potential power is exactly the same."
Listen to the full episode with Dan Heath now
Dan Heath’s most recent book is Reset: How to Change What’s Not Working, one of my Change Signal Top Shelf books.
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
“Change is hard because people wear themselves out. And that’s the second surprise about change: What looks like laziness is often exhaustion.”
~ Chip Heath and Dan Heath, Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard
The Drama Triangle, live!
The Drama Triangle, live!
The Karpman Drama Triangle
I hosted a Linkedin Live on Thursday.
I talked about the Karpman Drama Triangle, one of the most powerful models I know to better understand your and others’ dysfunctional behaviour during times of stress.
It’s no more than 30 minutes and I think you’ll find it useful.
You can watch the replay here. (And do feel free to share it with colleagues who might also be interested.)
What flavour of resistance are you facing right now?
The Change Question: What flavour of resistance are you facing right now?
The Change Question: What flavour of resistance are you facing right now?
Here’s a distinction I find ridiculously helpful: the cynic v the skeptic.
Cynics
They’ve already made up their mind about you and your plans, and it’s not good.
The etymology of the word is “dog-like,” and I always imagine the cynic lifting their leg on my fire hydrant of hope.
Bobby Kennedy said, “One-fifth of the people are against everything all the time.”
Bingo.
You can’t win over the cynics.
Skeptics
They’ve had their heart broken a thousand times.
They’re doing all they can to protect it from being broken again.
But, against all odds, there’s still a tiny flame of hope still burning.
Perhaps, this time, communication will be clear, promises will be kept, humanity will be remembered.
Love your skeptics.
They can be your greatest forces for change.
How much is enough
You don’t need to win over everyone to make progress.
Accounts differ, with some evidence for it being as little as 10% of a population, but as a useful rule of thumb, winning over “just” 25% of the population is enough to create a tipping point.
That’s no small task.
A bold challenge
Ignore 75% of the population.
Bring your full attention and resources to your selected 25%.
And don’t include the cynics.
Pod Wisdom: Ugh! What a question
Cassandra Worthy, from the Change Signal episode "Ignore the Cynics, Win the Skeptics":
"In the other plus-minus box, you have the frameworks that have high impact, but are underused. So why are you underusing them? I mean, who knows? You don't quite understand them yet. You haven't got to grips with them. They scare you a bit. Maybe they ask a bit too much of you. They're too challenging. But these might be worth taking a good look at because it's in that box you might find a breakthrough approach that can really boost the success of the transformation that you're leading right now."
Listen to the full episode with Cassandra Worthy now
Cassandra Worthy is the founder of Change Enthusiasm.
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
"Progress is a nice word. But change is its motivator. And change has its enemies. Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly."
~ Robert F. Kennedy
You, under stress. What’s your move? (4 options.)
The Change Question: How do you respond to the stress of the moment?
The Change Question: How do you respond to the stress of the moment?
You are an animal.
Not like this. (🙂)
Mary Oliver gets us closer: You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.
But I’m thinking in the most basic of ways: flesh and blood, beating heart, and lizard brain.
Under stress our clever prefrontal cortex throws up its hands and throws in the towel.
Our amygdala, that lizard brain, takes control and has four ways to respond.
Two you know already, fight or flight.
Flight: Run away and retreat. Go quiet, go silent, disappear.
Fight: Bluster up, attack is the best form of defence, so take no prisoners.
But there are two others: fawn or faint.
Fawn is to play nicey-nice. No conflict, no difficulties, make sure you cover up the rifts and pour oil on any troubled waters. You’re masterful at that martyr-like leap forward and take the blame and take the responsibility.
Faint? Well, you probably recognize this move. It’s a stationary version of flight, where you play dead for as long as you can, and hope no one notices that the wheel is spinning but the hamster is dead.
Fight or flight, fawn or faint.
What’s your go-to?
You’re probably half-decent at all four, but most likely you’ll have a default response.
Mine? Faint. I’m still here, just pretending that I’m not. I’ve been called “the VP of Bottlenecking” more than once in my professional career.
How about you?
Pod Wisdom: If you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail
It’s me, from the Change Signal episode "An MBS change tool: Audit what works (and what doesn’t.)":
"In the other plus-minus box, you have the frameworks that have high impact, but are underused. So why are you underusing them? I mean, who knows? You don't quite understand them yet. You haven't got to grips with them. They scare you a bit. Maybe they ask a bit too much of you. They're too challenging. But these might be worth taking a good look at because it's in that box you might find a breakthrough approach that can really boost the success of the transformation that you're leading right now."
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
“I was peeling a red apple from the garden when I suddenly understood that life would only ever give me a series of wonderfully insoluble problems. With that thought an ocean of profound peace entered my heart.”
~ Christian Bobin
What’s out of balance?
The Change Question: What’s out of balance?
The Change Question: What’s out of balance?
Answer: probably everything. Or at least, some things.
That’s probably not a problem.
When you’re making change happen, you’re placing bets on all the things that can influence a successful outcome.
The compelling-ness of the reason to change.
The quality of the training program.
Just how influential your sponsor is.
Just how nuts your executive team might be.
What other initiatives you’re competing against.
How resourced your team is.
And the list goes on.
The bold question might be, what are you going to bet big on? Where will you over-index? What will it mean to fully commit? What’s the big play?
And, as a necessary companion question, and taking a leaf from the pod conversation with Leidy Klotz, what are you going to ignore entirely? What will you cut? Who will you disappoint? What will you let burn?
March 20th, today’s date, is the equinox, that moment of the year when the day and the night are of equal lengths.
But it’s only like that for a moment.
Already, things are slipping and changing. Winter’s coming for my Australian friends. The long days of summer are whispering to us here in Toronto.
Don’t seek balance.
But do be intentional on where you’re being bold, both about your Yes’s and your No’s.
I’m glad you’re here and doing this work.
Pod Wisdom: You probably don’t realize what’s really going on
Caroline Webb, from the Change Signal episode "Do this ONE thing before you do ANYTHING else.":
"You have to do quite a bit of data gathering and be a little open-minded right from the beginning.
You need to say, well, there's probably stuff we've forgotten that we're committed to and we have to really get a grip on what is going on."
Listen to my full conversation with Caroline now
Caroline Webb is the author of How to Have a Good Day: Harness the Power of Behavioral Science to Transform Your Working Life.
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
“If a decision is reversible, the biggest risk is moving too slow. If a decision is irreversible, the biggest risk is moving too fast."
~James Clear
What needs to keep burning?
The Change Question: What needs to keep burning?
The Change Question: What needs to keep burning?
Years ago on a podcast I heard someone say, “You just have to let some things keep burning.”
Immediately, I felt the anxiety of that … and, at the same time, suddenly imagined the freedom of it.
The pod guest was speaking about rapid scaling of a start up. I’ve never done that Silicon Valley thing, but I’ve no doubt it’s an increasingly desperate dance between creating a product people want, finding an audience that’s big and juicy enough, not running out of money, and shouting “Pivot!” a lot.
It’s not quite as frantic and existential for practitioners of change … although, perhaps, only just. I don’t know many of us who are, let’s say, chill.
For any transformation, something’s on fire now or something’s going to be on fire shortly.
It’s broken, or it’s about to be.
That means pain, grief, confusion, doubt, ambiguity … for you, and for the people going through the transformation with you.
You have permission to look around you at what’s broken and burning, and admit, as much as a part of you would like to make it all better …
You need to focus on what matters most.
Stillness will often be better than reaction.
To put out all the fires means things not changing.
You are still compassionate, generous, empathetic.
Some things need to keep burning.
I’m glad you’re here and doing this work.
Pod Wisdom: The change strategy EVERYONE tends to miss
Leidy Klotz, from the Change Signal episode "Your Brain's Dangerous Change Blind Spot":
"Why, when we're trying to change something from how it is to how we want it to be, don't we think of subtraction as an option?"
Listen to my full conversation with Leidy now
Leidy Klotz is the author of Subtract: The Untapped Science of Lesson.
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
"Beyond the mountains, more mountains.”
~ Haitian proverb
What’s the *real* reason for change?
The Change Question: What’s the real reason for change?
The Change Question: What’s the real reason for change?
One of the seven questions from The Coaching Habit, the book I’m best known for, is “the focus question”:
What’s the real change here for you?
Of all the questions, it’s the one I’m most insistent on getting the language *just so*. It’s the most tightly scripted, and in two ways.
To begin at the end, adding “for you” suddenly makes the question personal and compelling.
It moves it from what might be an abstract, jazz-handsy sort of conversation to something very real. It puts that person in the system.
It’s not (and you can imagine this being said in a snooty British accent), “What, do you theorize, might be the factors of resistance in this process?” … but rather, “How is this hard for you, and how are you currently right in the thick of it?”
The second very deliberate word is “real.”
There’s a world, a universe, a multiverse of difference between “What’s the challenge?” and “What’s the real challenge?” You can feel it, even as you read it.
My pod interview with the delightfully blunt Margaret Heffernan brought that home for me. If you’ve listened to it, you might remember her saying, “If you're doing a cost-cutting program. Call it that. You know, let's not pussyfoot around. You fool nobody, and you just make people incredibly cynical.”
But put aside the marketing and the spin for a moment that you might be using to influence others.
Do you know the real reason for change?
Do you know what really matters to your CEO, your change sponsor, the power brokers in the SLT, your boss, and the other figures of influence and power?
It’s one thing to figure out how to pitch a transformation project to an audience.
It’s another one to fall for your own PR and not know what’s really going on, or why.
Pod Wisdom: A change “truism” that drives Katy Milkman NUTS
Katy Milkman, from the Change Signal episode "The High School Secret to Org Change":
“My biggest bugbear is visualized success.
Like, just close your eyes and imagine a good result and what does that look like? What does it feel like?
There's zero evidence that that helps and if anything, what we know is it's really critical to do these kinds of pre-mortems where we're pessimists, where we think about what could go wrong so that we can solve those obstacles before they're upon us.”
Listen to my full conversation with Katy now
Katy Milkman is a professor at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, a pre-eminent researcher on individual behaviour change, author of How to Change: The Science of Getting from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be, and host of the podcast Choiceology where she explores making smarter choices through behavioural science.
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.
Book Wisdom
The great ‘Western process of rationalization’ that unfolds over the centuries and the core of which consists in making life and the world calculable, manageable, and predictable–scientifically, technologically, economically, legally, politically, and finally, also in everyday life.
This means nothing less than making the world controllable, and Weber identifies this as … a process of progressive alienation, of the world’s falling mute, which he describes as a ‘disenchantment.’
The Uncontrollability of the World, Hartmut Rosa.
This is a short, dense book … philosophical, provocative, and probably not on many “change management” curriculum reading lists. 🙂 I have a core belief that part of the tension of change is the dance between our deep desire to control it all, and the impossibility of that. I think Rosa’s words–alienation, disenchantment–are powerful.
The Last Word: Tom Feltenstien and Mac Anderson
"Change is good. You go first."
~ Tom Feltenstien and Mac Anderson
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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