Leading Workplace Change™

In my last post I wrote about a public figure openly acknowledging a flaw in their thinking and how that capability is a powerful tool for leaders to model and reward in a time of change.  It allows for people to move forward quickly past paralysis and blaming to new ways of acting.  In thinking more, I realized there is an “underbelly” side to how some organizations respond to people taking responsibility for their mistakes that needs to be shared as well.

One “underbelly” response usually occurs in organizations where the focus on achieving results or winning is taken to an extreme.  In these workplaces, missteps are not easily accepted or forgotten and people look for opportunities to take advantage of someone else’s slip-up for their own benefit.  The focus is usually on winning for oneself and not for the good of the company.  This quote exemplifies the impact on employee productivity and morale.

Those that slip-up want to pass responsibility on to others and not be part of the solution.  No one wants to take the blame.  People are afraid that someone else will take advantage of the mistake for their own benefit.  The system for rewards and recognition encourages individual “point scoring” over others rather than teamwork.

There is clearly a feel of internal competition in this workplace.  It would take courage or connections with the “right people” for someone to be willing to try something new. 

Consequently, the learning for leaders is first to be aware and assess the workplace culture you breathe everyday.  Are there any “underbelly” practices that may act as barriers to openly acknowledging and learning from mistakes?  How would you personally intercede to re-direct these undermining practices?  Follow the advice of Peter Drucker as outlined in one of my previous posts and look for pockets in the workplace where folks are regularly more open.  Ask them how they make it safe for people to try new ways of working and hold themselves accountable for both their successes and their missteps?

Finally, a primary role of leaders who want to mindfully re-direct their workplace culture, is to have a personal story crafted as to why they see a shift in behaviors is needed.  Be prepared to be called dull and boring as your job will be to repeat differing versions of the story many times over the weeks, months ahead as people muscle their way through new ways of working.

Tags: Leaders Leading, Workplace Stories by Terri – older, but wiser white lady
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My family likes to eat shrimp all year and not only in season, but I recently read an article in the Atlanta Journal & Constitution (7/10/08) about “The Hidden Cost of Shrimp,” and I am ready to act differently. How I reacted to this article is a good example of one kind of push people usually need to change how they act.

The article outlines the pro’s and con’s between purchasing “wild-caught, farm-raised, U.S. or Asian shrimp.” The reporter, Meredith Ford gives the reader details about how shrimp gets to our fish markets and they are not pleasant - spread of disease, use of antibiotics & pesticides and destruction of ecosystems - all this info made me think differently about the shrimp I love to eat

But, the part of her article which affected me the most were her final thoughts - she recommends that we need to think about eating less shrimp; saving them for special occasions; and, to understand the greater cost to our planet than the price we pay per pound of shrimp!

Wow, this thought is coming from the Food & Drink section of a daily newspaper in the United States - asking us to think less rather than more. This pushes against the grain of our American cultural belief that we have unlimited natural resources. Essentially, she is asking us to think differently about the food we eat and our lives. 

Thinking differently is the first step towards acting differently.  

Tags: Corporate Culture Observer, Good Books and Articles by Terri – older, but wiser white lady
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I was moved to start a blog due to recent experiences with long-term clients. I realized these clients were stuck - nothing new in change management consulting, especially if you focus on helping leaders adapt their organizational cultures! I finally realized that the difficulty was a few key members of the management teams were not making important decisions, holding the whole team back and mostly because they were unable to personally act differently.

Now, changing how you act is a difficult task for anyone, let alone folks who now realize that whatever they do as leaders will be watched like a hawk by all employees of their organization. As consultants’ we had done a good job in communicating the responsibility of leaders to model and reward how they wanted everyone to act if they wanted a shift in their workplace culture - maybe too good a job. Eventually, I realized these leaders were human and nervous about their abilities to change their day-to-day behaviors. I remembered the same feeling when I ran an organization 15 years ago and mandated that everyone use an electronic client update system and I personally still did not understand how Windows worked on my computer!

We initiated individual coaching processes in our client organizations, but it was not enough.  So, the idea of a blog came to me as a way to more privately support people to act differently through the use of personal and workplace stories. I knew in my bones the power to inspire when you tell stories in small groups and big presentations and it seemed worth trying this new blog technology to tell stories in a more intimate way.

Tags: Personal-Ah-Hah Moments by Terri – older, but wiser white lady
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