Cutting to the Chase
“Never mistake knowledge for wisdom. One helps you make a living; the other helps you make a life.” —Sandra Carey
“Let’s Cut to the Chase”
What if a senior-level client called you into her office; closed the door and said something like this:
As you know, we are about to kick off an extremely challenging and risky enterprise-wide initiative. The organization’s future is riding on it. This one can’t fall short of the intended outcomes or there will be implications none of us want to deal with.
Because it’s so important that we get this right, I would like you to be my lead change agent. Before we get started, though, I want you to do something for me. I need an unvarnished, bottom-line picture of what we’ll have to contend with to fully realize this project.
Let me save both of us some time here. I don’t want a lot of change management mumbo-jumbo about how each situation is different and it’s important not to prejudice your opinion with foregone conclusions. I know you haven’t had time to dive into the particulars but that’s just the point. I’m not asking you to second-guess all the gory details. I want a broad perspective, a more generalized view of what it takes to pull something like this off.
After you’ve had time to do some front-end work, you can come back with a diagnosis of our implementation risk and a mitigation plan. For now, I want the council of your wisdom, not a precise analysis.
I get that you don’t want to apply untested assumptions about our situation or engage in prefabricated solutions. I appreciate your professionalism in that regard…I really do. Nonetheless, at this point, what I need is an order-of-magnitude view of what we are about to launch.
So, I have two questions:
1. In general, what expectations should I have about embarking on a change intended to transform our business?
2. This won’t be the last major change we face. In fact, the next few years are going to be extremely hectic for us. Can you give me some general DOs and DON’Ts that will likely apply to what we’ll face?
Give it to me straight, what has your experience taught you that I should be prepared for?
How would you respond to these questions? more
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©2012 Conner Partners, Inc.
www.connerpartners.com
Validating Ourselves as Practitioners
(1) Comment“What the superior man seeks is in himself; what the small man seeks is in others.”
―Confucius
Recently, I was asked three separate questions by change practitioners (in three different settings) that I feel are linked. I’m sure many of you periodically address similar issues, so I thought it would be interesting to compare notes. As you’ll see, I didn’t go into lengthy responses, because none of the situations I was in called for that. Please consider adding to or offering alternatives on how I responded as a way of sharing your own experiences when answering questions of this nature.
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©2012 Conner Partners, Inc.
www.connerpartners.com
How to Use Commitment to Understand Resistance
This is the last post in this series on resistance. I’ve discussed the inevitability of resistance in major change, and how lack of predictability and loss of control factor into the amount of resistance that manifests. In the last two posts, I described two of the three models I use to help clients understand and deal with resistance to change. In this post, I’ll describe a third, and offer a free download of a tool I use to help targets express their concern about particular change initiatives.
The third model I use to help clients better understand resistance requires a bit of paradoxical thinking because it involves utilizing commitment as a doorway to seeing the dynamics of resistance. I have already published a series that was dedicated to building commitment to change. In it, I outlined the Commitment Curve model.
Rather than restate all the resistance-related issues and implications surfaced in the series, I recommend you review the posts in that series for additional perspectives on how and when resistance is formed.
Here are a few examples of resistance dynamics revealed through a commitment lens:
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©2012 Conner Partners, Inc.
www.connerpartners.com
Sometimes People HATE the Change
(2) CommentsIn this series, I’m talking about resistance to change—a natural reaction to a disruption in expectations as well as feeling loss of control. In the last post, I began describing three models I use to explain to clients what happens when people resist change:
- One describes the sequence that develops when people resist after having an initial positive reaction to change.
- Another describes the sequence that develops when people react negatively to change from the beginning (see below).
- A third one uses commitment as a lens through which resistance can be better understood. (I’ll describe that one in the next post.)
The Response to Negatively Perceived Change
It doesn’t matter whether a change is originally seen as positive or negative; when people’s expectations are significantly disrupted, the result is resistance. However, the way people manifest their resistance differs according to how they view the change. Major transitions that are applauded at the beginning (the model I described in the last post) follow a pattern distinct from those that are disliked at first.
The most insightful work on the dynamics of negatively perceived change was originated by more
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©2012 Conner Partners, Inc.
www.connerpartners.com
Change Is Easy When People Like It, Right?
(1) CommentIn the previous post, I described resistance to change as a natural reaction to a disruption in expectations as well as feeling a loss of control. As such, resistance accompanies all major change. It doesn’t matter whether it is self-initiated or invoked by others, or if the change is perceived as positive or negative. It’s beneficial for clients if practitioners can frame something that is inevitable in a way that can be leveraged into an advantage for realizing change objectives. In that regard, this series is devoted to focusing on how resistance can be used to foster commitment to intended outcomes rather than inhibit change progress.
Three Frameworks for Understanding Resistance
One way we can help clients leverage resistance to their advantage is to provide them with frameworks to understand what’s in play when people oppose major change initiatives. The more we can demystify the dynamics of resistance for them, the better they will be able to orchestrate events and circumstances toward realization outcomes.
As I’m sure is true for you, I have models I rely on to help me diagnose resistance and inform clients about how resistance actually unfolds. I’ll offer a couple of them here and I encourage you to share with our readers some of the ones you use with clients.
In various situations, I draw on different ways to explain what happens when people withhold their support or actually push back against change. There are three models, however, that I use with clients the most: more
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©2012 Conner Partners, Inc.
www.connerpartners.com
People Love Change—As Long As They Can Predict and Control It
(4) CommentsIn my last post, I addressed the inevitability of resistance in transformational change. In this entry, I want to set a context for resistance as I see it. In particular, I’ll be emphasizing the importance that predictability and a sense of control have on the resistance experience.
Predictability and Control
Resistance is about counter-pressure, so let’s be clear regarding what the opposition is directed toward. Resistance is the force that tries to thwart modifications in the status quo—change.
I know I’m covering ground we are all familiar with, but we sometimes lose sight of what we’ve become accustomed to. Let’s review some of the basic mechanics about change as a process.
The kind of change we are talking about here is an organization’s movement from the mindsets and behaviors of the present state to a new desired state. To achieve this progression, the people involved must do the following:
- Leave the familiarity of the present state
- Pass through a transition state (characterized by uncertainty and insecurity)
- Gravitate to a new configuration of mindsets/behaviors
All three phases have their hardships and obstacles, but most of the time, the transition state is the most difficult for people to navigate. That’s because it requires confronting the scariest of anxieties—the loss of feeling in control.
There are many useful perspectives on resistance that help change agents understand its multi-faceted dynamics. One lens that many practitioners are less familiar with is more
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©2012 Conner Partners, Inc.
www.connerpartners.com
Resistance to Change
(2) CommentsIt may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad. —C. S. Lewis
Resistance—What a Pain! (Or is it?)
If there was ever an aspect to organizational change that permeates our profession, it’s the need to address resistance. Reluctance, concerns, struggle, and opposition are all natural and healthy parts of the human transformative process. As such, surfacing, exploring, and addressing the views that run contrary to intended outcomes is as important to our role as is promoting understanding, commitment, and alignment toward realization goals.
The focus of this blog is the facilitation of fundamental transformative change endeavors. Within this context, is resistance difficult to deal with? Without question. Is it possible to achieve ambitious, dramatic change agendas without it being a central part of the implementation landscape? Absolutely not.
As critical as it is to our work, some practitioners take the position that resistance is an unnecessary outcome that results from poor implementation planning or execution. I hold the opposite view — more
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©2012 Conner Partners, Inc.
www.connerpartners.com
Be Candid in Your Communications to Clients
In my last post, I talked about the importance of using language effectively when communicating with our clients. I discussed ways to match your communication to the listener’s frame of reference (FOR)—one of three aspects of using language that I have chosen to discuss in this series. I continue here with a discussion of the other two, candor and succinctness.
We all aspire to be straightforward with our clients by clearly stating what we want to say rather than speaking in generalities (and hoping the listener understands what we mean). This level of directness is captured in a number of common expressions:
- “Tell it like it is.”
- “Level with me.”
- “Put your cards on the table.”
- “Be a straight shooter.”
Given our desire to be trusted advisors, it would seem obvious that directness is a key element in any change practitioner’s communication toolbox. To the contrary, professional change facilitators often pull their punches (e.g., fail to pursue a sensitive topic, give tough feedback, or engage in necessary explicit conversations with clients). There are a number of possible reasons for this. more
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©2012 Conner Partners, Inc.
www.connerpartners.com
How to Use Language Effectively
(1) CommentThe ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak. —Hans Hofmann
As professional change facilitators, we have many reasons to communicate with our clients: listening, learning, educating, informing, persuading, guiding, or simply expressing ourselves. We also have numerous vehicles for conveying our intentions: speech, images, text, non-verbal signals, etc. While the look and feel of our messages and our choice of media are essential parts of our success as communicators, the most critical ingredient is how effectively we use language.
There are many aspects to using language so that we achieve our intended impact. I have chosen three that often challenge those in our profession:
- Matching (applying the proper frame of reference)
- Candor (being frank and straightforward)
- Succinctness (being accurate, crisp, and compelling)
You may be curious—of all the elements that contribute to the effective use of language, why did I choose these? more
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©2012 Conner Partners, Inc.
www.connerpartners.com
What Behavior Characteristics Do the Best Change Leaders Exhibit?
(3) CommentsIn this two-part series, I am discussing the importance of being prepared when called upon to help assess senior-level leaders for change roles. Continuing with my “reservoir” of change leadership characteristics, here are the behavior attributes that I feel should be considered. You may add others based on the particular situation.
- Approaches change as a process rather than an event
- Recognizes that people have to disengage from their current state and transition through an unstable period before they can establish a new equilibrium
- Knows that people’s heads can sometimes move through change faster than more
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©2012 Conner Partners, Inc.
www.connerpartners.com
