The Weather

Posted on May 12, 2013 by Patty Stolpman

For any of our readers who live in Minnesota you know about the quixotic weather we’ve had this spring!  I really appreciated this blog post from Paul Batz about handling Mother Nature whiplash.  In addition to discussion of many inches of snow, he makes this point;

“I believe leaders create the weather. Not the Mother Nature kind of weather, but the climate by which we operate.

…Good leaders make a habit of staying in tune with the climate they create with their leadership. And they do their best to stay calm, strong and confident in all types of weather.”

How does somebody exercise leadership to create the climate?  Some behaviors we’ve discussed before that can influence organizational culture are:

  1. Dynamic and engaged leadership
  2. Living values
  3. Responsibility and accountability
  4. Celebrate success and failure

To have an opportunity to influence behavior you need to be present and aware.  I don’t necessarily mean that you have to be physically in the same space, but you need to make yourself available and to actively seek out what is happening in your organization.  Keep your ears open to find out what is being said by your employees and by your market.

When you hear about something that is a success for your organization, make sure that the people involved get the kudos they deserve.  When you hear about something that is a failure, acknowledge it, deal with it, and work hard to understand it in order to identify a positive way to turn it around.

Staying engaged and leading with calmness and fairness will help you to control the weather in your organization.

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Symbiotic Relationships Part 2

Posted on May 4, 2013 by Michelle Smeby

As promised, here is the link to the Minnesota High Tech Association’s 2013 Spring Conference breakout session 1A, Giving Change the Respect it Deserves.

MHTA 2013 Spring Conference

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Symbiotic Relationships

Posted on May 1, 2013 by Michelle Smeby

I had the honor of being asked to speak at the Minnesota High Tech Association’s spring conference yesterday. My topic was change management, about which I am obviously passionate, and I had the great pleasure of being able to share the stage with Vikas Narula from Keyhubs. (Patty wrote earlier this year about Vikas’ innovative approach to uncovering the hidden influencers within your organization: the informal network that actually gets stuff done and makes change happen).

When Vikas and I met for the first time to discuss the agenda that we hoped would attract an audience to want to come hear about change and to plan our respective talks, we noticed that I repeatedly used the term “symbiotic relationship.” We laughed that this was an example of the biomedical engineer in me coming out. From the Free Dictionary:

Symbiosis, n. any interdependent or mutually beneficial relationship between two persons, groups, etc.

The reason I used this term was, the more we talked, the more we realized that we had complementary approaches to change and that we could benefit from the other’s services. We appreciated the expertise each party brought to the table, and instead of considering each other as competitors or as adversaries, we approached this new relationship from a perspective of how we could leverage each other’s strengths to deliver an even stronger message than we could deliver as individuals.

To me, this is an important aspect of being a change agent: do you view the inclusion of a new subject matter expert / additional change agent as a threat or as an opportunity? Do you take a moment to ask questions and learn what unique skills the new person brings to the team, so that you can all deliver a better result because they have joined you? Do you welcome them and give them a chance to share their ideas for how to make a compelling case for change / a more comprehensive solution / a better presentation for your audience?

The talk after ours was from Leadership Vision Consulting who specialize in leveraging the Clifton StrengthsFinder® to help companies build strong individuals, strong teams, and strong corporate cultures. Dr. Linda and Brian Schubring emphasized the importance of recognizing the strengths in the individuals with whom you work, to be able to build a better team, and thus an overall better organization.

I will post a link to the presentation when it is available online. In the meantime, I can tell you Vikas’ presentation was fantastic, and I enjoyed giving my portion of the talk even more because of the energy and enthusiasm I got out of making a great new connection, and learning more deeply why I do what I do.

Participation in the conference also helped me realize that one strength I bring to the table is the assumption that the addition of someone new will only make us better. I start from the premise that any new relationship can be mutually beneficial, or symbiotic!

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Present Shock

Posted on April 22, 2013 by Patty Stolpman

There’s a new book out by Douglas Rushkoff — “Present Shock: When Everything Happens Now”.  New York Times book reviewer Janet Maslin analyzes the book - with this concluding paragraph:

“But in the end only some of the ills in “Present Shock” can be chalked up to dehumanizing technological advances. “I am much less concerned with whatever it is technology may be doing to people that what people are choosing to do to one another through technology,” Mr. Rushkoff writes. “Facebook’s reduction of people to predictively modeled profiles and investment banking’s convolution of the marketplace into an algorithmic battleground were not the choices of machines.” They were made by human intelligence, because present shock’s ways of targeting, pinpointing and manipulating aren’t just shocking. They’re very lucrative too.”

Paul Miller from The Verge interviewed Douglas Rushkoff and it’s available here.

Mr. Rushkoff’s position is that the future has already arrived and that we’re living in a world where everything is expected to be immediate.  This expectation of immediacy results in paralysis of long-term thinking and intolerance of a steady state.  Mr. Rushkoff uses the term “overwinding” – the need to be ultra-efficient in order to handle the amount of information flowing to us and our drive to respond.  Even though we may have been sent an email as an atemporal point of communication with no expectation of immediate response by the sender, we drive ourselves to immediately respond, thereby bringing the email into our temporal timeframe.

Michelle and I have discussed the idea of needing to be nimble and flexible in change.  There may be pretty compelling market reasons for why you’re tackling a change initiative, including needing to be quick to market in order to ensure your company’s survival.  Speed may be of the essence and may be expected of your corporate culture.  Recognize that there is intrinsic stress in this expectation and there may be a price paid by your people over the longer term.

We also think that being thoughtful is crucial.  The space for thoughtfulness will not automatically be available, this is something you need to advocate for and consciously make a decision to maintain.  If at all possible, as you’re planning your change effort, build in some time and make sure it’s on somebody’s task list to just stop, reflect, and think throughout the process.

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What Makes You Remarkable?

Posted on April 15, 2013 by Michelle Smeby

While our main focus at wHolistic Change is on corporate transformation, equally important is personal transformation. As your change agents drive your change, some people will perceive the change team and their actions as negative, disruptive, and potentially not in the impacted people’s best interests.

Jeff Haden’s Inc.com article, the 8 Qualities of Remarkable Employees, describes the traits of remarkable employees who make a dramatic impact on business performance:

  1. They ignore job descriptions
  2. They’re eccentric
  3. But they know when to dial it back
  4. They publicly praise
  5. And they privately complain
  6. They speak when others won’t
  7. They like to prove others wrong
  8. They’re always fiddling 

I love this list of 8 qualities and believe they are necessary to lead a successful change; yet I also recognize that remarkable is in the eyes of the beholder: people who possess these qualities may upset their peers, managers, or impacted subject matter experts when they act according to their nature, and exhibit these qualities as they drive corporate change.

In the hopes that all change agents will be inspired to embrace the qualities that make them remarkable, I have created this video. Enjoy!

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