Monthly Archives: October 2014

Encouragement from the heart

Posted on October 31, 2014 by | Leave a comment

The fact is, we don’t do our best in isolation. We don’t get extraordinary things done by working alone with no support, encouragement, expressions of confidence, or help from others. –Kouzes & Posner

As Todd mentioned on Wednesday, reinforcing the new normal takes persistence and resiliency. We have to be able to get back up and keep moving forward when things inevitably take a wrong turn. And it works best when we don’t do it alone.

I recently reread Kouzes and Posner’s classic Encouraging the Heart. They described seven essentials for leaders who want to provide genuine encouragement.

  1. Set clear expectations
    – Do your people know what the new normal is supposed to look like?  Do they understand their roles and responsibilities?
    – Does everyone in the organization share a common set of goals, values, and principles?
  2. Expect the best 
    – Do you genuinely believe that your people can achieve the new goals?
    – How do you communicate that belief to them?
  3. Pay attention
    – Do you observe what people are doing and understand the significance of their actions?
    – When you see someone doing something great, what do you do about it?
  4. Personalize recognition
    – How do you provide recognition that is personal and meaningful?
    – How can you reinforce the message that individual efforts can make a difference?
  5. Tell the story
    – How can you demonstrate the benefits of the new normal in ways that are meaningful and memorable?
  6. Celebrate together
    – How can you create public events and ceremonies that will build trust and bring people together around the change?
  7. Set the example
    – How can you demonstrate that you are personally committed to the change?

As leaders, we can easily get caught up in the new business processes and work activities generated by change. This book was a great reminder that our most critical role in leading change is to support and encourage our teams.

Dee Anne Bonebright

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Posted in change and transition, Engagement, Leadership, Motivation

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Crash!

Posted on October 29, 2014 by | 2 comments

“Ouch, that hurts!” I was mountain biking last weekend with my brothers and a co-worker and I crashed. Trail ridingIt caught me by surprise. We were working hard, making progress, having fun, and suddenly, I was on my back – a little bloody but no worse for the wear. I picked up my bike, brushed the dirt off my body, smiled a bit, and continued down the trail. Sounds like leading change.

You can count on obstacles, and even a crash or two, when leading change. Being resilient and getting back on track can help determine the future of the change effort and your success as a leader. Last week I was participating in the Academic and Student Affairs Leadership Conference for the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system. While there we received notice that two of our major stakeholder groups are stepping away from our Charting the Future work. It was an emotional blow that requires leaders to get back up and keep moving forward. Psychologists call that resiliency, the ability to adapt and bounce back when things don’t go as planned.

At the conference, I listened to our leaders describe the challenges they experience having to repeatedly get back up and keep moving forward. Their experiences reflect what neuropsychologist Rick Hanson describes in his book Hardwiring Happiness. Our brains act like velcro for bad news and teflon for good news. We absorb the crashes, ignore the victories and deplete our resiliency. Luckily new research has confirmed the concept of neuroplasticity. Our experiences literally can change our brains. We can develop our resiliency using a four step process Hanson describes as “the deliberate internalization of positive experiences in implicit memory,” or HEAL:

  1. Have a positive experience – notice one or create one for yourself
  2. Enrich it – recognize it and stay with it for a moment
  3. Absorb it – really recognize it and let it sink in
  4. Link positive and negative material – acknowledge something negative in the background and notice it isn’t overwhelming the positive

Developing your resiliency can help you be prepared for and respond to the crashes you will encounter leading change. Yes, the bruises I get riding can hurt, but the memories of trails and friends help me get back on the bike. top of crusher Bike resting

Todd Thorsgaard

 

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Posted in change and transition, Leadership, leadership development, self awareness

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Take time to celebrate!

Posted on October 27, 2014 by | Leave a comment

I’m one of those people who has long to-do lists and have taken deep satisfaction in my ability to get things done. While this has served me well over my career, it also has a down side. I sometimes forget to take time to celebrate accomplishments before racing off to tackle the next project.

In reinforcing the new normal, I know that it is absolutely critical for leaders to take time with their teams to recognize progress in a change effort and celebrate milestones. As a result, I know that I have to be more deliberate about scheduling time to pause and celebrate. I’ve found that celebrating accomplishments not only helps to acknowledge my team’s efforts, but it continues to build good relationships among my team.

IMG_2267Last month, my team and I celebrated our accomplishments with a boat ride on the St. Croix River. It was a cold, blustery day in September that felt more like November, but it was a great way to say thanks to my team and recognize their hard work over the last year.

What can you do to celebrate?

Anita Rios

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Posted in Accountability, change and transition, Engagement

Building support networks

Posted on October 24, 2014 by | 1 comment

social network free to useAs we are leading change efforts, many of our best resources for reinforcing the new normal come from other leaders who are engaged in the same work. Building support networks can help you, personally and professionally, to sustain the changes you are trying to make.

I spent most of this week at the 2014 fall Academic and Student Affairs Leadership Conference. It showed the importance of getting together with peers who understand the issues we are dealing with. It reminded us that we are not in this alone and, more important, provided a chance to problem-solve together, exchange ideas, and share resources.

It’s important to take advantage of opportunities you might have to attend conferences like this one. But there are many other things you can do to build your networks.

  1. Connect with people in other institutions who do the same sort of work you do.  If the distance is too far to meet in person, periodic phone conversations can let you check in and support each other’s change efforts.
  2. If you are an experienced leader, consider reaching out to a younger colleague. Providing mentorship can be a positive experience for both of you.
  3. If you are a new leader, reach out to your more experienced peers. Seeking a mentor can feel intimidating, but an easy way to start is to ask a respected colleague to meet you for coffee and come with a couple of specific questions about things you have seen them do well.

How have your professional networks helped you to sustain change efforts?

Dee Anne Bonebright

 

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Symbols

Posted on October 22, 2014 by | Leave a comment

“Everything means something.”  – William Bridges.

During change and transition everything gets magnified. Small actions take on large meanings. Often unexpected meanings! Being aware of this can help you reinforce the new normal with small, yet symbolic, decisions and actions.

I was a part of a large organizational transition that included moving from a top down to a more participative leadership style. A few months into the transition I noticed our CEO was saying “all leaders from me out to our front-line supervisors,” instead of the typical phrase “down to the supervisors.” A small change in language by our CEO reinforced her commitment to the new leadership model.

Other symbolic actions that you can take to reinforce the new behaviors and actions of your new normal include:

  • who gets invited to meetings
  • assignment or location of parking spaces
  • use of job titles
  • inclusion in phone directories
  • the look or design of name badges
  • the colors of labor contracts (MnSCU readers have experienced this one!)
  • company logos

What opportunities do you have to symbolize the new culture of a change you are leading?

Todd Thorsgaard

 

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What stories are you telling?

Posted on October 20, 2014 by | Leave a comment

“Stories are the single most powerful tool in a leader’s toolkit.” – Howard Gardner

This month we have been discussing ways of reinforcing the new normal after implementing a change. One important method is to focus on the stories you are telling about your organization, its values, and the new way of doing things.

According to Howard Gardner, when you tell a story, you are appealing to multiple intelligences to open up more parts of the brain, that allow people to better absorb information and retain it. You are also creating a pathway for people to connect emotionally with your organization and feel a part of the change. But if you’re not a natural storyteller, how do you get started?

  • First think about what you want to communicate.
  • Then, think about what you want your listeners to do as a result.
  • Then, work backward from that.

Sounds easy. Right?….. Wrong. Good storytelling is hard work, but can be a strategic activity for a leader and well worth the effort. It may help to begin collecting stories about what early successes have occurred with the change. Begin sharing those stories and highlight how the change has impacted students, employees, your institution, the larger society, and you.

grad manHere’s a story I’d like to share with you. I have worked in higher education for more than 28 years now and I stay in higher education, because I believe in its ability to transform lives. A couple of years ago, I met a student at one of our community colleges who was absolutely inspirational. He had attended his local college during his last two years of high school and was graduating from high school with his A.A. degree. At the ripe age of  18, he was able to enroll in a university as a junior, with two years of college completed and paid for. He told me how he enjoyed college, the campus environment and his professors who took time to mentor him. He shared how college had transformed his life, giving him options for his future. Yes, he was motivated, and an exemplary student, but without our community college in his rural area, he would have been marking time in his local high school. Providing post-secondary options for high school students is one of the ways my organization provides value to our students, our state, and our society.

People look for meaning in their work. Stories can inspire and engage people in the new way of doing things. And the sharing of stories can create collective meaning in an organization.

What stories are you telling?

Anita Rios

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Rewarding the new normal

Posted on October 17, 2014 by | Leave a comment

trophy free to use As we work toward a more collaborative culture within MnSCU, we’ll need people at all levels to take ownership of their part in the changes. If you’ve been following the Charting the Future implementation teams, you know that incentives and rewards are an important part of the strategy.

Leaders in public higher education sometimes think that our labor contracts and financial restrictions leave us few options for rewarding employees. But there are many non-financial ways to reward good work, and they can be even more effective than money. For example, engagement expert Beverley Kaye created this list of 26 ways to reward star employees. Check it out for some new ideas.

In addition to thinking about how to reward good work, leaders need to think about what to reward. Last year’s safety issues at General Motors sparked an interesting case study in a recent Harvard Business Review blog.  Titled Do Your Company’s Incentives Reward Bad Behavior? it proposed that while GM talked about the importance of safety, organizational behaviors indicated that cost control was more important. This mis-alignment probably discouraged people from bringing up safety concerns. Here are some tips from the article:

  1. Create an honest and reflective list of the behaviors you want and the behaviors you don’t want.
  2. Identify the behaviors that you are currently measuring. Think broadly about the kinds of feedback that you pay attention to and the activities you formally and informally track with colleagues and those who report to you.
  3. Compare the two lists. What behaviors do you care about, but are not currently measuring? This is what the article called your “danger list.”
  4. Assess your rewards and incentives to be sure they reflect the behaviors you want to see more of.

Identifying the feedback “danger list” is an important leadership strategy to support change. If a key behavior is not being measured, others are likely to think it isn’t very important. Further, even if people want to engage in that behavior they will lack feedback about what they are doing well and what needs to be improved.

The article suggested an easy way to assess your feedback strategies, rewards, and incentives: ask people what would happen if they did the behaviors on your “more of” and “less of” lists. Would they 1) be rewarded or approved, 2) be discouraged in some way, 3) receive no reaction, or 4) not know what to expect? The answers can help you pay attention to the right things.

Are the right things are being measured and rewarded in your area?

–Dee Anne Bonebright

 

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Posted in change and transition, higher education, Leadership, performance management

Nobody’s perfect

Posted on October 15, 2014 by | Leave a comment

mistakeWe have spent the past year highlighting the crucial role you, the leader, have in articulating the change vision, setting strategy, engaging your people, building commitment, developing capacity and finally, taking action! You have invested your time and your energy into the success of the change. Yet, now that it is finally being rolled out you may need to acknowledge that it may have gotten off-track.

Wait, before you revolt, notice I said, “off-track.” Not failed. Making small course corrections to the plan you developed can keep the change on-track. In fact, if you, the leader, recognize that not everything is going perfect and encourage course corrections you will build the culture that reinforces the change.

Making those course corrections are hard after you have poured your heart and soul into the change effort. I worked with a physician leader on a change effort designed to build a new patient-centered care model. Our team spent months gathering information and designing a sophisticated and detailed after-visit summary that would be given to every patient at the end of their appointment. We had to change multiple procedures, train staff on completing the form, post informational signs and update computer systems. After we started using the new process and form we discovered people weren’t finding it valuable! At first we were dismayed but we took a breath, stepped back and asked a few questions. We discovered patients found the form was too complicated. It had too much information on it. We made a small change to the form and patients loved the overall process. Their positive comments and stories reinforced the importance of the change and helped the full deployment of the new process.

Making small course corrections  helps build your new culture and reinforce the importance of the change itself.

Todd Thorsgaard

 

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Culture comes last

Posted on October 13, 2014 by | Leave a comment

Transformational change by its very nature requires culture change.  In fact, most of us have heard the phrase: “culture eats strategy for breakfast.” Right? In other words, we can have the most logical, well-thought-out change strategy, but unless the culture (i.e., underlying norms and values) shifts in an organization to support a new way of operating and working together, the change will fail.

Popular wisdom often focuses on shifting culture first in an organization, but according to change guru and author John Kotter, “In a change effort, culture comes last, not first.”  He says that culture truly changes only when a new way of operating has been shown to succeed over time.

sysyphusTrying to shift the norms and values before creating the new way of operating does not work. In fact, it will result in useless efforts and unending frustration. It can often feel like Sisyphus, from Greek mythology, who was sentenced to endlessly roll an enormous boulder up a steep hill only to watch it roll back down again.

So how can leaders avoid unending frustration and implement strategies that reinforce the new way of operating over time? Here are a few concrete ideas that Kotter shares from his book, The Heart of Change:

  • Use new employee orientation to show what the organization really cares about (values)
  • Promote people who act according to the new norms into influential and visible positions
  • Tell vivid stories over and over about the new organization, what it does and why it succeeds

Kotter adds that “you can create new behaviors that reflect a desired culture. But those behaviors will not become norms, will not take hold, until the very end of the process.”

For me, understanding this fundamental aspect of organizational change that culture comes last, not first, is rather freeing. It helps me focus on what is doable to sustain change, rather than feeling immobilized by thinking that I have to implement culture change first. What do you think?

Anita Rios

 

 

 

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Watering the change garden

Posted on October 10, 2014 by | Leave a comment

In his book Leading Change, John P. Kotter tells a compelling story about a failed change effort. The organization had done all the early steps right and was seeing benefits from the change. Everything was going well.  But then the leaders made a fatal mistake – they forgot to reinforce the new normal. As Kotter described it:

watering3 free to useLittle effort was made to help the new practices grow deep roots, ones that sank down into the core culture or were strong enough to replace it. Shallow roots require constant watering. As long as change agents were there daily with the garden hose, all was well. Without that attention, the practices dried up, withered, and died. Other greenery that had been cut back, but that had deeper roots, took over.

When we’re leading change, we need to think like gardeners. What kind of food and water does the new normal need to grow strong and healthy? Who is watering the change now, and what happens when they are done? What old greenery has the potential to grow back like a weed?

Kotter suggests some steps leaders can take to help reinforce the new normal and discourage the old patterns from reappearing.

  1. Talk frequently about the evidence showing that the new practices are linked to desired outcomes.
  2. Talk frequently about why the old culture existed, why it was needed, and how it is no longer helpful.
  3. Make sure the people in leadership positions are willing and able to support the new culture.
  4. Make sure that new hires are not being informally screened according to the old norms and values.

watering1 free to useCultural issues are often hidden and difficult to change. Just as tending a garden takes time and effort, reinforcing change is an ongoing process. What suggestions do you have for tending the change garden?

–Dee Anne Bonebright

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