I suggested that they could simply go online and mail in their reports. We spoke about how he wanted accountability and focus, but he hadn’t communicated those elements—instead, he was letting the team off the hook. Greg decided to be bold and change the way he asked questions in the meeting.
The first time he did so, it shocked the team. He announced that if they had met their deadline, they did not need to report it. With that change alone, he saved valuable time, and everyone looked happy, nodding at the new change.
But when he asked them to move some milestone date two weeks earlier and explained that he wanted a tangible plan to get back on schedule, they did not respond so enthusiastically. The room fell quiet.
The team had fallen into a routine of updating status, but not being held accountable for schedule slippage or corrective action. Greg’s initial line of questioning took his team by surprise. The result: halfhearted responses and excuses. I could feel the tension in the room.
Greg later voiced his concern that this approach would not work. I acknowledged his frustration and fears. We both agreed that the next meeting would be critical. If he capitulated and went back to the default of status updates, he would never get his team on track.
The following Monday, Greg’s team began to test him again with status updates. After the first two managers tried and failed, the group smartly picked up those cues. By the third Monday, the meeting reflected more accountability, better dates, and commitments to action.
By changing accountability and the line of questioning, Greg slowly changed his team’s behavior and long-term performance. They were able to get back on schedule.
11. Trigger Significant Emotional Events
Sometimes drawing a line in the sand to mark a decisive change challenges the status quo and, especially if unexpected, can trigger emotional reactions like shock and panic. Such abrupt changes need to be well planned to avoid unwelcome surprises.
An example from my university days illustrates what I mean. At final test time, one of my professors fired a starter gun as we were not paying attention, talking over him, and being boisterous. It was a significant emotional event, as he berated us in a way never heard before. He lost his cool, to reestablish control.
The examples above show how leaders can interrupt established neural pathways and behaviors and change the responses of their teams and organizations. They all share a common factor: introducing an experiential shock or change to the system that shifts accepted norms, prompting people to stop and think, Wait a minute! This is new and not what I expected.
Our minds will always gravitate to something new, even though our past responses may be deeply conditioned through repetition.
18.
Stealth Change Management
People don’t resist change. They resist being changed!
—Peter Senge, author
For many leaders, managing change is a struggle in its execution. Many of my clients have spent countless hours and money, investing their people’s time in a big rollout of the latest initiative—involving countless all-company meetings, town-hall gatherings, slogans, and speeches. The circus has truly come to town. And despite all the flipcharts documenting novel ideas, in the end most of them go back to normal and nothing really changes.
Why isn’t there even “a flavor of the month” reaction? Because companies do not manage their change rollouts properly. In fact, these are probably the worst ways to manage culture change. Most studies reveal that 70 percent of all change initiatives fail.
So, what to do? Intuitive leadership tells us to go against the grain.
John Kurz, a visionary leader at a large oil firm, has the answer. How does a living body transform? As we all know, the body constantly replaces old cells with new cells. But change or growth doesn’t happen all at once. You don’t suddenly leave childhood and enter puberty or change from an adolescent into an adult man or a woman. It happens by degrees, small changes at a time. If growth happened too quickly, your body would revolt.
John and other leaders I have worked with understand that sweeping changes almost never stick, but small steps over time can effectively change the culture without generating resistance, overwhelm, or apathy.
It is as if management declared “Let’s be “X,” and then everyone feels disappointed when the organization doesn’t become X. Transforming culture happens in two ways: either a crisis forces change (an external trigger like a market disruption) or leaders make a focused effort to do bring about the desired change (internal trigger).
Change can happen without everyone jumping on the bandwagon. In biology, in fact, very few cells drive changes in metabolism and health. If important metabolic change can occur in our bodies with just a few “change-agent” cells, why not also in organizations?
Molecular biology has shown that even the simplest of all living systems on earth today, bacterial cells, are exceedingly complex objects. Although the tiniest bacterial cells are incredibly small, weighing less than 10-12 gms, each is in effect a veritable micro-miniaturized factory containing thousands of exquisitely designed pieces of intricate molecular machinery, made up altogether of one hundred thousand million atoms, far more complicated than any machine built by man and absolutely without parallel in the nonliving world.
—Michael Denton, author, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis
Working on a typewriter by touch, like riding a bicycle or strolling on a path, is best done by not giving it a glancing thought. Once you do, your fingers fumble and hit the wrong keys. To do things involving practiced skills, you need to turn loose the systems of muscles and nerves responsible for each maneuver, place them on their own, and stay out of it.
—Lewis Thomas, author, The Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher
We can apply that same apparently radical, but normal thought process here. By taking things slow and quietly, in baby steps, without grand announcements and proclamations, leaders can make significant change without anyone noticing. I call it “stealth change.”
Stealth transformation does not mean bad intent. Wise leaders use it to avoid resistance, demotivation due to lack of progress that big initiatives often create. Forget all the fancy balloons and donuts—and simply act without fanfare.
John succeeded in shifting his organization from being just safety-focused to being risk-focused as well. He didn’t turn a blind eye to safety, but he realized that by carefully managing risk, he and his team would create a more committed and safer workplace. John understood that not everyone has to go “Yeah!”—that the energy required to get everyone on board will not necessarily continue.
As the company moves forward to launch the latest new thing, it can generate great enthusiasm. That’s how our minds work. Then, over time, the excitement runs its course. Too much, and too rapid, change can disorient and exhaust your team, increasing the likelihood they will resist the change—hence, the value of stealth change.
As we have seen over the last few chapters, there are a variety of things we can do to drive change internally. But what happens when outside events force us to change?
19.
Crisis Management
Taking Off Leadership Handcuffs
There cannot be a crisis next week. My schedule is full already.
—Henry Kissinger, former Secretary of State
Like anything in life, a single moment can change everything. What you once thought impossible actually happens. Something you thought you would never experience suddenly shows up.
When you’re faced with challenges or opportunities to innovate, “going against the grain”—a core principle of this book—often liberates previously untapped power.
One morning you wake up, your partner has left, and you find yourself alone. All your shared plans have gone up in smoke. As the day goes on, your pulse rate goes way up, and you now consider what once seemed forbidde
n or impossible: You begin to hear rumblings of your basic instincts and wonder what it would be like to follow your impulse and do things you never did before.
Peter, the manager at a large forestry products plant, woke up one morning in early spring to find he had lost 30 percent of his market overnight due to plummeting prices in Asia.
Later that morning, the chairman of the board of directors called to inform him that if the plant didn’t finish at break-even by the end of the year, they would likely close the plant until further notice. He had six months.
In any crisis, you have options: You can think and act reactively for the short term and try to put out the fire. Or you can choose to leverage the crisis and drive for long-term changes that increase performance.
Peter called me in to discuss a possible strategy before the rest of the team got involved. The consequences of not getting it right were obvious. Peter insisted that we take whatever action we needed to meet the board’s challenge, refusing to be a victim.
His team had to commit to doing things they hadn’t done before. Because the team had no precedent for the new approach, the uncertainty they faced seemed like a thousand shades of gray. On a gut level, Peter knew they had to be bold: Be open to thinking without judgment, use their creativity, and take complete ownership of any unexpected consequences. It would require truly trusting one another.
To drive profitability, the senior team decided to take away any constraints they had previously put on themselves. For example:
Link the front line to the business. No one could be on the sidelines as they developed the recovery plan. At small group meetings, everyone heard firsthand about the business environment.
Simplify the message and change the language. Management-speak wouldn’t work with the front line, many of whom had only an eighth-grade education. The plant manager met with the remaining team every week, and he changed the weekly revenue target to “number of logging trucks,” which they all understood: “How many logging trucks did we generate this week?”
Work with contractors as full team members. Peter included all remaining contractors as full members of the team. He did not have time to repeat instructions or hold weekly business reviews.
Show compassion. He handled any layoffs with upmost care and dignity, along with full union support and family outreach. He also set up assistance for job hunting and additional financial support to help with the transition—no burned bridges.
Open up communication. He insisted that communication should flow freely up and down the org chart, and that managers would listen to all stakeholders at all levels. Managers stayed out of their offices, and “lived” on the shop floor.
Base all decisions and actions on agreed-upon priorities. By sharpening focus and using tough triage, he and his team restricted actions to whatever would add value to the balance sheet. Everything else went on hold.
Increase the business review cycle. Instead of relying on standard weekly and monthly reports, the combined team took the pulse of the business daily, which drove more effective decision-making that involved input from the front line.
Have more fun, not less. While this might seem counterintuitive, Peter made sure that his people shared more dinners, participated in community events, and spent time together to reduce stress.
They finished the year at $250,000 above break-even. The plant stayed open and remains a healthy business to this day. Many of the people he had laid off eventually rejoined the team.
They continued to use the successful more open and unrestrained strategy even when they achieved their objectives.
Most of the time, leaders don’t have to deal with crisis. They have to effectively manage the day to day. More disconcerting, some act as if everything is a crisis, and as such, put their performance and teams in peril unwittingly.
20.
Effective Triage
Not Everything Is a Crisis
The term “triage” normally means deciding who gets attention first.
—Bill Dedman, journalist
Often in high pressure work environments, external inputs are responded to with equal energy and attention. Suddenly, everything is a priority and a crisis, and is met with intense action and activity.
Many leaders initiate action and allow resources to be utilized without really understanding that they can control the company’s input as well as its output. Wise leaders ask, “Do we really want to do this?”
An example: One client, who believed in open access, allowed anyone to initiate a complex document known as an engineering change notice request. The change notice needed to be evaluated, processed, and given a thumbs-up or thumbs-down, generating many work-hours by the engineering team.
The result was a system clogged with too many requests. Some of them were critical. There was not enough staff time to handle them, which meant delays, and the important requests were mixed in with the less important.
Once a leader decides to move forward without triage, it can cost a lot more to undo it; it is much better and cost-effective to stop the process before you reach the point of no return. Once again, it goes back to priorities and simplification.
Good triage questions to consider:
How does this (issue, project, challenge) fit into our overall priorities?
What is the risk if we don’t address it?
Can we address it a week or a month from now when we have freed up resources?
If we take it on, who would be responsible?
What does assigning someone do to the person, team, and workload?
How does it affect our stakeholders?
What additional resources do we need?
What potential gains can we expect?
What could go wrong?
Triage must be done rapidly, and that means no twelve-hour-long exercises. Instead, ask these questions quickly, and then make your decision to move forward on the issue at hand, forget about it, or postpone it.
In the previous chapters, we have seen that there is so much more under a leader’s control internally to drive and manage change. That knowledge and skill set also helps us when external factors demand a response. Another powerful skill that we can harness, and have more control of then we think, is our presence.
Recap
Part 4: Managing Change Rogue-Style
Use movement or action to establish new neural pathways.
Jump-start changes in behavior by taking actions that change brain patterns.
Take different, purposeful actions that create significant emotional events to “wake up people” and change behaviors and accountability.
Turn to shock value to shift behaviors, but use it sparingly.
Introduce something new to engage and refocus everyone’s mind.
Trust and respect one another and don’t rely on power by title.
Pay attention to the front line at all times.
Make the time for inner work and reflection (the leader).
Change neural pathways by doing things differently and creating new experiences.
Don’t wait for a crisis. It can do a lot to sharpen focus, but don’t wait for one.
Focus on long-term career development and not on training only.
Initiate change over time through consistent “stealth” execution; avoid fanfare.
PART 5
SHOWING UP WITH PURPOSE
“Be in” is all about passion. Life is short. There are so many interesting things we can do in our life, and I feel like if someone is just kind of showing up, it’s not worth it for them or for us.
—Brad Garlinghouse, CEO
21.
Stand-Up Leadership
How to Bring Down the House
When you are doing stand-up comedy, you are the writer, producer, director, sometim
es bouncer.
—Dane Cook, comic
Picture yourself in a comedy club filled with people drinking, laughing, and talking. The microphone stand glints in the spotlight as the audience waits for the comics to come on stage—collectively, the audience hums with an attitude: “make me laugh.” All share a common purpose: they came to be entertained, united in varying degrees of defiance and sobriety.
The late great comic Dick Gregory was once asked in the early ’60s how, as a black man, he could perform in all-white clubs. He did so by making fun of himself first. Self-deprecation gave him permission to then turn his sights on others. By channeling the energy toward himself first, he changed the dynamic in the room.
What does any of this have to do with business?
We can look at the arc of a stand-up show’s thirty-minute set as an accelerated “rogue life cycle” in business. Comedians must perform reflective work in real time and respond to immediate feedback. Their approach can work as effectively in everyday business life as it does on stage.
My family hails from the world of improvisation and comedy. My mother loved her work as an improvisational actress; my sister-in-law, actress Suzanne Kent, a founding member of the famed Groundlings Theater in LA, the birthplace of comedy giants such as Phil Hartman, Will Ferrell, and Melissa McCarthy. In our twenties, my brother, David, and I had a national touring improv group, and he also enjoyed being a member of the Groundlings Sunday Show.
As a comic, I have used tricks to ensure I had a good shot at having a good evening. Note the key phrase “have a shot.” Any comic who says he or she has never bombed has never been on stage. Nothing is guaranteed—especially when you have to improvise (this also applies in business). Here are my top five tricks and techniques.
1. Quietly Observe and Go Inward
Over the years in stand-up, I noticed that many comics would stay backstage or drink at the bar. At first, this surprised me, but later I realized that the more successful comics used that time to read the audience. I used to do that too as an emcee. I would watch the crowd and the way they behaved collectively, making a mental note of who might be trouble or agitated, who was in a good mood, and who was there for cheap beer.
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