Living Change Free

In the recent book Switch by Chip and Dan Heath, they describe the way humans think about any and all issues. There’s the right side, tied to analytical and problem solving and the left, which is tied to our emotions.

During times of change you may rationally know the organization is to go in a new direction, however your emotional side likes the old way of doing systems and is comfortable with the systems already in place. So what happens? The organization may shift, however the employees don’t. Both your analytical and emotional sides need to align in order to really move and desire the change.

However when organizations are changing, do they communicate the change to our right and left sides of our brains? Not so much. Someone with a swanky title stands at a podium, says some nice things that most people won’t understand because the dialogue seems merely like rhetoric. If the leader is showing umpteen numbers of Power Point slides that’s even more of a snore and potentially more confusing. All employees hear are “here we go again…what does this mean…I hope I don’t get fired.” And so employee motivation is nil.

As Chip Heath points out, the US Congress long ago changed the national speed limit to 55 miles per hour. Did that change behavior? If you live in Los Angeles and drive the freeways at all hours of the day when the freeways are free of traffic, 55 mile per hour speed limit mirrors wishful thinking.

David Cooperrider who created the leadership modality, Appreciative Inquiry believes if you focus on the good stuff you’ll get more of it. People are inspired by great success stories. If a leader whose organization is going through change pointed out the last time there were changes how successfully the employee population leveraged their key strengths to make the change a victory, I bet you there would be plenty of people really motivated. At least employees would have a visual image that this change too can be done and we can come through it with the same degree or more of success than was experienced before.

When you build on strengths and empower employees to do so, change is not seen as moving a huge barge. It’s seen as something that’s tough and it can be done because we’ve done it before.

And please don’t look to change your organization by mirroring someone else’s. How about looking within, at your own history to see how you have worked change well. What were your proudest moments? Who was involved? How did teams and individuals interact? How about mirroring your internal case studies instead of someone else’s?

It’s easy to focus on what is not working, however if you can become a leader who can focus on what is working well and leverage the best of what is, betcha you’ll find a whole group of people around you more apt to do the heavy lifting that is required to move your organization to new heights.