Change Leadership

by Eileen M. Russo, PhD
Re-printed from Executive Excellence Magazine for the convenience of our readers.

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Are you a change leader? Can you become one? The answers to these questions are not found in your title or your position. They are found in your behavior. Those everyday actions steer change to its ultimate destination - success or failure.

How can you model the change? Like everyone else involved in the change you will be learning new behaviors. But because you are leading the change, what you do will be watched more closely and given more meaning.

Actions you take that support the change will send a strong message that you mean business. Actions you take that contradict the change will be seized upon by others as a compelling excuse for not taking the change seriously. Your goal in modeling the change is never to have others accuse you of pulling a "Do as I say, not as I do" move.

Communicating about the change is a constant and never-ending requirement for a change leader. The key to communicating is being proactive. It's your responsibility as a change leader to get out the word. After all, you can't assume that just because you know what's going on, everyone else does, too. And you can't assume that because you told everyone once, they got the message, or believe it's for real. That translates into a requirement for a lot of patience and perseverance on your part. You can't delay communicating until everything about the change is known. If you wait for certainty, you may never communicate.

If you want to involve others in the change, you need the mind-set that change is something everyone helps bring about rather than something that is "done" to others. You can't keep the change all to yourself. Rather, you need to be out and about, pulling others into the change by soliciting their ideas and concerns. Once they start opening up, you'll want to reinforce their involvement with active listening. As others take part in shaping the change, they naturally develop a vested interest in its outcome. This sense of ownership is the fuel that helps change efforts take off.

One of the greatest challenges you will face in leading change is helping others break free from the present way of doing things. People have many motives for defending the status quo. So you need to be a mental pry bar, pulling others from their attachment to the way things are.

When others cling to comfort, you need to introduce an opposing view or point out problems with the current, familiar way of working. And when others complain that it's just too hard to blaze fresh trails, you need to be the guardian of possibilities, repeatedly asking "why?" and "why not?" You have to champion the ideas that have never been tried before or that everyone thinks won't work.

As a change leader, your job is to create an environment where the learning process is openly acknowledged and accepted as a necessary part of change. Part of that is making it okay to admit you don't know something, rather than just faking it. People often don't have a firm grasp of new tasks. And if they fear embarrassment, they will never try anything new, out of their comfort zone.

Creating a supportive learning environment is also about taking unexpected problems in stride. Delays and "do-overs" are natural, so focus attention on what can be learned from a mistake to do better the next time. People who try out new ideas and succeed become people who move the entire organization forward by example.

Eileen M. Russo, Ph.D. is the author of The Change Leadership Journey from which this article is adapted. This book is a great read for both veteran and aspiring leaders! Buy it today online or at your local bookstore.

The New Ways Of Connecting

By Marcus M. Mottley, Ph.D. Last week while President Barack Obama was delivering his first and historic address to the United States Congress, one prominent congress-woman was busy reporting to her own audience. The unique thing is that she was in the chamber, listening to the President, while reporting her thoughts to her own lowyal group of friends and supporters. How did she do this? She was typing on her cell-phone (probably a Blackberry) and sending her thoughts out through Twitter. Thousands of people were likely to have been receiving her notes.

Twitter is a service that allows people to communicate and connect to each other while sharing thoughts and information. It is one of many social networking and micro-blogging services that have become the new ways of connecting.

Other forms of the new ways of connecting includes blogging - like this blog - where just about anyone who has access to a computer and the internet can become a journalist, a reporter or a social charlatan.

Other forms of micro-blogging like Twitter include Jaiku, Pownce and Plurk. Then there are sites and forums where people can connect, form friendships and post information about themselves. These include Hi5, MySpace, LinkedIn, Facebook, Orkut, Skyrock, Avatars United, Bebo.

Other sites like Last.fm, YouTube, Ustream.tv, Justin,tv, imeem, Digg, Reddit, Meetup.com, Second Life, Flickr and Google Groups have more specificied areas of focus. So for example, YouTube is a social networking site that features videos. However, many companies and professionals are using YouTube to market themselves and their products and services.

If you are going to be successful in the new era of social networking you and your company must learn to use these new tools. I have been sending this message to one company that uses my services. They have been slow to respond primarily because the decision-makers are not clued in to the new wave of social connecting and they don't see the tremendous potential for their company. For example, their company has a channel on the local cable TV service. Yes, they have their own channel... have their own programming and control their own content. I have suggested to them that they put this channel on the world wide web. Nope... they don't see the relevance. I have suggested that they take snippets of their TV programming and put them on YouTube. Nope... no can do... no relevance. Who is going to watch? How will we benefit?

Well, this is a company that has a regional and international presence. The local cable TV channel is only seen... well... locally. What about their audience in other parts of the region? what about their clients and customers in other countries? Use YouTube! Place a web-TV snippet on your website so that visitors to the site can see the same information on the local channel without visiting the local town! Do some podcasts of the chairman or managing director or marketing manager as they describe new products and services... and place them so that the world can see and hear! Can you imagine the powerful responses they would have received from this simple form of marketing utilizing the new media and the new technology?

One of the reasons for some objections to the new forms of media and new ways of connecting is that the power of the tradional media and marketing experts have diminished. And to the extent that those people are still in control is to the extent that their companies and their other executives are missing out on the revolution... a revolution that is less costly and much more powerful than the status quo of TV and newspaper ads, flyers and community sponsorships!

Hundreds of millions of people are tuning in and joining the various sorts of new media. How about you... I mean you as an individual!

At the very least I invite you to take a closer look at and explore how you might benefit from a social networking group like LinkedIn which is mainly used by professionals to network and connect with each other. Find colleagues in the same industry, job search, find solutions to common problems, get advice, and build your own network - worldwide!

For those of you who are still asleep using old media - email and IM - wake up - there is another revolution going on!

Pull Yourself Forward

By Marcus M. Mottley, Ph.D.

As we look at the world around us we can make a claim that the nature of life is to grow. We see that in nature’s most basic living things. We also see this in more complex plants and animals.

Certainly, one could make the argument that the nature of life is also to deteriorate and die. However, such deterioration and death usually comes after a long and sustained period of growth and development.

Thus, if we focus on the growth and developmental factors we might ask what is it that drives us. Of course there is the element of DNA and cellular growth that emerges as the biological phenomenon of physical growth and development.

But what about other types of growth which include educational, career, social and spiritual development? I propose that these are propelled much less by the propulsions from our DNA which are unconscious to us and more by individual conscious decisions to grow.

If you analyze the lives of ultra successful people, you find that their successes came from their own internal decisions to push beyond the limits of their personal and social status quo. They decide on their vision, draw up their plans and take massive and unrelenting actions until they achieve success.

What about you? I propose that you need to to do the same. Let your purpose, vision and mission push and pull you towards what you decide will determine your success.

This push and pull comes from inside your head. It is conscious. It is a reality that you focus on every minute of your day. It is your road map and blue print. It mimics the behaviors of you DNA: unrelenting, purposeful, decisive, focused, determined, persistent, powerful… no stopping it until mission accomplished.

Pull yourself – Push yourself – Forward!

What's Your Company's Story?

By Marcus M. Mottley, Ph.D.

In his book, "Generating Buy-In", Mark Walton proposes that companies and their leaders who are successful at generating their staff's buy-in, are also successful at telling strategic stories. Not only do they tell these stories to their staff, they tell them to the public also in order to generate consumer or customer buy-in.

Today, as I was discussing this with an executive who is in my Coaching Program, it dawned on me that she was not clear on the importance of capturing and articulating her company's story. As I thought about this, I reflected on many of the other executives whom I am currently coaching. I could probably count on one hand the number of those individuals who recognize the critical nature of this issue.

Arguably, the most powerful story that is being told today is that of the historic individual who has had the 'best brand' for two thousand years: Jesus Christ. Every Sunday... and throughout the week... in villages, suburbs, towns and cities across the world... his story is the one which predominates from the pulpit to the airwaves, from the street corners to the world-wide web.

And so it has been with successful individuals and companies in every field of endeavor.

When Barack Obama decided that he was going to run for the Presidency of the United States, he realized that he was just another 'wanna-be'... but he was an unknown 'wanna be'. So he wrote three books to introduce himself to the American electorate and to the world: Dreams of My Father; The Audacity of Hope; and, Change We Can Believe In. In these books, he told his story. And the rest is, well... his-story.

In his story, he branded himself to the words 'hope' and 'change' as he told the story of his life and of his dreams. These are forever etched in our memories and in our psyche. What did the American public do? What did the world do? We bought in! We elevated him!

So as I reflected on the people in my coaching program, I recognized that each of them worked for companies that had very powerful elements in their stories: how they started on a shoe string budget; the vision of the entrepreneurs who started the company; the struggle for survival and the great challenges along the way; the various ways that the company is successful today; how the company is positioning itself today - to deal with the challenges tomorrow; the types of leaders that the company is looking for today in order to carry on the legacy of the founders... These are themes that are common to all of these executives' companies.

And yet, if I ask some of these leaders or aspiring leaders, I know that many would not be able to respond because they are not clear about their company's story.

So, how can they be clear about the future story of their company... the one that they should be working to design and build? How will they fit the future into the past? What are they building on?

One of the critical factors highlighted by Walton in his book, is the fact that successful leaders use their company's compelling stories to inspire, uplift and motivate their staff to do more - and do more better - to beat the competition and leave them in the dust!

Therefore, if executives don't know the history... or the company's story, and if they know it but don't use it, they are missing or neglecting a crucial tool in their leadership tool box.

Starting today, I am tasking all of the executives that I coach in thinking about, developing and writing down their company's story! They will do so in a form that is inspiring and uplifting, highlighting all the elements noted above.

How about you? Do you know your company's story? Can you tell it in ninety seconds or less? And, when you tell it... will I yawn or will I feel inspired, excited and driven to say... "Wow"? "Tell me more! I want to be a part of this!"