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!