The concept of situational leadership has profoundly affected how people manage and lead in the workplace. This episode explains and simplifies the concept and explores its implications for managing change in organizations.
Often the specific answers that people want can only be found by drawing on a very profound understanding of an area of knowledge. Problems can occur when someone who understands the desired specific answer - the “Reader’s Digest Version” - thinks he has mastered the entire body of knowledge from which it comes. Increasingly, this is becoming a problem. Every area of study is becoming deeper and deeper at the same time our fast-paced world demands answers faster and faster.
This episode explores how business people, technical experts, and change professionals all fall victim to this common pitfall.
Misguided and unprofessional attitudes among change professionals, both outside and inside target organizations, are surprisingly common. Here is some of the things we have heard inside the trenches, why the attitudes they reveal are not just wrong - but wrong-headed, and how they can destroy your implementation efforts.
We all know how confusing it can be when you use jargon that someone else doesn’t know. What’s more confusing, though, is when two people are using the same term to describe two very different things. Often both parties leave the conversation with only a vague sense that something is not right, but convinced that their interpretation is valid.
The world of change is filled with common examples that keep business people and even change professionals from understanding one another. This episode some of the most troublesome terms.
Change implementation is profoundly impacted by who is around. Nothing can impact the politics of your initiative more than the untimely exit of a key supporter or the entry of a new player whose attitude toward your efforts are at best unknown. In this podcast, we explore the notion of an executive’s tour of duty and the implications this might have on change agents.
Napoleon’s Thirds: Crowd Psychology and Change Adoption [27:29m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | DownloadSome of the best insights come from historical figures, and Napoleon Bonaparte is one of our favorites. In this episode, we discuss Napoleon’s approach to crowd control and how his insights on motivating troops translates into how to manage change adoption initiatives. Specific cases are used to illustrate the concepts.
A section from our Change Management Toolkit covers this topic in a little more detail. You can download that section here: Napoleon’s Thirds
When bad things happen, people look for someone to blame – asserting that the scapegoats should have seen it coming. In retrospect, any number of indicators alerting them of impending disaster can often be found. While exceptions exist, experts usually agree that it is generally unfair to condemn people like the Admiral in charge of Pearl Harbor for not knowing what was coming; their view is that given the overwhelming amount of information out there, it is impossible to assemble together the relevant set of indicators without the benefit of hindsight.
We can appreciate this argument; the challenge is indeed extremely difficult, but just because it is hard does not make it real. While condemning the Admiral is probably unfair, the challenge of keeping that installation prepared is the outcome that must somehow be achieved.
In this episode, we relate this challenge to project managers and project risk plans. We examine how putting external “sensors” in place is an important part of any implementation and give examples of how people have managed to cut through information clutter. Finally, we reveal how run-the-business ways of thinking prevent change-the-business managers from dealing with risk effectively.
Business organizations need different three distinct types of leadership to be effective at change. This episode explores what they are, how they interact, and how they contribute to the change process. Some organizations suffer when some of the pieces are missing. We discuss how change agents can diagnose these kinds of problems and adjust their approaches to be more successful.
The role of the Subject Matter Expert (SME) in change initiatives is controversial and sometimes even combatant. This episodes explores the best uses of SMEs in change and the difference between an industry-ready change agent and a full-blown expert.
One of the key causes of change failure is an ineffective approach to assigning resources to implementation initiatives. This episodes covers the most common approaches and pitfalls - and offers tips and alternatives that can be much more effective. Finally, it explores how all of this is likely to change the nature of our work and careeers in the not-too-distant future.
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