Here is her testimony to the President’s Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform.

Watch Carolyn’s testimony (her remarks begin at 36:25 and end at 46:34 on the YouTube video).

Moving to how before people know why a change is needed.

People need to know why something is important before they can get interested or even be willing to hear why you want them to do it. Too often we fail to address “why” something is important before we launch into explaining “how” it should get done. I am not interested in the explanation of how until you’ve convinced me why this is important.

I have been subject to many lengthy PowerPoint presentations when a well-meaning leader introduced a big change. The first three slides deal with why this change is important, and then the next 150 mind-numbing slides deal with how they are going to proceed. If he didn’t grab their attention in those first three slides, he is not going to see a spark of recognition at slide 29. His audience tuned out twenty slides ago.

(This is adapted from the new paperback edition of Beyond the Wall of Resistance: Why 70% of Changes Still Fail – and What To Do About It. Rick Maurer. Bard press. 2010) 

Leaders fail to acknowledge how even a slight lack of trust and confidence in leaders can kill an otherwise fine idea

Trust can make or break a change. But sadly, many who lead change seem to ignore this critically important ingredient. They seem to believe that a good idea will win the day. It won’t.

If people don’t trust us, why would they follow us? The answer is that most of them won’t. On the other hand, if they trust us they tend to give us the benefit of the doubt. If we make a mistake, people tend to understand that we are only human, after all. But if trust is low, they listen intently for any word or phrase that could signal that we are about to take them on a dangerous ride.

(This is adapted from my forthcoming book, Beyond the Wall of Resistance: Why 70% of Changes Still Fail – and What To Do About It. You can preorder the book by clicking on the link you see on this page.)

Leaders assume that understanding equals support and commitment

It is common to introduce change by making a PowerPoint presentation to a large group. Leaders may schedule time for Q&A, but the questions they get from their audiences tend to be very polite. After all, who wants to tell the boss they don’t think this is a good idea? People learn to limit their comments to questions about time lines and budgets. They know those are safe questions. Any reservations or fears go underground and only get spoken about in hallways and carpools.

Since this leader got so many questions, he or she may believe that people are interested and ready to work to make this change a success. But the real issues that can kill or damage this project never get on the leader’s screen.

I conducted a study a few years ago and was surprised to learn that the failure to make a compelling case for change was the biggest reason why major new initiatives failed or went off track.

Making a compelling case for change seems to be the biggest thing you can do to build support and commitment for a new initiative, and yet, it is the most overlooked task in the life of most changes.

(This is adapted from my forthcoming book, Beyond the Wall of Resistance: Why 70% of Changes Still Fail – and What To Do About It. You can preorder the book at Amazon.com

Old MIS (Management Information Systems) departments often had the reputation of speaking some foreign language when they worked with senior management and other departments. They made the critical mistake of speaking their language and not translating so that their audience could understand them. It is your job to be “multilingual” so that various stakeholders can understand what you are saying. I have seen IT, HR, financial, and sales and marketing departments kill their own effort to make a case simply because they expected their audiences to learn their jargon. Big mistake.

(This is adapted from my forthcoming book, Beyond the Wall of Resistance: Why 70% of Changes Still Fail – and What To Do About It. You can preorder the book by clicking on the link you see on this page.)

I think Abba Eban (statesman 1915-2002) got it right when he said: “Nations and men may behave wisely once they’ve exhausted all other alternatives.”

Somehow we believe we are immune from the rules of what works. We often assume that because we not only believe we are right – in fact, we know we are right – so that the rules that other mortals must follow don’t really pertain to us. We’ve got God, country, our own brilliance, mojo, or whatever working for us. As you’ll see in subsequent posts this is a big mistake.

If you do Facebook, please consider joining me. Type “beyond the wall” and you’ll find it.  Or click here. Of, if you prefer Twitter, you can join me.

I encourage you to read this fine article by Scott Thurm and pass it along.

The name on the planes would be United, the CEO would come from Continental, and ownership would be 55% United and 45% Continental. (Wall Street Journal 5/3/10)

It all sounds good for owners, but history suggests that there are few mergers of equals. (BTW, seems to me that Chrysler and Daimler Benz was a merger of equals as well.)

I believe the leaders of both companies are probably sincere. But once the decision-making process starts to tamper with sacred routes, the location of various offices, who will get promoted to senior positions, then human nature comes into play. That nature suggests that we want to protect what we think is ours and that’s when Machiavelli enters the garden.

If they were to ask my opinion, I would suggest that a part of their due diligence process be to look at the human impact of the merger. For example: How will we decide on senior promotions? Locations for various departments? Who decides on what routes to open and end? When to build new plane and what planes to build? Whose human resources policies will we adopt? The list goes on.

And then, go a layer deeper and ask yourselves: What will we do when we don’t agree with each other? I know, you will talk it out. That’s fine when it works, but what about when it doesn’t? That’s where it gets interesting.