Planning Change Checklist – The Things You Must Include if You Want People to be Engaged

Here are some guidelines for holding a planning meeting.

Follow these Guidelines for Planning Meetings

Many of the tools for getting people involved have a few elements in common. Here is a tip sheet of things to consider when you plan a meeting that focuses on change. (These are pretty good ideas to use in other meetings as well.) (more…)

Late breaking news: communication requires giving – and receiving – information. The “and receiving” part of communications plans is often missing. Corporate communications departments salivate at the thought that they can create catchy phrases that will adorn walls and commemorative coffee cups at planning meetings. (Hey kids, collect the full set of failed-change mugs.)  And they prepare documents and slides that walk people through each step of the change. Even though those PowerPoint presentations may be clearly written and include enticing clip art (and just who doesn’t love clip art and generic photos of happy teams?), they still can fail to communicate in one big way. The part about “receiving information” is absent.

Shouldn’t people just suck it up and go along? Makes no difference what you think they should do. The truth is: they won’t go along. They need to be engaged. Your communication plan needs to address three areas:

1. Information. (That’s where the traditional communications plan comes in.)
2. Employee Engagement. People need to be able to influence changes that affect them. Oh, and talking at people for an hour and then asking, “Are there any questions?” is not all-that-engaging. The best communication comes when people are in the room helping shape thinking and making decisions.
3. Trust. The people you are communicating with need to believe that you (or who you represent) can be counted on to act in a trustworthy fashion. If you wander into Honest Ed’s Car Lot, no amount of information about a choice car, or engagement in selecting the options you want will convince most of us to buy. They need to trust Honest Ed. And with a name like Honest Ed, he’s going to have a tough time getting our attention. My humble suggestion: don’t be the Honest Ed of your organization.

Last week I was working with all the senior leaders and middle managers for a large city government.  They were launching a number of challenging new programs for their city. They knew they needed an engaged staff if they wanted the changes to get up and running and to make a difference in their community. (Sustainability is the jargon term for that.)

I started my time with them by asking half the group of 400 to think about a job that they had loved. It could be their current job or a part-time job they had way back in college.  Then list what made it such a great job.

I asked the other half the room to think about a job that they hated. (To illustrate my point, I told them about a good friend who once described his job as, “an acid bath.”)  Then I asked them to list what made the job so bad. (more…)

I just posted two free Podcasts about influence on the Gestalt Institute of Cleveland site.  It is my way of introducing you to a new program we are offering called Influence. Action. Change!. But don’t worry, no salesman will call. And the Podcasts are not teasers, but pretty thorough explorations of my six principles of engagement that I covered in my book, Why Don’t You Want What I want? (Bard press. 2002). Hope you’ll take a listen. – Rick

How You Can Avoid the Pitfalls of ERP Implementation

Depending on the study you read, the failure rate of ERP projects can be somewhere between 60 and 90 percent. Although recent studies put the failure rate nearer 60 percent, but still. . .

Those are dreadful numbers. But, the good news is — it doesn’t have to be that way.

The 3 Big Myths about ERP

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Free Podcast on May 2. 10 Am and 8 PM Eastern (-4 GMT)

Digging Deep: Why People Support Your Brilliant Ideas and Why They Resist

My buddy Jacquie McLemore and I are conducting a free 60-minute Podcast through the Gestalt Institute of Cleveland on May 2. The topic: influencing others at work. We will explore the importance of support and resistance when we try to get others interested in our “brilliant” ideas. I hope you’ll take a look. If you like what you see, please join us. And then pass the word. Thanks.

Here is a link to a 5-minute video in which I try to put into words my excitement about Influence. Action. Change! ™, a new program at the Gestalt Institute of Cleveland.  I helped design the program and will be on the faculty, so I might be a bit biased, but my enthusiasm is real. I hope you’ll take a look. Influence. Action. Change! ™

You can also download the description of the program from this link as well.

Rick

In spite of my snarky title, I think this is a critically important issue. It just saddens me that the lesson that setting clear goals never quite sinks in.

Sue Shellenbarger wrote a fine article, Making Kids Work on Goals for the The Wall Street Journal (3/9/11).

Even though this article focuses on the power of asking children to set somewhat challenging 9but not out-of-sight) goals can make a huge difference in performance.  I think you’ll see the mistakes that we make in organizations when it comes to setting goals and her article may give you some ideas on what to do encourage good goal setting.

Influence. Action. Change! ™ is an exciting new program that I helped design for the Gestalt Institute of Cleveland.  (And I will co-lead the program with my buddy and co-creator of this program, Jacquie McLemore.) It is designed for people who need to influence others at work. So if you are an executive, manager, individual contributor, coach or consultant it just might be a good fit for you.

BTW, working at the Gestalt Institute of Cleveland is a labor of love. I make no money for my work there. Even though I am using this blog to promote something, its not my mortgage payment that motivates me, it is the quality of what you can learn at the Institute.  Influence. Action. Change!™

I hope you’ll take a look. – Rick

Richard Branson wrote a fine piece on his experience leading change in Entrepreneur. It is worth reading.

Spiderman: Turn Off the Dark has been in previews longer than some Broadway shows ever even get to run. Production costs are running at about $65 Million. But even under the direction of Julia Taymor (The Lion King), the show has been plagued by injuries, production problems, and bad press. Let’s say I would hate to be an investor in that show.

In the theater next door, Fiasco Theater has mounted a production of Cymbeline, one of Shakespeare’s hardest plays to stage. Dozens of characters move across space and time in what can be a confusing evening. According to Ben Brantley of the NY Times, “. . a plucky little (and I mean little) troupe is addressing and breezily overcoming many of the problems that appear to be plaguing Ms. Taymor and company.” The six actors sometimes take on as many as four roles. The set consists of a few crates, a chest, and a queen-sized sheet. Apparently they bring elaborate battle scenes to life, evoke shifts in time and place with a tiny cast and on what appears to be an equally tiny budget. (New York Times 1/18/11.) (more…)

The Chilean Minors and Open Book Management

The minors were trapped for six weeks before rescuers were able to punch the first hole through. This allowed people on the surface to lower food as well as messages from family and friends. Well-meaning psychologists thought that they should spare the minors any bad news – sick children, marital problems, and so forth. The minors balked – they wanted their news unfiltered. (more…)

Question: Must we focus on why changes fail? (drum roll) Answer: Yes, we must.

Over the past couple of days, I was engaged in conversations about the emphasis on the failure of change in organizations. They believed that focusing on failure saps energy and spirit and gets people focusing on the wrong things.  And, that we keep trotting out the  very old tired statistic that 70 percent of changes fail.

I do agree with them in part. Too much emphasis on hand-wringing is harmful. It can sap our energy to do anything productive. We’ve all probably been in meetings where you could feel motivation ooze out of the room. Obviously, I am not a fan of that.

But I think focusing on failure (as well as success) is critically important. (more…)

Reasons why so many changes fail#14 Relying on the Three Most Common Ways of Communicating Change

Most leaders rely way too heavily on the big three ways of communicating change:

• PowerPoint
• e-mails
• memos

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Reasons why so many changes fail #13 Making Them Learn Your Language

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 fook, Beyond the Wall of Resistance: Why 70% of Changes Still Fail – and What To Do About It. You can the book by clicking on the link you see on this page.) www.rickmaurer.com