All Things Workplace - Latest Comments

Re: Are We Numbed to Change?

Joe Fusco — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 21:45:33 -0000

My question, Steve, would be "why doesn't change work?" Why is it that change efforts are "ineffective," as you put it, beyond just ascribing it to semantics?

My own gut instinct is that organizations and individuals want change, but the cost is too high. The sacrifice, selflessness, surrunder and plain old hard work is often too high a price to pay for many. Instead, we want and expect "microwave change" -- throw a plastic bowl in, press a few buttons, and instant gratification.

Re: Are We Numbed to Change?

TotallyConsumed — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 14:04:14 -0000

There is quite a bit of business literature out there already under the heading of 'change' or 'change management'. While the theme of 'change' is definitely relevant, the word and topic is growing tired. Maybe it's time for a new word ... metamorph? Transmogrify? Evolve?

Re: Are We Numbed to Change?

Tom Haskins — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 13:59:19 -0000

Lately, I've been exploring the difference between outsider and insider perspectives. I think Peter nailed the insider perspective with how change feels to most like work, gets managed by keeping it at a high altitude and is something we want someone else to do. We outsiders are passionate about change, reading widely and identifying models that make change easier for others. Change goes on an insider's to-do list or items to discuss in the next annual review. Change is the mission statement, value proposition and deliverables for us outsiders.

Perhaps you're getting told that "talk of change" is going to be a tough sell to the "management fad du jour" niche market. In that case, your value proposition will be the next thing to change. Then your expertise with change becomes the means to some other end, elusive result or desired outcome in the eyes of your customers. then you're selling what they get from changing and how changing with your expertise is faster, better, cheaper or more useful somehow.

Re: Are We Numbed to Change?

Dean Fuhrman — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 13:08:32 -0000

Hi Steve -

Is this one of those word usage things? I think people generally have on their horizon (a) getting somewhere/accomplishing something and (b) improving, which may just be a subset of (a). These generally have not gone away and are not likely to.

Maybe change is still in the air and it is wearing different clothes.

Re: Are You Waiting For Them To Change?

Steve Roesler — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 12:45:27 -0000

Don't know, Jo. Just checking in from the road using trusty iPhone. Original commenting system will be returning shortly.

Re: Are You Waiting For Them To Change?

Jo — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 12:08:08 -0000

What happened here. Para 2 last sentence should be in the last para, last sentence.

Re: Are You Waiting For Them To Change?

Jo — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 12:06:44 -0000

Steve, I doubt this will change until an organization changes its basic presumption about who 'owns' the job.

I've researched non-performance in voluntary organizations. Things 'don't get done' just as often. People are embarrassed by their non-performance though and cover it up. What it takes is some wisdom about all the events that lead to non-performance. We often have less wisdom than we need. Hence I would prefer to see a kid out on the beach playing games than stuck passively in a classroom!

To have one wise person who can interpret a fiasco and point out what was out of our control, what we might be able to control in the future, to relieve anxieties about belonging particularly, to focus on the next step.

And we come round the full circle to ownership and control. I suggest to young managers (usually when they have been a bit snotty to a perceived underling) that the manager supported by the most people wins the organization. We have to want this badly enough too!

Do you recall Raymond Katz three facets of management: technical, human and organizational. The last seems to be totally underplayed and yet is so critical. I like to see kids organizing and managing (age-appropriately) from a very young age. The earlier they try to run organizations, the more this wisdom is likely to develop.

Re: Are We Numbed to Change?

Karin H — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 11:02:08 -0000

Change dead? Never.
Numbed, no don't really think so. Tiered of hypes on change 'dictated' by this or that guru? Yes.

We - persons, relationships, businesses, circumstance - always are changing something - that's human nature otherwise we would still be living in caves hunting bears. And through chance we learn, everyday.

I've learned not to take everything some guru states for the whole truth and nothing but, I've learned that listening to good advice, specially when it's a case of 'leading by example' will keep changing/improving my business.

No, definitely not dead ;-)

Karin H (Keep It Simple Sweetheart, specially in business) - who wished you hadn't changed to disqus ;-)

Re: Are We Numbed to Change?

peter vajda — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 10:57:58 -0000

Hi, Steve,

Great question and inquiry.

You say…”deliberate change efforts that once were popular, even the norm.”

For me, perhaps common, not the norm. Obesity and cancer are common, hopefully, not a “norm.” Abuse and violence are common; hopefully not a norm. Change perhaps is/was common, but doesn’t seem to be a norm. What is more common is perhaps different flavors of what is, but not true and real “change”.

And, “…We're still ordering books, reading blogs, and doing all kinds of things to bump up our game or make a transition.”

For me, this reflects the appearance of (wanting to) change…lots of “activity”, talking about, but, little real and sincere “action”.
I think many folks want change for themselves and others — at the 50,000-foot level — cognitively, intellectually, and even from that “hope” perspective.

In reality, at ground level, when it comes to self-responsible, intentional, purposeful, consistent, and self-disciplined action toward making change, many folks still want it for others (your “ways to improve something” or someone), but not for themselves. It’s too much like “work.”
So, in this case many folks are comfortably numb, not to the concept or “activity” or “thinking about” change, but to notion of taking honest, sincere, self-responsible and sustained “action”. Like the difference between working “on” your business and working “in” your business.

Re: Talent: What You Want or What You've Got?

Dan McCarthy — Sat, 31 May 2008 17:26:48 -0000

Steve –

These are great talent review questions, thanks. You’re right; the discussion is usually around our people – not our needs. One way to answer question #3 is by developing a leadership competency profile - and making sure that profile identifies future needs based on business strategy.

Re: Talent: What You Want or What You've Got?

Steve Roesler — Sat, 31 May 2008 09:01:56 -0000

Jim,

That sounds like a challenging engagement.

I'm always struck by the fact that when people sit down to achieve what is labeled a "common goal," the human dynamics often have to get sorted out before the task can get done properly.

These can be quite frustrating, eh, Jim? Keep us posted on how this unfolds; it could be a good case study.

Re: Talent: What You Want or What You've Got?

Steve Roesler — Sat, 31 May 2008 08:45:14 -0000

Hi, Jo,

I had never thought of the "belongingness" message in those ways. Very interesting.

Hope your weekend is a refreshing one...

Re: Talent: What You Want or What You've Got?

Steve Roesler — Sat, 31 May 2008 08:42:35 -0000

David, that's certainly the idea.

The work comes when it's time to sit down and define what the specifics might be for the future talent. That requires a genuine commitment of time, energy, and in-depth discussion.

Re: Talent: What You Want or What You've Got?

David Zinger — Fri, 30 May 2008 14:12:24 -0000

Steve:
A strong people approach that puts people into the performance mix rather than something to be managed after the fact.
David

Re: Talent: What You Want or What You've Got?

Jo — Fri, 30 May 2008 11:56:05 -0000

My experience of these things is that they are circular. People don't want to entertain new ideas (entertain hope) because they believe their current ideas haven't had a fair audience.

As consultants, our self-efficacy is high. We had 'belongingness' signaled to us massively when we were retained. People within the firm often do not feel the same way.

When we have the energy to dig down and find out why people are holding back (and do something about it), we can often release the generative energy we need to imagine bigger, better, wider, bolder futures. And we need this energy anyway to absorb a new person into the team.

Have a good weekend!

Re: Talent: What You Want or What You've Got?

Jim Stroup — Fri, 30 May 2008 10:41:45 -0000

Steve - excellent insight. We always need reminders in the various broad areas we struggle with to look past the trees to the big picture forming up there.

I am currently working on an extremely delicate issue in this regard. What it boils down to is a promising organization with a potentially bright future that is, unfortunately, heedlessly plowing itself right into the foreground by focusing on its current allies and assets, instead of its future opportunities and needs. This shortsighted focus is causing the organization to literally veer off the road, but it the nature of the relationships make addressing this rather complicated.

This is extending your observation from internal talent development to organizational relationships and alliances, but it is of similar import and impact for this organization.

Thanks for this excellent post!

Re: All Things Workplace: Do You Offer Hope?

Steve Roesler — Thu, 29 May 2008 15:15:00 -0000

Peter,

Yep, I get your take on this.

My intent in the post was to show that if, as managers, we want people to follow us, then "survival today" will work for some period of time. The human condition is intent on knowing that there is a better day looming over the horizon--and why that is so.

I always figured that Columbus was telling his men all of the possibilities of what lay "just over the circle" while they were throwing up into what they thought was a flat sea.

Re: All Things Workplace: Do You Offer Hope?

Steve Roesler — Thu, 29 May 2008 15:06:35 -0000

David,

When you get into the present and start doing what needs to be done, what emotion does it elicit?

Hope as an unsubstantiated lifestyle is, indeed, a trap. Hope as the result of experiencing or seeing what is actually possible would be a springboard to more action for me.

Re: All Things Workplace: Do You Offer Hope?

Steve Roesler — Thu, 29 May 2008 15:01:30 -0000

Beth,

I'm following your thinking (I think:-)

The value that one offers is deemed valuable when it prompts a sense of hopefulness that something will be better as a result.

Value propositions are facts; without eliciting hopeful feelings, they remain just facts. The person who is able to tie the two together, wins.

Re: All Things Workplace: Do You Offer Hope?

peter vajda — Thu, 29 May 2008 10:23:42 -0000

Hi, David, (wasn't able to "reply" so I'm commenting)

Your point resonates well with me. I often see in my clients, and others, their (often unconscious) use of hope as a way of procrastinating, as an "excuse" to not engage self-responsibly in forwarding the action of their lives...of paralysis...of leading a "Peter Pan-type" existence, in a lack of conscious self-management.

One antidote to this is a paraphrase of an expression my mother taught me when I was very young and still adhere to today: "Pray as if everything depended on God (Spirit, The Universe...); work as if everything depended on you." A nice "balance" of energies. Brings one to consciously and responsibly focus on the "now" and surrender/trust at the same time. After all, the "future is just a series of billions and billions of "nows". Take care of the now and you take care of the "future".

Re: All Things Workplace: Do You Offer Hope?

David Zinger — Thu, 29 May 2008 10:06:42 -0000

Steve:
I wonder sometimes about hope. From an Eastern perspective hope is sometimes seen as a trap to the future taking us away from the present. At times when I become hope-less I am able to dwell more in the present and see what is needed to be done right now. Being hope-less sometimes brings me right into today much stronger than hope. This may seem a bit extreme but I can get so caught up in a hopeful future that I don't do what is necessary for today.
David

Re: All Things Workplace: Do You Offer Hope?

Beth Robinson — Thu, 29 May 2008 08:33:11 -0000

I can think of all sorts of ways that my activities are structured to give myself something to hope for as well as simply something to do, but had to stretch myself further to come up with ways they offer hope to others. In a way, this question is a conceptual step beyond how are you offering, or how do you plan to offer, value? That one I can answer. There's overlap in the two questions but they aren't exactly the same. Thanks for the question.

Re: All Things Workplace: Do You Offer Hope?

Wally Bock — Wed, 28 May 2008 18:40:21 -0000

Congratulations! This post was selected as one of the five best business blog posts of the week in my Three Star Leadership Midweek Review of the Business Blogs.

http://blog.threestarleader...

Wally Bock

Re: All Things Workplace: Do You Offer Hope?

Steve Roesler — Wed, 28 May 2008 17:25:43 -0000

Very kind, Robyn. Am going to think on that.

Re: All Things Workplace: Do You Offer Hope?

RobynMcIntyre — Wed, 28 May 2008 15:31:29 -0000

I love the way you communicate ideas in such a succinct, clean way, Steve!