Create a Clear and Compelling Case for Change
Bottom Line First
If you don’t have time to read all of today’s blog, let me save you some time and give you the bottom line first:
Facts Rule!
In Good to Great Jim Collins describes break-through companies with sustained results. According to Collins, one of their secrets of success is “Confront the Brutal Facts.” Collins describes companies who are willing to take all of the facts, no matter how ugly, put them on the table, and then engage in raging debate.
Raging debate does not mean personal attacks, but rather attacking the facts and the issues until everyone has been heard. A clear and compelling case for change begins and ends with facts.
The world is constantly changing, this we know. Therefore as the facts change our businesses must also change, and we must change. If you are a change leader, this is your job, to explain not why people, processes and practices can change, but why they must change.
Fair Factor
Have you ever had a conversation with a child that ended with the sentence, “Because I said so?” If you’ve spent any time at all around children, I’m sure that phrase has come out at least once.
Why do we go there? Why pull out that trump card and slap it on the table? Mainly because we believe it is expeditious. It gets us what we want in the short term. But does it really get us the long-term buy-in you’re looking for?
Sarah Brosnan and Frans de Waal of Emory University conducted a study using Capuchin Monkeys. Capuchin monkeys like cucumbers, so the researchers taught the monkeys to exchange a pebble for a slice of cucumber. The monkeys learned to treat the pebbles like money, exchanging it for something they wanted. But the researchers played a dirty little trick.
They kept the monkeys in pairs. After a period of time, the researchers began to randomly reward one of the monkeys with a grape instead of a cucumber. Capuchin monkeys like cucumbers but they LOVE grapes.
As soon as the researchers began to differentiate the reward, the monkey who was treated unfairly reacted sharply. Sometimes they refused to take the cucumber reward. Sometimes they took the reward but threw it down. One monkey even threw away her pebble seeing no more use for it. The monkeys were so offended by the unequal treatment that they stopped playing the game.
Fair is a HUGE concept. Without a sense of fairness, you cannot build a sense of trust. And trust is everything.
Trust Takes Time
Patrick Lencioni explains the importance of trust in his book The Five Dysfunctions of a Team. According to Lencioni:
Therefore, a lack of trust leads directly to a lack of results.
If you fail to spend the time to really listen to people, you break trust. And broken trust leads to wasted energy and inefficiencies, which of course takes more time. So which one really takes more time, to engage people or to perpetually deal with unfinished conversations and the fall-out of broken trust?
Street-level Wisdom
You’ve probably heard the axiom, “None of us is as smart as all of us.” You might have even said it, but what does that mean? In the book The Wisdom of Crowds, James Surowiecki describes the four conditions under which crowds can be wise.
Diversity of opinion – Each person holds a small piece of the knowledge puzzle.
Independence – People form their own opinion independent of others.
Specialization – People draw on their own local knowledge, something no one else has.
Aggregation – Some mechanism exists for turning private judgments in to a collective decision.
Surowiecki argues that under these four conditions, the opinion of the crowd is greater than the judgment of any individual within the crowd. For example, when the contestants on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? phone a really smart friend, the friend gets the answer right almost 65% of the time. However, when the contestants poll the studio audience, the audience gets the answer right 91% of the time. While this might be a small example, Surowiecki makes a powerful argument throughout the book that none of us know as much as all of us.
So, why get the opinion of so many people in a company? If you’re only getting their opinion so that you can quickly come to consensus and get your change adopted, you’re missing the point. There are three points. Point 1 is, trust people to do the right thing when confronted with the facts. Point 2 is, people in your organization hold a lot of knowledge. Tap that knowledge and you’ll improve the chances of success. When people have an opportunity for input, when they truly feel heard, then they own the decision. If you decide for them without gathering their input, then they don’t own the decision, or the results.
Enrollment
Your job as an agent of change is to enroll others in a vision. This requires getting into the head of the person you are enrolling and really seeing things from their angle. Enrollment is more than being persuasive, or using your personal power. It is being empathic for the needs of others – being just as interested in their needs as you are in your own.
That’s why it’s your job to build the clear and compelling case for change. People don’t mind changing when they understand the compelling need for change.
Bottom Line
So your job, as a change agent, is to explain what has changed. What is new and different that demands changes in your organization? Why must we change? What will happen if we don’t change and what will happen if we do?
Give people the information they need to make a decision, listen to them, get their buy-in and then you’ll be ready to move on to the next step – commit to sustaining the change.
If you don’t have time to read all of today’s blog, let me save you some time and give you the bottom line first:
- Get the facts on the table and then trust people to do the right thing when confronted with the evidence.
- Look for bottom-up guidance. If the people in your organization give you guidance, then they own the decision.
- “Fair” is a huge concept. Without “fair,” there is no trust, and trust has a direct impact on the results.
- It is your job to enroll people in your organization into the idea of change. It is NOT your job to persuade them, sell them or command them, but rather to see where they are coming from and then helping them understand the case for change.
Facts Rule!
In Good to Great Jim Collins describes break-through companies with sustained results. According to Collins, one of their secrets of success is “Confront the Brutal Facts.” Collins describes companies who are willing to take all of the facts, no matter how ugly, put them on the table, and then engage in raging debate.
Raging debate does not mean personal attacks, but rather attacking the facts and the issues until everyone has been heard. A clear and compelling case for change begins and ends with facts.
The world is constantly changing, this we know. Therefore as the facts change our businesses must also change, and we must change. If you are a change leader, this is your job, to explain not why people, processes and practices can change, but why they must change.
Fair Factor
Have you ever had a conversation with a child that ended with the sentence, “Because I said so?” If you’ve spent any time at all around children, I’m sure that phrase has come out at least once.
Why do we go there? Why pull out that trump card and slap it on the table? Mainly because we believe it is expeditious. It gets us what we want in the short term. But does it really get us the long-term buy-in you’re looking for?
Sarah Brosnan and Frans de Waal of Emory University conducted a study using Capuchin Monkeys. Capuchin monkeys like cucumbers, so the researchers taught the monkeys to exchange a pebble for a slice of cucumber. The monkeys learned to treat the pebbles like money, exchanging it for something they wanted. But the researchers played a dirty little trick.
They kept the monkeys in pairs. After a period of time, the researchers began to randomly reward one of the monkeys with a grape instead of a cucumber. Capuchin monkeys like cucumbers but they LOVE grapes.
As soon as the researchers began to differentiate the reward, the monkey who was treated unfairly reacted sharply. Sometimes they refused to take the cucumber reward. Sometimes they took the reward but threw it down. One monkey even threw away her pebble seeing no more use for it. The monkeys were so offended by the unequal treatment that they stopped playing the game.
Fair is a HUGE concept. Without a sense of fairness, you cannot build a sense of trust. And trust is everything.
Trust Takes Time
Patrick Lencioni explains the importance of trust in his book The Five Dysfunctions of a Team. According to Lencioni:
- A lack of trust leads to a fear of conflict.
- Fear of conflict stifles open debate.
- Since there is no open debate, people don’t have a chance to get their ideas on the table, which leads to a lack of commitment.
- A lack of commitment keeps people from being accountable. If they didn’t have input, why should they buy-in to the plans?
- Lack of accountability keeps a team from paying attention to results.
Therefore, a lack of trust leads directly to a lack of results.
If you fail to spend the time to really listen to people, you break trust. And broken trust leads to wasted energy and inefficiencies, which of course takes more time. So which one really takes more time, to engage people or to perpetually deal with unfinished conversations and the fall-out of broken trust?
Street-level Wisdom
You’ve probably heard the axiom, “None of us is as smart as all of us.” You might have even said it, but what does that mean? In the book The Wisdom of Crowds, James Surowiecki describes the four conditions under which crowds can be wise.
Diversity of opinion – Each person holds a small piece of the knowledge puzzle.
Independence – People form their own opinion independent of others.
Specialization – People draw on their own local knowledge, something no one else has.
Aggregation – Some mechanism exists for turning private judgments in to a collective decision.
Surowiecki argues that under these four conditions, the opinion of the crowd is greater than the judgment of any individual within the crowd. For example, when the contestants on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? phone a really smart friend, the friend gets the answer right almost 65% of the time. However, when the contestants poll the studio audience, the audience gets the answer right 91% of the time. While this might be a small example, Surowiecki makes a powerful argument throughout the book that none of us know as much as all of us.
So, why get the opinion of so many people in a company? If you’re only getting their opinion so that you can quickly come to consensus and get your change adopted, you’re missing the point. There are three points. Point 1 is, trust people to do the right thing when confronted with the facts. Point 2 is, people in your organization hold a lot of knowledge. Tap that knowledge and you’ll improve the chances of success. When people have an opportunity for input, when they truly feel heard, then they own the decision. If you decide for them without gathering their input, then they don’t own the decision, or the results.
Enrollment
Your job as an agent of change is to enroll others in a vision. This requires getting into the head of the person you are enrolling and really seeing things from their angle. Enrollment is more than being persuasive, or using your personal power. It is being empathic for the needs of others – being just as interested in their needs as you are in your own.
That’s why it’s your job to build the clear and compelling case for change. People don’t mind changing when they understand the compelling need for change.
Bottom Line
So your job, as a change agent, is to explain what has changed. What is new and different that demands changes in your organization? Why must we change? What will happen if we don’t change and what will happen if we do?
Give people the information they need to make a decision, listen to them, get their buy-in and then you’ll be ready to move on to the next step – commit to sustaining the change.
posted by RFD Blog at 5:32 PM
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