Leading Change in 25 Minutes

Hi, my name is Louis Carter, and I have about 10 minutes to tell you most of what I know about leading change inside of organizations. Throughout the past 30 years, I have written books like The Change Champion's Field Guide, Best Practices in Leadership Development, and about 8 others describing how organizations lead change. And I've discovered a model around it that I'm going to share with you today. The model is SITO. First, changing yourself, choosing to change yourself and lead change in yourself, actively practicing this change inside yourself. The second is leading change in others and individuals through coaching and consistent follow-up feedback, and we'll go into that in a bit. And then the others is leading change in teams and then within the whole system, the organization. Let's start with myself. The first step to making change with myself is to identify what I've been programmed to believe is my identity and how that's reflected in what others in power, such as parents or teachers, in the past have programmed me to believe I am. And what do I want to create? What do I want to develop in myself, create in myself, that I want to be remembered for, that I should practice on a daily basis to become? How do we do that? We start by asking ourselves questions. I'd like you to write down on a sheet of paper the answers to the questions: Who is the you that you want to preserve? What are the aspects that have helped you be successful in your life, in your work, that you want to preserve? That's going to become part of your questions around your daily practices. What do you want to preserve? What should you eliminate? What are the things that are holding you back, that are presenting barriers, things that stop you from being positive, from being happy, from enabling and leading change inside your organization, or moving forward and being a catalyst for change? What do you need to eliminate that is getting in your way? What do you need to accept? What do you need to accept in your current situation? Peter Drucker said that the people in power will always have the ability to make the decision. The people in power will always have the ability to make the decision. Make peace with it. We must learn "To accept the things we cannot change, change the things we cannot accept, and have the wisdom to know the difference." Accepting these things, moving on, is critical. So write down on a sheet of paper, what do you need to learn to accept to move on? People in power will always be the one making decisions. Make peace with it. What is it that you need to accept? And in your worksheet now, write down in the left-hand column, what am I willing to let go of? What am I willing to let go of? What will I choose to let go of? What will I practice letting go of on a daily basis, on an active basis? And then in the right-hand column, what new identity do I want to recreate? And this is what I want to be remembered for, what I want to develop into, what I want to create for the world, for my organization, for my families. Just take a few moments, write that down. Let's go into coaching others now. That's the second part of the model, the I of SITO, individuals. When having any coaching conversation, it's very important to recognize the ladder of inference. The ladder of inference was first derived in The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook by Peter Senge and Art Kleiner. It talks about what and how we come to specific conclusions in our lives. We come to those conclusions based upon our observable data in life, all of our experiences. Those affect our judgments. Those judgments affect our actions. We have to be aware of this when having coaching conversations and the reflexive loop between the data you select from your observable experiences, those experiences that you've had, and how you adopt a belief that ultimately will take an action. Understanding these mental models and working with people to help them climb the ladder with you around having a shared mental model will help in that coaching conversation because you will be on the same page at all times. And it will enable you to create a kind of emotional connection emotional intelligence by individuals between and among your coach and coachee, because there'll be less stress and less of a fight or flight response and willingness to change. In any coaching conversation, it's important to be in that process of first critical thinking, critically thinking about why we're here, what we're doing, why I think what I think, What's leading me to specific conclusions? Co-designing our future, what we know we can do, what is possible. And then taking action with follow-up consistently, and you can overcome any obstacle. The process here that is derived from Warren Bennis and also the Powerful Conversations Pyramid is around starting a conversation with what's really happening, how, with you, what's happening inside this specific situation that you're confronted with or you're challenged by. And know yourself in that process. This is where I'm at. The second is when you're really talking about what's really happening inside the conversation and then letting go of those kinds of assumptions or judgments so that you can move to the next part of the pyramid, which is designing your future together as a coach-coachee. And in that future, you decide what is it that you need to change as a coachee, as a coach even, and that you will follow up with each other to get better. And what do you need to know from your environment and from others to design that future? And in that conversation, what is it that you need to do that is possible to change? And then make it happen and follow up. This gives a structure for conversations that can easily go to the quicksand and go to places that you just don't want to go. It can be very challenging at times when there is very difficult conversations. Having a structure though really helps. Saying, "This is why I'm here. This is the underlying reasons or assumptions that we're having. Let go of those assumptions so that we can begin designing our future. And then let's make it happen and follow up." If we get to the quicksand, we just pull ourselves back up and realize why we're there. And then go right up to let go and all the way up to the top of the pyramid. And choose to change. When giving coaching conversations, there's one or two ways to give conversations in coaching. The first is feedback. Feedback immediately excites a person's emotion center of the brain, which is the amygdala. And when you excite this part of the brain, you end up increasing the amount of cortisol and stress within that individual, which shuts them down and they begin a fight or flight response. And their willingness at that point to change is greatly reduced. Instead, feedforward is advice for the future. Let's not talk about what was. What was is the past. Let's talk about the future, what you can become. Far more exciting. In your worksheet now, write down on the piece of paper, what do I need help in changing? And what's my advice to myself? Try it on your own. Now, find a partner. Ask that partner what you need help in changing. Then ask your partner to give you advice. Then switch. Now you're practicing feedforward. Practicing the essence of a coaching conversation. When you get that advice, just listen. You can give a brief response. A brief response. After you listen, take it in, accept the gift. Feedforward is a gift. Respond briefly. Thank the person for that gift. Choose to change. Follow up consistently. Study we did of over 3,000 employees within 4 different studies on various organizational psychology concepts. And we found there's 5 different areas or dimensions for highly effective change. These dimensions are ubiquitous and they're universal in their effect and outcome on something called emotional connectedness. And thus emotional connectedness is showing that there is a correlation between love, the intense positive feeling of love for the workplace, and voluntary discretionary effort. An individual, an employee's willingness to perform more for their organization is greatly increased when an individual loves their organization, loves their workplace. And you must have all 5 of these factors in order for that to occur. And you must practice all these factors in order for it to occur. And I'm gonna show you the research behind why it must be practiced and I'll also show you how it connects to other research, such as effective commitment, organization citizenship behaviors, and the Big Five personality inventory. We've shown very strong correlations with all three, which shows that it's very outcome-oriented because effective commitment and organization citizenship behaviors have a strong correlation to the outcome of engagement, and also people wanting to perform more voluntarily for the organization. And the Big Five Personality Inventory also shows that strong effective commitment and citizenship behaviors and being centered and not neurotic about their work, being able to go along as well as actively engage and be within a group in a strong way, is the most accurate predictor of engagement. Let's go move on, look at these specific components. Being positive in everything we do. Instead of being negative, talking badly about people, we're positive. Positivity— Martin Seligman talked about this in his theory— that if we stay depressed and negative, it will spiral us. We will never change. Ethical alignment, doing what we say we're going to do, doing what the organization says that, that it will do and does, collaborating effectively, positive functional groups, respect, giving respect, getting respect back, respecting as one would like to be respected, and then specifying achievement orientation and the outcomes that you wish to achieve, some of which we just talked about. Higher performance, voluntary discretionary effort, attrition, retention. Those are some outcomes you can test for. You can test for behavioral change over time. An achievement needs to be specific to the outcomes you wish to achieve in leading change. There's a— the active research questions. Here's what we found. In— we found that passive questions are far less effective than active questions in this research. Throughout 95 studies with over 2,700 participants, we found 94% reported more improvement on at least one item when they asked a question about how they can get better at a specific item. And then at least 4 items with 75%, and then 6 items, 46%. You can see that there is indisputable truth to active questioning rather than looking to the past for our answers. Here are your daily questions. We brought together the Emotional Connected and Great Company Index. With the active questions, not asking, what did I do before, or what happened to me before, or what happened in my team, or did I get an opportunity to in the past. We're talking, did I do my best today to actively, for myself, taking my responsibility for myself, create a collaborative team environment, living values espoused, respect others as I'd like to be respected, This is, this is the framework for how you can begin to live that change and enable more positive voluntary discretionary effort and more performance with your employees and within your teams. In Leadership as a Contact Sport, we found that if you follow up with individuals on 360-degree feedback more often and on a persistent, consistent basis, you will have more change than if you never or only once followed up. This is indisputable. 86,000 participants, 248,000 in an upcoming study, cross-cultural industry, multi-level validation. And also it's one of the 9 most outstanding articles published in Strategy and Business. It's by Howard Morgan and Marshall Goldsmith, Leadership is a Contact Sport. And the commonalities of this are that it's related to multi-rater feedback, it focuses on those areas for improvement It has discussion with coworkers. It has ongoing follow-up and a custom-designed mini-survey. This is what happened with no follow-up, little follow-up— we're increasing— some follow-up, frequent follow-up, and finally consistent periodic follow-up. Therefore, one can conclude reasonably that The more you follow up on a daily basis or even several times during a day, you catalyze the rapidity of change within your organization. Therefore, if somebody says to you, "Hey, Mr. Senior Director," or "Hey, Mrs. VP, how quickly can you make this change happen?" Your answer is, as quickly as people want to practice it. Let's move to teams. An essential component of leading change is having functional, safe, collaborative teams. Functional teams. On the left-hand side is personal feelings, and this is a lot to do with how you feel psychologically safe within your environment. It's not about friendships. It's about respect. It's about staying positive. It's about people who practice being psychologically safe inside of a team environment, and it's well-balanced in that effect. And what can happen in these environments is if it is too much on personal feelings and there is too much of that touchy-feely, feeling good, feeling too psychologically safe, You will have innovation and progress with some. However, there will be people on the ends of the bell curve in this specific situation on high personal feelings that do social loafing. That means that they're going to ride on the coattails of the rest of the group or the team, and that just can't happen. On the flip side of the coin, when you have too much organization practices, too much structure, and no psychological safety, people get frustrated. They don't feel safe to innovate inside of teams or groups, and there'll be a definite disconnect within your teams, and it'll be dysfunctional. When you increase or come to the top, get to the top, of the personal feelings on this vertical axis and come to the most on the horizontal axis here of organization practices, you get to emotional connectedness, where you have higher voluntary discretionary effort and increased willingness to perform more for your teams and your organization. The structure behind this is in team development, process consultation, and functional systems around team development. Let's talk about some. Edgar Schein and Tuckman talked about and described this process of coming together, storming to decide who is in power positions and who will be doing what and when and where. Then norming, creating norms around the team and The way in which the group will move forward so as to create an efficient process so you can move forward with certainty. And then performing, getting to outcomes, making sure that the team feels like there's output, knows there's output, and also follow-up. How do we get there? In order to get there, we need to be aware of and identify 4 different system types. These 4 different system types are random, closed, synchronous, and open. You might remember in the days in college when you were throwing things all around in your college dorm, or you were having a big jam session, or going to a concert, and everybody was really excited and saying anything they wanted and doing whatever they wanted. It's a random environment. It can be really destructive in terms of your behaviors, or it can be really innovative where you create amazing new music, or you are able to develop new cool theories or create a terrific new radio show on campus, or something that allows you to innovate on a consistent basis. That's random systems. Can be functional or dysfunctional. The other is a closed system. And closed systems are military-type environments, and they can also be tyrannical social systems. In their dysfunctional forms. It can be very clear and functional though when there's a clear chain of command and people know where they stand. They understand the overall vision. There's a kind of patriotism around it and an understanding that when they do a certain thing, they will be rewarded. The other is a synchronous system where they have— where there's a strong purpose and vision. This can be very effective, and it could be much like an elementary school when you see kids who are in a cafeteria and they're very, very rambunctious. When the principal comes in and goes to the top of the stage, raises their hand, "I'm the principal," and then all of the kids are quiet immediately. That's a synchronous system actually at its best. Synchronous system at its worst becomes cult-like, when people follow just for the sake that they think they have to follow and they have no other choice than to follow. An open system is much like a jury. And of course, as you know, there's two types of juries. There's hung jury that doesn't get to a certain place because they've had deadlock, and there's juries that come to decisions far too quickly, probably because they want to get to lunch. And there's ways to make those environments functional as well. Let's go through those system types with regard to 4 different player roles that can make any of these 4 different system types functional. They're called the 4 player roles. The 4 player roles are The Mover, Supporter, Challenger, and Mirror. The Mover initiates the talk and they also bring the talk to action. The Supporter follows and understands and is an additional vote. The Challenger questions it and is sure that they, that they are clear about what they're saying and brings it to a higher conclusion as well. Challenges can break down good ideas to a point that they become even greater so that we can deconstruct and construct something even better that is created by the team. Mirror— somebody observes and corrects it. These are functional team roles that allow us to really become a part of a functional group or community. Equal airtime— Equal representation of these roles will get you a high-functioning group and a high-functioning system. How to lead effective change in your organization. This is the last part of the change that I'll talk about today. And the transformation model goes like this. If we, if we have consistent meetings, consistent messaging, consistent dialogue, inside of organization by those individuals that we've coached and that we've developed in teams to have more voluntary discretionary effort. They are now a part of new meeting structures. And this transformation model is for the whole system. This will involve creating dialogue groups, discussion groups, fireside chats with your CEO, where you're facilitating voluntary expression effort, a co-designed meeting that transforms people. When people are able to take ownership for the design of the meeting and it's an open design meeting where they can create the agenda, they can facilitate it, it facilitates itself, senior executives are involved in the process, so they can bring in their consistent messaging. Other times they're not involved in the process so that they— so that your team can transform itself. And then measuring the results consistently throughout time to ensure that what was said in the group and what outcomes that they said they would do, they actually do. What's essential in this process that I, I would like everybody to know is that agreement to norms in the beginning to help each other, to grow with each other, to coach each other, and to take individual responsibility for changing themselves and recognizing what they're saying that may be negative and also positive and stopping themselves from being negative in the process of the meeting. And others checking those people when they are negative. Backbiting, politicking, talking behind people's backs, avoiding people— any of these negative roles that people play inside of these teams, inside of your larger transformation that occurs, will only hurt things. Best way to do this is over 3 days. Typically it's half-full, half And you can also do it in half days or even hours. As long as you create structure, allow for the team roles to occur, did some good coaching with people with voluntary discretionary effort, and ready— you were ready individually to begin this whole system transformation. I'll leave you with a final thought. I was in a meeting with Frances Hesselbein, who is the former CEO of the Girl Scouts of America, at the New York Stock Exchange. And I was facilitating the meeting and Francis went over to me and she put herself into my ear. She just whispered in my ear and she said, "Louis, be careful of your thoughts, for they will become your words. Be careful of your words, for they will become your actions. And be careful of your actions, for they will define who you are. You all have the chance to define who you are and begin affecting and leading change inside your organization. Now go get 'em.