Monthly Archives: October 2013

#288 Mandate for change

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In a previous post, I listed the ways a ranking officer can ruin change effort with bad behaviors.

In an even earlier post, I had mentioned that a leader may be hired with a mandate for change.

If you put the two together, you’ll realize that a key barrier to change is the current culture. Every organization evolves organically, and success may institutionalize bad behaviors with fallacious cause-and-effect conclusions. “What I am doing is leading to success, I should do more of it.”

Inevitably, things will start to fall apart, what the organization calls “good habits” turns out to be “rigor mortis.” You, and a few enlightened co-workers will realize that change is needed, and may even be eager for change.

Even if everyone knows that change is required, and is eager for change, change has to be managed. The existing culture will not make the change process any easier. The hard charging change agent (for example, the new leader) must realize that what seems like “pushback” is people preparing themselves emotionally, looking for what to do differently, and seeking validation for past efforts. Plus, the teams have to go thru a “storming” phase to strengthen the team.

Even if you’ve been hired by the CEO or Board of Directors (meaning, people at the very top have given you a mandate for change), you still have to tread carefully. A “slash and burn” approach to change will ruin your legacy and reputation.

If you have to add value in your leadership role, you have to foster relevant change. Understand the principles of change and proceed carefully.

 

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#287 Executives

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Working with executives can be exhilarating or challenging. You can learn new things, you can learn strategic thinking, and you can get a front row seat to change. The executive has power to take decisions in many areas, and that can remove bottlenecks very quickly. But the executive view is messy, even stressful. The buck stops there, and when there is nowhere else to go, executives have to shoulder the burden of decision making and driving change.

A couple of reasons why it may be tough to work with executives:

  • The executive lack expertise in your area, therefore may not show empathy or appreciation. You have to counter this by educating them and speaking in their language.
  • The executive is impatient, because they know how to drive change, but do not understand how to manage change. These are two fundamentally different skills. You have to counter this by showing how you are working to drive change, but standing firm when unreasonable demands are made.
  • It may be unreasonable to expect a warm, fuzzy feeling after a working session with an executive. Somehow all the business school teachings on people management seems to be lost on executives. All the executive charm seems to be reserved for managing up or for those who can help him or her succeed.

Executives who are not curious, not appreciative, are judgmental/critical, jump to conclusions, are not clear in their communications, and have poor listening skills are a real pain to work with. This is just bad behavior, or a personality defect, and has nothing to do with the fact that they are an “executive.” The executive did not pay their dues on the way to the top, but somehow they produce enough business/economic value to cause their bosses to ignore their defects.

You are not going to change the “defective” executives any time soon. Remove one executive, there are ten others waiting to take their place. You just have to up your game, communicate in a simple and easy to understand manner, and set the right expectations quickly. The executive uses his or her presence, you have to match that with your presence.

At the end of the day, unless you are fighting for your life, your values, your country, world hunger, or for saving kids from harm, it is only a job. Do it well, find a way to be happy and stress free. It is not necessary to fall on your sword over things that don’t matter in the long run.

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