Change by Attraction (Esther Derby)

We experience and respond to events—what’s in front of us now. But often, if we want to change events, we need to take a longer view and see patterns and system dynamics.

How do you get your ideas put into practice without pushing and persuading?  I'll tell you about Dan--who inflicted help and failed-- and offer some alternatives for working by attraction: 

We’re trained to think big, to go for that big hairy audacious goals, to go big or go home. But when it comes to making complex changes in your organization, tiny  may be the way to go.

Explore more about micro shifts:

Steering Signals

https://changebyattraction.simplecast.com/episodes/steering-signals

Four Questions for Evaluating Experiments 

https://www.estherderby.com/4-questions-for-evaluating-experiments/

Change Artist Super Powers: Experimentation 
https://www.estherderby.com/change-artist-super-powers-experimentation/

 

I've lived with five different dogs in my life, and each one has taught me something valuable--including lessons about organizational change.

In this episode I'll share the story of how I imposed a change on my dog...and how her responses mirrored those I see in top down change in organizations. 

This year, we all experienced changes with the pandemic. On an individual level, the impact ranged from minor blips and stunning upheavals. Organizations had to adapt to remote work. And in this all there is a common thread, the human experience of change.

In March 2020, my state went into lock down due to the pandemic. By June all my in-person workshops for the year evaporated. In this podcast, I trace my journey through old status quo, and chaos...until a transforming idea helped me see a way forward to a new status quo.

Usually, I talk about how to nurture change, once you are already in a position to do that. In this episode, I’m going to talk about contracting. Because contracting can make the difference between a successful engagement and a disappointing one—whether you are an employee or an external consultant or coach. Contracting sets the tone.

Some people think that empathy has no place at work…that work requires hard-nosed logic and checking your emotions at the door. They believe empathy means never hurting anyone’s feelings. 

But empathy doesn’t mean you have to coddle people or feel the same way they do. It means acknowledging other’s feelings, thoughts and view are valid, whether you agree with them or not. Most importantly, empathy smooths the road to forward movement and problem-solving.

How do you create an environment for great work? Where healthy self-organization happens? You notice and shape patterns. Patterns are meaningful events that repeat over time—actions and interactions, outcomes and results. That might be teams that flail and fail to deliver results. It might be conflicts that happen over and over. Or people waiting to be told what to do.

But how do you influence those patterns? Training isn’t usually enough. You have to influence the system—attending to Clarity, Conditions, and Constraints.

Download the Managing Complexity Self-Directed Assessment here:  https://academy.estherderby.com/pl/2147504104

***Stay in Touch***

Twitter:           @estherderby

FB:                   /EstherDerbyAtWork  

There are a handful of things, that if you manage to shift them, you can start a cascade of goodness in your organization. Trust is one of them.

When you listen, you convey that the other person has something valuable to share—which helps equalize status. If your response indicates you understand the clients world, their confidence in your ability to help grows. 

Why don’t ppl want to change?   I hear this question a lot.  

The assumption behind the question is clear: the impediments to change exist within people. But there's often friction in the context....situations that counter-motivate change.  I find it more useful to ask: "How to reduce the friction for people to change?"

I'll talk about some of the sources of friction, and what you can do about them, in this episode.

For more on the adoption of antiseptic practices (ad other really interesting ideas about change, see Slow Ideas, by Atul Gawande. 

I talk a lot on this podcast about tiny changes, changing systems and creating environments where something new might emerge. But that involves working with other people. How you show up as a change artist makes a difference. So in this episode, I’m going to talk about use of self—how showing up, empathizing, and connecting matters.

When leaders decided to make a change, they hope it will improve performance. But, while it may do so, there’s almost always a dip. Maybe a small dip, but sometimes a large one. When that happens, the first impulse is to make another change. And then you’ve got churn.

Sorry this episode is late!  I had a bad cold and wasn't up to recording.  

Convincing someone to do something different isn’t easy. Especially when they’re already working long hours, and the new thing requires effort and learning. When it may not work, or isn’t directly endorsed by their boss, it gets even more difficult. But persuasion isn’t the only way to entice people to try new ideas. In this episode, I’ll explain the difference between persuasion and influence and offer eight ways to influence change.

I realized early in my career, that even when my job was writing code, it still involved change.  The programs I wrote changed the way people did their jobs, and sometimes how they felt about their jobs.

Four pain points in organizational change: 

People may not want to change. This is often called resistance.... but it can be a resource. 

Nothing really changes, in spite of extensive (and expensive) training and coaching. Deep change requires looking beneath the surface to "see" underlying structures and factors that hold the pattern in place.

One size fits none, and everyone wants an exception. It isn't possible to anticipate (or accommodate) every context and every variation. One size may fit some, but may be a mess in other parts of the organization..

People rely on positional power and persuasion. Systems influence behavior, but it takes humans to change systems. In this part, we'll explore how to build a network of influencers and find support. 

My most recent book: 7 Rules for Positive Productive Change: Micro Shifts, Macro Results.  Available on Amazon.com or where ever books are sold.

My website: estherderby.com.

Words matter. One in particular matters in organizational change: Resistance. The way the term was originally used in the sense of electrical resistances—factors that inhibit the flow of electrons, or in the case of change restraining forces that work to maintain the status quo. 

But most of the time, I hear it as a label--slapped on people who haven’t jumped on the change bandwagon. 

Unfortunately, that label gets in the way. It shuts down curiosity and shuts down learning. In this episode, I’ll talk about the assumptions behind using the term and the organizational costs.

The best way to deal with resistance is to avoid it in the first place. Work by attraction. Let people get their finger prints on the change. 

What do forests have to do with organizational change? The ecological process of forest succession shows us that new plant communities take hold when the environment is ripe for them. That each new plant community, in turn alters the environment—making it possible for another plant community to take hold.  And I think that is a very useful way to think about making sustainable changes in organizations. 

The words we use shape our thinking, and our thinking shapes our actions.  The way people talk about change, influences how they plan for a change, what they expect, and how they interact with the people they hope will make changes. What if the language we use makes it harder to bring about the differences we want to see? In this episode, I’ll talk about how metaphor can shape expectation for change.

I've just scratched the surface here. My understanding of  metaphors and cognition started with Metaphors We Live By  by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson.

 

Power is ever present in organizations--and in change. Most change efforts rely on power over--the sorts of power that involve directives and rewards, and some times threats. But you'll get better results using power with. In this episode I'll talk about the sort of power most commonly used in organizations--and why you might not want to use them to accomplish change. 

If you want to learn more, you  read Raven and French's seminal paper, The Bases of Social Power.

Changing the paradigms—beliefs and assumptions about how things work—can be powerful in changing systems. But how can you do that?  Sometimes it as simple as shifting what people focus on.   

If you are interested in learning more about the SEEM model, drop me an email and I'll send you a copy of the paper where I first published it.  esther at estherderby dot com.

Adaptive Capacity is the ability to respond to change—whether that change is an adverse market event, a fabulous opportunity, or learning from experience. Unfortunately, many organizational habits sap adaptive capacity. 

Systems reflect the beliefs and assumptions of the ppl & societies who create them. Changing those beliefs is a powerful way to change a system. So, it follows, if we want to change management, we need to look at the beliefs and assumptions behind the dominant system of management.

Donella Meadow's Leverage Points: Places to Intervene in a System

Even when you have a big idea, you get there with little steps. This isn’t always satisfying to people who are in a hurry. It is understandable that people want big results and want them fast. But it doesn’t work that way. You have to cross the zone.

What the organization came from and what it is like now, influence where it can go. Organizations don’t leap forward toward some abstract potential.  They shimmy and mosey to the next best thing they are capable of—based on what is and what has been. 

In this episode I’ll share two of the things I try to learn about when I enter a new organization to understand where they come from:  the latest change, and the persistent stories.

I mention the SEEM model, one of the lenses I use to understand what I’m seeing in organizations. You can download an introduction to the SEEM model here. 

I recently had a fascinating conversation with Matthew Carlson, a senior consultant at Industrial Logic. We talked about what is different about adopting agile methods in 2021 vs. 2001… and how those differences play out for the people who work in organizations and those who hope to help them adopt agile methods.  

Join me and special guest Matthew Carlson for a rich conversation about considering context and respecting the structures and pressures that shape the adoption of not-so-new-innovations.   

Read more about Matthew here: https://www.industriallogic.com/people/matthew/

When making a change or fixing a problem, most companies consider the outcome they want to achieve—what will be different—and how they’ll measure that. But outcomes can take a long time. In the meanwhile, how do you know things are going the way you hoped?  How do you make adjustments if needed?  That’s where steering signals come in. Interim measures and subtle signs that help you find the way.

Blame shuts down problem-solving. Curiosity leads to greater insight. But the response to problems is often the former.

People who lead change talk about wanting others to own the change. But how? How do you get people to feel like they own something that's fully formed and rolled out? You don't. The key is to let people get their fingerprints on a change. And that's what I'll talk about in this episode.

For more ideas on how to involve people in change, check out Chapter 7, Guide, and Allow for Variation, in 7 Rules for Positive Productive Change.

You may think someone else needs to change. But approaching that topic is a delicate matter. If they haven't invited your input, your advice is likely to cause a rupture, especially when hierarchy is involved. 

When there’s an issue in an organization, people have a tendency to focus on fixing the person(s). But there may be other—more effective—ways to fix the problem.

But behavior is a function of people and their environment. And sometimes adjusting the  environment is the easiest, fastest, and most effective way to fix a problem.

In the course of observing, leading, and participating in many organizational changes, I’m discovering how to nurture change… in ways that are  more effect than many of the prevalent methods.

Related: 

https://www.estherderby.com/the-forest-succession-principle/