Friend, colleague, and leadership expert Liz Bywater of Bywater Consulting Group and I had a great conversation this morning about my efforts to bring uncommon clarity to organizations. If you have a few minutes, check it out. I think you will find it interesting.
Every company I encounter is trying to do more with less. I know numerous executives and managers who seem to acquire additional titles as often as they receive year-end bonuses. Employees at every level juggle To Do lists more prolific than rabbits. Unbelievably, most accept this fate and persevere the best they can. Since they’ve been told repeatedly to “work smarter, not harder,” many, especially the high achievers, assume responsibility for their long hours and blame themselves for not being smart enough to avoid working so hard. In their spare time, they surf the Internet hoping to find the holy grail — that magical tip that will finally end their suffering and let them please their bosses while also enjoying their evenings and weekends once again. Is it really possible to improve productivity at this point? Absolutely!
Executive Coaching and Advisory It’s tough to grow when you are breathing your own exhaust, getting little useful push back, and don’t know what you don’t know. Ann creates clarity, challenges assumptions, and provides forthright feedback. You accomplish more, faster, and with greater confidence and success. Executives eager to achieve greater individual performance will find in Ann the right mix of wisdom, patience, and candid persistence to help them get where they need to go. “Ann is an invaluable executive coach. She is a quick, honest, and insightful partner. I have learned as much from her about focused, action-oriented leadership in two months as in a decade of first-hand experience. Ann elevated my awareness of strategy, planning, and execution in ways that immediately impacted my work. I can’t recommend Ann more highly.” – John Bidwell, Director, Marketing & Digital Strategy, Baystate Health
Making change stick is one of my specialties. It would be easier to pop in, teach a few skills, make a few recommendations, and move on. But I’m not satisfied until I believe real results are underway or in sight. What I really enjoy is returning a year or so later to enthusiastic reports from client and staff that they are all still doing as we’d agreed and seeing obvious benefits. Change fails far more often than not. The reason is that most efforts are comprised of much talk, a couple of decisions, a new rule or two, inevitably some kind of form, and a generous dose of fanfare. None of which guarantee anything actually changes. Change occurs only when people change their behaviors. So let’s look at the essential ingredients for making change stick:
OK, so sometimes what the boss says is gospel and unavoidable. No doubt about it. But other times, that is not the case and even the boss would agree. As a matter of fact, in many cases the boss really wants employees to push back! This lack of clarity creates big problems! Employees are afraid to speak up. Morale suffers. Talent is handcuffed. Trust and honesty are squashed. Meanwhile, the boss can’t find the middle ground between rule by decree and everything by consensus. So what’s to be done?
When I work with clients on strategy, one of my greatest responsibilities is to shift their thinking so they can look at things in new ways, step up to a higher plane, and think big. Boards of Directors and staff alike are usually too mired in today’s challenges to envision a dramatically improved future, let alone a path that gets them there. Without a shift in thinking, most strategic plans are incremental at best with the biggest changes focused on internal operations that may save money, but won’t measurably increase the organization’s ability to make a difference. At the same time, I have to keep my clients grounded in reality. Blue-sky proponents lobby for lofty earth-saving missions without any concrete ideas about the specific products and services that will make a measurable difference. They shoot down dissenters and leave too many details for later. These grandiose plans are wrapped up in shiny binders and delivered with great pomp and circumstance. So how do you know a sensible and strong strategy from a bad one? Today’s list is geared toward nonprofits. Stay tuned for an equivalent list for businesses.
When I graduated from college, I was not even sort of ready for a full-time job. I saw “real jobs” as a prison sentence that would end my flexibility and steal my chances to travel. Friends proved me right by getting hired and then promptly saying no to every opportunity while they just worked every day and awaited that first week of vacation six months down the pike. So I latched on to seasonal and temporary employment for a year or so instead. I worked at a resort, drove school buses, pumped gas, sold minnows, substituted at the local high school, and tutored the truant officer’s son who refused to go to school. Between times, I moved around, mostly by bicycle. I always made enough to get by.
In “Why Is Productivity So Weak? Three Theories” from The New York Times on April 28th, the author’s “depressing scenario” suggests that innovations in technology (such as a computer on every desk) and management techniques (such as outsourcing noncore functions) have been fully implemented across corporate America and will produce no additional productivity improvements. While I don’t think this is entirely true, I suspect we are seeing diminishing returns. But what that means is that we are ready for the next big innovation in workplace productivity! Corporate America is buried in time-wasting confusion. Clarity is the answer. Here are just a few examples:
A number of my clients are pondering name changes for their organizations. The dread is palpable. Their concerns run the gamut: It will cause confusion. We might lose critical stakeholders: customers, members, sponsors, donors, legislative support, community leaders, popular support, … We have to uphold tradition. People won’t be able to find us. It will be expensive. We’ll need a costly market research study. The fear paralyzes and change comes slowly, if ever.