4th February 2012 Saturday 
Several years ago a good friend of mine sent me an article about using the art of Akido in coaching. The author of the article, Juan Riboldi, is an Akido teacher and founder of DecisionWise. According to Riboldi:
Aikido is based on the philosophy of creating harmony by mastering oneself and respecting another’s energy. Aikido is quite unique in that it has no formal technique for attack. Instead, Aikido teaches how to overcome conflict through minimal resistance and provides ways for a defender to redirect an attack, thus avoiding injury to themselves as well as their opponent. Unlike many fighting techniques that focus on defense while disabling the opponent, Aikido focuses on finding unity. The intent of Aikido is not acquiescence, but to establish a relationship of peace in the face of conflict.
In their recent book Switch, Chip and Dan Heath explored the reasons for why behavior change can be so difficult. One of their hypotheses was that behavior change requires self-control and that self-control is itself, an exhaustible resource.
Check out this video to learn more:
For leaders, the critical point to absorb is that piling on too many changes at once can backfire. As the Heath’s say, “Change wears people out—even well-intentioned people will simply run out of fuel.” To lead change successfully, we need to pay attention to how many changes we are asking people to make simultaneously and be on the lookout for burnout and overload. Help your people focus on what is most important now. Once one behavior becomes ingrained and automatic, you can move on to the next.
In his new book, Leading at Light Speed, Eric Douglas discusses the importance of understanding frames – patterns of assumptions that are often invisible, but that influence how people think about an issue or problem. According to Douglas,
In the world of politics, there’s a conservative frame (“We need to be more self-reliant”) and a progressive frame (“We need to do more to help others”). In the business world there are many frames as well, depending upon where you’re sitting and the view before you. There’s the organized labor frame (“Management will take advantage of us”) and the environmental frame (“Business leaders care more about profits than protecting the environment”). Each frame has its own way of seeing the world and responding to problems that arise.Douglas goes on to argue that systems thinking enables one to understand, and get past the limitations of frames.
Leadership expert Steve Arneson shares a simple and effective way to help change leaders understand the discomfort that often accompanies change in his Examiner.com blog post:
Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about the topic of feedback.
Executive coach and author Marshall Goldsmith wrote, “Feedback is a gift that only other can give.” So, if feedback is a gift, why do so many of us struggle with giving and receiving it?
I had a couple of experiences this summer that made me realize that there are actually many types of feedback. Perhaps we need more words for the many types – just like the Eskimos have many words for all of the different types of snow. Here are some possibilities:
Evaluation Feedback:
This type of feedback is probably the most common in the world of work. It’s also the least helpful. Evaluation feedback comes at the end. The end of the performance year. The end of the week-long class. The end of a project. Sure it’s helpful for all us to gauge how we did, and we may use evaluation feedback to improve next time. But why not give and get feedback when we can learn from it real time?
I was summoned to appear for Jury Duty today and was pleasantly surprised when the experience resulted in an effective example of communicating with an audience full of resisters.
After the 30 or so of us signed in with the Court Clerk, we were shown a video. I admit to bracing myself for something preachy and boring. However, 30 seconds into watching “The Colorado Juror” I was digging in my bag for a pen and paper to capture notes on how good the video was! I thought it was an effective example of the order in which to cover points when dealing with a resistant, skeptical, or hesitant audience.
#1: Start with empathy for the emotions people are feeling.
The video started with clips of four past jurors talking about how anxious and annoyed they were when they received their summons. As people chuckled and nodded along, the tension in the room started to dissapate.
Any time I see or hear something three times in quick succession, I sit up and realize that the universe is trying to tell me something. Lately the universe has been talking to me about the fact that welcoming disagreement is an imperative ingredient of effective leadership.
Sign #1: From Richard Hackman
In the May issue of Harvard Business Review, Diane Coutu interviewed Richard Hackman, Professor of Social and Organizational Psychology at Harvard University and a leading expert on teams. While the article is titled, “Why Teams Don’t Work,” Hackman does offer insight into why and when teams do work. One surprising finding of Hackman’s research is that every team needs a deviant. According to Hackman,
“Deviants are the ones who stand back and say, ‘Well wait a minute, why are we even doing this at all?”Hackman argues that deviants open up more ideas and are a great source of innovation. Of course, the problem is that these very people are often seen as resistant and as troublemakers.
Every so often I get a call from a potential client asking me if I can “convince people that they need to change.” The short answer is no. Here’s the long answer . . .
I think we often confuse convincing people that change is needed with convincing people to accept a specific change.
Convincing people that change is needed is a pivotal first step in any attempt to lead change. John Kotter calls this step “creating a sense of urgency.” Rick Maurer refers to it as “making a compelling case for change.”
There are certainly many things that leaders can do to convince people that change is needed. Kotter and Maurer both have books on the subject. In addition, in his book, The Leadership Engine, Michigan business professor Noel Tichy provides a great list of suggestions, including communicating about:
- External threats and opportunities
- Technologies which are causing quantum changes in your business
- Customers or suppliers which are concentrating or integrating
Stagnation and inertia are two of the problems that can plague change efforts. In his book, A Sense of Urgency, Harvard professor John Kotter suggests that bringing people in from the outside can help. While Kotter is generally talking about bringing in the outside in the form of perspectives from customers, consultants and experts, he also mentions that it can be helpful to import new hires.
While I agree with Kotter, I do want to offer a word of caution about this approach. Leaders who come into an organization and attempt to implement change without understanding the new company’s culture are likely to create more problems and pain.
I recently consulted with a company with a legacy of having a very strong “people” culture. This particular company has brought in new executives from other industries that have more a “profit” focus. The new executives are doing their jobs by bringing in best practices and attempting to implement new systems and procedures. The problem is that the way some are going about it is ineffective.
A great deal has been written about overcoming resistance. I believe that approaching resistance as something that needs to be “overcome” is precisely the wrong thing to do.
In my view, too many leaders make the mistake of believing that they are driving change. (See my previous post, Who is Really Driving Change?) These leaders often get frustrated by the roadblocks and speed bumps they encounter, and they attempt to steamroller right over anyone who resists their change initiative.
In reality, overpowering resistance doesn’t reduce problems, it simply hides them. And hidden problems are like time bombs just waiting to explode and destroy all the work that has gone into your change effort. So today’s phrase is:
Leaders Who Act Like Tanks Create Land Mines!
