If you have ever lead a change endeavor, you had the pleasure to face some challenges. The fear and confusion brought by poor communication. The awakening of the organization’s immune system and the blanket resistance that comes with it. Or the planning is ridden with as many potholes as a Montreal’s street (believe me, that’s quite a lot).

One of the largest challenges is the sheer volume of situations you need to pay attention too, regardless of what they might be. It forces you to dilute your energy and often makes you lose sight of the goal or purpose of the change. There’s just too much noise.

The problem, however, isn’t that there’s too much to cope with. It’s just that we lose sight of what matters in all the noise. You can’t do everything, win every argument, convince everyone or even fight every possible battle.

The solution isn’t complicated, although it’s not easy. You have to learn to let go.

My younger self-learned that through a Zen practicing teacher of mine who would answer nearly all of my rants with the most frustrating questions ever: “Why?” and “Does it matter?” If you can’t answer those questions in a satisfactory way, then you have to let go.

Let go of what’s not worth fighting for

Learn to choose your battles. Some of them are decidedly worth your energy and should be fought to the bitter end. But such battles are few and far between.

Think about what you are about to fight for. Think of your reasons to fight. What you expect to get out of it. You would be surprised at how many of those important battles are in fact utterly hollow.

We get into most of our fights because of pride and stubbornness. Just like fighting things you can’t change, fights that aren’t worth the cost will just deplete your precious resources. Again, the trick is to be able to figure out the ROI of a potential fight quickly.

Compromising or switching to a different solution that accomplishes the same purpose but without the opposition is the best option for a potentially costly fight.

Let go of what you can’t do anything about

You can’t fight the wind.

Amongst the battles which are not worth the cost, fighting against constraints that will not change are the most wasteful. Compromising will not work on those unless you are the one making all the compromises.

Those immovable constraints need to be identified quickly and then dealt with with a bit of strategy. Some you can circumvent, some you leave alone, some you undermine undermined and, like the wind, some can be harnessed and made to work for you.

Keep in mind also that it is not because you cannot do anything about a constraint or situation now mean that you won’t be able to do something about it later. Context change and essential constraints can become irrelevant or beneficial.

Let go of that good idea you had

Yes, that idea was not just good, it was impressive.

Impressive enough to redo all your change plans to accommodate it? Can you sell that to everyone involved? No? It either wasn’t that good of an idea, or it wasn’t the right time for it.

Ideas are a very personal thing. We get attached quickly to the promising ones. But the better the idea, the more dangerous it is for that exact reason: it is too good to cast aside.

When such an irresistible idea comes, get into the habit of monitoring the cost of keeping it alive. The very second that cost surpass the benefits, it’s time to let it go.

Let go of that thing you really liked

Everyone have things we love and loathe to leave behind. In every change effort, you’ll find at least one such thing.

But it’s a thing. You can let go of a thing. You have a difficulty of letting some things go because of how it makes you feel, the time it saves you, or any other such underlying reason. By identifying that underlying reason you don’t want to let go of the thing, you can start looking for a replacement that fit with where you want to go.

Your thing can be many, well… things: It can be a tool, a location, a habit, a relationship. A lot of baggage makes moving forward more challenging. Find the essence and turn baggage into a springboard that will allow you to jump forward.

Focus on what’s essential

That very zen approach to change help getting rid of the noise so you can focus on what’s important. That’s the key to a successful change endeavor.

Learning to let go of the non-essential is simple to understand, but in practice, it’s hard to master. Dismissing the most trivial will come quickly enough, but even after years of practice I sometimes still struggle with letting go of whatever is close to my hard.

The practice of letting go is like a muscle. Just keep working at it, and it will become easier over time.

Maurice Lefebvre

I am a futurist, system thinker and organizational transformation expert, dedicated to easing our transition into Society 5.0. I am available as a speaker through the think tank Hivernité (www.hivernite.ca) as well as a trainer and organizational coach through Moabi Formations (www.moabiformation.com).

www.hivernite.ca

You hired talented people, and yet, no matter how exhaustive and precise your work orders are, they keep delivering results that are unexciting, limp, mediocre?

Have you thought that maybe your highly detailed work orders are what’s to blame? That a bit of vagueness, that breathing room is what your talented people need to deliver bottled awesomeness?

Unleashing creativity

In “change by design,” Tim Brown discuss that briefs handed down to designers. He argues that an exhausting list of granular requirements will more often than not result in a mediocre product that’s little more than a wrapping around the specifications. Instead, giving the design team as a set of goals and a few constraints as boundaries, then working with the team to refine them during the process, has in one example led to 350 concepts, more than 60 prototypes and 3 ideas brought to development.

In “Connected Company,” Dave Gray make a similar argument for using boundaries. His organizational model called Podularity use a platform, a boundary composed of constraints, support, and shared information, in which teams plug into. They have the freedom to tackle work and emerging situation as they see fit, as long as do so within the boundaries of the platform. This strategy allows the team to react faster and find more creative solutions since most of the decisional power reside in those closest to the situation.

In both cases, the idea is to give talented individuals the freedom to use their abilities in the best way possible, while making sure they don’t go too far off track.

Using such boundaries is an excellent way to foster intrinsic motivation within employees. In “Drive,” Daniel Pink explain that in most occupations, especially more creative ones, extrinsic motivation (i.e. carrots and sticks) end up being detrimental. Intrinsic motivation, based on a desire for mastery, autonomy, and purpose, creates engagement, a high level of satisfaction and creativity.

Creating the right kind of boundaries

The boundaries you create need to unlock creativity, not continue to hinder it using a different approach. While it is entirely possible to create boundaries so well defined that there’s little to no deviation from your expectation possible, such boundaries are not going to help you much.

The best boundaries allow breathing room. They should define the extent of your tolerance, a clear message not to go outside those bounds, but as long as the team stays inside, they are free to explore solutions.

Creating empowering boundaries is not very difficult. Start by asking yourself a few questions:

• In broad strokes, what do I want?
• In broad strokes, what I want to avoid?
• Why do I want or don’t want these things?
• What’s my budget?
• What’s my timeline?
• What data or reference material can I provide to the team?
• What data/reporting do I request from the team?

Answering those simple questions will open a discussion with the team. They will want some enlightenment, some guidance, some opinions on ideas. Keep in mind that you don’t need all the answers. “I don’t know. Show me something.” is an acceptable answer and a powerful one at that. Such an answer is a request for suggestions.

Boundaries must remain alive. They will change and evolve over the course of the project, through a back and forth between you and the team. Ideas get refined, constraints get refined. It is a necessity especially when there are several great concepts to choose from.

Keep them on track

Even teams used to boundaries can sometimes get lost in their explorations and creativity. But that possibility can be avoided by simple framing constraints.

Regularly requesting new prototypes or at least seeing the constant advances of a working and evolving solution will do the trick. Not only this will give a regular update on progress, but allow for discussing the solution(s) presented, progressively refining the boundaries.

Sometimes the team will struggle:

On more straightforward work, this situation will identify a flow problem. The use of a kanban board eases the identification of such flow issues early so you and the team can address them rapidly.

On creative endeavors, it can be trickier to identify struggling as progress is not necessarily linear. It can take a bit longer before realizing that the team is chasing its tail, or lost in too many possibilities. In the first case, identifying if any particular constraint is the problem will give you the information needed to provide additional support. In the second case, a team lost in the possibilities will benefit from an additional constraint or two to bring back focus.

Boundaries invigorates relationships

Working with boundaries rather than a full set of specifications will change your relation with your team. Depending on the nature of the work, it might mean for you to more involved or less involved than before, but the dynamic of the relationship will be different.

You will see genuine collaboration emerge with your team rather than a hierarchical rapport. You won’t simply be the person who assigns work, and then either micromanages the team or nearly ignore them. You will be a partner, who’s opinions and resources will be tapped by the team to provide you with what you need.

If this seems intimidating, maybe a workshop on modern leadership, like those from Management 3.0 (that we offer), would help. As work dynamics changes, leadership must evolve to address those changes better and make the most of these new relationships.

Maurice Lefebvre

I am a futurist, system thinker and organizational transformation expert, dedicated to easing our transition into Society 5.0. I am available as a speaker through the think tank Hivernité (www.hivernite.ca) as well as a trainer and organizational coach through Moabi Formations (www.moabiformation.com).

www.hivernite.ca

It can move us, persuade us, makes us relate to another’s plight. Good narratives follow a structure that has been passed down from one generation to the next, making the most frightening things clear and somehow reassuring. Even surprise turns of events are expected and accepted.

Change management, on the other hand, is the polar opposite. Information is lacking, communication breaks down, and structure is often lacking or is indiscernible.

Intuitively people perceive the events around them as stories, and change management initiatives are too often partial stories, filled with cracks and uncertainty. The mind being a powerful storytelling tool, it will naturally fill those cracks and, being geared for survival, it will fill them with dreadful things.

Using storytelling as a means to communicate change, make people empathize with it, and fill the blanks with something a bit more positive than dread.

How can you do that?

Create context

Every story needs a frame, a context, and yours is no different. Change projects aren’t born of thin air, and people need that context to be able to ground the reasons for the change in their minds.

We often neglect to add context to avoid admitting failure or a lack of control on an external situation. We might believe it will protect us, or the employees, but people aren’t fools. Their mind fill cracks in stories with dreadful things, remember? They will expect reality to be far worse than it actually is.

Transparency can go a long way to properly frame your narrative and make people understand the purpose and the stakes. People can smell a phony, so being genuine is the best strategy here. Understanding is how you get them on board. It makes them realize that the planned change is necessary.

Think protagonists and antagonists

Stories usually follow a simple framework: a protagonist lives in a status quo, then comes an antagonist (human, thing, event) as the bringer of change, which disrupts that status quo prompting the protagonist to take action in a way that will make him change and grow.

Your story also needs protagonists and antagonists. In organizational changes, the protagonists are easy to identify: it’s your organization and the employees. The main antagonists are what forces the changes: could be a market change, could be a competitor. Protagonists and antagonist are not inherently good guys or bad guys.

In the movie The Karate Kid (I’m showing my age, I know), Daniel-san is clearly the protagonist. Johnny, the bad kid who beat Daniel early on, is the original antagonist who prompts Daniel to learn to fight. However, it’s Mr. Miyagi, a good guy, who the main antagonist of the story. The changes he brings in Daniel-san are much deeper: he teach him to fight, but he also teaches him to live. Teachers can be great positive antagonists.

As a change management consultant, I often end up in the role of an antagonist. A market shift can be your main villain, but as an agent of change, I’m also an antagonist, albeit one who works for their best interests.

Understand the role you need to play. Use context to ease the role of the antagonists.

Mind the rhythm

The three acts structure so ubiquitous in novels, plays, and movies is one of the most recognizable narrative tools. It helps structure the story and crate a parallel in how people masters new situations or new skills.

Act 1 is all about setting the table. The purpose and stakes for the change must be apparent in this act. It is also the moment to get quick wins, and both increase people’s confidence and support the initiative.

Act 2 is when things become difficult. The quick wins have passed. The real opposition begins. In change management, it is usually the moment the organization’s immune system kicks in. Those who have bought into the need for change will have to face the resistance of others. Progress is made inch by inch if there’s any noticeable progress at all. Fatigue sets in.

The Pit of Despair is the trickiest part of any change initiative. Tired people lose confidence, and it may seem that it would be better to stop now rather than sink further.

Again, the power of storytelling can come to your rescue. Everyone who have read a book or seen a movie understand that there’s that middle part where everything seems lost. The protagonists need to rally, find back their center and push through. People all have that understanding deep inside their minds, what we have to do is to wake that understanding.

Get rid of the noise, make the focus clear. Show them all that they have accomplished. Make them understand that the larger the challenge, the greater the growth. Natural leaders tend to emerge in the darkest hours. We need to help them do so.

Act 3 starts when the result of previous efforts start paying off. As people realize the benefits of what they went through, confidence comes back. It doesn’t mean it’s smooth sailing from there, but all the major hurdles should have passed.

Your story is interactive

Stories printed on dead trees or committed to film are static. Since yours is dynamic, it is bound to change and evolve as your project moves forward. This is a good thing.

A living story can be reframed as needed. Its context might evolve. The characters have a mind of their own. Use that.

Keep your planning dynamic, able to change as needed. A relatively stable frame is important, but let the details emerge. Enlist those who have bought into the purpose and stakes and made them their own’s to help you shape the next step in the developing story. Make sure the natural leaders who will emerge to guide your team out of the Pit of Despair become part of the storytellers.

Celebrate the happy ending

A story is a journey. You know where it starts, you will get surprises along the way, and at some point, it needs to end. Stories that never ends lose their meaning over time.

When that ending comes, be sure to take some time to celebrate successes with those who participated, and mourn those lost along the way. Celebrates those who stood up in the darkest hour and became leaders.

Protagonists are meant to grow from a story for it to be significant. Be sure to reflect on what happened, as a group, and learn from it. Acknowledge the leaders who emerged to help others climb out of the Pit of Despair.

This story might have ended, but the next one is just further down the road.

Maurice Lefebvre

I am a futurist, system thinker and organizational transformation expert, dedicated to easing our transition into Society 5.0. I am available as a speaker through the think tank Hivernité (www.hivernite.ca) as well as a trainer and organizational coach through Moabi Formations (www.moabiformation.com).

www.hivernite.ca