manage well

Revolutionaries are a restless lot. In a way, they are like the ‘shooting stars’ in an organization – they are seriously outnumbered by the hundreds of twinkle-twinkle little stars, they enter an organization with tails-on-fire hurry, and (try to) change everyone and everything around them within the short time span that they are there, and then they burn out (or just lose interest when the work they set out for is either accomplished, or get bored when it doesn’t get accomplished) and just move on. They don’t have a lot of time, patience or socialistic motives making small changes here and there, or to make elaborate plans and do surveys, investigations and pilots, and so on. They would rather be out there in the middle of heat, dust and all the adrenalin-pumping and chest-thumping action than be found napping in a death-by-powerpoint meeting full of naysayers who believe it is their fundamental right to protect the status quo.

While some are born revolutionaries, some people don that role for some phase of their professional life. Irrespective of whether you are one or not, chances are that you might be reporting to one, or working with one, or managing one such person sometime in your life. I would even bet that sometime in your career, you might find the need to shift gears and play that role. These ideas have helped me over the years, and I hope they help you as well:

Continue reading ‘Ten Commandments for Revolutionary Change Agents’ »

Change is painful, especially when you have to change yourself. However, in reality all change is really about – changing yourself ! When people ignore this simple and timeless truth, they start accumulating a lot of ‘rigidity’ – growing at the rate of one day at a time, until that years-of-accumulated-and-hardened-behavior becomes a Frankenstein’s monster and an inseparable and indistinguishable part of themselves ! So much so, that they don’t even see that as the problem. I read somewhere that it takes an average of 21 days for a practice to become habit. I think the same must be true for negative change – i.e., refusal to adapt to changes around us. And in, perhaps, as little as 21 days, we just fortify ourselves against the impending and growing change around us. When that happens, another fantastic thing happens. Since we are out of tune with the system, there is a real danger of the system rejecting us. To preempt that from happening, we reject the system ! We criticise the environment around us, we comment on people’s behavior, we become cynical of changes, we are uncomfortable with others enjoying their newfound happiness…and we defend our own stand tooth and nail….and become even more rigid in that process. There is one thing as maintaining your values and convictions, and quite another to be rigid. A hairline separates them, and any judgment is as subjective as any other one. In reality, one person knows the right judgment – you.

The trick, of course, is to view every small, delta, incremental change as something as trivial as driving you brand-new car on a dirt road in the country. Just as you would slow down at every hump or look out for potholes, and chickens and dogs trying to cross the road, so should you in real life.

Mac Anderson is Founder of Simple Truths who make lovely self-help books. In a post, he shared a wonderful story:

Continue reading ‘Change yourself, not the mirror’ »

We probably don’t need another theory on change management, but we surely need a better understanding of what we think we know. In the context of change initiatives, we often see a situation where someone wants to push change proposals, and there are ‘resistors’ to that idea. The classic duel is when the people pushing change initiatives are ‘revolutionaries’ who won’t settle for anything short of a full-fledged change to overhaul the entire system and those resisting the change proposals are ‘traditionalists’ who would be better off tinkering the system here and there in a very planned and certain manner. In my view, that is the only real-world scenario worth studying – all other combinations of change agents, allies and resistors are comparatively manageable with some common sense and a give-and-take attitude (actually, give-more-and-take-less attitude)

In such situations, the most common advise given to the change agent is to show flexibility, adapt to the situation. I agree that flexibility and adaptability are the key to a successful change initiative, irrespective whether one is in minority pushing for a change, or a majority having the backing of senior management. Holding steadfastly onto one’s viewpoints often gets people branded as rigid and unreasonable. However, this is half the story.

Continue reading ‘If you want real change, be rigid !’ »