Quantum Leadership – Workshop 2 (Challenging Status Quo)
The Appleton Greene Corporate Training Program (CTP) for Quantum Leadership is provided by Ms. Feinholz MBA CLP Certified Learning Provider (CLP). Program Specifications: Monthly cost USD$2,500.00; Monthly Workshops 6 hours; Monthly Support 4 hours; Program Duration 12 months; Program orders subject to ongoing availability.
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Learning Provider Profile
For over 35 years, Ms. Feinholz MBA CLP has consulted to the leaders and management teams of evolving businesses, helping them improve their results and execute their business more profitably and productively. Her consulting services initially focused on helping these business leaders and owners learn how to set clear vision and strategies and expanded to improving how to operate their businesses by applying sound fundamental business principles throughout their organization.
Through her management consulting, executive coaching and facilitation, Ms. Feinholz transfers the tools and skills used in Fortune 100 companies to privately held and publicly traded businesses. In addition to her work with UCLA Medical Center, Avon Products, Walt Disney Imagineering, the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transit Authority Mattel and WorldVision, she has consulted to over 250 small and mid-sized companies as they grow, change strategy and create new value. Her clients have included manufacturers, software developers, professional services Erms, start-up entrepreneurs and executives advancing their careers.
Ms. Feinholz‘s consulting activities include: working with management to clarify their vision and goals; identifying the new culture being targeted; prioritizing management decisions through planning activities; developing communication vehicles to create buy-in among management and employees, redesigning business processes, structures and organizational relationships and effectiveness, and designing and implementing leadership and performance management systems that help the organization get the greatest value from everyone’s efforts. Her work across the organization includes: leading internal teams in their participation in change efforts; facilitating implementation; and conducting training and coaching to transfer management methodologies, processes and skills to her clients.
Ms. Feinholz’s knowledge and experience in various technical, managerial and executive positions drew her to recognize that one of the key missing elements throughout her clients’ organizations was leadership adeptness.
As her client base grew, Ms. Feinholz became aware that many business leaders and owners, regardless of the industry or size or type of company, were not preparing themselves or their businesses for their eventual exit from their roles. She further determined that 3 Factors placed her clients’ organizations at risk.
First, businesses that had key technical and management functions optimized still neglected to put attention on installing the leadership bench strength required to stabilize an organization beyond the tenure of who was currently in leadership roles.
Second, whether an individual transitioned their role at the timing of their choosing or due to unexpected opportunities and events, every leader eventually progressed to more complex and strategic responsibilities. At times that meant they exited the company itself. Thus, the business needed to be prepared for succession events regardless of the circumstances.
Third, in tracking the information shared through employee exit interviews she was able to determine the effects the lack of strong leadership had on company culture, employee morale, and employee retention. She uncovered the fact that employees no longer see the C-Suite as the sole agents of leadership in the organization but expect it to be present and experienced more intimately throughout the organization.
Ms. Feinholz decided the best way to install those elements was to design and deliver a leadership development program that would effectively install the QL principles and practices at any level of title and arena of responsibility. That meant taking the best techniques of leadership theory, the insights of modern high-performance leaders, and incorporating adult learning followed by simplifying what was learned and systematizing it so that it can now be learned and installed in a broad spectrum of any organization’s business leaders.
The Quantum Leadership (QL) concept began in 2002 and has been repeatedly tested, implemented and refined for twenty years across industries and company roles.
MOST Analysis
Mission Statement
The second workshop, Challenge The Status Quo (CTSQ), is designed to launch participant’s growth in the arenas both of organizational leadership and of personal leadership capabilities and practices.
The workshop will teach the participants to research and identify the challenges their organization, team and they individually currently face in responding to the recruitment, engagement, and retention challenges they face. We will set the groundwork for guiding CTSQ activities by their team, uncover the elements of success and failure of change projects.
Many professionals do not fully understand their own leadership styles and competence when it comes to leading deliberate change efforts.
Through the exercises in the workshop, they will begin to assess own their current capabilities as a leader, so they learn to present themselves as increasingly effective and impactful.
By the end of this workshop participants will be able to use specific roadmap steps for designing and leading CTSQ projects.
The process for creating CTSQ roadmaps is identical, whether applied to individual development, team process or organizational changes.
Assess the current state: Where does the organization stand today in terms of leadership activities, infrastructure, processes and services? Are existing leadership strategies impacting strategic goals? If not, they must be modified to serve their purpose and support the organization’s objectives being planned.
Establish the target state: What so you want to achieve? How will outcomes from the transformation be measured? You don’t have to go into the details, but assign OKRs, KPIs and business metrics accordingly. Next, decide how human and financial resources will be prioritized. Finally, reach a consensus on how progress will be tracked as the transformation takes shape.
Determine the steps or initiatives of each team: A transformation affects everyone in the organization. It requires inputs and feedback from decision-makers at various levels of the organization and at the department levels. The participation and expectation from stakeholders should be clear from the beginning.
Identify issues along four tracks: people, process, organization structures and technology. The people track is about ensuring you have the right people in the right seats with the right skills both during the transformation efforts, as well as post-transformation. Ensuring you have the right people leading and supporting the teams, as well as the right team members executing on transformation initiatives are critical to the successful delivery of the vision. A roadmap item may include designing a new organizational structure and roles needed in post-transformation.
Agree upon which elements the leader participants can influence, in what span of time.
Objectives
01. Evolution & Revolution: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
02. Knowing Why: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
03. Mastering Phases: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
04. Engaging in Challenging: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
05. Company Culture: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
06. Team Culture: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
07. Personal CTSQ: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. 1 Month
08. Challenging Processes: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
09. Getting It Wrong: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
10. Change Readiness: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
11. Personality and CTSQ: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
12. Uncovering Opportunities: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
Strategies
1. Engage and elicit expectations for the course, explore the concepts covered in each section.
2. Discuss Evolution & Revolution as Organizations Grow
3. Examine the sources of resistance to change on an organizational level
4. Examine the sources of resistance to change on a team level
5. Examine the sources of resistance to change on a personal level
6. Explain the Starting Conditions facing your organization and team
7. Discuss how you’ll increase Change Readiness with your team
8. Participate fully in the CTSQ Readiness exercises
9. Discuss historical Leadership theories and share exercise feedback amongst the group
10. Participate candidly in the leadership assessment tools to Identify your current observable practices as a foundation for upcoming explorations in adding and refining them
11. Collaborate with QLP teammates to develop actionable roadmaps and plans for the Project Study assignments to be achieved before the next workshop
12. Develop new communication practices and collaboration in order to undertake planned Project Study activities and provide and case studies that exemplify both the organizational work undertaken and the new leadership practices used for personal growth and organizational productivity.
Tasks
1. Go through the Study Guide and Distance Learning lessons first and make notes on questions to raise during the workshop.
2. Identify the key time constraints and interactions that need to be managed to ensure project success.
3. Determine needs, critical drivers, concerns, resistances, and interests for each planned Project Study activity.
4. Ensure that these relationship with team members are built and maintained on a periodic calendared basis, by soliciting ideas, comments, and assessing value.
5. Schedule weekly meetings with Accountability Partners with the same commitment as other business meetings
6. Participate fully in workshop exercises through reflection and sharing and the full group
7. Set a deadline for conducting meetings with team members for the Project Study tasks, as well as analyzing the findings and preparing the Project Study Summary for submission no later than 48-business hours before the next workshop
8. Participants to demonstrate personal presence, get feedback, and offer suggestions for further development during the workshop
9. Participants to experience the challenges of change and apply learnings to the development of new leadership practices
10. Participants are to complete each exercise throughout the workshop fully and discuss the process and results with the group
11. Participants to complete their project by identifying and implementing changes discussed throughout the workshop
12. Participants to review resources for inspiration and identify at least one new tool for adoption during the 30-days between the workshops.
Introduction
“What got us here cannot get us there” ~ Marshall Goldsmith
The objective of the Leading Change module’s three workshops is to train participants in Leading Change. As Change leaders, participants will initiate the process and steer it when needed. During the social and economic shocks of 2020-2022 that complacency was forcibly erased, replaced by nimbleness and pivoting. Today’s leaders need to codify those characteristics by declaring challenging the status quo is a corporate value and enabling it.
Change leadership can look like “if you can think of ways to improve the process, you should take it.” However, the strongest organizations are those in which changes, and improvements it will bring, are sourced throughout the organization. This means each person has to stop simply “going through the motions” when it comes to doing their job. It’s a lesson all leaders need to learn.
While ideas for improvement can be sourced throughout the organization, when leaders see an opportunity for improvement, they need a compelling case for putting the time and resources into stepping into the tension between what is and what could be.
They need the same from any employee who thinks they’ve spotted a worthwhile opportunity to do things differently.
The best leaders not only seize the initiative to change the way things are, but create a system of process steps for the rest of the organization to bring their attention and best thinking and efforts to the table.
The greatest challenge that is faced is the organization’s tolerance for challenging the status quo. Organizations, being the sum of the human beings in them, can be risk adverse or risk tolerant. The fundamental question is whether the culture and its leaders consider Change to be the path to Opportunities or to Conflicts.
It all begins with the reality that as organizations succeed and grow, and the external environment changes over time, leaders must confront the need to re-assess how their company is organized and executing on its business activities. This applies all the way through the recruitment, onboarding, performance and retention of its key team members.
Historically, in times of constancy and complacency, actively seeking to disturb the status quo and awaken others to new possibilities met with heavy resistance. The recent business upheavals have loosened the old, fixed thinking and continually presents opportunities for Quantum Leadership Program participants to use the techniques which will be explored to advance new ideas.
Participants will learn the elements that assist or impede Challenging The Status Quo, and steps to take to elicit participation from the stakeholders involved.
Executive Summary
Chapter 1: Evolution & Revolution
The objective of the Leading Change module’s three workshops is to train participants in Leading Change. As Change leaders, participants will initiate the process and steer it when needed. During the social and economic shocks of 2020-2022 that complacency was forcibly erased, replaced by nimbleness and pivoting. Today’s leaders need to codify those characteristics by declaring challenging the status quo is a corporate value and enabling it.
You will learn how to profile your using Larry Greiner’s stages of organizational evolution. You’ll walk through the steps to uncover your organization’s current stage of development and the challenges you recognize it is facing in five arenas:
1. Age of the organization.
2. Size of the organization.
3. Stages of evolution.
4. Stages of revolution.
5. Growth rate of the industry.
The answers you develop will identify the leadership required for the current stage’s success through Challenging The Status Quo (CTSQ) during the Five Phases of Growth.
Chapter 2: Knowing Why
Every organization faces a continual paradox. Stability versus Flexibility. Its leaders crave being able to establish predictable and repeatable results for their business, their teams, their employees. Ideally, they’d love their organization to function like a clear lake on a sunny day, with an unobstructed view into the distance as well as into the depths.
Success for any business depends on leadership’s capacity to handle the never-ending cycle of change due to outside influences and internal ones as well. Everybody, every business, every industry, and every day are impacted by change. Understanding the forces that drive change and learning how to lead, accept, and manage it are essential if you want to build a better future for your organization as well as your professional success.
We’ll dive into the factors creating Status Quo Bias, including preference stability, cost of change, selection difficulty, regret and blame on an organizational, team, and individual level.
Chapter 3: Mastering Phases
We looked at the question of whether your organization or you view change as ‘opportunity’ or ‘conflict.
Now we’ll consider Larry Greiner’s “Organizational Practices in the Five Phases of Growth,” which lists the exact management actions that Larry Greiner used to define each growth phase, summarizes the important points of this subject. These steps are also the ones that put an end to each previous revolutionary era.
You may either drive or be driven by the forces of change. Rather than taking a reactive stance, the leaders whose teams will thrive during these turbulent times exercise strategic leadership and thought.
It’s critical to embrace the forces of change, whether you work for a startup or an established company. The results won’t be all good or all awful, but if you prepare ahead of time with planning, research, and a strategy, you’ll be ready for either outcome.
Chapter 4: Engaging in Challenging
Encouraging your team to challenge the status quo requires insight into why some people are terrified of Change (while others love it). You need to understand the elements so that you can adapt your speech and actions to bring each of them along as full contributors to the analyses, designs and implementation of initiatives that lie ahead.
As a leader, you are the one who needs to paint that picture, to draw the resistors from their extreme position towards at least a middle ground, curious and open to possibilities attitude. They do not have to jump on “the enthusiasts’ bandwagon” but you want them in a state of openness to participating in the assignment you’re crafting for everyone.
Your task, your responsibility, is to help each member of your team step into the Learning Curve knowing they will have support through the process
Chapter 5: Company Culture
Challenging the Status Quo (CTSQ) is a deliberate act by leaders to inspire others in their organization to search for opportunities to innovate, change and grow the organization. Inevitably, this aspect of the company culture leads to allowing others to experiment and take risks in the bid to improve the way things are being done to yield extraordinary results.
A number of ongoing studies have shown that when leaders don’t challenge their status quo it can lead to a number of negative consequences. A study by the Harvard Business School found that organizations that don’t challenge their status quo are more likely to stagnate, lose market share and experience declines in profitability. Another study, by McKinsey & Company, found that companies that don’t challenge their status quo, fail to pursue innovations and are less agile in the face of change.
Five critical steps are examined that enable organizations to confront change and challenge the status quo.
Chapter 6: Team Culture
We have looked at the question of whether your organization views Change as ‘Opportunity’ or as ‘Conflict.’ Now we’ll bring the consideration to the level of your Team’s attitudes about change.
If leaders have risen through the ranks of their functional area successfully, it usually means they are a fit with the culture, a match. It can be exhausting to continuously have to operate with a style other than that of the team culture at large. Skilled leaders who hit the point of frustration with pushing for change when it is not open to discussion will depart for an organization that value CTSQ! For newly minted leaders of a team, it is critical to identify whether they are operating in a culture that matches their own ‘challenge orientation’ or is a mismatch.
Historically CTSQ meant “pro-actively providing alternative ideas for ways the company already operates.” In some cases, team leaders might notice a challenge in need of a solution. In other cases, they might detect an opportunity the team could take to improve its processes. In more recent years CTSQ launched ideas for handling the threats posed the external social and economic drivers influencing employee recruiting, performance, engagement and retention.
Each of those considerations in turn opened the conversation about new ways of conducting every aspect of business which could lead to new sustainability, new scalability, new performance by the team.
Chapter 7: Personal CTSQ
With all the changes happening in the business world, CTSQ has become one of the most important functions of leaders. Having spent time examining the organization and the team, we’ll bring the considerations to the level of your personal attitudes about change and your Personal readiness regarding challenging the status quo (CTSQ).
For newly minted and rising leaders of a team, it is critical to identify whether they are operating in a culture that matches their own ‘challenge orientation’ or is a mismatch. If leaders have risen through the ranks of their functional area successfully, it usually means they are a fit with the team and company culture, a match. However, if they were not a match for the company culture, skilled leaders may hit the point of frustration with pushing for change when it is not open to discussion. They often depart for an organization that values CTSQ!
In this section of the workshop, you’ll consolidate your evaluation of your comfort, resistance and skills so you can identify where you need to step up your own skills.
Chapter 8: Challenging Processes
Change is here to stay. It is what makes organizations more competitive. Change can bring out the best in people because they are pushed to dig deeply into their reserves and to tap into uncharted talent. Change forces people to be innovative, to experiment with new processes, and to find ways to be more effective and efficient. Change can also create havoc and produce resistance when leadership skills are not evident.
CTSQ is all about seeking innovative ways to change, grow, and improve. Even to re-stabilize the company in the face of external changes. The effective leader is always seeking ways to move beyond the status quo and venture into the uncharted. There is proof all around us that those organizations that were considered “great” twenty-five years ago have either lost favor or no longer resemble them. Leadership that explores novel performance and success-enabling strategies is necessary to maintain organizational excellence.
Exercises in the section of the workshop are geared to loosen up the inquiry muscles leaders need for their own CTSQ skills as well as the professional development of their teams.
Chapter 9: Getting It Wrong
The external turmoil in the economy is forcing business innovation and change at a relentless pace: technology keeps changing, customer trends are shifting, new market regulations are being launched on a regular basis, and businesses have to evolve in the face of unprecedented global economic and social crises.
Companies that can’t adapt and grab growth opportunities are likely to be outcompeted by agile competitors. That’s why Challenging the Status Quo as well as preventing failures of change initiatives should be among a leader’s top priorities.
Research shows that only 38% of people like to leave their comfort zone. When these people are presented with a change, they think, “Hey, this is so exciting.” Those positive interpretations of change result in positive emotional reactions, such as happiness and satisfaction, which result in greater employee productivity.
The other 62%, however, look at that same exact statement and immediately feel fear and discomfort. They may think, “Oh great, this change will have an effect on my career growth.” or “I will not do what I like doing anymore.” or “Will they keep me in?”.
You’ll be looking at ten leadership qualities that scare the Status Quo to see where you stand, and identify which elements need further development.
Chapter 10: Change Readiness
Great leaders know change isn’t easy, even change for the better, and they don’t pretend otherwise. What they also know is that embracing change with the most effective mindset – one open to “learning and unlearning” on an ongoing basis – is key to creating a team environment where change isn’t just a ‘once in a while ‘occurrence to be suffered through but is an integral part of their company’s culture to be embraced and create enthusiasm.
Organizations will continue to face disruptive, complex, and uncomfortable change in coming decades. Recent research has uncovered that one of the reasons for resistance to challenge the status quo is that it disrupts each person’s primary emotional sense of where and how they ‘belong.’
You’ll take a team and personal look at the neglected element in Change Readiness – how change threatens our need to belong and how it impedes CTSQ.
Chapter 11: Personality and CTSQ
Each person sees the world through a unique filter of their own values and experiences. As a result, different people can have completely different reactions to the exact same set of circumstances. One of the greatest challenges for a Leader is to recognize where each member of their team is at and adjust accordingly in order to optimize their performance.
Understanding each team member’s default style and approach allows a leader to look at situations through their team member’s lens, to develop a deeper understanding of how they might experience the situation.
In McKinsey’s opinion the roles of leaders in the 21st century, in today’s complex business environment, need to focus instead on meaningful value with and for all ‘stakeholders.’ As you have likely seen in the media and business world, the definition of stakeholders has been expanding beyond shareholders to include customers, employees, partners and society as a whole. In this new thinking, everyone must feel they are winning. Otherwise, they’ll simply go elsewhere.
This new style of leader must take on four new roles when dealing with their team members. As you will see, you can rate them for their effectiveness in guiding CTSQ, whether it is viewed as Opportunity or as Conflict. These styles are the Visionary, Architect, Coach and Catalyst.
It’s understandable how each of these archetypes have unique strengths that contribute to creating to successful change. While it is important to understand the strengths of your approach as a leader, it is equally important to be self-aware and understand how your approach can also derail things. Awareness is power. Understanding why these approaches both lead to success and obstacles can give you more control over how you affect and are affected by your team.
Chapter 12: Uncovering Opportunities
The workshop will conclude with the development of a new 30-Day Plan focused on sharing these new concepts and tools with your team, and taking action on your Project Study, to evaluate the progress you and your team make all the way through drafting a CTSQ plan.
The experience of performing those first CTSQ steps needs be tracked and evaluated individually and discussed among the team to share and gain insights from each other’s experience. In a sense your leadership requires more effort at this stage, on the first effort, as you need to be transferring new learning to your team at the same time as you are evaluating everyone and each step’s progress.
No action will be taken beyond that planning stage. Your plan will be submitted 48-hours before the next workshop. In the following months that project will move into actual implementation steps. However, at this stage the focus for your leadership is on using the elements above to gain participation.
Curriculum
Quantum Leadership – Workshop 2 –Challengin Status Quo
- Evolution & Revolution
- Knowing Why
- Mastering Phases
- Engaging in Challenging
- Company Culture
- Team Culture
- Personal CTSQ
- Challenging Processes
- Getting It Wrong
- Change Readiness
- Personality and CTSQ
- Uncovering Opportunities
Distance Learning
Introduction
Welcome to Appleton Greene and thank you for enrolling on the Quantum Leadership corporate training program. You will be learning through our unique facilitation via distance-learning method, which will enable you to practically implement everything that you learn academically. The methods and materials used in your program have been designed and developed to ensure that you derive the maximum benefits and enjoyment possible. We hope that you find the program challenging and fun to do. However, if you have never been a distance-learner before, you may be experiencing some trepidation at the task before you. So we will get you started by giving you some basic information and guidance on how you can make the best use of the modules, how you should manage the materials and what you should be doing as you work through them. This guide is designed to point you in the right direction and help you to become an effective distance-learner. Take a few hours or so to study this guide and your guide to tutorial support for students, while making notes, before you start to study in earnest.
Study environment
You will need to locate a quiet and private place to study, preferably a room where you can easily be isolated from external disturbances or distractions. Make sure the room is well-lit and incorporates a relaxed, pleasant feel. If you can spoil yourself within your study environment, you will have much more of a chance to ensure that you are always in the right frame of mind when you do devote time to study. For example, a nice fire, the ability to play soft soothing background music, soft but effective lighting, perhaps a nice view if possible and a good size desk with a comfortable chair. Make sure that your family know when you are studying and understand your study rules. Your study environment is very important. The ideal situation, if at all possible, is to have a separate study, which can be devoted to you. If this is not possible then you will need to pay a lot more attention to developing and managing your study schedule, because it will affect other people as well as yourself. The better your study environment, the more productive you will be.
Study tools & rules
Try and make sure that your study tools are sufficient and in good working order. You will need to have access to a computer, scanner and printer, with access to the internet. You will need a very comfortable chair, which supports your lower back, and you will need a good filing system. It can be very frustrating if you are spending valuable study time trying to fix study tools that are unreliable, or unsuitable for the task. Make sure that your study tools are up to date. You will also need to consider some study rules. Some of these rules will apply to you and will be intended to help you to be more disciplined about when and how you study. This distance-learning guide will help you and after you have read it you can put some thought into what your study rules should be. You will also need to negotiate some study rules for your family, friends or anyone who lives with you. They too will need to be disciplined in order to ensure that they can support you while you study. It is important to ensure that your family and friends are an integral part of your study team. Having their support and encouragement can prove to be a crucial contribution to your successful completion of the program. Involve them in as much as you can.
Successful distance-learning
Distance-learners are freed from the necessity of attending regular classes or workshops, since they can study in their own way, at their own pace and for their own purposes. But unlike traditional internal training courses, it is the student’s responsibility, with a distance-learning program, to ensure that they manage their own study contribution. This requires strong self-discipline and self-motivation skills and there must be a clear will to succeed. Those students who are used to managing themselves, are good at managing others and who enjoy working in isolation, are more likely to be good distance-learners. It is also important to be aware of the main reasons why you are studying and of the main objectives that you are hoping to achieve as a result. You will need to remind yourself of these objectives at times when you need to motivate yourself. Never lose sight of your long-term goals and your short-term objectives. There is nobody available here to pamper you, or to look after you, or to spoon-feed you with information, so you will need to find ways to encourage and appreciate yourself while you are studying. Make sure that you chart your study progress, so that you can be sure of your achievements and re-evaluate your goals and objectives regularly.
Self-assessment
Appleton Greene training programs are in all cases post-graduate programs. Consequently, you should already have obtained a business-related degree and be an experienced learner. You should therefore already be aware of your study strengths and weaknesses. For example, which time of the day are you at your most productive? Are you a lark or an owl? What study methods do you respond to the most? Are you a consistent learner? How do you discipline yourself? How do you ensure that you enjoy yourself while studying? It is important to understand yourself as a learner and so some self-assessment early on will be necessary if you are to apply yourself correctly. Perform a SWOT analysis on yourself as a student. List your internal strengths and weaknesses as a student and your external opportunities and threats. This will help you later on when you are creating a study plan. You can then incorporate features within your study plan that can ensure that you are playing to your strengths, while compensating for your weaknesses. You can also ensure that you make the most of your opportunities, while avoiding the potential threats to your success.
Accepting responsibility as a student
Training programs invariably require a significant investment, both in terms of what they cost and in the time that you need to contribute to study and the responsibility for successful completion of training programs rests entirely with the student. This is never more apparent than when a student is learning via distance-learning. Accepting responsibility as a student is an important step towards ensuring that you can successfully complete your training program. It is easy to instantly blame other people or factors when things go wrong. But the fact of the matter is that if a failure is your failure, then you have the power to do something about it, it is entirely in your own hands. If it is always someone else’s failure, then you are powerless to do anything about it. All students study in entirely different ways, this is because we are all individuals and what is right for one student, is not necessarily right for another. In order to succeed, you will have to accept personal responsibility for finding a way to plan, implement and manage a personal study plan that works for you. If you do not succeed, you only have yourself to blame.
Planning
By far the most critical contribution to stress, is the feeling of not being in control. In the absence of planning we tend to be reactive and can stumble from pillar to post in the hope that things will turn out fine in the end. Invariably they don’t! In order to be in control, we need to have firm ideas about how and when we want to do things. We also need to consider as many possible eventualities as we can, so that we are prepared for them when they happen. Prescriptive Change, is far easier to manage and control, than Emergent Change. The same is true with distance-learning. It is much easier and much more enjoyable, if you feel that you are in control and that things are going to plan. Even when things do go wrong, you are prepared for them and can act accordingly without any unnecessary stress. It is important therefore that you do take time to plan your studies properly.
Management
Once you have developed a clear study plan, it is of equal importance to ensure that you manage the implementation of it. Most of us usually enjoy planning, but it is usually during implementation when things go wrong. Targets are not met and we do not understand why. Sometimes we do not even know if targets are being met. It is not enough for us to conclude that the study plan just failed. If it is failing, you will need to understand what you can do about it. Similarly if your study plan is succeeding, it is still important to understand why, so that you can improve upon your success. You therefore need to have guidelines for self-assessment so that you can be consistent with performance improvement throughout the program. If you manage things correctly, then your performance should constantly improve throughout the program.
Study objectives & tasks
The first place to start is developing your program objectives. These should feature your reasons for undertaking the training program in order of priority. Keep them succinct and to the point in order to avoid confusion. Do not just write the first things that come into your head because they are likely to be too similar to each other. Make a list of possible departmental headings, such as: Customer Service; E-business; Finance; Globalization; Human Resources; Technology; Legal; Management; Marketing and Production. Then brainstorm for ideas by listing as many things that you want to achieve under each heading and later re-arrange these things in order of priority. Finally, select the top item from each department heading and choose these as your program objectives. Try and restrict yourself to five because it will enable you to focus clearly. It is likely that the other things that you listed will be achieved if each of the top objectives are achieved. If this does not prove to be the case, then simply work through the process again.
Study forecast
As a guide, the Appleton Greene Quantum Leadership corporate training program should take 12-18 months to complete, depending upon your availability and current commitments. The reason why there is such a variance in time estimates is because every student is an individual, with differing productivity levels and different commitments. These differentiations are then exaggerated by the fact that this is a distance-learning program, which incorporates the practical integration of academic theory as an as a part of the training program. Consequently all of the project studies are real, which means that important decisions and compromises need to be made. You will want to get things right and will need to be patient with your expectations in order to ensure that they are. We would always recommend that you are prudent with your own task and time forecasts, but you still need to develop them and have a clear indication of what are realistic expectations in your case. With reference to your time planning: consider the time that you can realistically dedicate towards study with the program every week; calculate how long it should take you to complete the program, using the guidelines featured here; then break the program down into logical modules and allocate a suitable proportion of time to each of them, these will be your milestones; you can create a time plan by using a spreadsheet on your computer, or a personal organizer such as MS Outlook, you could also use a financial forecasting software; break your time forecasts down into manageable chunks of time, the more specific you can be, the more productive and accurate your time management will be; finally, use formulas where possible to do your time calculations for you, because this will help later on when your forecasts need to change in line with actual performance. With reference to your task planning: refer to your list of tasks that need to be undertaken in order to achieve your program objectives; with reference to your time plan, calculate when each task should be implemented; remember that you are not estimating when your objectives will be achieved, but when you will need to focus upon implementing the corresponding tasks; you also need to ensure that each task is implemented in conjunction with the associated training modules which are relevant; then break each single task down into a list of specific to do’s, say approximately ten to do’s for each task and enter these into your study plan; once again you could use MS Outlook to incorporate both your time and task planning and this could constitute your study plan; you could also use a project management software like MS Project. You should now have a clear and realistic forecast detailing when you can expect to be able to do something about undertaking the tasks to achieve your program objectives.
Performance management
It is one thing to develop your study forecast, it is quite another to monitor your progress. Ultimately it is less important whether you achieve your original study forecast and more important that you update it so that it constantly remains realistic in line with your performance. As you begin to work through the program, you will begin to have more of an idea about your own personal performance and productivity levels as a distance-learner. Once you have completed your first study module, you should re-evaluate your study forecast for both time and tasks, so that they reflect your actual performance level achieved. In order to achieve this you must first time yourself while training by using an alarm clock. Set the alarm for hourly intervals and make a note of how far you have come within that time. You can then make a note of your actual performance on your study plan and then compare your performance against your forecast. Then consider the reasons that have contributed towards your performance level, whether they are positive or negative and make a considered adjustment to your future forecasts as a result. Given time, you should start achieving your forecasts regularly.
With reference to time management: time yourself while you are studying and make a note of the actual time taken in your study plan; consider your successes with time-efficiency and the reasons for the success in each case and take this into consideration when reviewing future time planning; consider your failures with time-efficiency and the reasons for the failures in each case and take this into consideration when reviewing future time planning; re-evaluate your study forecast in relation to time planning for the remainder of your training program to ensure that you continue to be realistic about your time expectations. You need to be consistent with your time management, otherwise you will never complete your studies. This will either be because you are not contributing enough time to your studies, or you will become less efficient with the time that you do allocate to your studies. Remember, if you are not in control of your studies, they can just become yet another cause of stress for you.
With reference to your task management: time yourself while you are studying and make a note of the actual tasks that you have undertaken in your study plan; consider your successes with task-efficiency and the reasons for the success in each case; take this into consideration when reviewing future task planning; consider your failures with task-efficiency and the reasons for the failures in each case and take this into consideration when reviewing future task planning; re-evaluate your study forecast in relation to task planning for the remainder of your training program to ensure that you continue to be realistic about your task expectations. You need to be consistent with your task management, otherwise you will never know whether you are achieving your program objectives or not.
Keeping in touch
You will have access to qualified and experienced professors and tutors who are responsible for providing tutorial support for your particular training program. So don’t be shy about letting them know how you are getting on. We keep electronic records of all tutorial support emails so that professors and tutors can review previous correspondence before considering an individual response. It also means that there is a record of all communications between you and your professors and tutors and this helps to avoid any unnecessary duplication, misunderstanding, or misinterpretation. If you have a problem relating to the program, share it with them via email. It is likely that they have come across the same problem before and are usually able to make helpful suggestions and steer you in the right direction. To learn more about when and how to use tutorial support, please refer to the Tutorial Support section of this student information guide. This will help you to ensure that you are making the most of tutorial support that is available to you and will ultimately contribute towards your success and enjoyment with your training program.
Work colleagues and family
You should certainly discuss your program study progress with your colleagues, friends and your family. Appleton Greene training programs are very practical. They require you to seek information from other people, to plan, develop and implement processes with other people and to achieve feedback from other people in relation to viability and productivity. You will therefore have plenty of opportunities to test your ideas and enlist the views of others. People tend to be sympathetic towards distance-learners, so don’t bottle it all up in yourself. Get out there and share it! It is also likely that your family and colleagues are going to benefit from your labors with the program, so they are likely to be much more interested in being involved than you might think. Be bold about delegating work to those who might benefit themselves. This is a great way to achieve understanding and commitment from people who you may later rely upon for process implementation. Share your experiences with your friends and family.
Making it relevant
The key to successful learning is to make it relevant to your own individual circumstances. At all times you should be trying to make bridges between the content of the program and your own situation. Whether you achieve this through quiet reflection or through interactive discussion with your colleagues, client partners or your family, remember that it is the most important and rewarding aspect of translating your studies into real self-improvement. You should be clear about how you want the program to benefit you. This involves setting clear study objectives in relation to the content of the course in terms of understanding, concepts, completing research or reviewing activities and relating the content of the modules to your own situation. Your objectives may understandably change as you work through the program, in which case you should enter the revised objectives on your study plan so that you have a permanent reminder of what you are trying to achieve, when and why.
Distance-learning check-list
Prepare your study environment, your study tools and rules.
Undertake detailed self-assessment in terms of your ability as a learner.
Create a format for your study plan.
Consider your study objectives and tasks.
Create a study forecast.
Assess your study performance.
Re-evaluate your study forecast.
Be consistent when managing your study plan.
Use your Appleton Greene Certified Learning Provider (CLP) for tutorial support.
Make sure you keep in touch with those around you.
Tutorial Support
Programs
Appleton Greene uses standard and bespoke corporate training programs as vessels to transfer business process improvement knowledge into the heart of our clients’ organizations. Each individual program focuses upon the implementation of a specific business process, which enables clients to easily quantify their return on investment. There are hundreds of established Appleton Greene corporate training products now available to clients within customer services, e-business, finance, globalization, human resources, information technology, legal, management, marketing and production. It does not matter whether a client’s employees are located within one office, or an unlimited number of international offices, we can still bring them together to learn and implement specific business processes collectively. Our approach to global localization enables us to provide clients with a truly international service with that all important personal touch. Appleton Greene corporate training programs can be provided virtually or locally and they are all unique in that they individually focus upon a specific business function. They are implemented over a sustainable period of time and professional support is consistently provided by qualified learning providers and specialist consultants.
Support available
You will have a designated Certified Learning Provider (CLP) and an Accredited Consultant and we encourage you to communicate with them as much as possible. In all cases tutorial support is provided online because we can then keep a record of all communications to ensure that tutorial support remains consistent. You would also be forwarding your work to the tutorial support unit for evaluation and assessment. You will receive individual feedback on all of the work that you undertake on a one-to-one basis, together with specific recommendations for anything that may need to be changed in order to achieve a pass with merit or a pass with distinction and you then have as many opportunities as you may need to re-submit project studies until they meet with the required standard. Consequently the only reason that you should really fail (CLP) is if you do not do the work. It makes no difference to us whether a student takes 12 months or 18 months to complete the program, what matters is that in all cases the same quality standard will have been achieved.
Support Process
Please forward all of your future emails to the designated (CLP) Tutorial Support Unit email address that has been provided and please do not duplicate or copy your emails to other AGC email accounts as this will just cause unnecessary administration. Please note that emails are always answered as quickly as possible but you will need to allow a period of up to 20 business days for responses to general tutorial support emails during busy periods, because emails are answered strictly within the order in which they are received. You will also need to allow a period of up to 30 business days for the evaluation and assessment of project studies. This does not include weekends or public holidays. Please therefore kindly allow for this within your time planning. All communications are managed online via email because it enables tutorial service support managers to review other communications which have been received before responding and it ensures that there is a copy of all communications retained on file for future reference. All communications will be stored within your personal (CLP) study file here at Appleton Greene throughout your designated study period. If you need any assistance or clarification at any time, please do not hesitate to contact us by forwarding an email and remember that we are here to help. If you have any questions, please list and number your questions succinctly and you can then be sure of receiving specific answers to each and every query.
Time Management
It takes approximately 1 Year to complete the Quantum Leadership corporate training program, incorporating 12 x 6-hour monthly workshops. Each student will also need to contribute approximately 4 hours per week over 1 Year of their personal time. Students can study from home or work at their own pace and are responsible for managing their own study plan. There are no formal examinations and students are evaluated and assessed based upon their project study submissions, together with the quality of their internal analysis and supporting documents. They can contribute more time towards study when they have the time to do so and can contribute less time when they are busy. All students tend to be in full time employment while studying and the Quantum Leadership program is purposely designed to accommodate this, so there is plenty of flexibility in terms of time management. It makes no difference to us at Appleton Greene, whether individuals take 12-18 months to complete this program. What matters is that in all cases the same standard of quality will have been achieved with the standard and bespoke programs that have been developed.
Distance Learning Guide
The distance learning guide should be your first port of call when starting your training program. It will help you when you are planning how and when to study, how to create the right environment and how to establish the right frame of mind. If you can lay the foundations properly during the planning stage, then it will contribute to your enjoyment and productivity while training later. The guide helps to change your lifestyle in order to accommodate time for study and to cultivate good study habits. It helps you to chart your progress so that you can measure your performance and achieve your goals. It explains the tools that you will need for study and how to make them work. It also explains how to translate academic theory into practical reality. Spend some time now working through your distance learning guide and make sure that you have firm foundations in place so that you can make the most of your distance learning program. There is no requirement for you to attend training workshops or classes at Appleton Greene offices. The entire program is undertaken online, program course manuals and project studies are administered via the Appleton Greene web site and via email, so you are able to study at your own pace and in the comfort of your own home or office as long as you have a computer and access to the internet.
How To Study
The how to study guide provides students with a clear understanding of the Appleton Greene facilitation via distance learning training methods and enables students to obtain a clear overview of the training program content. It enables students to understand the step-by-step training methods used by Appleton Greene and how course manuals are integrated with project studies. It explains the research and development that is required and the need to provide evidence and references to support your statements. It also enables students to understand precisely what will be required of them in order to achieve a pass with merit and a pass with distinction for individual project studies and provides useful guidance on how to be innovative and creative when developing your Unique Program Proposition (UPP).
Tutorial Support
Tutorial support for the Appleton Greene Quantum Leadership corporate training program is provided online either through the Appleton Greene Client Support Portal (CSP), or via email. All tutorial support requests are facilitated by a designated Program Administration Manager (PAM). They are responsible for deciding which professor or tutor is the most appropriate option relating to the support required and then the tutorial support request is forwarded onto them. Once the professor or tutor has completed the tutorial support request and answered any questions that have been asked, this communication is then returned to the student via email by the designated Program Administration Manager (PAM). This enables all tutorial support, between students, professors and tutors, to be facilitated by the designated Program Administration Manager (PAM) efficiently and securely through the email account. You will therefore need to allow a period of up to 20 business days for responses to general support queries and up to 30 business days for the evaluation and assessment of project studies, because all tutorial support requests are answered strictly within the order in which they are received. This does not include weekends or public holidays. Consequently you need to put some thought into the management of your tutorial support procedure in order to ensure that your study plan is feasible and to obtain the maximum possible benefit from tutorial support during your period of study. Please retain copies of your tutorial support emails for future reference. Please ensure that ALL of your tutorial support emails are set out using the format as suggested within your guide to tutorial support. Your tutorial support emails need to be referenced clearly to the specific part of the course manual or project study which you are working on at any given time. You also need to list and number any questions that you would like to ask, up to a maximum of five questions within each tutorial support email. Remember the more specific you can be with your questions the more specific your answers will be too and this will help you to avoid any unnecessary misunderstanding, misinterpretation, or duplication. The guide to tutorial support is intended to help you to understand how and when to use support in order to ensure that you get the most out of your training program. Appleton Greene training programs are designed to enable you to do things for yourself. They provide you with a structure or a framework and we use tutorial support to facilitate students while they practically implement what they learn. In other words, we are enabling students to do things for themselves. The benefits of distance learning via facilitation are considerable and are much more sustainable in the long-term than traditional short-term knowledge sharing programs. Consequently you should learn how and when to use tutorial support so that you can maximize the benefits from your learning experience with Appleton Greene. This guide describes the purpose of each training function and how to use them and how to use tutorial support in relation to each aspect of the training program. It also provides useful tips and guidance with regard to best practice.
Tutorial Support Tips
Students are often unsure about how and when to use tutorial support with Appleton Greene. This Tip List will help you to understand more about how to achieve the most from using tutorial support. Refer to it regularly to ensure that you are continuing to use the service properly. Tutorial support is critical to the success of your training experience, but it is important to understand when and how to use it in order to maximize the benefit that you receive. It is no coincidence that those students who succeed are those that learn how to be positive, proactive and productive when using tutorial support.
Be positive and friendly with your tutorial support emails
Remember that if you forward an email to the tutorial support unit, you are dealing with real people. “Do unto others as you would expect others to do unto you”. If you are positive, complimentary and generally friendly in your emails, you will generate a similar response in return. This will be more enjoyable, productive and rewarding for you in the long-term.
Think about the impression that you want to create
Every time that you communicate, you create an impression, which can be either positive or negative, so put some thought into the impression that you want to create. Remember that copies of all tutorial support emails are stored electronically and tutors will always refer to prior correspondence before responding to any current emails. Over a period of time, a general opinion will be arrived at in relation to your character, attitude and ability. Try to manage your own frustrations, mood swings and temperament professionally, without involving the tutorial support team. Demonstrating frustration or a lack of patience is a weakness and will be interpreted as such. The good thing about communicating in writing, is that you will have the time to consider your content carefully, you can review it and proof-read it before sending your email to Appleton Greene and this should help you to communicate more professionally, consistently and to avoid any unnecessary knee-jerk reactions to individual situations as and when they may arise. Please also remember that the CLP Tutorial Support Unit will not just be responsible for evaluating and assessing the quality of your work, they will also be responsible for providing recommendations to other learning providers and to client contacts within the Appleton Greene global client network, so do be in control of your own emotions and try to create a good impression.
Remember that quality is preferred to quantity
Please remember that when you send an email to the tutorial support team, you are not using Twitter or Text Messaging. Try not to forward an email every time that you have a thought. This will not prove to be productive either for you or for the tutorial support team. Take time to prepare your communications properly, as if you were writing a professional letter to a business colleague and make a list of queries that you are likely to have and then incorporate them within one email, say once every month, so that the tutorial support team can understand more about context, application and your methodology for study. Get yourself into a consistent routine with your tutorial support requests and use the tutorial support template provided with ALL of your emails. The (CLP) Tutorial Support Unit will not spoon-feed you with information. They need to be able to evaluate and assess your tutorial support requests carefully and professionally.
Be specific about your questions in order to receive specific answers
Try not to write essays by thinking as you are writing tutorial support emails. The tutorial support unit can be unclear about what in fact you are asking, or what you are looking to achieve. Be specific about asking questions that you want answers to. Number your questions. You will then receive specific answers to each and every question. This is the main purpose of tutorial support via email.
Keep a record of your tutorial support emails
It is important that you keep a record of all tutorial support emails that are forwarded to you. You can then refer to them when necessary and it avoids any unnecessary duplication, misunderstanding, or misinterpretation.
Individual training workshops or telephone support
Please be advised that Appleton Greene does not provide separate or individual tutorial support meetings, workshops, or provide telephone support for individual students. Appleton Greene is an equal opportunities learning and service provider and we are therefore understandably bound to treat all students equally. We cannot therefore broker special financial or study arrangements with individual students regardless of the circumstances. All tutorial support is provided online and this enables Appleton Greene to keep a record of all communications between students, professors and tutors on file for future reference, in accordance with our quality management procedure and your terms and conditions of enrolment. All tutorial support is provided online via email because it enables us to have time to consider support content carefully, it ensures that you receive a considered and detailed response to your queries. You can number questions that you would like to ask, which relate to things that you do not understand or where clarification may be required. You can then be sure of receiving specific answers to each individual query. You will also then have a record of these communications and of all tutorial support, which has been provided to you. This makes tutorial support administration more productive by avoiding any unnecessary duplication, misunderstanding, or misinterpretation.
Tutorial Support Email Format
You should use this tutorial support format if you need to request clarification or assistance while studying with your training program. Please note that ALL of your tutorial support request emails should use the same format. You should therefore set up a standard email template, which you can then use as and when you need to. Emails that are forwarded to Appleton Greene, which do not use the following format, may be rejected and returned to you by the (CLP) Program Administration Manager. A detailed response will then be forwarded to you via email usually within 20 business days of receipt for general support queries and 30 business days for the evaluation and assessment of project studies. This does not include weekends or public holidays. Your tutorial support request, together with the corresponding TSU reply, will then be saved and stored within your electronic TSU file at Appleton Greene for future reference.
Subject line of your email
Please insert: Appleton Greene (CLP) Tutorial Support Request: (Your Full Name) (Date), within the subject line of your email.
Main body of your email
Please insert:
1. Appleton Greene Certified Learning Provider (CLP) Tutorial Support Request
2. Your Full Name
3. Date of TS request
4. Preferred email address
5. Backup email address
6. Course manual page name or number (reference)
7. Project study page name or number (reference)
Subject of enquiry
Please insert a maximum of 50 words (please be succinct)
Briefly outline the subject matter of your inquiry, or what your questions relate to.
Question 1
Maximum of 50 words (please be succinct)
Maximum of 50 words (please be succinct)
Question 3
Maximum of 50 words (please be succinct)
Question 4
Maximum of 50 words (please be succinct)
Question 5
Maximum of 50 words (please be succinct)
Please note that a maximum of 5 questions is permitted with each individual tutorial support request email.
Procedure
* List the questions that you want to ask first, then re-arrange them in order of priority. Make sure that you reference them, where necessary, to the course manuals or project studies.
* Make sure that you are specific about your questions and number them. Try to plan the content within your emails to make sure that it is relevant.
* Make sure that your tutorial support emails are set out correctly, using the Tutorial Support Email Format provided here.
* Save a copy of your email and incorporate the date sent after the subject title. Keep your tutorial support emails within the same file and in date order for easy reference.
* Allow up to 20 business days for a response to general tutorial support emails and up to 30 business days for the evaluation and assessment of project studies, because detailed individual responses will be made in all cases and tutorial support emails are answered strictly within the order in which they are received.
* Emails can and do get lost. So if you have not received a reply within the appropriate time, forward another copy or a reminder to the tutorial support unit to be sure that it has been received but do not forward reminders unless the appropriate time has elapsed.
* When you receive a reply, save it immediately featuring the date of receipt after the subject heading for easy reference. In most cases the tutorial support unit replies to your questions individually, so you will have a record of the questions that you asked as well as the answers offered. With project studies however, separate emails are usually forwarded by the tutorial support unit, so do keep a record of your own original emails as well.
* Remember to be positive and friendly in your emails. You are dealing with real people who will respond to the same things that you respond to.
* Try not to repeat questions that have already been asked in previous emails. If this happens the tutorial support unit will probably just refer you to the appropriate answers that have already been provided within previous emails.
* If you lose your tutorial support email records you can write to Appleton Greene to receive a copy of your tutorial support file, but a separate administration charge may be levied for this service.
How To Study
Your Certified Learning Provider (CLP) and Accredited Consultant can help you to plan a task list for getting started so that you can be clear about your direction and your priorities in relation to your training program. It is also a good way to introduce yourself to the tutorial support team.
Planning your study environment
Your study conditions are of great importance and will have a direct effect on how much you enjoy your training program. Consider how much space you will have, whether it is comfortable and private and whether you are likely to be disturbed. The study tools and facilities at your disposal are also important to the success of your distance-learning experience. Your tutorial support unit can help with useful tips and guidance, regardless of your starting position. It is important to get this right before you start working on your training program.
Planning your program objectives
It is important that you have a clear list of study objectives, in order of priority, before you start working on your training program. Your tutorial support unit can offer assistance here to ensure that your study objectives have been afforded due consideration and priority.
Planning how and when to study
Distance-learners are freed from the necessity of attending regular classes, since they can study in their own way, at their own pace and for their own purposes. This approach is designed to let you study efficiently away from the traditional classroom environment. It is important however, that you plan how and when to study, so that you are making the most of your natural attributes, strengths and opportunities. Your tutorial support unit can offer assistance and useful tips to ensure that you are playing to your strengths.
Planning your study tasks
You should have a clear understanding of the study tasks that you should be undertaking and the priority associated with each task. These tasks should also be integrated with your program objectives. The distance learning guide and the guide to tutorial support for students should help you here, but if you need any clarification or assistance, please contact your tutorial support unit.
Planning your time
You will need to allocate specific times during your calendar when you intend to study if you are to have a realistic chance of completing your program on time. You are responsible for planning and managing your own study time, so it is important that you are successful with this. Your tutorial support unit can help you with this if your time plan is not working.
Keeping in touch
Consistency is the key here. If you communicate too frequently in short bursts, or too infrequently with no pattern, then your management ability with your studies will be questioned, both by you and by your tutorial support unit. It is obvious when a student is in control and when one is not and this will depend how able you are at sticking with your study plan. Inconsistency invariably leads to in-completion.
Charting your progress
Your tutorial support team can help you to chart your own study progress. Refer to your distance learning guide for further details.
Making it work
To succeed, all that you will need to do is apply yourself to undertaking your training program and interpreting it correctly. Success or failure lies in your hands and your hands alone, so be sure that you have a strategy for making it work. Your Certified Learning Provider (CLP) and Accredited Consultant can guide you through the process of program planning, development and implementation.
Reading methods
Interpretation is often unique to the individual but it can be improved and even quantified by implementing consistent interpretation methods. Interpretation can be affected by outside interference such as family members, TV, or the Internet, or simply by other thoughts which are demanding priority in our minds. One thing that can improve our productivity is using recognized reading methods. This helps us to focus and to be more structured when reading information for reasons of importance, rather than relaxation.
Speed reading
When reading through course manuals for the first time, subconsciously set your reading speed to be just fast enough that you cannot dwell on individual words or tables. With practice, you should be able to read an A4 sheet of paper in one minute. You will not achieve much in the way of a detailed understanding, but your brain will retain a useful overview. This overview will be important later on and will enable you to keep individual issues in perspective with a more generic picture because speed reading appeals to the memory part of the brain. Do not worry about what you do or do not remember at this stage.
Content reading
Once you have speed read everything, you can then start work in earnest. You now need to read a particular section of your course manual thoroughly, by making detailed notes while you read. This process is called Content Reading and it will help to consolidate your understanding and interpretation of the information that has been provided.
Making structured notes on the course manuals
When you are content reading, you should be making detailed notes, which are both structured and informative. Make these notes in a MS Word document on your computer, because you can then amend and update these as and when you deem it to be necessary. List your notes under three headings: 1. Interpretation – 2. Questions – 3. Tasks. The purpose of the 1st section is to clarify your interpretation by writing it down. The purpose of the 2nd section is to list any questions that the issue raises for you. The purpose of the 3rd section is to list any tasks that you should undertake as a result. Anyone who has graduated with a business-related degree should already be familiar with this process.
Organizing structured notes separately
You should then transfer your notes to a separate study notebook, preferably one that enables easy referencing, such as a MS Word Document, a MS Excel Spreadsheet, a MS Access Database, or a personal organizer on your cell phone. Transferring your notes allows you to have the opportunity of cross-checking and verifying them, which assists considerably with understanding and interpretation. You will also find that the better you are at doing this, the more chance you will have of ensuring that you achieve your study objectives.
Question your understanding
Do challenge your understanding. Explain things to yourself in your own words by writing things down.
Clarifying your understanding
If you are at all unsure, forward an email to your tutorial support unit and they will help to clarify your understanding.
Question your interpretation
Do challenge your interpretation. Qualify your interpretation by writing it down.
Clarifying your interpretation
If you are at all unsure, forward an email to your tutorial support unit and they will help to clarify your interpretation.
Qualification Requirements
The student will need to successfully complete the project study and all of the exercises relating to the Quantum Leadership corporate training program, achieving a pass with merit or distinction in each case, in order to qualify as an Accredited Quantum Leadership Specialist (AQLS). All monthly workshops need to be tried and tested within your company. These project studies can be completed in your own time and at your own pace and in the comfort of your own home or office. There are no formal examinations, assessment is based upon the successful completion of the project studies. They are called project studies because, unlike case studies, these projects are not theoretical, they incorporate real program processes that need to be properly researched and developed. The project studies assist us in measuring your understanding and interpretation of the training program and enable us to assess qualification merits. All of the project studies are based entirely upon the content within the training program and they enable you to integrate what you have learnt into your corporate training practice.
Quantum Leadership – Grading Contribution
Project Study – Grading Contribution
Customer Service – 10%
E-business – 05%
Finance – 10%
Globalization – 10%
Human Resources – 10%
Information Technology – 10%
Legal – 05%
Management – 10%
Marketing – 10%
Production – 10%
Education – 05%
Logistics – 05%
TOTAL GRADING – 100%
Qualification grades
A mark of 90% = Pass with Distinction.
A mark of 75% = Pass with Merit.
A mark of less than 75% = Fail.
If you fail to achieve a mark of 75% with a project study, you will receive detailed feedback from the Certified Learning Provider (CLP) and/or Accredited Consultant, together with a list of tasks which you will need to complete, in order to ensure that your project study meets with the minimum quality standard that is required by Appleton Greene. You can then re-submit your project study for further evaluation and assessment. Indeed you can re-submit as many drafts of your project studies as you need to, until such a time as they eventually meet with the required standard by Appleton Greene, so you need not worry about this, it is all part of the learning process.
When marking project studies, Appleton Greene is looking for sufficient evidence of the following:
Pass with merit
A satisfactory level of program understanding
A satisfactory level of program interpretation
A satisfactory level of project study content presentation
A satisfactory level of Unique Program Proposition (UPP) quality
A satisfactory level of the practical integration of academic theory
Pass with distinction
An exceptional level of program understanding
An exceptional level of program interpretation
An exceptional level of project study content presentation
An exceptional level of Unique Program Proposition (UPP) quality
An exceptional level of the practical integration of academic theory
Preliminary Analysis
Current Challenges for Leaders in The Workforce
As you read this, trends may be shifting in order of priority by industry sector or marketplace. They continue to be critical issues regardless of sequence.
Every industry was dealt a disruptive blow by the pandemic. It altered corporate structures and tactics and presented CEOs with a number of human resource challenges, beyond generating money to managing market competitiveness.
Indra Nooyi, Chairman and former CEO of PepsiCo has pointed out the purpose of leadership is to “Future Proof” an organization. To overcome Leadership’s current issues, leaders must first become aware of them, prepare, and develop the appropriate strategies, processes and skills for managing them.
Top 7 Challenges:
1. Recruiting new talent for a job role
Finding the perfect person who is qualified for a job role is difficult to begin with. Additionally, selecting the incorrect candidate means passing up a talent that could aid in the expansion and success of your company.
The leadership problem is a result of the talent scarcity on the global employment market. The job economy has seen significant shifts recently, particularly following the pandemic’s outbreak. The trend, which is now referred to as the Great Resignation, is increasingly being blamed for the difficulties businesses have finding top people. Therefore, in order to address the issue, organizations need to reconsider their recruitment strategy and implement rigorous skills exams and case study examples in combination with their traditional interviews.
2. Improving workplace environment for talent retention
Reassessing one’s work-life balance, upgrading to better-paying possibilities, and other factors are the main causes of these resignations. At the same time, the shifting personal values of each generation are forcing organizations to re-evaluate their leadership styles and company culture. Unpleasant work environments motivate people to seek employment elsewhere. They are doing so in droves. Nearly 50% of employee polled state they are actively looking to leave their current employer.
Statistics bear it out. Over 4 million Americans left their jobs in July 2021, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor report 2022. Anecdotal evidence is that the trend has continued through 2022. The sectors of healthcare and technology had the most resignations.
By creating a positive working culture, organizations can reduce their risk of losing talent.
Managing change in the workplace is one of the typical leadership issues. Management and executives need to understand the reasons why employees leave a company. They should concentrate their efforts on improving workplace culture by developing a unique retention program centered on employees’ work culture requirements.
3. Challenges of remote working
On the same pay scale, employees’ average working hours have increased when they work from home; this could cause burnout and stress.
Effective management techniques are needed by the leaders if they want the staff to feel a feeling of community while they are working for the company. Additionally, the management ought to support them in achieving work-life balance by offering flexible scheduling. Additionally, the organization is able to address the different issues related to remote work and overworking by continuously learning and implementing new technology. Try new things and accept the digital shift. Additionally, develop your leadership skills and keep up with changing workplace regulations.
4. Developing high trust levels with the employees
High degrees of trust can be developed between managers and their employees. To maintain efficient operations within the company, they seek to establish a culture of understanding and transparency. They can see their weaknesses and strengths thanks to self-awareness. As a result, individuals can use their advantages and skills to advance the company.
Additionally, leaders are aware of how their actions and choices affect other people. To get the intended results, one must continue to act authentically. Managers may motivate and sway their staff by exchanging thoughts and information with them.
5. Teamwork management for creating success
A well-performing team and a business’ success are both reliant on teamwork. The effectiveness of a company’s team can be shown in its growth. Being on a team with people who are really talented and experienced is insufficient. Leaders must have the skill of uniting all of their team members and utilizing each person’s strengths to advance and achieve success.
6. Evaluating potential and performance
It is up to company leaders to deal with the harmful effects of workplace politics and discrimination. There is always a chance of benefiting those who interact often with the company’s management or executives. Making a workplace that is fair and inclusive is increasingly difficult. In particular in a hybrid work environment, managers/leaders must assure adequate evaluation of employee(s) performance.
Assessments of employee performance based on objective data do away with the possibility of employee favoritism. When making observations, data enables businesses and leaders to concentrate on the skills and experiences of specific people rather than generalizations.
7. Self-assessment for improving leadership skills
As a growing leader, you should put your attention on developing your skills if you want to learn “how to handle leadership issues.” Leaders are usually looked to by their subordinates for wise counsel. It is the duty of a leader to guide them and assist them in resolving the situation. Therefore, periodically reviewing your leadership abilities will assist you determine what needs work.
Discovering your potential limitations in certain areas and skills is made possible via embracing a learner’s mindset. It will force you to leave your familiar mindset and comfort zone. Additionally, it enhances your capacity to handle both familiar and novel challenges in the future.
Getting Prepared for This Workshop
There are several “Preconditions for Success” a potential client should be thinking about to be prepared for this Workshop Program:
1. Key Stakeholder Endorsement and Support: Senior Management must strongly endorse and support this initiative. Almost every aspect of the business could be impacted by quantum leadership in some way. Additionally, the lessons learned in the Quantum Leadership Program (QLP) will be transformed into procedures, instruments, and competencies that advance the business. Successful implementation of the program depends in large part on a unified Senior Leadership Sponsor. This should be translated into a dedicated C-Suite champion to motivate the participants and guarantee senior management support for the initiative.
2. Alignment of Mission, Objectives, and Success Metrics: Although these concerns don’t need to be resolved just yet, stakeholders ought to inquire as to what effect they anticipate the development of Leadership abilities and procedures will have. The purpose of the QLP is to:
• Empower Leaders to create organizations that perform at remarkable levels by inspiring cooperation, fostering innovation, developing new sources of value, aligning functions, forging relationships with internal and external parties, and managing complexity.
• Develop leadership skills that can inspire and energize corporate cultures, work well in teams, integrate across domains of expertise, react quickly to change, and use cultural diversity and thinking differences to inspire team collaboration and problem solving.
• Give managers and leaders the tools they need to work together in complicated scenarios that call for interaction, teamwork, and design systems thinking, including best practices.
• To avoid the hazards of polarization, pointless conflict, withdrawal, disengagement, and divisiveness, use Collaborative Excellence methods and procedures.
Provide a number of frameworks and approaches to enhance daily operational communications and teamwork while significantly lowering the quantity of non-value-added work. • Increase the ability to engage employees in finding meaning and purpose in their job.
• Lower turnover among millennials by giving them a stronger sense of family and community, as well as more meaning and purpose in their work.
3. Strong Personal Justification for Participation: People want to know “Why?” they should make improving their leadership qualities and skills a top priority, investing the time, attention, and dedication required to be successful. The future of the organization and the participant’s career path should both be directly STRATEGICLY IMPACTED by the program.
4. Support from the Human Resources Department: An essential party in the decision to move forward is HR. Recruitment, performance, employee engagement, and retention are some of the most effective results of quantum leadership, which has been shown to reduce turnover because it: • engages people; improves morale; builds tight teams; fosters a culture of trust; acknowledges the value of people; channels energy into purposeful action; capitalizes on the combined creative energies of employees; empowers employees to improve their personal performance; and maximizes the potential of each individual.
5. Participant Success Measurements: Effectiveness in almost everything depends on high-quality metrics. Without quantifiable metrics, management is like sifting through fog; there will be no agreement on techniques, vision, or results. Early on, a business should consider the measures that will be used to assess whether the program was successful in meeting its leadership development goals.
6. A Strong Value Proposition: The value of the Quantum Leadership Program is its participants’ growing ability to attract and keep the top teams in the industry, with the ultimate goal of greatly increasing a company’s stability and competitive advantage.
7. ROI diagnostics: Diagnostics that can be used to confirm the organization is getting a significant Return on Investment from the QLP must be installed in conjunction with metrics. The Program tackles a number of fundamental diagnostic ROI criteria that are adaptable to the distinct cultures and markets of any firm. The Workshop assessments as well as the baseline diagnostics should be included in each participant’s yearly review.
Making a Prospective or Initial Plan: Important questions that create a “internal improvement plan” should be asked but not yet solved. The following are some inquiries the sponsors ought to make:
• “What levels of the organization will be part of the leadership capability building?”
• “What departments, branches, or business units will pilot the first rounds?”
• “What are the Organizational Forces that will influence the program’s success ?”
• “How do we message the program?”
• “What are the biggest concerns of the participants?”
• “What will be the biggest objections and resistance?”
A myriad of other practical issues should be anticipated and dealt with before the first session. Getting out in front of these questions is essential so we don’t become reactive at the outset.
Course Manuals 1-12
Course Manual 1: Evolution & Revolution
The objective of the Leading Change module’s three workshops is to train participants in Leading Change. As Change leaders, participants will initiate the process and steer it when needed. During the social and economic shocks of 2020-2022 that complacency was forcibly erased, replaced by nimbleness and pivoting. Today’s leaders need to codify those characteristics by declaring challenging the status quo is a corporate value and enabling it.
Change leadership can look like “if you can think of ways to improve the process, you should take it.” However, the strongest organizations are those win which change and improvements are sourced throughout the organization. This means each person has to stop simply “going through the motions” when it comes to doing their job. It’s a lesson all leaders need to learn.
If you dive deeply into the history of an organization’s success you usually find it was successful in navigating what Harvard Professor Larry Greiner termed the phases of “Evolution and Revolution, as Organizations Grow.” The systems, processes, thinking and decision making that produced success at the company’s inception need to change as the organization grows over time.
His position is that “the future of an organization may be less determined by outside forces than it is by the organization’s history.” In stressing the force of history on an organization, he drew from the legacies of European psychologists whose thesis was that individual behavior is determined primarily by previous events and experiences, not by what lies ahead. He thoroughly describes a series of developmental phases through which growing companies tend to pass.
First, he provides two definitions:
1 – The term evolution is used to describe prolonged periods of growth where no major upheaval occurs in organization practices.
2 – The term revolution is used to describe those periods of substantial turmoil in organization life.
As organizations make their way through each of the developmental phases, each evolutionary period creates its own need for revolution.
At the time he did his initial research on companies, he listed five dimensions of an organization’s development:
1. Age of the organization.
2. Size of the organization.
3. Stages of evolution.
4. Stages of revolution.
5. Growth rate of the industry.
Throughout this manual we will be using ‘management’ and ‘leadership’ interchangeably.
Age of the organization
The lifespan of an organization is an evident and crucial factor in any development model (represented on the graph as the horizontal axis). History demonstrates that the same organizational practices are not sustained over an extended period of time. Both management issues and philosophies have a historical foundation. They do not endure throughout the duration of an organization.
The passing of time also helps managerial views become institutionalized. Employee behavior becomes more predictable, repetitive, and reliable as a result of these rigid and eventually out-of-date attitudes, but it also gets harder to alter.
Size of the organization
As a company’s workforce and revenue grow, its issues and potential solutions must also evolve significantly. As more roles are added, management levels increase, and jobs become more intertwined, coordination and communication issues worsen. Long-term retention of many of the same management concerns and practices is possible in organizations that do not become larger.
Stages of evolution
When Greiner created his model, firms that made it through a crisis typically had four to eight years of steady growth without suffering a significant decline in the economy or significant internal upheaval. Since growth under the same general management pattern appeared to simply require minimal tweaks, the term evolution seemed fitting for capturing these calm times. In more recent years, the majority of rising firms might have seen two years of expansion and one year of contraction.
Stages of revolution
Organizational growth is not necessarily linear. Smooth evolution is neither inevitable nor sustainably possible indefinitely. The evidence is found in Fortune’s “500” list. Over the past 50 years, it has undergone a significant amount of change. There are moments of significant turbulence interspersed with smoother periods of evolution, according to data from several case histories.
Because they frequently show a severe upheaval of management techniques, we can refer to the chaotic times as periods of revolution. Traditional management techniques that once made sense for a smaller organization and a different era are now being questioned by disgruntled top managers and disillusioned lower-level managers. Many businesses fail during these times of turmoil. Those who are unable to renounce old habits and implement significant organizational changes are likely to either fold or see their development rates level out.
Finding a new set of organizational practices that will serve as the foundation for managing the following phase of evolutionary growth is the crucial responsibility for management in each revolutionary period. It’s interesting to note that these new behaviors eventually plant the seeds of their own decline and trigger another revolution. Therefore, managers find it ironic to witness how a significant problem in one time becomes a significant solution in another.
Growth rate of the industry
The market environment of a company’s industry has a direct impact on how quickly it goes through phases of evolution and revolution. For instance, a business in a market that is developing swiftly will need to hire people quickly; as a result, the requirement for new organizational structures to handle significant staff expansions is expedited. Fast-growing industries typically experience relatively brief evolutionary periods, whereas established or slow-growing industries experience significantly longer evolutionary times.
When profits are easy to come by, evolution may also be delayed, and revolutions postponed. For instance, businesses that commit serious mistakes in a booming market may still appear profitable; as a result, they may be able to purchase time before a crisis compels them to alter their management procedures. An example of a young, very profitable industry is aerospace. Yet there are still periods of revolution, as there was one in aerospace when business opportunities started to dry up. In contrast, revolutions appear to be far more serious and challenging to put an end to when the market situation is unfavorable.
Growth Phases
We may now thoroughly explore the five distinct stages of development and revolution with the help of the aforementioned framework. Each evolutionary phase is distinguished by the main management approach utilized to achieve growth, and each revolutionary period is distinguished by the dominating management issue that must be resolved before growth can continue, as shown in the graph “The Five Phases of Growth.” Companies in industries with faster growth tend to experience all five phases more quickly, whereas those in slower growth industries only experience two or three phases over many years. The pattern shown in the chart appears to be typical for businesses in industries with moderate growth over a long period of time.
The Five Stages of Development
It’s critical to remember that each phase simultaneously influences and is caused by the one before it. For instance, delegation, which evolves out of and replaces demands for increased autonomy in the previous Phase 2 revolution, is the evolutionary management style in Phase 3. However, the method of delegation adopted in Phase 3 eventually leads to a revolutionary crisis marked by efforts to retake control over the variety brought about by growing delegation.
Leaders and Managers have limited options for each phase if growth is to occur. For instance, a business in Phase 2 experiencing an autonomy crisis cannot resort to directive management for a fix; rather, it must switch to delegation in order to proceed.
First phase: Creativity
An organization’s early stages are focused on developing a product and a market. The following are the traits of the creative evolution period:
• The company’s founders are typically technically or entrepreneurially inclined, and they typically despise administration tasks. Instead, they devote all of their physical and mental resources to creating and marketing a novel product.
• Informal conversations happen frequently among coworkers.
• Decisions and motivation are highly responsive to market feedback; management reacts as customers do; long hours of labor are rewarded with meager compensation and the prospect of ownership benefits.
For a business to take off, all the aforementioned independent and creative actions are crucial. But when the business expands, those very actions start to cause issues. The company’s founders are forced to take on unwelcome management duties. They strive to behave as they did back in the “good old days” because they miss them. Conflicts among stressed-out leaders start to develop and get worse.
The first revolution begins at this stage when there is a leadership crisis. Who will guide the business out of its muddle and find solutions to the managerial issues it is currently facing? A strong business leader who is acceptable to the founders and who can guide the organization must be found and installed as the first crucial decision in the development of a firm.
CASE STUDY – EasyJet
EasyJet revolutionized the airline industry. This was a period of immense creativity, with the company looking to challenge the perceived wisdom of the traditional airlines. The business model was formulated on the idea of minimizing costs at every opportunity and passing these savings on to customers in the form of lower prices.
Customers were intrigued enough to try out the new airline. The company was unique in that it did not offer complementary meals, used printed boarding passes, and the cabin crew wore casual jeans and polo shirts. While non-allocated seating took a while to get used to and was still not universally liked, it gave the airlines an opportunity to charge extra for allowing customers to choose their seats.
Second Phase: Guidance
Businesses that make it through the initial stage by appointing a competent business leader typically start out on a period of steady growth under capable, directive leadership. The traits of this evolutionary stage are as follows:
• To distinguish between manufacturing and marketing activities, a functional organizational structure is put in place, and job responsibilities get more specialized.
• Inventory and purchase accounting systems are presented.
• Work standards, budgets, and incentives are adopted.
• As a hierarchy of ranks and titles develops, communication becomes more formal and impersonal.
• Establishing direction is primarily the job of the new leader and his or her senior team; lower-level supervisors are considered more as functional experts than as independent decision-makers.
Despite the fact that the new directive tactics better direct workers’ energy toward growth, they eventually prove to be ineffective for managing a more diversified and complicated firm. A complex and concentrated hierarchy places restrictions on lower-level staff.
Top-level leaders who have previously been effective at being directive find it challenging to delegate authority to lower-level managers. Additionally, the lower-level leaders are not used to taking charge of their own judgments. As a result, many businesses that followed centralized procedures fail during this revolutionary era, and lower-level employees lose interest and leave the company.
CASE STUDY – EasyJet
As EasyJet grew, and started to add more routes such as Amsterdam and Barcelona, it realized that it needed to bring in extra experience and understanding of the airline sector. While the company was not exactly in crisis, it was facing potential challenges from British Airways, which introduced its own low- cost airline, Go, to challenge the growth of EasyJet.
As the airline grew, more traditional methods of advertising were used and in many ways the business became more formal and structured.
Third stage: Delegation
The successful implementation of a decentralized organizational structure leads to the next phase of growth. It displays the following traits:
• Profit centers and bonuses are used to motivate employees, and top-level executives at headquarters are limited to managing by exception based on periodic reports from the field.
• Management frequently focuses on acquiring outside businesses that can be aligned with other decentralized units.
•Communication from the top is infrequent and typically occurs by correspondence.
Leaders and Managers in decentralized organizations, who have greater autonomy and incentives, are able to reach broader markets, respond quickly to clients, and develop new goods, which enables companies to expand via the phase of delegation.
However, as top-level executives feel they are losing control over a widely varied field operation, a severe issue eventually arises. Independent field managers want to manage their own events without consulting the rest of the organization’s plans, budget, technology, or staff. Freedom breeds a localized mindset.
CASE STUDY – EasyJet
As EasyJet grew in size, the company expanded out of its head office at the end of Luton airport’s runway into different areas across the airport. This was necessary, as the operations sector, cabin crew and reservations staff did not need to be working out of the same place.
While this led to greater efficiency, it also meant that the firm now had difficulty controlling and coordinating its operations, and a crisis of autonomy and then control resulted, with different parts of the business operating separately and having different viewpoints as to where the business should be heading and which area should be a priority. Similar to a child growing up — a balance needed to be struck between giving a child independence but also setting clearly defined boundaries.
Fourth stage: Coordination
The employment of formal systems to achieve greater coordination and top-level executives assuming charge of the launch and administration of these new systems characterize the evolutionary phase of new coordination. Decentralized units, for instance, are combined into product groups, and formal planning procedures are formed and thoroughly examined.
• A large team is created and stationed at the headquarters to launch company-wide control and review programs for line managers.
• Each product group is treated as an investment center, where return on invested capital is a key criterion used in allocating funds.
• Certain technical functions, like data processing, are centralized at headquarters, while daily operating decisions remain decentralized.
• Stock options and companywide profit sharing are used to encourage employees to identify with the company overall.
Field managers learn to more carefully defend their decisions to a watchdog audience at headquarters even though they still have a lot of decision-making authority. But over time, a lack of trust between the line and the staff as well as between the headquarters and the field grows. Innovation dwindles as procedures take precedence over problem-solving. In other words, the organization has grown too big and complex to be controlled by formal plans and fixed procedures. The Fourth Phase Revolution has begun.
Fifth Phase: Working Together
The final step that can be seen emphasizes effective interpersonal cooperation in an effort to resolve the red-tape dilemma. Phase 5 emphasizes spontaneity in leadership action through teams and the effective confronting of interpersonal conflicts, where Phase 4 was managed by formal systems and processes. Formal control is replaced with social control and self-discipline.
In reaction to this stage of progress, what will be the revolution? The answer Greiner found is crucial since many sizable American corporations are currently in the Phase 5 developmental stage. Despite the lack of conclusive evidence regarding the outcome, he uncovered that the next crisis would be centered on the psychological exhaustion of workers who become physically and emotionally worn out from the rigor of teamwork and the intense pressure to come up with novel solutions.
CASE STUDY – EasyJet
From the start of EasyJet’s operation it had strived to have a ‘paperless’ office as much as possible. This meant that key documents were scanned in and saved digitally and that the majority of communication was performed electronically. This remained a key part of EasyJet’s operations.
No teenager or young adult wants to be tied down by endless work, and one of the key aims of Andy Harrison and his board was to try and make things simpler for their employees and allow them to focus on their main jobs.
The Sixth Phase: Alliances
What comes after those five phases is pure business strategy – growth through alliances such as mergers and acquisitions. These events breed a fresh set of challenges associated with the massive challenge of integrating often incompatible strategies, tactics, technologies, systems and procedures. For this reason, research has shown that 80% of alliances fail within 5 years.
Still, revolution is inevitable…. instigated by external Driving Forces and designed and driven by Leaders.
EXERCISE 1.1 – Profiling Your Organization’s Stage of Evolution
Course Manual 2: Knowing Why
Every organization faces a continual paradox. Stability versus Flexibility.
Its leaders crave being able to establish predictable and repeatable results for their business, their teams, their employees. Ideally, they’d love their organization to function like a clear lake on a sunny day, with an unobstructed view into the distance as well as into the depths.
If asked in private leaders often share that they’d love to be the disrupter in their industry on Monday yet have the organization operate without a hiccup for the entire week. That makes for quite an ongoing need to manage a teeter totter balance with the efficiencies of Status Quo in organizations.
Success for any business depends on leadership’s capacity to handle the never-ending cycle of change. Everybody, every business, every industry, and every day are impacted by change. Understanding the forces that drive change and learning how to lead, accept, and manage it are essential if you want to build a better future for your organization as well as your professional success.
If you don’t grasp the two main causes driving change—internal external pressures—it might be difficult for leaders and team members alike to steer the organization’s ongoing success.
As Indra Nooyi shared, her goal was to Future Proof PepsiCo. That is the imperative for every organization’s leaders.
The fundamental question is whether your organization and you each view the conditions of change at ‘opportunities’ or as ‘conflicts.
The Driving Forces Behind Change
Outside Forces
External factors might be extremely difficult to foresee. The view across the lake and down into the depths aren’t clear. Rather, external forces can block the view across the water, or stir up so much chaos in the water that the view is obscured.
Leaders are continually being forced to innovate and adapt due to disruptions that send the best laid plans into mediocre results or even failure. These include factors like technology, customer preferences, legislation or industry rules, rival actions, or supplier and sourcing instability. Each of those that affect change.
These outside changes can occasionally happen suddenly, like a tsunami. Other external changes proceed slowly, like lava. Even if you don’t like it, you know it’s going to happen. No matter how quickly things change, it will take capable leaders to harness and profit from these powerful forces.
Inside Forces
You still may face difficulties due to internal causes, but you have greater control over these changes now. It is crucial to keep in mind that any kind of change can be challenging, and these forces of change will encourage us to step outside of our comfort zones and adopt novel working methods. People frequently desire the status quo and oppose changes to tried-and-true routines, procedures, and systems. We often avoid things that seem strange to us because change can feel risky.
There will be doubts, caution, and pushback when organizations need to be reformed, a new executive comes aboard or a new product is unveiled, or a new process or policy is implemented.
CASE STUDY – Coca-Cola
In 1985, the Coca-Cola Company made a marketing blunder that was so infamous, it occupies its own page on the company website to this day. Following dwindling sales over nearly two decades, in April of 1985, Coke announced their flagship product would be made with a new formula, dubbed “New Coke.” For 79 days customers caused an uproar and started hoarding hundreds of cans of the original formula, refusing to let go of the nearly century-old formula that they knew. The company back-tracked to revert to their original recipe, rebranding the reworked formula as Coke II.
Interestingly, though participants in blind taste tests actually preferred the taste of the new product, the “classic Coke” vastly outsold Coke II, which was eventually discontinued in the early 2000s. This event was a testament to how powerful the status quo bias can be in influencing decision-making. If it can influence the vast majority of Coke drinkers, it can influence everyone.
What Is Different Today
In fact, as a result of the speed of change resulting from the pandemic and economic resets that started in 2020, leaders MUST make it a priority to monitor outside influences on an ongoing basis. It’s fair to say that 10-year plans have become much less relevant in most industries than 3-year plans that continuously adapted.
Whereas a 10-year plan let matters ‘settle in’, let the ripples of change settle down and become norms, 3-year plans barely let the waters calm before the next boulder is dumped in creating fresh turbulence in your marketplace, your industry, your organization, your functional area, your team.
Managing the Change-Driven Forces
How to deal with these forces of change is the crucial issue that every leader must answer. “How can I overcome, endure, and use these interfering or motivating factors to my organization’s benefit in the marketplace? To my team’s benefit? There are two main methods.
Strategic leadership is about anticipating the forces of change with a proactive outlook. However, ‘anticipating’ implies being able to see the forces of change before they drop like boulders into your lake.
Either you respond when it lands on you or you see it coming and take action.
The Reactive Strategy
Reactive organizations and individuals take a “wait and see” attitude. They operate from the belief that the change may shortly pass them by. They frequently ignore the evidence, put off taking action, and concentrate on the status quo. Reactive people find change unsettling, and they struggle to recognize any potential positives that could result from it. They take that discomfort with them into their leadership. So when circumstances change, they often withdraw and enter a defensive posture.
People who react are highly tactical, keep their attention on current practices, and react slowly and with minimal planning to impending issues and risks that come with change. They typically contribute even little to transforming the effects of the shift into possible advantages, therefore struggle to assimilate the change and successfully adapt.
The Active Strategy
The proactive strategy focuses on foreseeing and planning for impending changes and works to reduce risks and dangers before they materialize. Leaders who are proactive identify prospective possibilities, consider how to take advantage of them, and concentrate on areas of change they can affect.
While they won’t be able to forecast or stop every change that occurs, they can prepare for it and look for the “silver lining.” They are willing to create anticipation plans that do not get used if reality doesn’t match their forecast, but they are ready to create those scenarios ‘in case’ they are needed. Leaders who are proactive tend to be change agents as well as people who embrace change. They provide fresh concepts and initiate improved methods of doing tasks since they are on the cutting edge of the next great thing.
EXERCISE 2.1 – Evaluate Your Organization’s General Status Quo Bias Score
Status Quo Bias
Tim Riesterer is Chief Strategy Officer at Corporate Visions and B2B DecisionLabs. He guides companies improving conversations with prospects and customers. Conversations that inspire and sell. His observations are relevant for every decision-maker in an organization. He has spoken boldly about one of the core challenges facing business leaders: your competition is not your worst enemy or the largest threat to your success.
Your “Business as usual” mindset is.
In his study conducted with Stanford he identified that up to 80% of consumers who go through the product or service buyer’s journey never make a purchase decision at all.
A person’s innate inclination for inaction, for maintaining the status quo rather than making a change, is known as status quo bias.
This is the source of all corporate inertia – the tendency to do nothing, to make no changes.
Everyone ‘believes’ that things could be better, but the truth is that the 80% of people who considered “maybe I ought to do something different” but eventually opted against it represent your biggest opportunity and challenge.
The Science of the “Current Situation” Bias
Four primary reasons why people don’t alter their behavior are identified by neuroscience.
Tim describes it as a ‘ball-and-chain’ scenario. The prospect is unable to move since each of the next four causes is attached to his legs.
The first ball-and-chain is called preference stability
When you make a choice, you develop a preference for that choice, and your natural inclination is to maintain stability. This is the concept of preference stability.
We detest ambiguity, so when we learn anything new, the first line of defense that arises is can be called the “Liking Principle,” explains Tim. “Oh, that’s interesting. But when I hear that idea, I guess it’s kind of like what I’m already doing,” someone will say. It is similar to what everyone else is discussing. The verb “like” is your adversary.
The second ball-and-chain is cost of change.
Most people see their existing behavior as free, whereas changing their conduct is seen as expensive. Making changes takes a lot of effort and money.
“I will need to reconsider my budget.”
“I might have to reach agreement with the entire committee,” the speaker said.
These are widespread objections, so it will be difficult to persuade these folks otherwise.
The challenge is to make them see that maintaining the status quo has a price.
The third ball-and-chain is selection difficulty.
Being overloaded with information causes ‘decision-making fatigue’ – selection difficulty. Decisions become narrowed down to a single factor, the one that feels like it will take the least effort. For instance, frequently thinking sounds like “Hmmm, all of these possibilities sound the same. So, I’m going to keep it simple and choose primarily on cost.”
This is due to the fact that in order for your brain to make a decision, it needs contrast, and if everything is the same, there is no contrast. Your only chance of triggering change-making action is therefore if you can establish an easy contrast, and the simplest way to achieve that contrast is to compare ‘prices.’
The last ball-and-chain is anticipated regret and blame.
At its core, anticipated regret comes from anticipating any negative outcome of a decision and blaming yourself for it before it ever occurs.
Your inner talk is “Maybe things aren’t great today, but at least I’m still alive. I might die if I alter my course and take a new course of action.”
Organizationally, you say to yourself, “Maybe things aren’t great today, but at least we’re in business, and still profitable. I might harm the company if we alter our course and take a new course of action.”
This last obstacle is crucial. Even if you successfully solve the first three balls-and-chains, you still need to get beyond people’s reluctance to admit mistakes.
EXERCISE 2.2 – Evaluate Your Organization’s External Status Quo Bias
That might be the easier evaluation to make as it focuses on external factors.
Now let’s take a look at internal factors in your organization
EXERCISE 2.3 – Evaluate Your Organization’s Internal Status Quo Bias
If you find Tim Riesterer’s study results ‘extreme’, other studies have produced similar insights:
People are Resistant to Change
According to Mark Murphy, a senior contributor to Forbes, people typically appraise the world in four steps. Each person perceives some facts, then interprets those facts, experiences emotional reactions based on those interpretations, and after experiencing those emotional reactions, each person decides on certain desired ends. His FIRE acronym stands for Facts, Interpretations, Reactions, and Ends.
Once a Fact is noticed, each person’s mind interprets it, places it in context, and gives it meaning using their life history, past experiences, and personality predispositions. That is Interpretation, and that is where questioning the current quo begins to become complicated.
Only 38% of people, according to research, enjoy stepping outside their comfort zone. These individuals believe that a change is “so thrilling” when it is presented to them.
Employee productivity increases as a result of these favorable interpretations of change, which cause favorable emotional responses like contentment and satisfaction.
The same phrase, however, instantly causes worry and uneasiness in the other 62% of people. They might be thinking, “Oh great, this change will affect my career progress,” “I will no longer be able to do what I enjoy doing,” or “Will they keep me in?”
Change is good, even if (or especially if) it entails stepping outside of our comfort zone, according to some people’s viewpoint. According to recent research, 38% of people enjoy stepping outside of their comfort zone. These people’s histories and personalities warn them that a change will be positive when it is presented to them. These favorable interpretations subsequently produce favorable emotional responses (such as joy and enthusiasm), and those favorable responses produce upbeat desired outcomes (for example, learning that a new boss is joining the team results in “I want to get to know this new boss ASAP”).
The remaining 62% of people, in comparison, either don’t like to leave their comfort zone or only do so periodically. These people are more likely to have backgrounds and personalities that influence their perception of the shift in a less favorable direction. I’m going to have a new boss, that much is true. The meaning is “My career advancement will halt.” That interpretation leads to the conclusion that the emotional response is “now I’m depressed, I’m angry, I feel betrayed, I’m terrified, whatever it may be.” And based on that outcome, I might now wish to stop working or perhaps look for a new career opportunity.
One person’s preferences help design and lead the future while the other set of preferences shuts down and at times sabotages efforts requiring change.
WHY Challenge The Status Quo
Leading is living recklessly. While leadership is frequently portrayed as a fun and glamorous pursuit in which you motivate others to stick with you through good and bad times, this image ignores leadership’s dark side.
Leaders frequently suffer the consequences of a defective plan of action or a string of poor choices. But often, there is much more at play. We’re not discussing standard office politics here; rather, we’re discussing the high stakes risks you run whenever you try to steer a company through a challenging but essential transition. Since transformation that actually transforms an organization, whether it is a multibillion-dollar corporation or a 10-person sales team, may well require people to give up things they hold dear—daily routines, allegiances, and ways of thinking—the dangers during such periods are particularly significant. They might only have the chance of a better future in exchange for these sacrifices, relinquishing their personal preferences.
Challenging The Status Quo is not simply a matter of questioning the status quo or disagreeing for the sake of disagreeing. It’s a way of thinking and acting that seeks out new ideas and different ways of doing things.
The purpose depends on circumstances. It may be to create an outcome called ‘changing things’ and it could even be called ‘changing only what requires change in order to stabilize the company, the department, the function or even a role.’
As an organization and as a leader, it is important to be open to new ideas and different ways of doing things in order to bring about purposeful, positive change.
Keep the results of your Organization’s Status Quo Bias Survey handy to refer to throughout this workshop.
Course Manual 3: Mastering Phases
Let’s dive deeper into examining the activities that leaders need to be monitoring and redesigning as their organization grows.
We looked at the question of whether your organization or you view change as ‘opportunity’ or ‘conflict.
The table “Organizational Practices in the Five Phases of Growth,” which lists the exact management actions that Larry Greiner used to define each growth phase, summarizes the important points of this subject. These steps are also the ones that put an end to each previous revolutionary era.
The Five Phases of Organizational Growth
The developmental sequence that experienced leaders have gone through can be identified now, but how did they respond while the world was in the midst of an evolution or revolution? That is precisely what they are facing on a daily basis.
However even Phase 5 organizations must pay attention to Challenging the Status Quo.
The specialists who developed the coordination systems and the line managers who depended on formal approaches for solutions find this change particularly challenging.
So, the Phase 5 evolution centers on a more adaptable and behavioral leadership style. These qualities describe it:
• Quick problem-solving through teamwork must be the main goal.
• Teams from several functions should be put together to undertake particular tasks.
• The number of staff experts at the headquarters should decreased, reallocated, and integrated into interdisciplinary teams that advise field units rather than command them.
• Assemble the proper problem-solving teams for the relevant challenges using a matrix-style structure.
• Formal control systems should be consolidated into a single, multifunctional system.
• Key managers should routinely convene in conferences to concentrate on pressing issues.
• Leaders should be trained in behavioral skills for improving teamwork and conflict resolution through educational programs.
• Daily decision-making processes must be connected with real-time information systems.
• Financial incentives should be tied to team performance over individual success.
• New techniques should be encouraged to be tested across the entire organization.
Even organizations that have made it through to Stage 5 are faced with a roster of habits that long-term leaders may cling to.
Know where you stand in the hierarchy of development.
Each organization, as well as each of its constituent pieces, is in a different stage of growth. In order to understand when a change is necessary or to avoid acting to impose the incorrect answer, top management must be aware of the stages.
While caution is advised because it is tempting to skip steps out of impatience, senior leaders should be prepared to work with the tide rather than against it. The organization develops particular capabilities and learning opportunities with each phase that are crucial for success in next phases. A young genius, for instance, might be able to read like a teenager, but until he matures through a series of events, he cannot conduct like one.
Don’t think managers should or can do anything to stop revolutions. Instead, these tense times create the pressure, ideas, and awareness that give way to change and the adoption of fresh methods.
Be aware of the few available options.
It becomes clear that each stage of a revolution can only be brought to an end by means of a few specific solutions, and that these solutions are distinct from those that were used to address the issues of the previous revolution. It is all too easy to choose for tried-and-true methods that, in reality, prevent the next phase of growth from developing.
It is all too easy to choose for tried-and-true methods that actually prevent the emergence of the new phase.
Before the revolutionary stage becomes too tumultuous, leaders must be ready to remove existing structures. Top-level managers may even have to remove themselves from positions of leadership after understanding that their own management approaches are no longer appropriate. If a capable Phase 2 manager is facing Phase 3, it would be a smart idea to go outside the company or at one of its more recent subsidiaries for a position at another Phase 2 corporation that better suits his or her skills.
Last but not least, evolution is a struggle for survival rather than a natural process. Companies must intentionally implement planned structures that not only address a present issue but also match the future stage of growth if they want to advance. In order to convince other managers that change is necessary, top management must possess a high level of interpersonal awareness.
Recognize that problems are never completely solved.
Leader historically overlooked how organizational solutions result in long-term issues. For example, choosing to delegate and afterwards experiencing a control issue. Much of what happen to a corporation in the future is influenced by earlier decisions, designs and actions.
As they become aware of this effect, leaders need to examine business issues with a historical perspective rather than placing the blame solely on a recent development. Even better, this understanding should give leaders the ability to foresee issues and, as a result, envision scenarios, and plan remedies and coping mechanisms before a revolution spirals out of control.
Individually, they might need to outgrow a profession and a working style they like prefer if they decide to take their organization to its next phase.
Top management may decide against growing the company if they are aware of the issues that lie ahead. For example, leaders could decide to maintain the casual working methods of a small business because they are inherent to the organization’s constrained size rather than to their individual personalities.
And what about very big businesses? Can they develop fresh remedies for ongoing evolution? Or are they getting to the point where they will need to be split up by the government because they are getting too big?
The phases described here are only five, and Larry Greiner considers they are still only estimates. Structure, control, rewards, and management style-specific developmental issues in many industries and across a range of cultures are just now being studied by researchers.
But before establishing a corporate system that demands managers think and act from a developmental perspective, one shouldn’t wait for clear-cut evidence. The intriguing contradiction is that we might perform better in the future if we understand more about the past.
In light of the sudden turbulence injected into the business world since 2020, it is obvious that there is still a lot to learn about organizational growth choices and procedures. The current upheavals are mirrored by major upheavals in organization practices. The demands being placed on leaders are compounding at the same rate.
What does this mean for your Leadership?
Remember the four components of Status Quo Bias
– preference stability
– cost of change
– selection difficulty
– regret and blame
Imagine if you will that you have been delegated the task of crafting your organization’s message to the entire staff of the company at the annual meeting. As a leader, you have the responsibility of influencing the thinking of your entire team through the language you use. In a sense you are crafting a marketing message used internally about the situation to be confronted, and the approach that will be used to respond to it.
Step One – Destabilize preference stability
How do you get your marketing message off to a strong start?
In her landmark work “Danger in the Comfort Zone: From Boardroom to Mailroom — How to Break the Habits Killing American Business”, Judith M. Bardwick points out that due to fear people are paralyzed; the threat of layoffs makes them focus on protecting their jobs rather than doing them well. Her studies showed that companies would literally fly themselves into the ground rather than force changes and adaptations in their organizations.
What was it that shifted them out of their torpor?
Literally seeing that their entire business was at risk of immanent collapse.
Most leaders disregard this strategy. Too often they feel the declaration of danger is a declaration of personal failure rather than clarity of vision for what is coming
Instead, they begin with market research and build their messaging around the messaging used throughout their industry.
What is the drawback of this strategy?
Since your staff is often scanning to see what your rivals are probably doing, you will be giving generic industry messages (see the red box below) that won’t set you apart.
The next thing that leaders typically do is discuss their key differentiators. Sadly, when it’s time to confront industry threatening turbulence, your staff will hunker down, looking for familiar safety.
Instead, according to studies, you should uncover the threats and start there. The goal is to shock your listeners rather than softening the message. You can significantly influence their readiness to really hear the challenges the company is facing by surprising them.
How do you identify what to share? See if you can uncover these elements:
• A threat that employees don’t fully recognize. They probably have no idea how big of an issue this is or how quickly it’s approaching them. In the next five years, for instance, artificial intelligence might take their job.
Case Study – Kodak
For well over a decade Kodak film corporation understood that ‘digital photography’ was coming straight after their business. In fact, they were the inventors of the first digital camera. However, they didn’t believe the threat was immanent, so didn’t develop a parallel business focusing on developing it. They didn’t believe their core business was threatened and stuck to their old identity of film based photography and moved too slowly. No one in leadership sounded the warnings forcefully enough to break the company out of its Status Quo Bias
• A threat that has been addressed via workarounds. Search for instances where they have concealed a larger issue that will eventually catch up with them.
* A need that none of your manager are aware of. Think of it the same way Apple is known for putting its weight behind product features they told people’ they needed’ because they were unaware that a solution existed.
After discovering unrecognized threats, you must link them to your company culture. In other words, leaving your staff with familiar handrails during proposed changes will let them feel they can navigate what is coming.
You may generate a 50% boost in the willingness to challenge the status quo through this combination.
Step Two – Cut the cost of change
According to Prospect Theory, the theory that won Daniel Kahneman the Nobel Prize, n buying situations, people are 2-3 times more likely to choose a different action to prevent a loss than to pursue a gain.
Think about that.
People are at least twice as likely to take an action to prevent something then to take it in order to obtain something. Yet almost every business message leads with enthusiastic pronouncements about the potential gain!
Stanford and Corporate Visions company enlisted executives in a research study and divided them into two groups to test this. There were two scenarios offered to each group.
Group 1: Imagine that you are the CEO of a struggling business. You have two options to choose between:
Option A – You can retain one-third of all employees while letting the other two-thirds go.
Option B – You can work with a shaky vendor who, while having a 33% probability of keeping everyone employed, also has a 66% chance of ruining everything.
Group 2: Imagine that you are the CEO of a struggling business. You have two options to choose between:
Option A – You can retain a third of your workforce while letting rid of two-thirds of them.
Option B – You can choose to work with a dubious vendor who offers you a slim chance—a 33% chance—of losing nothing. Unfortunately, there’s a very real chance that the vendor could go bankrupt.
The outcomes of the study?
In Group 1, 74% of the executives selected option A, whereas 26% selected option B.
In Group 2, 55% of the executives in group two selected option A, while 45% selected option B.
The arithmetic for the experiment is exactly the same.
Simply by altering the phrasing, the researchers were able to produce a 70% boost in persuadability.
Tim Riesterer points out, “Your words and narrative matter…” Though it appears like a minor adjustment, framing matters a lot since it increases persuasion by 70%. It merely makes use of brain science to your benefit. It makes no false statements at all. Simply said, the language is shaped so that a listener is affected differently.
Step 3 – Remove the selection challenge
Marketers often think of their customers as helpless damsels. Leaders can easily fall into the same trap as a result of believing they see they big picture while their staff does not.
Often a leader’s communication ends up sounding arrogant and heroic because they believe their “new and improved” vision will swoop in and save the day.
Employees, like prospects, however, are completely cynical. After all, ‘People are people’… everywhere in their lives. “Oh, you’re suggesting I’m doing something wrong just because you’ve got something new in mind?” they ask themselves inside. Screw that. Additionally, if you put them in a situation where they appear to require saving, they will feel foolish.
Tim advises that instead of making people feel foolish after hearing your message, you should make them feel smarter.
The most effective method of persuasion known to humankind is self-persuasion, which is what you need to use.
To take advantage of the phenomenon self-persuasion, you need to employ contrast.
BEFORE you discuss your vision for the future, start by discussing the doubts, uncertainties, restrictions, and errors in the current strategy. Own what created the current situation.
The secret to bringing up your business’s need to challenge the status quo successfully is to use visual contrast, with comparison tables and visuals that suggest the “grass can be greener” on our side of the fence.
Why do pictures work more effectively than words? Because the limbic system, which is part of the brain responsible for decision-making, does not employ language. It makes use of metaphors.
They will better comprehend why you do what you do if you do a good job of describing the difficulties of your prospect’s current strategy AND use imagery to highlight the distinctions between their current condition and desired future state.
What is left in crafting a compelling message that will get your organization behind challenging the status quo?
Tim explains how the structure for good storytelling was developed by Alcoholics Anonymous. “In Alcoholics Anonymous, they recognized that you can’t declare someone an alcoholic and then force them to attend the program. They must persuade themselves. But they can only do so after hearing a narrative about someone who is similar to them. And that tale cannot simply be about “how wonderful my life is on the other side.” That narrative must begin with confronting the same challenge. How it seemed, how it sounded, how it felt, how it smelled, and “what I coped with.”
Therefore, while sharing a story to inspire a commitment to challenge the status quo, don’t just focus on the positive outcome. Share the history, the beginnings of the issues.
To put it simply, great success stories are before-and-after heroic tales.
Step 4 – Compose a strong hero story
The final step is to write an engaging hero story.
You can’t just brag about how successful your past initiatives have been. Only when you have painted a clear picture of where the impetus for each of those initiatives came from will other people be able to identify with and relate to them.
Select your case studies and testimonials of other people, as well as data proving that past challenges to the status quo resulted in successful outcomes. Your company has done the hero’s journey before and can do it again!
Now that you are aware of Status Quo Bias, and Hardwick’s discoveries, you can see what it takes to shape the ideal ‘sales pitch’ to overcome the four components.
You may either drive or be driven by the forces of change. Rather than taking a reactive stance, the leaders whose teams will thrive during these turbulent times exercise strategic leadership and thought.
It’s critical to embrace the forces of change, whether you work for a startup or an established company. The results won’t be all good or all awful, but if you prepare ahead of time with planning, research, and a strategy, you’ll be ready for either outcome.
EXERCISE 3.1 – Mastering Phases
Course Manual 4: Engaging in Challenging
We looked at the question of whether your organization or you view change as ‘opportunity’ or ‘conflict. Your answer directly addresses the question of whether you and your team will engage in CTSQ comfortably or grudgingly.
Encouraging your team to challenge the status quo requires insight into why some people are terrified of Change (while others love it). You need to understand the elements so that you can adapt your speech and actions to bring each of them along as full contributors to the analyses, designs and implementation of initiatives that lie ahead.
Let’s dive deeper into Mark Murphy’s FIRE Model.
Imagine that your employer, Bob, enters your conference room, The entire team is gathered for an update on the conditions of the business. Bob informs everyone that you will now report to a different person as of the following week due to a company restructure. What a change that is going to be!
Some people have an upbeat perspective and say, “That’s fantastic; I can’t wait to see what new opportunities are available for me!” Others, however, see the exact same comment from the boss and feel dread and panic right once. They might be thinking, “Oh great, my job advancement just ground to a halt.”
How can two people have such wildly divergent interpretations of the same statement?
Humans often use a four-step procedure to assess their environment. We see certain Facts, then interpret those Facts, then, in response to our interpretations, we have emotional Reactions, and after having those emotional Reactions, we achieve some desired Ends. Our FIRE acronym stands for Facts, Interpretations, Reactions, and Ends.
Understanding the FIRE Model is crucial for skilled leadership.
In our example, Bob enters the office and shares a Fact: “Starting next week, you’ll report to someone new because the company is reorganizing.” Everyone will report to a new person, that much is true. Facts are objective, demonstrable, and verifiable; we can see, hear, and video record something to confirm that it is true.
But after we have observed a Fact, our mind interprets it, places it in our personal perspective, and gives it meaning based on our own life experiences, prior exposures, and personality predispositions. That is Interpretation, and it is at this point that change management becomes complicated.
According to some people’s viewpoint, Change is good, even if (or especially if) it entails stepping outside of our comfort zone, In fact, according to the survey Murphy conducted, 38% of people enjoy stepping outside of their comfort zone. Their histories and personalities signal them that a change will be positive when it is presented to them. These optimistic interpretations then cause optimistic emotional responses (such as joy and enthusiasm), and those optimistic responses produce upbeat intended outcomes (e.g., I want to get to know this new boss ASAP).
CASE STUDY – Main Street
In a random group of people ,38% of them may be enthusiastic about being invited to challenge the status quo. They lean forward towards Bob to engage in conversation and start planning their involvement in the change. These are the ongoing results from Mark Murphy’s quiz.
These individuals are delighted to be asked to participate in challenging the status quo, whether it’s about daily activities, the form or content or timing of assignments, the way communications and work hand offs take place, and even large-scale reorganizations.
In comparison, the remaining 62% of people either don’t like to leave their comfort zone or only do so periodically. These people are more likely to have backgrounds and personalities that influence their perception of the shift in a less adaptable manner. Their view is that “since I’ll have a new boss, my career advancement would come to a halt.” According to that interpretation, their emotional response is that “I am currently depressed, furious, deceived, afraid, or whatever the case may be. And based on that outcome, I might now wish to stop working or perhaps look for a new career.”
These individuals are resistant, perhaps even horrified, to be asked to participate in challenging the status quo, whether it’s about daily activities, the form or content or timing of assignments, the way communications and work hand offs take place, and even more so when it’s regarding large-scale reorganizations.
You can see how each of these two mindsets normally operate and how two people can react so differently to the same announcement.
Now map that ‘change avoidance’ predisposition onto being invited to challenge the status quo. Nearly twice as many people don’t want that invitation!
What to do with this second set of folks if the change they are about to be faced with is predictably going to make them feel uneasy or worried?
Every one of us will experience worry at some point, but these folks will resist participating in the invitation to challenge how things are perceived or enacted right now.
EXERCISE 4.1- How Do You Personally Feel About Change
What is a leader to do in order to marshal this brain trust that is trying to back out of the conference room door, to avoid participating?
First, as a leader examine your own thoughts and interpretations… What are you communicating to your team through your expressions, body language, tone of voice? Make a sincere effort to distinguish between the facts and the interpretations. Craft your message to everyone on your team. The goal is not to be a cheer leader but share what is known and what is not yet known. For instance, it is true that we will have a new boss. But that’s the only thing that’s true here; there is not enough information to jump into interpretations so spend time interrupting the ones that make be taking shape in people’s minds. Some of them are already catastrophizing and have tuned out any positive ideas.
The vast majority of the time, our perceptions of the change rather than the change itself are what give the situation a bad appearance. That does not mean their fears are unjustified. Consider whether it is indeed true that the change will be detrimental to some of the people involves. You need to acknowledge the fears, while also getting this group to turn down the extreme fear based ‘Ends’ that their imaginations may be flooding them.
Second, make an effort to craft a view of the fact of Change from an entirely different angle for the change avoiders. Deliberately voice the perspective of someone who would be thrilled to learn that they have a new boss, for instance. What’s causing them to be happy? What opportunity might be uncovered to make them perceive this positively as opposed to negatively?
Additionally, are there any people you personally know who view this shift favorably? Before speaking with your team, deliberately get quotes from those folks that you can use during your discussion.
A curious thing happens when we start to put ourselves in another person’s shoes, especially if they are a happier person: their happiness rubs off on us. We experience a merging of ourselves with them as we delve deeply into another person’s psyche and begin seeing the world through their eyes (of self and other). We begin to recognize the similarities between ourselves, and as a result, some of their optimistic viewpoints begin to seep into our own.
As a leader, you are the one who needs to paint that picture, to draw the resistors from their extreme position towards at least a middle ground, curious and open to possibilities attitude. They do not have to jump on “the enthusiasts’ bandwagon” but you want them in a state of openness to participating in the assignment you’re crafting for everyone.
Lastly, the “E” in FIRE refers to Ends. Your job as leader is to describe the ends, the purpose, the desired outcome of the change. The future may actually be unpredictable, but the opportunity ahead is worth working towards.
In this instance, they need to know they will each have the opportunity to learn how to effectively challenge the status quo yet do it well-supported throughout the process.
Your task, your responsibility, is to help each member of your team step into the Learning Curve knowing they will have support through the process. Take a look at the figure in step 5, there to help others through the chaos and discomfort of the Curve.
EXERCISE 4.2 – Drafting Your Message
Course Manual 5: Company Culture
Let’s look at the question of whether your organization views Change as ‘Opportunity’ or as ‘Conflict.’
To launch our discussion of Company Culture regarding challenging the status quo (CTSQ) we’re going to start with an exercise.
EXERCISE 5.1 – Company CTSQ Culture – Step 1
Challenging the Status Quo (CTSQ) is a deliberate act by leaders to inspire others in their organization to search for opportunities to innovate, change and grow the organization. Inevitably, this aspect of the company culture leads to allowing others to experiment and take risks in the bid to improve the way things are being done to yield extraordinary results.
A number of ongoing studies have shown that when leaders don’t challenge their status quo it can lead to a number of negative consequences. A study by the Harvard Business School found that organizations that don’t challenge their status quo are more likely to stagnate, lose market share and experience declines in profitability. Another study, by McKinsey & Company, found that companies that don’t challenge their status quo, fail to pursue innovations and are less agile in the face of change.
When leaders don’t challenge their company’s status quo, they risk becoming out-of-touch with the rapid changes that are happening in their business environment. Leave it too long to question how things are viewed and approached, and the company eventually faces the risk of obsolescence.
A company’s culture may be cheered and recognized in media publicity for creating an environment in which its team members are safe and comfortable and even encouraged to continually challenge the status quo (CTSQ). Another company may be known for making it dangerous and even career limiting to do any questioning.
If leaders have risen through the ranks of their company successfully, it usually means they are a fit with the culture, a match, as it can be exhausting to continuously have to operate with a style other than that of the company culture at large. Those skilled leaders who hit the point of frustration with pushing for change when it is not open to discussion will depart for an organization with a better fit! For newly minted leaders of a company, it can be time to identify whether they are operating in a culture that matches their own ‘challenge orientation’ or is a mismatch.
What are a company’s opportunities for challenging the status quo?
Common examples of when it makes sense to challenge the status quo abound.
With all the changes happening in the business world, CTSQ has become one of the most important business functions of leadership.
At the company level, some of the most common examples when CTSQ is necessary to successfully implement conditions for success within organizations include:
• Implementation of a new technology
• Mergers & acquisitions
• Change in leadership
• Change in organizational culture
• Times of a crisis
Historically CTSQ meant “pro-actively providing alternative ideas for ways the company already operates.” In some cases, management might notice a challenge in need of a solution. In other cases, they might detect an opportunity the company could take to improve its processes. In more recent years CTSQ launched ideas for new industries, new businesses, new products or services, new competitors to go after neglected opportunities in existing industries. Each of those considerations in turn opened the conversation about new ways of conducting every aspect of business which could lead to new sustainability, new scalability, new dominance by a company.
CASE STUDY – PATH
Organizational change involves moving from the known to the unknown. The question is change to what? PATH social services organization learned to designate which elements of their company were independent of their funding sources influence, and thus could be rethought and redesigned internally.
The organization’s CEO, Joel John Roberts, uncovered that critical culture change must not be perceived by employees as another in a series of fads or “management by best seller” as in a flavor of the month. He began his leadership when the organization served Los Angeles’ Westside with a dozen dedicated staff members, a 32-bed transitional housing facility and employment center, and an annual budget of $500,000.
Often employees are skeptical of these “just add water” fixes to the workplace. Failed attempts to change, unfortunately, often produce cynicism, frustration, loss of trust, and deterioration in morale among organization members. PATH employees needed to also understand that culture change was not only essential for the organization to adapt to new realities but also that it would help them and their fellow employees perform their roles better and derive greater job satisfaction.
Expectations can serve as a self-fulfilling prophecy, leading employees to invest energy in change programs that they expect will succeed. The employees invariably had expectations about the results of organizational change. These expectations played an important role in generating motivation for change. Today, the PATH family of agencies — PATH, PATH Ventures, and PATH Partners — has become a statewide homeless services and housing development agency serving 1 out of every 6 Californians experiencing homelessness.
When employees expect success, they are likely to develop greater commitment to the change process and to direct more energy into the constructive behaviors needed to implement it. The key to achieving these positive effects is to communicate realistic, positive expectations about the organizational changes. Information about why the change is occurring, how it will benefit the department, and how employees will be involved in the design and implementation is most helpful.
Here are some additional circumstances for challenging the status quo at a company level:
Engaging a new market: An example of challenging the status quo could be suggesting the company allocate resources for marketing to a new segment. For example, if you work for a company whose primary demographic is women between the ages of 28 and 39, and you identify evidence that you could target a younger audience as well, you could present your idea to management and thus challenge the status quo.
Changing culture: One way you can challenge the status quo is to suggest changes to the company’s overall culture. For example, you could suggest promoting a more adaptable workplace culture by offering remote work opportunities and flexible scheduling.
Altering workflows: An example of challenging the status quo of work execution is to present new methods for performing tasks that promote efficiency or solve a problem for the company. You can alter workflows in a single department or suggest widespread adjustments to how a company operates.
Addressing a problem: You may want to challenge the status quo if you identify a solution to a problem that would require a company to change its processes. For example, if employees notoriously miss deadlines, you can suggest implementing a company-wide system for tracking and managing tasks.
Identifying an efficiency: Another way you can challenge the status quo is to find methods of performing tasks that are more efficient than generally accepted processes. For example, a journalism professional may identify a more efficient way to handle a newsroom’s social media processes that involves automatic posting.
But what about all those Driving Forces, external and internal that we’ve looked at the past 4 weeks?
Companies are being presented with the opportunities to create competitive differentiation by addressing several other elements of the status quo. These include:
• Altering roles and responsibilities to create higher levels of employee engagement, performance and career development.
• Changing the recruiting, onboarding and retention systems to draw top talent to the organization and get those individuals to stay longer.
• Transforming the range and variety of ways that teams work, face to face and remotely, to optimize team and individual performance.
• Leveraging technology to try to reduce friction in how work is accomplished.
***** For the purpose of the QLP, we’ll focus all our considerations on the aspects of your company’s business that YOU can influence.
Challenging the status quo is important because it can allow a company’s leaders to evaluate the way the organization operates and consider new ideas. This can promote creativity in the MARKETPLACE, workplace and encourage others to share their own ideas for innovations. When someone challenges the status quo at work, their ideas for change may help a company meet its goals and streamline its processes. DEPENDING ON YOUR ROLE, you may or may not be able to influence every aspect of the system or process you can see could be changed.
EXERCISE 5.2 – What Can I Influence
Keep in mind that companies are faced with some recognized reasons that change can go wrong.
Here are some of the most common reasons.
1. Not defining goals in a timely manner
There is no point in change for change’s sake. That is just creating distracting busy work for the team. The purpose of CTSQ is to address meaningful opportunities for improvement.
Some of the common change management goals and objectives include:
• Build a culture of innovation
• Change or update the company’s best practices
• Implement new technology
• Establish milestones and incentives programs
• Implement knowledge sharing initiatives
• Shift in targeted customer base
Most changes get implemented with a goal to improve current processes, products, services or organizational cultures. However, it is critical to identify clear measurable goals and timed milestones before initiating a CTSQ project
2. Lack of alignment
Leadership has a big impact on employee engagement. If your leaders are not convinced about the benefits of change, it will be hard to inspire the action takers to implement it.
Poor alignment among the leaders is one of the main reasons for organizational change failures. On the other hand, great leaders know how to inspire their peers as well as the entire workforce to embrace change.
3. Identifying the resources needed to make change a success
Identifying the resources and individuals that will facilitate the process and lead the change before starting the change process is crucial for success. However, it can be a significant challenge to identify those resources and budgets before the process even starts.
4. A Lack of agility and slow approval process
Organizations that are not agile struggle to implement changes. Slow approval processes can cause delays in change implementation. Therefore, it is critical to have everyone on the same page in order for the process to maintain momentum, get implemented smoothly and on time.
5. Mis-planning the steps
Every change management process should have a well-set plan. The plan must be anchored by timelines, and change milestones should be identified. Without planning, it will be hard to pursue and achieve the overall success of the change process.
6. Fear and conflicts
Changes within organizations can trigger emotions of uncertainty and fear. It is not unusual for it to cause employees to take their frustrations out on each other. It is leaders’ responsibility to prevent that devolution of behavior and to be tracking when it’s necessary to overcome difficulties and resolve conflicts.
An active leader should always be ready to dive deeper into problems that crop up while working to move the CTSQ forward.
7. Resistance to change and lack of commitment
Some employees resist change and do not want to collaborate or commit to new practices. Leaders should be able to address resistance on a psychological level and proactively remove behavioral barriers that restrict change.
8. Poor communication in the workplace
Communication is crucial for successful change management, and the cost of poor communication can be significant. Every employer that has a successful change management team expresses the need for constant communication during the change experience.
9. Aligning all the teams with the new strategy
Having everyone on board and informed before and during the implementation process may be challenging. This is especially true for large organizations with various offices and departments across the world. Therefore, global and interdepartmental communication has to become a priority for CTSQ to work smoothly with all the affected stake holders in large organizations.
10. Updating everyone on the new materials, policies and procedures in a timely manner
Every highly effective change management strategy keeps all changes well-documented and transparent. Significant changes need to be documented and those documents should be easily accessible and shared with the employees.
In the face of these core reasons, it’s particularly important to make sure that CTSQ is not stifled at your company, but that systems are in place to address all 10 of these elements.
EXERCISE 5.3 –Company CTSQ Culture – Step 2
How to challenge the status quo at your company
Here are steps you in your role as leader can take to challenge the status quo at work:
1. Identify an opportunity for changing Recruitment, Selection, On-Boarding, Teaming, Performance, and Retention at the Company Level.
The first step to challenging the status quo is to determine what you want to change. There may be many opportunities for change in a company, but it’s best to focus on a single outcome to start with.
Whether you’re trying to solve a problem or improve a company’s processes, it’s best to frame your idea as a positive change. This can help you Marshall the efforts and intelligence of others in creating a plan for how you would implement changes to the company.
2. Perform research.
Once you’ve identified a process or practice you want to change in an organization, you need to perform research. Researching the potential for your idea helps you create a compelling pitch for more senior management to consider.
Here are a few areas to research when you’re considering challenging the status quo:
Industry research: Research whether companies across your industry currently handle a particular process to particular standards, or what might be termed best practices, to discover how others have approached a particular challenge or procedure.
Company research: Research whether companies across your industry currently have procedures similar to your idea, which can give you a basis for presenting your idea.
Competitor research: Research your top competitors to see if they have challenged similar procedures that you can use as evidence when presenting your idea. Focus on how your processes differ and see if you can directly link positive outcomes to the specific alterations they make.
Cross-industry research: Expand thinking to draw inspiration from how companies in other industries handle similar issues and processes and have made alterations to create fresh results.
Unrelated-industry and company research: Sometimes looking externally at how other types of businesses handle problems can unveil a new perspective on how to boost results with the tools you already have available.
Academic research: It can be useful to research new thoughts and advancements in your industry or discipline using academic journals and books. Case studies and profiles of your industry or particular competitors may actually be available. Successfully implementing these ideas in a business context can be a positive experimental change, which can lead to big developments in your process from a technical standpoint.
Data research: Gather data on the potential effects of pursuing your idea. Data that shows your idea can make a positive change may help you convince senior management to consider your proposal.
3. Solicit opinions about your idea.
Next, to understand their perspectives and concerns, ask other employees at your company for their opinions on your idea. You can ask for input from peers and from employees whose jobs would change the most if the company implements your idea.
This can help identify and address any weaknesses in your current idea and compile alternative approaches to strengthen your business case.
Here are more benefits of gathering opinions from other employees when you’re challenging the status quo:
Learning the importance of your idea: Gathering opinions from others in the company can help you discover how important your idea is to others. This can help you increase your confidence when you pitch your idea to management.
Gauging the popularity of your idea among other employees: Asking for input from other employees can help you understand how popular your idea is among others in the company. This can help you understand whether your idea would have long-term support or resistance from people whose jobs your idea may affect.
Taking a collaborative approach to changing the company: In some cases, an employee may hear your idea and suggest a better approach. Inviting input and feedback from others can allow you to collaborate with others in your company to challenge the status quo.
EXERCISE 5.4 – Listing Potential Opportunities
4. Design An implementation strategy.
Before you present your idea to company senior leaders, think about how you would implement the change in the company. Then, write a plan for how you would carry out your idea at the company. Using your research to create a plan for changing a company process can help you convince others that your idea is possible to achieve.
You can also create a short pitch for your idea during this stage of the process. A polished pitch backed by research and a simple plan for implementation can help you make a compelling case for your idea to management. This preparation can also help increase your confidence during your meeting with management.
5. Present your idea to company leadership.
Finally, use your research, employee opinions and implementation plan to pitch your idea for a change in the company. To increase your chances of success, prepare to answer questions that management may have about your idea and ensure your presentation has a confident tone.
We have looked at the question of whether your organization and your team view Change as ‘Opportunity’ or as ‘Conflict.’
Next, we’ll look at CTSQ from the lens of your team.
Course Manual 6: Team Culture
We have looked at the question of whether your organization views Change as ‘Opportunity’ or as ‘Conflict.’ Now we’ll bring the consideration to the level of your Team’s attitudes about change.
To launch our discussion of Team Culture regarding challenging the status quo (CTSQ) we’re going to start with an exercise.
EXERCISE 6.1 – Team CTSQ Culture – Step 1
As mentioned in the previous manual, challenging the Status Quo (CTSQ) is a deliberate act by leaders to inspire others in their team to search for opportunities to innovate, change and grow the effectiveness of the team. Inevitably, this aspect of the team culture leads to allowing others to experiment and take risks with the intention to improve the way things are being done to yield extraordinary results.
A number of ongoing studies have shown that when leaders don’t challenge the status quo it can lead to a number of negative consequences. Remember the study by the Harvard Business School found that organizations that don’t challenge their status quo are more likely to stagnate, lose market share and experience declines in profitability?
Think about what that means for a team. Teams that don’t challenge their status quo also fail to pursue innovations and are less agile in the face of challenges posed by external drivers of change.
When leaders don’t challenge their team’s status quo, they risk becoming out-of-touch with the rapid changes that are altering their team’s stability. Leave it too long to question how things are viewed and approached, and the company eventually faces the risk of a drop in productivity and performance that is hard to recover.
A team’s culture may be cheered and recognized in management meetings for creating an environment in which its team members are safe and comfortable and even encouraged to continually challenge the status quo (CTSQ). Another department may be known for making it dangerous and even career limiting to do any questioning.
If leaders have risen through the ranks of their functional area successfully, it usually means they are a fit with the culture, a match. It can be exhausting to continuously have to operate with a style other than that of the team culture at large. Skilled leaders who hit the point of frustration with pushing for change when it is not open to discussion will depart for an organization that value CTSQ! For newly minted leaders of a team, it is critical to identify whether they are operating in a culture that matches their own ‘challenge orientation’ or is a mismatch.
What are a team’s opportunities for challenging the status quo?
Common examples of when it makes sense for a team to challenge the status quo abound.
With all the changes happening in the business world, CTSQ has become one of the most important business functions of leadership.
At the team level, some of the most common examples when CTSQ is necessary to successfully implement conditions for success within organizations include:
• Implementation company-wide of a new technology
• Mergers & acquisitions
• Change in leadership
• Change in other departments’ or divisions’ status quo
• Times of a crisis
Historically CTSQ meant “pro-actively providing alternative ideas for ways the company already operates.” In some cases, team leaders might notice a challenge in need of a solution. In other cases, they might detect an opportunity the team could take to improve its processes. In more recent years CTSQ launched ideas for handling the threats posed the external social and economic drivers influencing employee recruiting, performance, engagement and retention.
Each of those considerations in turn opened the conversation about new ways of conducting every aspect of business which could lead to new sustainability, new scalability, new performance by the team.
Here are some additional circumstances for challenging the status quo at a team level:
Becoming responsible for delivering a new product or service in addition to current offerings.
Changing team culture to make it a more adaptable workplace culture by offering remote work opportunities and flexible scheduling.
Altering workflows to implement new methods for performing tasks that promote efficiency or solve a problem for the team. This may alter workflows in a single department or suggest widespread adjustments to how many teams operate.
Addressing a problem that would require a company to change its processes. For example, if teams notoriously miss deadlines, you might propose implementing a company-wide system for tracking and managing tasks.
Identifying an inefficiency to find new methods of performing tasks that are more efficient than generally accepted processes.
Team are able to uncover the opportunities to create competitive differentiation by addressing several other elements of the status quo. These include:
• Altering roles and responsibilities to create higher levels of employee engagement, performance and career development.
• Changing the recruiting, onboarding and retention systems to draw top talent to the organization and get those individuals to stay longer.
• Transforming the range and variety of ways that teams work, face to face and remotely, to optimize team and individual performance.
• Leveraging technology to try to reduce friction in how work is accomplished.
CASE STUDY – Elon Musk
Elon Musk is perhaps the most proactive, eccentric and strategic tech leaders of our time. Musk has repeatedly and publicly made it known that he believes a business organization can only achieve rapid growth and success by pushing the workforce to achieve optimum production. His leadership philosophy has propelled SpaceX and Tesla into some of the world’s most profitable enterprises.
So how does Elon Musk encourage his team to challenge the status quo throughout his companies? Whenever Musk emails his managers with the instructions for the day-to-day operations of his two firms, he explicitly directs them to “explain why he’s wrong,” “ask for clarification” or “execute the directions.” And with the permission established, a safe space to think out of the box, his teams continually pay attention for those opportunities.
Let’s consider the aspects of your company’s business that YOU AND YOUR TEAM can influence.
Challenging the status quo is important because it can allow a team’s leader to evaluate the way the team operates and consider new ideas. This can promote creativity in the among the team members and encourage them to share their own ideas for innovations. When someone challenges the status quo of the team, their ideas for change may help a team meet its goals and streamline its processes. As the team leader, you may or may not be able to influence every aspect of the system or process you can see could be changed, but you need to create a culture in which the topics can be raised and safely discussed!
EXERCISE 6.2 – What Can This Team Influence
Keep in mind that teams are faced with some core reasons that change can go wrong.
Here are some of the most common reasons:
1. Not defining goals in a timely manner
Most changes get implemented with a goal to improve current processes, products, services or organizational cultures. However, it is critical to identify clear goals and milestones.
Some of the common change management goals and objectives include:
• Build a team culture of innovation
• Change or update the team’s best practices
• Implement new technology
• Establish milestones and incentives programs
• Implement knowledge sharing initiatives
There is no point in change for change’s sake. That is just creating distracting busy work for the team. The purpose of CTSQ is to address meaningful opportunities for improvement.
2. Lack of alignment
Leadership has a big impact on team engagement. If you are not convinced about the benefits of change, it will be hard to inspire the team members to implement it.
Poor alignment among the team is one of the main reasons organizational change fails. On the other hand, great team leaders know how to inspire their employees as well as the broader workforce to embrace change.
3. Identifying the resources needed to make change a success
before starting the change process, identifying the resources and individuals that will facilitate the process and lead the change is crucial for success. However, it can be a significant challenge to identify those resources and budgets before the process even starts when those changes will affect other stakeholders.
4. A Lack of agility and slow approval process
Organizations that are not agile struggle to implement changes. Slow approval processes can cause delays in change implementation by individual teams. In the face of a company culture that is slow to act, it is critical to have everyone on the team on the same page in order for the process to maintain momentum, get implemented smoothly and on time.
5. Mis-planning the steps
Every change management process needs a well-set plan, anchored by timelines, and milestones. Without planning, it will be hard for the team to pursue and achieve the overall success of the change process.
6. Fear and conflicts
Changes within organizations can trigger emotions of uncertainty and fear. It is not unusual for it to cause team members to take their frustrations out on each other where it is ‘safe.’ It is leaders’ responsibility to prevent that devolution of behavior and to be tracking when it’s necessary to keep open discussions about challenges on an ongoing basis.
An active leader should always be ready to dive deeper into problems that crop up while working to move the CTSQ forward.
7. Resistance to change and lack of commitment
Some employees resist change and do not want to collaborate or commit to new practices. Leaders should be able to identify who those team members are and address resistance on a psychological level and proactively remove behavioral barriers that can sabotage successful change.
8. Poor communication in the team
Communication is crucial for successful change management, and the cost of poor communication can be significant. Every team that has a successful CTSQ depends on constant communication during the change experience.
9. Aligning all the other stakeholders with the new strategy
Having everyone on board and informed before and during the implementation process may be challenging. This is especially true for large organizations with various offices and departments across the world. Therefore, global and interdepartmental communication has to become a priority for CTSQ to work smoothly with all the affected stakeholders in large organizations.
10. Updating everyone on the new materials, policies and procedures in a timely manner
Every highly effective change management strategy keeps all changes well-documented and transparent. Significant changes need to be documented throughout the change process, and those documents should be easily accessible and shared with the employees.
In the face of these core reasons, it’s particularly important to make sure that CTSQ is not stifled at your company, but that systems are in place to address all 10 of these elements.
EXERCISE 6.3 – Team CTSQ Culture – Step 2
How to challenge the status quo among your team
Here are steps you as a leader can take to challenge the status quo in your team:
1. Identify an opportunity for changing Recruitment, Selection, On-Boarding, Teaming, Performance, and Retention at the Team Level
The first step to challenging the status quo is to determine what you want to change. There may be many opportunities for change at the company-level, but they may be complicated and involved in ways that might be simple at the team-level. It’s best to focus on a simpler outcome to start with.
It’s best to frame your idea as a positive change. This will help you assemble the will and intelligence of others in creating a plan for how you would design and implement changes to the team.
2. Perform research
Once you’ve identified a process or practice you want to change in your team, you need to perform research. Researching the potential for your idea helps you create a compelling pitch for more senior management to consider.
Here are a few areas you can have your team members research when you’re considering challenging the status quo:
Industry research: Research whether companies across your industry currently handle a particular process to particular standards, or what might be termed best practices, to discover how others have approached a particular challenge or procedure.
Company research: Research whether companies across your industry currently have procedures similar to your idea, which can give you a basis for presenting your idea.
Competitor research: Research your top competitors to see if they have challenged similar procedures that you can use as evidence when presenting your idea. Focus on how your processes differ and see if you can directly link positive outcomes to the specific alterations they make.
Cross-industry research: Expand thinking to draw inspiration from how companies in other industries handle similar issues and processes and have made alterations to create fresh results.
Unrelated-industry and company research: Sometimes looking externally at how other types of businesses handle problems can unveil a new perspective on how to boost results with the tools you already have available.
Academic research: It can be useful to research new thoughts and advancements in your team’s areas of responsibility using academic journals and books. Case studies and profiles of your industry or particular competitors may actually be available. Successfully implementing these ideas in a business context can be a positive experimental change, which can lead to big developments in your process from a technical standpoint.
Data research: Gather data on the potential effects of pursuing your idea. Data that shows your idea can make a positive change may help you convince senior management to consider your proposal.
3. Solicit opinions about your idea
Next, to understand their perspectives and concerns, ask other stakeholders at your company for their opinions on your idea. You can ask for input from peers and from employees whose jobs will change the most if the team implements the changes being considered.
This can help identify and address any weaknesses in your current idea and compile alternative approaches to strengthen your team’s business case.
Here are more benefits of gathering opinions from other employees when you’re challenging the status quo:
Learning the importance of your idea: Gathering opinions from others in the company can help you discover how important your idea is to others. This can help you increase your confidence when you pitch your idea to management.
Gauging the popularity of your idea among other employees: Asking for input from other employees can help you understand how popular your idea is among others in the company. This can help you understand whether your idea would have long-term support or resistance from people whose jobs your idea may affect.
Taking a collaborative approach to changing the company: In some cases, an employee may hear your idea and suggest a better approach. Inviting input and feedback from others can allow you to collaborate with others in your company to challenge the status quo.
EXERCISE 6.4 – Listing Potential Opportunities
4. Design an implementation strategy
Before you and your team present your proposed changes to company senior leaders, think about how you would implement the change in the company. Then, write a plan for how you would carry out your idea at the company. Using your research to create a plan for changing a company process can help you convince others that your idea is possible to achieve.
You can also create a short pitch for your idea during this stage of the process. A polished pitch backed by research and a simple plan for implementation can help you make a compelling case for your idea to management. This preparation can also help increase your confidence during your meeting with management.
5. Present your idea to company leadership
Finally, use your research, employee opinions and implementation plan to pitch your idea for a change in the company. To increase your chances of success, prepare to answer questions that management may have about your idea and ensure your presentation has a confident tone.
Most important of all in a team that is comfortable with CTSQ is coming to the conclusion that an idea is NOT appropriate to pursue! In many ways, that’s the proof that you have a healthy team, with members that are comfortable raising challenges, exploring and evaluating them, and deciding together when to pursue them.
Next, we’ll look at CTSQ and your personal mindset and readiness to take on that activity.
Course Manual 7: Personal CTSQ
CASE STUDY – Dina Campion at Starbucks
Dina Campion, a district manager at Starbucks, provides an example of someone recognizing an opportunity, taking initiative, and acting before others do. She noticed that customers were going to competitors’ stores for blended, frozen drinks. The Starbucks corporate management didn’t think the product was worth pursuing, but Dina disagreed.
Without asking permission, she took the initiative to experiment with a blended frozen drink in one location, to prove the concept. The drink proved so popular that the company expanded it to the rest of the chain, investing in blenders for all locations. The resulting product was the Frappuccino, which became the most successful product launch in Starbucks’s history.
We have looked at the question of whether your organization and your team view Change as ‘Opportunity’ or as ‘Conflict.’ Now we’ll bring the consideration to the level of your personal attitudes about change.
To launch our discussion of your Personal readiness regarding challenging the status quo (CTSQ) we’re going to start with an exercise.
EXERCISE 7.1 – Personal CTSQ – Step 1
Ongoing studies have shown that when leaders don’t challenge the status quo themselves it can lead to a number of negative consequences. Remember the study by the Harvard Business School found that organizations that don’t challenge their status quo are more likely to stagnate, lose market share and experience declines in profitability?
As mentioned in the previous manual, challenging the Status Quo (CTSQ) requires a deliberate act by leaders to inspire others in their team to participate in a search for opportunities to innovate, change and grow the effectiveness of the team. Inevitably, your own attitudes influence the degree to which your team members believe they are allowed to experiment and take risks with the intention to improve the way things are being done to yield extraordinary results.
Think about what that means for you personally. In this age of turmoil and constant business redesign, leaders that don’t challenge the status quo also fail to pursue innovations and are less agile in the face of challenges posed by external drivers of change. It becomes evident in the eyes of their peers and the leaders they report to.
When leaders don’t challenge the status quo, they risk becoming out-of-touch with changes that are altering their team’s stability as well as the company’s. Leave it too long to question how things are viewed and approached, and the leader eventually faces the risk of a drop in team productivity and performance that is hard to recover.
A team leader may be cheered and recognized in management meetings for creating an environment in which its team members are safe and comfortable and even encouraged to continually challenge the status quo (CTSQ). Another leader may be known for making it dangerous and even career limiting to do any questioning.
When career growth opportunities present themselves in a company, senior management is going to reach out to the most agile leaders to invite them into those seats.
For newly minted and rising leaders of a team, it is critical to identify whether they are operating in a culture that matches their own ‘challenge orientation’ or is a mismatch. If leaders have risen through the ranks of their functional area successfully, it usually means they are a fit with the team and company culture, a match. However, if they were not a match for the company culture, skilled leaders may hit the point of frustration with pushing for change when it is not open to discussion. They often depart for an organization that values CTSQ!
With all the changes happening in the business world, CTSQ has become one of the most important functions of leaders.
What are your opportunities for challenging the status quo?
Historically CTSQ meant “pro-actively providing alternative ideas for ways the company already operates.” In some cases, you might notice a challenge in need of a solution. In other cases, you might detect an opportunity your team could take to improve its processes.
In more recent years CTSQ has meant finding ideas for handling the threats posed the external social and economic drivers influencing employee recruiting, performance, engagement and retention.
Each of those considerations in turn opened the opportunity to challenge the current ways of conducting every aspect of business which could lead to new sustainability, new scalability, new performance by your team.
Common examples of when it makes sense for a you to challenge the status quo abound.
Some of the most common examples when CTSQ is necessary to recognize and successfully implement include:
• Use of new technology
• integrating mergers & acquisitions
• Adapting to changes in company leadership
• Changes throughout your department’s or division’s processes
• Times of a crisis
Here are some additional circumstances for your taking on challenging the status quo:
• Becoming responsible for leading a team delivering a new product or service in addition to current offerings.
• Changing your team’s culture to make it a more adaptable workplace culture by offering remote work opportunities and flexible scheduling.
• Getting your team to alter workflows to implement new methods for performing tasks that promote efficiency or solve a problem for the team.
• Addressing a problem that would require others in your company to change their processes. For example, if other teams notoriously miss deadlines, and it is impacting your own team, you might propose implementing a multi-departmental system for tracking and managing tasks.
• Identifying an inefficiency to find new methods of performing tasks that are more efficient than generally accepted processes.
You can uncover the opportunities to create competitive differentiation by addressing several other elements of the status quo. These include:
• Altering roles and responsibilities on your team to create higher levels of employee engagement, performance and career development.
• Changing your team’s recruiting, onboarding and retention systems to draw top talent to the organization and get those individuals to stay longer.
• Transforming the range and variety of ways that your team works, face to face and remotely, to optimize team and individual performance.
• Leveraging technology to try to reduce friction in how your team’s work is accomplished.
Let’s consider the aspects of your team’s and company’s business that YOU can influence.
As the team leader, you may or may not be able to influence every aspect of the broader system or process you can see could be changed, but you need to create a culture in which the topics can be raised and safely discussed!
Visibly leading CTSQ is important because it can allow you to model the way your team should operate and consider new ideas. This can promote creativity in the among your team members and encourage them to share their own ideas for innovations. When someone challenges the status quo of your team, their ideas for change may help the team meet its goals and streamline its processes.
Members of your team may well contribute to some of the core reasons that change can go wrong. You need to be able to assess when that is happening so you can coach them into course-correcting.
With each of your past CTSQ efforts in mind, review the main reasons change initiatives may have struggled or even failed.
Notice the change in sequence of these 10 elements! It is deliberate.
7. Resistance to change and lack of commitment
You may resist change and not want to collaborate or commit to new practices. You should be able to identify what issues raise your resistance and develop techniques to minimize your own sabotaging of successful change efforts by your team.
6. Fear and conflicts
Changes within organizations can trigger emotions of uncertainty and fear. It is not unusual for it to cause leaders to take their frustrations out on team members where it is ‘safe.’ It is your responsibility to prevent your own devolution of behavior and to be learning techniques to keep discussions about challenges open on an ongoing basis.
You should have techniques you use to keep yourself ready to quickly dive deep on problems that crop up while working to move the CTSQ forward.
8. Poor communication in the team
Leadership communication is crucial for successful change management, and the cost of poor communication can be significant. Your team depends on your consistent and constant communication during the change experience to create a successful CTSQ outcome.
2. Lack of alignment
Your leadership has a big impact on your team’s engagement. If you are not convinced about the benefits of change, it will be hard to inspire your team members to implement it.
Poor alignment among your team is one of the main reasons organizational change will fail. As their leader, you’ll need to know how to inspire them, as well as the broader workforce, to embrace the changes you and the team design and implement.
1. Not defining goals in a timely manner
Most changes get implemented with a goal to improve current processes, products, services or organizational cultures. However, it is critical to identify clear goals and milestones.
Some of the common change management goals and objectives include:
• Build a team culture of innovation
• Change or update the team’s best practices
• Implement new technology
• Establish milestones and incentives programs
• Implement knowledge sharing initiatives
There is no point in change for change’s sake. That is just creating distracting busy work for the team and organization at large. The purpose of CTSQ is to address meaningful opportunities for improvement. Set up a system for evaluating the potential value of the CTSQ project.
3. Identifying the resources needed to make change a success
Before starting the change process, identifying the resources and individuals that will facilitate the process and lead the change is crucial for success. However, it can be a significant challenge to identify those resources and budgets before the process even starts when those changes will affect other stakeholders.
4. A Lack of agility and slow approval process
Leaders whose teams are not agile struggle to implement changes. Slow participation and approval processes can cause delays in change implementation by individual team members. In the face of a team culture that is slow to act, it is critical for leaders to first get everyone on the team on the same page in order for the process to maintain momentum, get implemented smoothly and on time.
5. Mis-planning the steps
Every change management process needs a well-set plan, anchored by timelines, and milestones. Without planning, it will be hard for your team to pursue and achieve the overall success of the change process. Create an explicit plan for the steps to be taken, the resources needed, the people to be assigned and make sure it’s been reviewed by the team before being finalized.
Make sure you build in ‘contingency’ planning for if and when things change along the way.
9. Aligning all the other stakeholders with the new strategy
Having everyone beyond your team on board and informed before and during the implementation process may be challenging. This is especially true for large organizations with various offices and departments across the world. Therefore, global and interdepartmental communication has to become on of your priorities for CTSQ to work smoothly with all the affected stakeholders in your organization.
10. Updating everyone on the new materials, policies and procedures in a timely manner
Every highly effective change management strategy keeps all changes well-documented and transparent. Significant changes need to be documented throughout the change process, and those documents should be easily accessible and shared with the employees. You need to be sure that this function is assigned to a strong coordinator who will get it done in a thorough and timely manner.
Now you’ll consolidate your evaluation of your comfort, resistance and skills so you can identify where you need to step up your own skills.
EXERCISE 7.2 – What Are My Current Skills?
How to personally challenge the status quo as a leader
Here are steps as a leader can take personally to challenge the status quo on an ongoing basis:
1. Calendar a personal project to Identify an opportunity for changing
Recruitment, Selection, On-Boarding, Teaming, Performance, and Retention.
The first step to challenging the status quo is to commit to spend time on what you want to change. There may be many opportunities for change at the company-level, but they may be complicated and involved in ways that might be simple at the team-level. It’s best to focus on a simpler outcome to start with.
Look for opportunities to create positive change.
2. Perform research
Once you’ve identified a process or practice you want to challenge, you need to perform research. Researching the potential for your idea helps you create a compelling pitch for your team members to consider and participate.
You can have your team members themselves be part of your research when you’re considering challenging the status quo. Assign team members to stay current on the following issues and bring them to you in rotation at monthly meetings:
Industry research: Research whether companies across your industry currently handle a particular process to particular standards, or what might be termed best practices, to discover how others have approached a particular challenge or procedure.
Company research: Research whether companies across your industry currently have procedures similar to your idea, which can give you a basis of support for presenting your idea.
Competitor research: Research your top competitors to see if they have challenged similar procedures that you can use as evidence when presenting your idea. Focus on how your processes differ and see if you can directly link positive outcomes to the specific alterations they make.
Cross-industry research: Expand your thinking to draw inspiration from how companies in other industries handle similar issues and processes and have made alterations to create fresh results.
Unrelated-industry and company research: Sometimes looking externally at how other types of businesses handle problems can unveil a new perspective on how to boost results with the tools you already have available.
Academic research: It can be useful to research new thoughts and advancements in your areas of responsibility using academic journals and books. Case studies and profiles of your industry or particular competitors may actually be available. Successfully implementing these ideas in a business context can be a positive experimental change, which can lead to big developments in your process from a technical standpoint.
Data research: Gather data on the potential effects of pursuing your idea. Data that shows your idea can make a positive change may help you convince senior management to consider your proposal.
3. Solicit opinions about your team and its performance
To understand their perspectives and concerns, ask other stakeholders for their input on ideas they believe you and your team should be considering. You can ask for ideas from peers and from employees whose jobs would be influenced the most if your suggested changes become implemented.
This can help identify and address any weaknesses in your ideas and help you compile alternative approaches to strengthen your potential CTSQ’s success.
Here are more benefits of gathering opinions from other employees when you’re challenging the status quo:
Learning the importance of your relationships with other leaders in the company: Gathering opinions from others in the company can help you discover how important your role and position is to others. This can help you increase your confidence when you pitch your team’s change ideas to management.
Taking a collaborative approach to changing the company: In some cases, another leader or an employee may hear your idea and suggest a better approach. Inviting input and feedback from others can allow you to collaborate with others in your company to challenge the status quo.
EXERCISE 7.3 – Personal CTSQ – Step 2
Most important when evaluating CTSQs is coming to a clear conclusion that an idea is NOT appropriate to pursue! In many ways, that’s the proof that you have a healthy process in place, with feedback from leadership, stakeholders and team members that are comfortable raising challenges to your own ideas, exploring and evaluating them.
You can also craft a short pitch for your proposal during this stage of the process. A polished pitch backed by research and a simple plan for implementation can help you make a compelling case for your idea on an ongoing basis throughout the CTSQ project. This preparation can also help increase your confidence during your meeting with everyone.
As you take on the next steps, remember that one of the most important elements is by getting your personal concept outlined it will let you put it to the side, propose the issue you are challenging, and listen freely to ideas from your team members and others you share it with!
Using your research can create an agile foundation to create a plan for changing a team process. This can help you convince others in the organization that your idea may be possible to achieve.
5. Present your idea to company leadership
Finally, use your research, employee opinions and implementation plan to pitch your idea for a change to the team. To increase your chances of success, prepare to answer questions that management may have about your idea and ensure your presentation has a confident tone.
4. Design An implementation strategy
Once you have solicited ideas from your team, stakeholders and relevant company leaders, create written a plan for how you would carry out your idea at the company.
Course Manual 8: Challenging Processes
Change is here to stay. It is what makes organizations more competitive. Change can bring out the best in people because they are pushed to dig deeply into their reserves and to tap into uncharted talent. Change forces people to be innovative, to experiment with new processes, and to find ways to be more effective and efficient. Change can also create havoc and produce resistance when leadership skills are not evident.
CTSQ is all about seeking innovative ways to change, grow, and improve. Even to re-stabilize the company in the face of external changes. The effective leader is always seeking ways to move beyond the status quo and venture into the uncharted. There is proof all around us that those organizations that were considered “great” twenty-five years ago have either lost favor or no longer resemble them. Leadership that explores novel performance and success-enabling strategies is necessary to maintain organizational excellence.
Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner rate Challenge the Process as one of the five key practices of exemplary leadership.
CASE STUDY: THE CARTOON NETWORK & HANNA-BARBERA CARTOONS, INC.
When Turner Broadcasting system acquired Hanna-Barbara Cartoons, they got immediate access to animated programing for its Cartoon Network. However, the market didn’t need so much content, nor was its classic cartoon line-up of The Flintstones, Scooby Doo, and The Jetsons hip enough for the younger population TBS was targeting. More recent cartoons were required.
The Hanna-Barbera crew was given two years by Ted Turner, who was then the chairman of TBS, to create fresh material and turn around the studio; otherwise, he threatened to shut it down.
Alan Keith was requested to join the management team as vice president of business operations and take on the task of entirely reimagining the Hanna-Barbera studios. Alan uncovered that the studio was run at the time with a factory mentality. It was all about doing the task swiftly, cheaply, and with the least amount of delay. The studio featured a highly centralized organizational structure wherein one or two persons handled all creative decision-making, and all work was divided into functional areas. No free flow of ideas existed, and creativity had been muted.
The new crew had to make a significant move away from the status quo, a manufacturing attitude and toward a concentration on creativity in order to recreate Hanna-Barbera. When discussing animation, this seems like a no-brainer, but as Alan realized, it requires a significant shift of perspective: “So many things came from that remark once we were able to describe [that shift in focus].”
The goal, according to Alan, “was to eventually be recognized as the world’s leading producer of cartoon animation.” Thoughts are one thing, but deeds are quite another. In the end, the crew decided to start a series of original, separate shorts, each featuring a distinct cast and a distinct plot. The idea was both original and dangerous. Animation production is an expensive endeavor that only becomes financially viable with long-running syndicated series. Thus, a significant, ongoing research and development effort got underway. The Cartoon Network would run the shorts in various time slots, against other shows, promote them in various ways, and compile information on viewer ratings and feedback. That research would reveal which few were actually the ones that seemed to interest audiences and, as a result, the ones they intended to pursue.
The outdated factory method needed to be abandoned in order to facilitate this radical break with the past. The group “turned the organization on its head and questioned every business paradigm about how it worked, how it was set up, how it was structured, and how it was handled,” according to Alan. Cross-functional teams and highly dispersed production units replaced the outdated departmental structure. Each unit formed its own team, developed its own concepts, and concentrated on one of the shorts. Depending on what they did, the support functions were given the opportunity to work with various facilities teams. What emerged was a support system that was much thinner but more powerful. All leaders’ responsibilities changed from exercising control to giving support to those who were hired to accomplish their jobs. It was radical and dangerous, but it also made people feel more responsible.
The structure, systems and processes were all challenged. This was a whole new way of thinking for everyone in the company.
There was a lot of team building, off-site sessions, and other training to teach employees how to operate in this new, trusting structure. Alan committed himself to growing in his own leadership inside the company. One of the initiatives Alan supported was a multi-year 360-degree feedback evaluation method, which allowed for the tracking of employees’ perceptions over time. Alan led by example and took the lead. “That was perhaps one of the most important ways that I showed I was doing the walk, not simply talking the talk,” he said, quoting himself.
Culture was important to Alan. Despite the serious nature of the task at hand, the Hanna-Barbera Studio “was about creating animation for kids, it should be an enjoyable place to work.” Around the shows, there were usually celebrations, and “Anyone who accomplished something that was extraordinarily valuable or crucial to the objective was recognized publicly.”
The entire appearance of the location changed, as well. When Alan initially got there, the building appeared quite dreary and dark. By the end of the transition, the conference tables had cartoon characters’ names carved in them, the buildings were painted in vibrant hues, and the lobby was furnished with bizarre items. It was like going to work every day in a cartoon.
Challenging each aspect of the status quo and committing to the turnaround at Hanna-Barbera was a big success. It produced shows that brought in billions of dollars for Cartoon Network, as well as a brand-new, reliable system for creating cartoon animation.
Search for Opportunities
In most organizations there is room for improvement. Exemplary leaders knew that success comes from involving everyone in identifying ways to improve. They encourage others to look for opportunities, and to speak up and challenge the status quo. Leaders coach others to seek out a better way and encourage them to take initiative to challenge what they see have become ‘the way we do things.’
Leaders are successful making and guiding changes when they consider it their ethical responsibility to the organization and the people.
They are successful if they:
• Raise issues that the organization may not raise itself.
• Conduct change efforts honestly and responsibly.
• Introduce new perspectives for consideration by others.
• Communicate honestly and openly with team members and stakeholders.
• Listen to opposing views before finalizing plans.
• Encourage and enable participation by everyone affected by the changes.
Experimenting and Taking Risks
Sometimes the most effective changes occur slowly, one step at a time. Those successful change processes are made up of small, incremental steps. Small experimental wins are a must as they are easier to sell, easier to implement, and employees are more willing to accept them. This means that to ensure that everyone is involved in challenging processes, leaders must generate small wins and help everyone (including themselves) learn from experience.
Exemplary leaders are life-long learners and risk takers. Think back to when you learned the most. It was probably an experience that was not easy and not 100 percent perfect. It is true that we learn from our mistakes. Leaders allow for learning to occur. During times of change, the leader who experiments and learns along the way will be the most successful in the long run. Like the military, leaders ought to implement an “after- action review,” which enables everyone involved to examine what went well, what did not, what was learned, and what will be done better next time.
Finally, leaders develop a template or model that allows them to follow a CTSQ process that has been proven effective, moderating the risks along the way. They and their teams can gain control of change if they have a clear plan, milestones to achieve along the way, and measures that tell them they are making progress toward their objective.
The Role of Listening
Kouzes and Posner claim that skilled leaders encourage innovation by encouraging others to think creatively, and by setting the bar high for the development of new and improved systems, procedures, products, and services. “There is no need for the leader to speak up. The ability to LISTEN is the foundation of innovation.”
That perspective can seem to go against what was typical of leadership for many decades. The leader directs, informs, tells, and guides, right? Maybe, if the correct conditions are there. But listening can be much more important than telling when it comes to invention, and CTSQ is very much about invention and innovation.
Leaders must be lifelong learners. Learning depends on listening and opens up new opportunities. There is no better method to learn than to ask and listen.
Leaders frequently make the mistake of believing that because they are in charge, they should be fully informed, with all the answers already known. This misconception occasionally masks the leader’s uncertainty and at times a reluctance to admit ignorance.
Frequently, one only asks a question to obtain approval or to confirm information that is already known. However, the higher up in the organizational ladder a person becomes, the less it is possible for them to know everything because there are so many individuals working on so many different projects and dealing with so much information. Leaders must therefore be able to ask the relevant questions rather than always know the answers.
There are several powerful uses for questions:
1. Questions elicit data without making recommendations.
2. Questions encourage individuals to generate original thoughts.
3. Questions offer a way to cooperate without forging fixed positions.
4. Questions act as a mirror, allowing one to consider the true significance of the response.
5. When the incorrect assumption could be embarrassing, questions allow one to examine assumptions.
6. Questions foster an environment where individuals may get to know one another and establish relationships based on trust.
7. By probing further, questions help people understand things better.
8. One who does not want to reveal information is protected by questions.
9. Before making a firm decision, one uses questions to help sell an idea and gain the support of others.
10. When other individuals are simply ignorant, questions can offer solutions.
The common closed-ended inquiries (that only accept a yes or no response) only suggest a solution or force the respondent to agree or disagree. These inquiries don’t encourage creativity or enable learning. Even while they might be considered efficient, they really restrict the opportunities to uncover what could benefit from a change.
When someone questions the procedure, the query must genuinely start a discussion. The leader must enter this conversation prepared for a result that is neither known nor agreed upon, nor even immediately obvious. The best question to ask in order to promote learning and innovation puts all presumptions and judgments on hold. Because they genuinely inquiry, successful questions must be open-ended.
Open-ended inquiries start with words like these:
• How
• Why
• What
• Where
• To what extent
• When
• Who
EXERCISE 8.1 – Loosening Up Your Inquiry Muscles
Course Manual 9: Getting it Wrong
In today’s ever-changing world, leading and managing change has become one of the most critical success factors for any business.
The external turmoil in the economy is forcing business innovation and change at a relentless pace: technology keeps changing, customer trends are shifting, new market regulations are being launched on a regular basis, and businesses have to evolve in the face of unprecedented global economic and social crises.
Companies that can’t adapt and grab growth opportunities are likely to be outcompeted by agile competitors. That’s why Challenging the Status Quo as well as preventing failures of change initiatives should be among a leader’s top priorities.
CASE STUDY – Tarsus Distribution
South African IT distributor Tarsus Distribution, attempted to minimize manual data entry with robotic process automation (RPA). Unfortunately, their communication strategy led to internal resistance.
Tarsus Distribution leveraged RPA to deploy software robots to handle manual data entry work. Although the goal was to lessen employee workload and not replace staff members, the communication strategy came across as robots taking over.
When Tarsus Distribution implemented software robots before gaining internal support, employees expressed fear about and resistance to the move. Without employee buy-in, the RPA solution could not reach its full potential.
Definition of Change Management
Change management is a systematic approach that includes dealing with the transition or transformation of organizational goals, core values, processes or technologies.
The purpose of every organizational change management initiative is to successfully plan, implement, test and adjust strategies and methods for effecting change and helping people to accept, participate in and adapt to change.
Under normal circumstances, driving change in the workplace is already quite challenging. Today, workplace transformation needs to be more agile. As organizational changes continuously, change management has become a crucial performance driver for many companies.
At the top level, challenges leading to change includes three arenas:
Developmental change: Any organizational change that improves and optimizes on previously established processes, strategies and procedures.
Transitional change: Change that moves an organization away from its current state to a new state in order to solve a problem, such as mergers and acquisitions and automation.
Transformational change: Change that radically and fundamentally alters the culture, core values and operations.
So how can it go wrong?
We’ve discussed the fact that people are resistant to change.
Research shows that only 38% of people like to leave their comfort zone. When these people are presented with a change, they think, “Hey, this is so exciting.” Those positive interpretations of change result in positive emotional reactions, such as happiness and satisfaction, which result in greater employee productivity.
The other 62%, however, look at that same exact statement and immediately feel fear and discomfort. They may think, “Oh great, this change will have an effect on my career growth.” or “I will not do what I like doing anymore.” or “Will they keep me in?”.
McKinsey & Co. surveyed nearly 3,000 executives about the success of their enterprise transformation efforts and found the failure rate to be higher than 60%. But COVID-19 impact on corporations makes organizational change even more complex and challenging.
Some companies temporarily closed their plants and shops while others made remote work mandatory. More and more businesses are laying off a part of their staff because of business deterioration. Moreover, the ‘temporary’ changes during the Pandemic lead leaders to CTSQ labor-related aspects of their businesses looking for cost savings. As a result, unemployment rates are exploding.
Businesses are now operating under increasing pressure. As the pandemic continues to cycle, businesses have had no choice but to review their short-term as well as long-term strategies. Every pivot undertaken through CTSQ projects is an opportunity for a failure.
In these uncertain times, leaders feel like they have to adapt on the fly and that they have no visibility on what’s going to happen in the upcoming weeks and months. They have to review their plans in real time, while still in the middle of designing and implementing a change. For instance, leaders are changing the way their employees are working as remote work has become the new norm and they also are rethinking the way their teams are functioning and collaborating.
In conditions of inflation, companies have to act fast. Many companies have already changed their organizational structure and their work arrangements. However, no one is assuming those new arrangements are permanent or long-term.
While change management programs usually take years to be implemented — whether it’s the launch of new technology or the implementation of a new internal organization, changes are being implemented with no smooth transition, which is highly challenging for both businesses and employees.
Change management processes can be very complex. Additionally, successfully implementing change requires a preparation phase, a proper internal communication plan, training programs, and evaluating the program’s success. Instead, – leaders and their teams find they have to instantly adapt to new ways of working and communicating each time the corporation creates a new policy.
“[Digital] transformation does not happen quickly. Some companies seem to expect it to happen over the course of a year. In my experience, particularly for larger organizations, closer to five years is more realistic. Even then, the task is never over”, says Ashley Friedlein, founder of Econsultancy.
Experts have already announced that the future of work is happening now. There’s no doubt that the way companies are managing organizational change now will directly impact their ability to ensure business continuity.
We have covered the 10 most common Change Management Challenges several times.
We’ve already seen that 38% of employees do not perceive changes as positive. Therefore, successful business transformation always depends on getting employees’ buy-in and embedding new behaviors in the workplace.
Transformations of the workplace and work processes can cause high levels of stress among employees. Anticipating that change can create fear, doubt, and insecurity among employees means leaders must be planful to ensure the CTSQ initiative progresses successfully.
In order to change and stabilize mindsets and attitudes in an organization, it’s vital that leaders include their people in the change planning processes and throughout the change management process. This includes developing and communicating a well-defined strategy that explains the approaches being considered and the top-level, departmental, and individual goals the change will be enhancing.
Continually reinforcing the rationale for the changes and involve the team in all phases of change discussions and planning will ensure one feels left behind. Providing mandatory personal and skills development to all employees will ensure they’re ready for whatever the change holds in store for them. By doing all of this, a leader can create a culture of agility and develop organizational adaptability to handle any pace of change.
10 Leadership Qualities that Scare the Status Quo
How might you know if you are part of the old way or can share the new way business can get done?
Let’s review 10 leadership qualities that scare the status quo below to see where you stand. Are you scared or scary?
Put a “Yes” next to each item if that is your personal answer to the 10 questions posed.
1. Caring
Do you take time to recognize that your team is made up of real people, with real lives outside of work and you don’t hate them for it?
Your primary focus lies with work productivity, but you need to spend a little time asking about their “other” lives and you truly listen when they speak. In return, they will feel valued as an individual and less like a cog in the machine.
2. Communication Central
Do you know WHAT to communicate and WHEN to communicate it? You can’t allow fear to stop you from communicating difficult issues or in crises.
You need to ensure that you always review the last version of any primary communication before it is distributed. Non-essential communications can be delegated to trusted team members. However, communications that fulfill a critical purpose, such as those sent during or following a crisis, need your eye and your heart to review the tone and the content before it goes out so that it clearly communicates your vision.
3. Coach
Do you have honest, individual conversations with your team members when they stumble? You need to help them with caring but candid feedback and concrete examples of how they might address the issue differently in the future.
Often, when people speak out of frustration or fear, their nasty tone of voice and rude choice of words do not actually represent what they intend to communicate. If you respond quickly, but kindly, when a team member responds harshly or rudely to other team members, you can prevent disrespectful language from eroding the trust and functionality of even a thriving team. Your focus should not on chastising, but rather on creating an awareness of the behavior and providing alternatives ways of saying something, especially when disagreeing, in a respectful way.
4. Developer
Do you spend time helping your team explicitly identify their strengths and you guide them in maximizing those strengths? As you divide up work tasks, you should start by assigning team members to the areas that capitalize on their strengths.
When used as a motivator, matching strengths with projects creates excitement and passion for the work. By providing stretch assignments over time, your team can continue to expand their skillset and experience level.
5. Empowering
Do you understand that the purpose of a team is precisely so that you don’t have to do every job on your team? Provide ‘guide rails’ and a road map for your team, a clear picture of where you need them to end up, and then trust them to do their job.
By checking in with them to make sure they are making progress and to see if they need your support, you do not take the project over but instead serve as a thought partner to help them problem-solve when they encounter key hang-ups.
You can hold the team accountable, individually and as a team. However, you do so appreciatively and by providing feedback to help them improve their work products as needed.
6. Fearless External Focus
Do you allow your fear of being outshined by the people on your team stop you from helping to develop them? You know that helping each team member to strengthen leads to a stronger, more successful team where you can count on exceeding goals without it all being on your shoulders.
As a capable leader, you give credit to team members for successful projects and take the blame for slip-ups. You do not insist upon being recognized individually for the success of your team. And you never claim that the work of a team member is your work alone. By edifying the performance of your team, and growing potential future leaders, you show your own supervisors that you’re ready to step up yet another level in the organization.
7. Internal Strength
Do you know balance authenticity with calm and vulnerability? Your team needs to experience you as a real person with feelings and know that you will guide them calmly through the storms.
When unexpected changes occur, even if you feel personally rattled, you must show your team that you believe everything will be okay. It is important to not dismiss your team’s concerns during times of change or difficulty. Every challenge can be framed as an opportunity to take a different path, explore a different approach and possibly end up somewhere even better than you had originally planned. You should not dwell on the angst, nor should you allow your team to dwell on the negativity.
Different is not worse, it is just different. Let your team know that you understand their concerns and provide them a way to shift perspective, and face forward so they can move past it.
8. Big Picture Strategy
Do you understand the larger goals of your team, and how to articulate how they tie into the organization’s goals?
When change rattles the team’s perspective and they start to veer off-course, a reminder of why you are all engaged in the work that you do will help to bring them back to center. If you can communicate that, you will find it easy to keep the team focused on the vision even during challenging times. It may take more effort. But, by using consistent vision-focused language you can keep the team focused on the purpose and use of their energy for meeting those goals.
9. Humility
Do you stop pretending to know everything? If so, you can focus on guiding your team in being creative to find solutions and in staying on track to deliver results. You’ve learned you don’t need to take the credit to feel successful.
When your purpose in being the leader centers around helping the team to reach excellence, your goal in leading is not to feed your ego and be the big boss. Team members can sense true humility and will respect you more than if you are egotistical.
10. Data Savvy
Do you know data is essential to staying abreast of your team’s performance? Do you know what data to gather and how to use it to coach your team to reach your goals?
Do not allow other departments to drive your team with their metrics. Instead, ensure that the data your team closely monitors aligns clearly to your department’s own goals first. This may include deliverables to other departments, but these are your team’s goals, not the other leader’s. This keeps you and your team laser-focused on exactly what you need to achieve.
EXERCISE 9.1 – Scared or Ready?
Course Manual 10: Change Readiness
Great leaders know change isn’t easy, even change for the better, and they don’t pretend otherwise. What they also know is that embracing change with the most effective mindset – one open to “learning and unlearning” on an ongoing basis – is key to creating a team environment where change isn’t just a ‘once in a while ‘occurrence to be suffered through but is an integral part of their company’s culture to be embraced and create enthusiasm.
Dr. Margie Warrell points out that there are Ten Approaches a leader can use alleviate internal resistance to change and build Change Readiness so that each member is ready to seize the identified opportunities and get their team on the “change-wagon” faster.
1. Lead From “Why”
One of the main reasons change programs fail is that people don’t understand why they may find their routines and systems being put through the wringer, so they don’t participate in the design or implementation. Leaders must be clear in their own heads about the big “why” behind the change they’re spearheading and able to clearly articulate it in a way that team members understand it individually. Without that explanation for why a change needs to happen, frustration and cynicism will fuel an underground resistance to it.
Craft your explanation in a way that people understand the larger context and what lies at stake if they don’t change. Solicit their concerns and respond in a way that ensures they don’t feel like they are going through a whole lot of pain, uncertainty and hard work for no good reason.
Never assume your team members understand the bigger picture. They often don’t! Walk them through how their role, and the changes being made to it, make sense within the larger strategy being executed.
2. Risk Over-Communication
People need to hear from you, repeatedly. That means more often than you might think, and more often than you may feel you have time for. So, ask yourself which you value more: getting everyone at ease and onboard, or having to spend months and years trying to salvage failed change efforts?
The tools of “walking the corridors” has been one of the critical tools. With the shift to dispersed and remote work, even among teams, you need to build in more frequent and more repeated ways of reinforcing the message.
You need to be visible and be sure you are regularly communicating what’s going on via multiple channels. That means both live and recorded messages, by written, live stream, in-person, and video formats. As the leader, you need to model becoming comfortable with all those formats so that members of your team lean to use them as well as they advance in their roles and responsibilities.
Never assume that something is “obvious” when you’re moving through change. It may be obvious to you, but not to the folks on the front line of various functions that the change initiative’s success depends on.
QUOTE:
As former Deputy Director of NASA Lori Garver shared in interviews, “Sometimes I over-communicate. But people have grown to appreciate they know exactly where I stand and aren’t left wondering what’s going on.”
3. Make Change Fun
You may not have thought of company culture from this viewpoint, but Organizational psychologists have found that each workplace develops their own group emotion. Over time shared emotional norms proliferate and are reinforced by both verbal and nonverbal behaviors. This can work for the positive or negative when it’s time to challenge the status quo.
Have past changes elicited stories of pain and torture and failure or of fun and success and celebration?
QUOTE:
Bill Marriott, Chairman of Marriott International, who has shepherded Marriott from it’s early days in the restaurant business to the world’s largest hotelier, shared with me how he has always approached change as “a lot of fun.” “If you are not changing and growing and learning, you’ll never have opportunities to celebrate,” Marriott said. “Change is part of the DNA of our business and always will be.”
Approaching change with an upbeat and optimistic energy can create an ’emotional contagion’ that shifts the energy others feel about CTSQ. It also will alleviate anxiety about what lays ahead and answers people’s internal questioning “Don’t they know what this upheaval means for me?”. People throughout an organization look to Leaders for cues on how to think and behave, particularly during uncertainty. Leaders serve as the emotional barometer. So, consider how you can dial up how you’re approaching CTSQs yourself and act more in ways that help those around you to be:
• More focused, less overwhelmed
• More adaptable, less rigid
• More decisive, less hesitant
• More optimistic, less concerned about “when the sky might fall”
4. Make It Safe And Protect Your People
Unless people feel they’re able to make the odd bad decision, they won’t be willing to risk making good ones.
No one enjoys making a mistake and Leaders need to create a psychological safety net that will breeds confidence by those around them. Each team member should believe that if they fall or do not making ‘a perfect landing’ the first time, they’ll be okay. Leaders must reassure people that their less than perfect outcomes or even derailments won’t be punished—assuming they’ve prepared well and aren’t being reckless. This will help to offset their fear and foster the imagination, curiosity and creativity necessary for innovation to flourish. As Bill Treasurer wrote in Courage Goes To Work, “By focusing solely on the consequences of failure, managers are effectively widening the holes in people’s psychological safety nets.”
5. Acknowledge Anxiety — Spoken And Silent
Great leaders don’t pretend that that the uncertainty of change will be easy sailing. They repeatedly acknowledge both the spoken and unspoken concerns – daily, weekly and monthly throughout the process. They make the discomfort of being in unfamiliar territory an open topic while simultaneously keeping people focused on what is within their control. While, the future is uncertain, they communicate “don’t worry, we’ll get through this, and I’ve got your back.”
6. Encourage Smart Risk Taking
People are wired for caution to maintain safety. When making decisions, each of us has an innate tendency to overestimate the probability of failure, to underestimate our navigating danger, and to downplay the cost of inaction. All of this amplifies our interpretations of the short-term consequences of taking action over longer-term risks of inaction.
QUOTE
As Nobel Laureate and psychologist Daniel Kahneman wrote in Thinking, Fast and Slow, “Losses loom larger than gains.” Playing it safe can provide the short-term sense of safety but the more people focus on all that could go wrong, the less mental and emotional capacity they have to make things more right.
Leaders need to help counter ‘loss aversion bias’ by helping people rethink the risks they assume exist and refocus them on the possibilities those risks illuminate. Team members need to believe a risk gone awry isn’t a career-ender. Rather, by creating a culture of courage, failure is regarded as a valuable teacher, providing lessons on how to do moving forward more effectively on the next effort.
Great leaders get people to adopt the same three questions they are always asking themselves:
• What specifically is the worst that could happen?
• What steps would I take if the worst did happen?
• What could happen if I do nothing?
7. Nudge People Into Discomfort
You can probably look back to earlier stages in your career and think of situations that made you anxious or very nervous at the time which you hardly blink an eye at now. The reason for the change is that you were exposed to that situation enough times that over the years what was frightening became familiar. Known as the “Mere Exposure Effect,” it explains that it’s important to give some people a gentle (or not so gentle) nudge out of their comfort zone repeatedly. The more often people are exposed to situations outside their comfort zone, the more comfortable they get with being in those situations. They have proof of surviving the events multiple times. Over time it builds an emotional scaffolding that bolsters their confidence, and their ease at facing bigger challenges and greater responsibility. For the more reserved type of person who might never put themselves forward or raise their hand, being “voluntold” they’re going to be assigned unfamiliar activities can be the best thing you ever do for them.
8. Appoint “Change Ambassadors”
Leaders, those who set the strategy at the top may be removed from those further down the organizational hierarchy who are left to execute and deal with the front line “pain points” of and challenges that change creates.
Your responsibility as a leader sis to engage people right down through those in the trenches to “wave the flag” and influence the outlook of your entire team or organization. When the going gets tough day in and day out, they will be able to set the group’s emotional tone far more powerfully than anyone sitting up in the c-suite.
9. Reward Brave Behavior, Not Just Results
When challenging the status quo, not every step will move you and your organization or team in the right direction. Some may move two steps back. Others even sideways. However, if you only reward those who get it right first time you face the very risk aversion you want to prevent. This is why is is critical to acknowledge people when they act bravely with the right intention and steps taken, even when their actions don’t produce the outcome they want.
Of course, results are important but when you reward people for being proactive—not just successful—you reinforce a “risk ready mindset” that sets everyone up to find better ways of doing business. The reward doesn’t have to be dramatic. It could simply be a handwritten note from a manager, a few encouraging words or public acknowledgment at a team meeting. The reward doesn’t matter so long as it’s meaningful to the person receiving it.
10. Lead By Example — Risk Your Own Safety
Those around you will be willing to act courageously based on how much visibility they have that you are willing to take a risk yourself. Leaders who have the courage to put their own reputation, security and safety on the line for the sake of something important to the team, to the organization, will grow in influence.
Your willingness to take a risk and be decisive amid the uncertainty will have a far more potent impact on your team and organization than any other factor. The power of your everyday example speaks far more loudly than your words ever can.
If you yourself are not forging new ground in how you lead yourself, then you most certainly won’t be able to lead others to stretch themselves. Consider where you are avoiding modeling risk-taking yourself for fear of getting it wrong or failing to push back against the paradigm your own superiors are thinking from.
EXERCISE 10.1 – Rating Yourself
The Neglected Element in Change Readiness – Belonging
Organizations will continue to face disruptive, complex, and uncomfortable change in coming decades. Recent research has uncovered that one of the reasons for resistance to challenge the status quo is that it disrupts each person’s primary emotional sense of where and how they ‘belong.’
In a manner of speaking, ‘excessive belonging’ impedes new futures.
Change Threatens Our Need to Belong
While “belonging” is currently spoken of most often in the diversity, equity, and inclusion context, in its deepest sense “belonging” refers to survival-based belonging. This state is what enables each child to make attachments for safety and sustenance so it can make it to adulthood. This state enables adults to participate in collective settings. Each person develops loyalty to and receives identity from that belonging. Any impending Change threatens and challenges each person’s closely held loyalties.
Successful change leaders take the time to make others feel seen, understood, secure, involved, and attached to to their work and their team. These leaders also recognize that change will require each stakeholder of that change to go through a stage of “un-belonging” and uncertainty.
This means leaders have two new responsibilities:
1 – They need to build their own and their team members’ ability to detach from , ways of working, team configurations, and past loyalties that might longer suit new circumstance.
2 – They need to confidently distance themselves from strong ‘belief groups’ so that they can allow novel solutions to emerge.
This belonging/un-belonging teeter totter requires leaders to address people’s very primal need to feel secure in disruptive situations. It requires leaders to foster both loyalty and the capacity to walk away from what no longer serves.
There are four key strategies leaders need to use to steer people through this element of Change Readiness:
Strategy 1 – Be mindful of your own emotions.
Change leaders need to master a skill called “being before doing”. Their own sense of belonging may be threatened. They need to tune into and regulate their own mental and emotional reactions to events. They have to take the time to look inside themselves and realize that they, too, may be feeling bitter about having to give up a model that had worked well for them.
Breath mediation is a powerful tool for this. By intentionally bringing our attention to the present moment we increase our awareness of all that is going on in and around us. This can be a state without immediate judgement that slows our brains from reacting impulsively, loosens our thinking and decision-making abilities, and provides the opportunity to assess different options without reaction.
Strategy 2 – Identify what people are seeking to preserve — and why.
Because each person can be as attached to their team as to family, and breaking them up can be as frightening, your team may not be able to focus on CTSQ and come up with the alternative solution designs. Leaders need to look beyond this resistance to or an inability to change and uncover the specifics of what people treasure and protect. This process will enable leaders to address and challenge deep loyalties with insight and respect.
Create conversations about the status quo and listen closely to your team. Have them describe what is working successfully and recognize the value of it to set the ground for explaining why change is needed.
Strategy 3 – Lead difficult conversations.
Leaders to not wait for resistance to raise its protests. Instead, they bring everyone together to have open discussions about the situation. Despite the initial awkwardness of these conversations, once attachments are named, team members will be able step through to detach their belonging, to “un-belong” and to be willing to move into a different future.
To help your team see not only what needs to change, but why it needs to change, you have to lead conversations that explore their personal and professional discomfort and help them see that as a necessary change companion.
Strategy 4 – Consider the price of change as well as the prize.
Each big change comes with a price tag. And because leaders are human, they may tend to overestimate the benefits and downplay the costs. Leaders need to set the context of the CTSQ, the potential redesign, and its impact on the whole business. The more vulnerably they admit to their own misgivings, sense of loss and even bitterness, this conversational sharing is what might at last enable the team to see that while for them it might mean losing valued habits, work patterns and even intimate connections, their sacrifice would benefit the business as a whole.
When you name and work with both the price and the prize you can build true belonging, not false loyalty.
EXERCISE 10.2 – Ready For CTSQ
Course Manual 11: Personality & CTSQ
Personality Types and CTSQ
Each person sees the world through a unique filter of their own values and experiences. As a result, different people can have completely different reactions to the exact same set of circumstances. One of the greatest challenges for a Leader is to recognize where each member of their team is at and adjust accordingly in order to optimize their performance.
Understanding each team member’s default style and approach allows a leader to look at situations through their team member’s lens, to develop a deeper understanding of how they might experience the situation.
Carl Jung provided a blueprint to understand human personality types and default way of reacting, and his model has been adapted many times into models that have made his ideas practical and useable. This level of understanding helps people avoid misunderstandings and negate issues before they arise. This can be a significant advantage during the stressful moments that CTSQ initiatives trigger.
McKinsey & Co. have probed how to make Carl Jung’s model relevant to today’s business challenges. Historically, the focus of leaders has been to maximize value for shareholders. To do this, leaders were planners who developed strategy and translated it into a plan; directors who assigned responsibility; and controllers who made sure everyone did what they should to minimize variance against the plan).
In McKinsey’s opinion the roles of leaders in the 21st century, in today’s complex business environment, need to focus instead on meaningful value with and for all ‘stakeholders.’ As you have likely seen in the media and business world, the definition of stakeholders has been expanding beyond shareholders to include customers, employees, partners and society as a whole. In this new thinking, everyone must feel they are winning. Otherwise, they’ll simply go elsewhere.
This new style of leader must take on four new roles when dealing with their team members. As you will see, you can rate them for their effectiveness in guiding CTSQ, whether it is viewed as Opportunity or as Conflict. These styles are the Visionary, Architect, Coach and Catalyst.
Visionary
As Visionaries, leaders need to shape a clear, compelling, and shared purpose and vision that resonates throughout their team and beyond. Rather than design this in the boardroom they need to develop it from input by people throughout the system offering ideas for consideration. The leader’s vision becomes an integration of others’ perspectives with their own original thinking. As Visionaries, leaders work with their teams to translate the vision into measurable outcomes and empower their teams to work towards those goals.
Architect
Once a leader has developed that clarity on what is to be accomplished, they need to act as Architects. Rather than developing action plans on their own, these leaders need to take on the more sophisticated role of designing the team itself, and then steering it to be able to continually plan, execute, and adjust flow of resources across shorter working cycles in pursuit of its stated objectives. This requires letting go of their own habits and limiting assumptions and beliefs in order to allow new forms of business and organizational models to emerge. These Architects create the space for their team to re-imagine how products might be produced, or how sales might be generated and so on.
Coach
As the Architect’s team members become empowered to achieve organizational goals, they need to focus their attention on developing greater business acumen, learning to think more strategically, and deepening their ability to collaborate. This is the next arena for their own professional development and role for their team.
Powerhouse Coach leaders do this through participating personally in a wide range of formal and informal learning initiatives. They encourage the same among their team members. They stimulate and evolve a culture of learning throughout their organization. They create environments where it is comfortable for others to experiment, and where their team members feel equally good about discussing what could go better and what went well. These Coach leaders also build coaching into their team interactions by asking more questions than proscribing solutions as they seek multiple perspectives to expand the solution alternatives and approaches.
Catalyst
Next, as Catalysts, leaders stimulate and ‘unleash’ energy throughout their team. They do this in four primary ways: by removing roadblocks that prevent their teams from bringing ideas to reality; by fostering connections across the organization to deepen support and involvement; by helping each team member to connect what they’re working on to the shared vision and aspirations; and finally, by encouraging an inclusive and welcoming environment where people on their team comfortably bring their authentic selves to the work and enable them to pursue the full range of their personal and professional aspirations.
As identified by McKinsey, these are four sequential and simultaneous roles that are critical to successful change leadership. While these can be thought of as roles, they are also skillsets that leaders themselves may or may not have developed during their professional growth.
Let’s explore these roles and skills in more depth so that you can uncover your natural leadership strengths and how they serve you during change initiatives.
The Visionary
Visionary leaders inspire others to consider new possibilities – challenging the status quo. The visionary creates a sense of belonging by helping their team unite around a common vision and purpose and creates a feeling of being connected to a higher calling. They are known for uniting their teams behind a strong vision for the future with a clear sense of purpose. Visionaries are able to visualize ideas in their minds and translate those visions into language which allows them to explain these ideas very clearly to others. This is critical in forming common goals in a team. This is the person you call first when you need to find a new direction or think outside the box.
EXERCISE 11.1 – Visionary Scoring
The Architect
Architect leaders are know for seeing potential where others see problems. They love to work out the kinks in logistical problems and excel in roles that allow them to design systems and processes that set teams up for success. With an eye for details and a keen mind for problem solving, this is the person you call when the system is failing. They see failures as ‘first attempt at learning.’ Since Architects create innovative solutions that make things run smoothly and help teams re-imagine how they work together, their challenge as leaders is to hand this activity off to their team rather than doing it all themselves.
EXERCISE 11.2 – Architect Scoring
The Coach
Coach leaders become known for bringing out the best in their teams. They love to gather everyone to the table to create solutions that work for everyone. Their ability to listen thoughtfully and ask questions encourages others to speak up. Coaches are highly skilled at guiding conversations without dominating them. They are curious and have strong communication skills. They often asking questions that challenge others to think more deeply and develop meaningful conclusions and solutions for themselves. By listening deeply, hearing what isn’t being said and guiding it to the surface for discussion without having to take over the conversation they become the person you call when you need support.
EXERCISE 11.3 – Coach Scoring
The Catalyst
Catalyst leaders “make things happen.” People speak of them as a change agent as they act as a spark for others to ignite their CTSQ initiatives. They inspire others to leverage their own unique talents and take bold action in using them. This energizes their teams and creates excitement about change. Though they remain constant in who they are, catalysts trigger change throughout their teams. Catalyst leaders love to explore the unknown without fear. They move forward during times of change with confidence and enthusiasm that encourages others to be bold. Their personal authenticity creates trust in their leadership. Being known for contagious enthusiasm, this is the person you call when you want to be inspired.
EXERCISE 11.4 – Catalyst Scoring
Which Approaches Are Critical For Change Leadership?
Because our patterns of behavior are natural to us, we often act out of habit. As a leader, understanding your primary approach as well as the primary approaches at play within your team is a critical component of successful change leadership.
For instance, when forming a new team, being able to articulate your natural patterns can accelerate the ability of the team to connect and leverage each-other’s strengths. It allows you to create deeper connections and understanding among team members, which while also understanding what impact each person’s style and actions may have on others and the work itself.
As mentioned above, one of the greatest challenges for a Change Leader is to meet each member of their team where they are at and adjust accordingly, and archetypes provide a blueprint to do so. This level of understanding can help to avoid misunderstandings or negate issues before they arise, which is a significant advantage during stressful moments.
It’s understandable how each of these archetypes have unique strengths that contribute to creating to successful change. While it is important to understand the strengths of your approach as a leader, it is equally important to be self-aware and understand how your approach can also derail things. Awareness is power. Understanding why these approaches both lead to success and obstacles can give you more control over how you affect and are affected by your team.
The Visionary With Unrealistic Ideas
A visionary leader can get stuck in the “idea phase”, constantly building on a grand vision for the future without deciding ‘enough’ and shifting to take action to make it happen. Eventually, these leaders can end up with unrealistic plans that frustrate their team and prevent change from happening. Visionaries who lack self-awareness tend to jump from idea to idea before tying up loose ends. This increases the stress for others who are not comfortable with change in the first place. Visionary leaders need to make sure to follow through with one plan, or phase of a plan, before starting the next. They need to communicate regularly with their teams to make sure nobody feels left behind or overwhelmed.
The Architect Who Is Frustrated
When the Architect leader is not at their best, they might become impatient with others who aren’t adapting quickly and devotedly to changes. Their dedication to excellence and self-starting attitudes makes them fast learners. When members of their teams aren’t so comfortable with change, those team members can develop feelings of resentment for their Architect leaders. Well-meaning Architect leaders may give succinct feedback based in logic and reason. They need to remember that others may operate on a more emotional level and feel discouraged by what they feel are criticisms rather than just information. Architect leaders need to remember that every member of the team has something unique to offer and do their best to express empathy with others who may be slow to adapt to new systems.
The Coach Who Steps In Without Asking
Coach leaders can solve complex problems. They tend to understand the people around them very well. However, this can create problems if they step in to fix things without asking if their help is wanted or actually needed or if they take action on behalf of others because they assume they know what needs to happen. What is meant to be helpful can actually make and Architect’s team lose confidence in their own abilities, because they might assume their leader doesn’t have confidence in their ability to work things out for themselves. A Coach needs be there to encourage others to do their best and support them as they figure things out, not to give them all the answers. Coach leaders need to try to step back and let their teamwork things out for themselves but communicate clearly that they are willing and able to offer assistance if it is needed.
The Catalyst Who Moves Too Fast
Catalyst leaders are known for being spark that can ignite big advancements in their teams. Their enthusiasm is often contagious. Sometimes, though, this enthusiasm can be overwhelming to people who are more hesitant to change. A Catalyst leader who is not at their best might be thinking “well, this is happening whether you’re ready or not.” This is likely to alienate your team and make team members feel like their discomfort doesn’t matter. To be an effective Catalyst leader, you should be mindful of team goals and do your best to sometimes let your personal goals take a backseat. By giving others the grace to adjust at their own pace, you minimize stress and instill trust in your leadership.
In order to successfully lead change, a leader must understand these four types of leadership, leaning into their strengths and being aware of their potential weaknesses, at the same time. It is important to understand your default approaches so that you can be aware of how you can affect the people around you and adapt it to increase their contributions to successfully challenging the status quo.
EXERCISE 11.5 – Four Types of Leadership
Course Manual 12: Uncovering Opportunities
CASE STUDY – US Workers Demand No Less Than $74K to Take a New Job
New York Post readers were informed that a December 2022 New York Federal Reserve Bank survey on inflation and labor uncovered American job hunters were expecting more money and didn’t want to take a new position for less than an average wage of $73,667. The figure was the highest salary expectation since the monetary authority began the series. The increase was most pronounced among workers under 45, as younger workers had looked for opportunities with greater flexibility and fulfillment amid the pandemic’s “Great Resignation.”… The average job offer amount nationwide had also jumped over a four-month period from $60,310 in July to a record $61,187 in November. … There were almost two job openings for every unemployed American at the start of 2023.
We’ve spent this workshop focusing on what is required to successfully challenge the status quo. Through the material and exercises you have looked at:
– What mindset is in place here: “Conflict or Opportunities”
– What are the opportunities for challenging the status quo?
– What are the success criteria and threats to CTSQ projects?
Historically challenging the status quo meant pro-actively providing alternative ideas for ways the company already operated. In some cases, you might have noticed a challenge in need of a solution. In other cases, you might have detected an opportunity the company could take to improve its processes. In more recent years CTSQ launched ideas for new industries, new businesses, new products or services, new competitors to go after neglected opportunities in existing industries. Each of those in turn opened the conversation about new ways of conducting every aspect of business which could lead to new sustainability, new scalability, new dominance by a company.
It’s time to develop your 30-Day Project Study Plan from the material you developed during this workshop in the following exercises.
– EXERCISE 1.1 – Profiling Your Organization’s Stage of Evolution
– EXERCISE 2.1 – Evaluate Your Organization’s Status Quo Bias Score
– EXERCISE 2.2 – Evaluate Your Organization’s External Status Quo Bias Score
– EXERCISE 2.3 – Evaluate Your Organization’s Internal Status Quo Bias Score
– EXERCISE 3.1 – Mastering Phases
– EXERCISE 4.1 – Drafting Your Message
– EXERCISE 5.1 – Company CTSQ Culture – Step 1
– EXERCISE 5.2 – What Can I Influence
– EXERCISE 5.3 – Company CTSQ Culture – Step 2
– EXERCISE 5.4 – Listing Potential Opportunities
– EXERCISE 6.1 – Team CTSQ Culture – Step 1
– EXERCISE 6.2 – What Can I Influence
– EXERCISE 6.3 – Team CTSQ Culture – Step 2
– EXERCISE 7.1 – Personal CTSQ – Step 1
– EXERCISE 7.2 – What Am I Already Skilled At
– EXERCISE 7.3 – Personal CTSQ – Step 2
– EXERCISE 8.1 – Loosening Up Your Inquiry Muscles
– EXERCISE 9.1 – Scared or Ready
– EXERCISE 10.1 – Rating Yourself
– EXERCISE 10.2 – Ready For CTSQ
– EXERCISE 11.1 – Visionary Scoring
– EXERCISE 11.2 – Architect Scoring
– EXERCISE 11.3 – Coach Scoring
– EXERCISE 11.4 – Catalyst Scoring
– EXERCISE 11.5 – Four Types of Leadership
EXERCISE 12.1 – Leverage Your Insights
We looked at the question of whether your organization views change as “Opportunity” or as “Conflict” from 10 different perspectives and did the same for your team and yourself personally.
These are the scores you gave in those exercises
Your organization’s Score: ______
Your team(s)’ Score: ______
Your personal Score: ______
We looked at the type of culture your organization has regarding change and did the same for your team and yourself personally.
Your organization’s CTSQ Culture: ______
Your team(s)’ CTSQ Culture: ______
Your personal CTSQ Culture: ______
We also examined your current type of leadership when it comes to Change and CTSQ projects and you rank ordered yourself between Visionary, Architect, Coach, Catalyst:
______
______
______
______
With all of those factors fresh in your mind, compile the lists you have created of which issue(s) you would like to focus on in your 30-day Project Study exercise with your team. The objective is to be able use each of these elements as a first pass in pulling your team together and achieving the design of a challenge to the status quo with all of their participation.
During the next 30 days you will be taking your team through the Learning Curve steps about CTSQ and the success factors and obstacles that you have become familiar with. They too, need to learn to evaluate the organization, the team and themselves for their readiness and capabilities to participate in change projects.
As explained in the last workshop, the 7 Steps of the Learning Curve are:
1 – Having a vision
2 – Encountering new possibilities
3 – Seeing the choices and deciding on one
4 – Turning attention and awareness
5 – Getting support
6 – Breaking through
7 – Celebrating success
As a team you’ll be able to discuss where you are in the Learning Curve and how to ease the growing pangs of CTSQ.
You will use the following steps:
Step 1: Assess existing driving forces that are affecting your business.
It is essential to share the organization’s challenges today with your team. That means giving them clarity about the driving force issues that have raised questions and challenges to employee recruitment, onboarding, performance and retention.
Step 2: Assess and analyze the current situation inside the organization.
Next, invite your team to ask and discuss “What may be the starting point for the potential transformation? What is working, what is not working in the processes and the activities of our employee-centric processes? Where are the current breakdowns and the breakdowns that can be anticipated?”
Step 3: Identify potential practices and structures to take into CTSQ projects.
Discuss with your team the need to create effective CTSQ projects to construct a future unlike the past.
Remember: Developing a change plan for CTSQ projects requires many layers of consideration. Planning must address change hesitance by members of the team as well as the encouragement to participate throughout the initiative. Understanding the potential impact of organizational and individual resistance to change is critical.
Nothing happens in CTSQ initiatives without change leaders first gaining buy-in at an individual level. As the leader, you need to create a plan for for yourself, your team, and others affected.
To loosen up your team members’ mindsets around CTSQ and participating in upcoming projects, take your team through the exercises you yourself are now familiar with:
– EXERCISE 1.1 – Profiling Your Organization’s Stage of Evolution
– EXERCISE 2.1 – Evaluate Your Organization’s General Status Quo Bias Score
– EXERCISE 2.2 – Evaluate Your Organization’s External Status Quo Bias
– EXERCISE 2.3 – Evaluate Your Organization’s Internal Status Quo Bias
– EXERCISE 4.1 – How Do You Personally Feel About Change
– EXERCISE 5.1 – Company CTSQ Culture – Step 1
– EXERCISE 5.3 – Company CTSQ Culture – Step 2
– EXERCISE 5.4 – Listing Potential Opportunities
– EXERCISE 6.1 – Team Culture – Step 1
– EXERCISE 6.3 – Team Culture – Step 2
On a macro level every participant will be involved throughout the project. However, individual experiences will vary due to the personality styles of each person and their fear of un-belonging. The results tracked need to include the degree of success you, as their leader, had in bringing everyone together to have open discussions about the situation and participate in the design and implementation of the initiative. Despite any initial awkwardness of these conversations, once attachments are named, team members will be able step through to detach their identity of belonging, to “un-belong” and to become willing to move into a different future.
Guide an open discussion about Belonging and Un-belonging as well as “What Can I Influence” in order to bring those issues into open conversation among the team. Shepherd those conversations with the materials of these exercises:
– EXERCISE 5.2 – What Can I Influence
– EXERCISE 6.2 – What Can I Influence
Identify which of your team members will need private discussions about the ideas and issues which become uncovered through these exercises. Schedule those discussions within 48-hours so the exercises are fresh in their minds.
Following up on your self-rating during manual 10, press your team to gather issues, and collectively develop the plan that would be required to formulate the CTSQ plan’s focus, research where necessary, gain support and design a plan. That plan needs to include how you will cover these elements:
1. Leading From “Why”
2. Risking Over-Communication
3. Making Change Fun
4. Making It Safe And Protect Your People
5. Acknowledging Anxiety — Spoken and Silent
6. Encouraging Smart Risk Taking
7. Nudging People into Discomfort
8. Appointing “Change Ambassadors”
9. Rewarding Brave Behavior, Not Just Results
10. Leading By Example — Risk Your Own Safety
You have all the materials you need to share with them to lead your discussions with them.
NO action will be taken beyond the planning stage. Your plan will be submitted 48-hours before the next workshop. In the following months that project will move into actual implementation steps. However, at this stage the focus for your leadership is on using the elements above to gain participation.
Take a look back at the Transformation Process we discussed last month.
IMAGE WDP2.12.2
As you see in that diagram, you can track that this Project Study incorporated the first four steps.
Step 1: Assess existing driving forces. It is essential to explore the organization’s context as our first step. That means gaining clarity about the forces that have created the situation and what impact those forces have on business operations moving forward. We include the future, to understand how our business strategy, structure, tools, and culture must be different for success.
Step 2: Assess and analyze the current situation inside the organization. Next, we will reflect and document your organization’s current state. What is the starting point for our transformation? What is working, what is not working. Where are the current breakdowns and the breakdowns that can be anticipated?
Step 3: Identify new practices and structures. Transformation requires new behaviors, tools, practices, ways of working, and more. Together we will discuss best practices, innovations, and fundamental shifts so that you and your organization can prepare for a future unlike the past.
Step 4: Develop a change plan. Virtual transformation requires many layers of change to the organization. Planning must address behavioral change for employees and leaders as well as the adoption of new ways of working. Understanding the impact of these changes on constituents, communicating what needs to be different, and building effective learning programs is critical.
IN COMING MONTHS… you’ll move your CTSQ project into implementation so that you can evaluate its results. This will enable you and your team to repeat the process in a more practiced manner on the next item you decide to pursue.
Your personal assignment is to take action on your Project Study, evaluate the progress you and your team make all the way through drafting a CTSQ plan. The experience of performing those first CTSQ steps needs be tracked and evaluated individually and discussed among the team to share and gain insights from each other’s experience. In a sense your leadership requires more effort at this stage, on the first effort, as you need to be transferring new learning to your team at the same time as you are evaluating everyone and each step’s progress.
There is no shortcut to these steps at this stage. The activities of CTSQ will become easier and more efficient with repetition.
Write these assignment steps on this month’s update of your 90-Day Plan Sheet.
Be sure your sheet includes the activities that carry over from the prior month.
CTSQ Guidelines
For your reference as you initiate the CTSQ project with your team, here are the steps you will all use challenge the status quo on the selected topic:
1. Identify an opportunity for change
Choosing what you want to alter is the first step in challenging the status quo at work. Although a corporation may have many opportunities for change, it is advisable to start by concentrating on one particular activity.
The ideal way to present your concept is as a positive improvement, whether you’re trying to fix an issue or enhance a company’s procedures. This mindset can assist you in coming up with a strategy for how you would change the business.
2. Perform research
You can conduct research after you’ve decided the procedure or practice in an organization you wish to alter. You may make a compelling case for management by investigating the potential of your proposal. If you’re thinking of challenging the status quo at your organization, consider doing some research in the following areas:
Company research: You can propose your proposal on the basis of practices used by other businesses that may be similar to your own.
Research in your sector: To learn how other businesses have handled a specific difficulty or procedure, look into how businesses in your industry handle similar processes.
Data Research: You can also compile information on the effects that following your idea might have. You may be able to persuade management to consider your proposal if you have data that demonstrates the beneficial impact your idea can have.
3. Ask for opinions about your idea
Next, you can get feedback on your concept from other employees at your organization. To gain insight into their viewpoints and worries, you can consult the workers whose positions would be most affected if the company adopted your suggestion. This might assist you in locating and resolving any flaws in your current concept.
Here are some more advantages of consulting other workers’ perspectives while you’re questioning the status quo:
• Measuring your idea’s acceptance among colleagues: You can learn more about how well-liked your proposal is within the organization by soliciting feedback from other employees. This can assist you in determining whether those whose jobs your plan might touch would support it in the long run.
• Taking a collaborative approach to changing the company: In some circumstances, an employee may hear your concept and recommend a more effective strategy. You may be able to work with others in your workplace in this situation to question the status quo.
Understanding the significance of your concept Finding out how valuable your idea is to other people in the firm can be done by asking their perspectives. When you pitch your idea to management, this can boost your confidence.
This stage should also give you and your team the chance to rank order the concepts that you and your team have the most power to influence and change.
4. Design an implementation strategy
Consider how you would implement the change in the organization before you propose your concept to the company’s leaders. Write a plan detailing how you would implement your idea at the organization after that. It can be easier to persuade others that your concept can be implemented if you use your study to develop a plan for modifying a company process.
During this phase of the process, you can also draft a brief elevator pitch for your concept. You may convince management of the value of your idea with a persuasive pitch supported by research and a straightforward execution strategy. As a result of your preparation, you may feel more assured when speaking with management.
The following steps will not be used in your Project Study this month, but are included here as reference:
5. Present your idea to company leadership
Finally, present your suggestion for a change in the organization using your research, the feedback of the employees, and your implementation strategy. To improve your chances of success, get ready to respond to any inquiries management may have regarding your proposal and make sure your presentation is delivered with assurance.
Increasing your awareness and understanding is the first step to becoming a proactive person and taking your business in exciting new areas. The ability to encourage others and engage in a two-way conversation with them as they adjust to internal or external forces of change is a quality that distinguishes great leaders.
Project Studies
Process Review:
It is essential to make the Quantum Leadership Program a top priority, committing the time, focus, and dedication required to succeed. The program should have a direct STRATEGIC impact on the future of the organization. The most effective strategy is to connect the Program to the company’s mission, purpose, value proposition, and organizational objectives.
At its most advanced degree, Quantum Leadership is intended to establish an enduring culture of strong employee recruitment, engagement, performance and retention.
What would be the compelling rationale for attracting growing leaders to the Program and satisfying senior management’s goals of stabilizing the organization?
The Human Resources Department is a key business partner in the decision-making process for investing in the development of leaders for the company.
Is the Quantum Leadership Program supported by HR? Is this program compatible with HR’s strategic and operational goals?
Project Study Exercises:
Project Study Assignments are to be fully implemented in each participant’s department., Complete a written summary of how that has been implemented, and your learnings, including what worked well and what could be improved upon, signed, and dated. Submit both the Summary, along with your tracking sheets via the client Support Poral, no later than 48 hours before the next workshop.”
**Keep a journal of your work to refer back to when you share your results with the group.
Awareness is the first step toward improving any aspect of one’s life and skills. The exercises in the workshop will help you become more conscious of your present understanding of what contributes to organizational leadership and personal practices.
Here’s how to do it:
1. For the coming month, keep the action tracking sheets with you.
2. At the start of each day, look at the topic areas and plan where you’ll use the material learned in the workshop.
3. At the end of each day, document how you used the topic and the result you obtained.
That is all there is to it. It is free and just takes a few minutes each day. You’ll have a list of most of your daily and weekly learnings at the end.
3. Share your results with your accountability partner throughout the month, and others in the group.
PROJECT STUDY ASSIGNMENT 2 – Add Your 30-Day’s Actions for Challenging the Status Quo to your planned activities for the coming month.
Each QLP participant will likely be working as a single-department representative. You should develop your next plan by consolidating the exercises done during the workshop and planning how those same materials will be shared with their team.
Review the following information and set your plan for the actions you’ll take in the next 1, 7, 14, 21, 28 days. Be sure to include how you will organize your information as it is collected, and how you will report the results at the next Workshop and make sure this part of the project study is operational. Each department will present its own report regarding their project progress.
The following Plan Elements should be developed:
– A list of what is to be accomplished
– A preliminary action plan sequencing that list
– Assignment (individually or as a group) to the items on the list
– Calendaring the items on the list
– Milestone dates and Deadlines for the activities on the list
After the workshop, review the plan with any team members you will be involving in the project to review and finalize the plan and any steps you’ll be assigning.
If your first 30-day plan is not complete, you will need to incorporate that into ongoing discussion with your HR Business Partner.
If it hasn’t already been completed, the QL Participant Team should decide whether or not to conduct a survey-guided assessment to identify the organization’s gaps and aspirations for improvement as well as its current conditions, needs, and problems. This should be done in consultation with the Senior Executive Sponsor and Human Resources. Such a survey will establish a “base-line” against which the Program results can be evaluated. It may take more than 30-days to implement this step. Progress will be reported at the next workshop.
You will have several steps to take in the next 30-days to set the foundation for the next month’s workshop:
Step 1 – Meet with HB Business Partner to begin discussions regarding The Organizational Situation Analyses. You will be seeking their explanations as to how the terms “recruit, onboard, engage, lead, retain” are currently used, if at all, by your organization’s senior management when discussing and managing employees.
Step 2 – Participate in HR Business Partner Education of the QLP Participants that will expand beyond the ‘data’ to the strategic thinking underlying the current metrics being used.
Once there is a thorough and comprehensive understanding, you and your HRBP will move on to the next step.
Step 3 – Collaborative Goal setting covering Organizational results and QLP Participant skills building targets, which may take place in multiple discussions over 30-days or beyond
FOR a typical organization this will take 3 hours over 30 days
PROJECT STUDY ASSIGNMENT 2 – Create Your Net 30-Day’s Actions Regarding Challenging The Status Quo
FOR a typical participant this will take 3 hours over 30 days.
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
More on Leading Challenging the Status Quo
https://haiilo.com/blog/change-management-definition-best-practices-examples/
https://hr.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/change_management_toolkit.pdf
https://catalystofawesomeness.com/leading-through-change/
More on The New Roles of Leadership
More on How to Get Your Team on Board with a Major Change
https://hbr.org/2022/08/how-to-get-your-team-on-board-with-a-major-change
More on Team Culture
6 Strategies for Helping Your Team Manage Change:
https://leadingwithtrust.com/2014/09/14/6-strategies-for-helping-your-team-manage-change/
Maintaining High Performance Teams During Change:
More on Resistance To Change
Understanding Why People Resist Change:
https://www.prosci.com/blog/understanding-why-people-resist-change
Resistance To Change In Organizations:
More on Why Change Efforts Fail
https://haiilo.com/blog/change-management-definition-best-practices-examples/
More on Change Readiness
https://www.pmi.org/learning/library/change-readiness-11126
Program Benefits
Human Resources
- Talent attraction
- Talent retention
- Employee engagement
- Morale improvement
- Employee development
- Learning acceleration
- Leadership excellence
- Workforce cohesion
- Stress reduction
- Career pathing
Management
- Stronger leadership
- Consistent leadership
- Shared vision
- Improved communication
- Empowered employees
- Increased collaboration
- Motivated staff
- Improved performance
- Reduced uncertainty
- Competitive advantage
Operations
- Expanded leadership
- Improved relationships
- Process improvements
- Deeper bench
- Team effectiveness
- Executional excellence
- Future readiness
- Happier people
- Talent advantage
- Reduced risk
Client Telephone Conference (CTC)
If you have any questions or if you would like to arrange a Client Telephone Conference (CTC) to discuss this particular Unique Consulting Service Proposition (UCSP) in more detail, please CLICK HERE.