LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT: CHANGE: Communicate! Communicate! Communicate!
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We live in a time where change is the only constant. The current depth, breath and speed of change are unprecedented. In today’s organizations those who are in leadership roles are operating further and further from certainty. Swamped with change, opinions, constant new information and more diversity amongst all stakeholders, communication has become very difficult. In this environment, organizations have to cope with larger, faster and different flows of information. Uncertainty and disagreement about roles, responsibilities and outcomes are rising to critical levels. This all adds up to anxiety and fears about individual security. How do you get everyone to better understand this environment? Over communicate! Good communication in our changing world is like writing in the snow. You’ve got to keep repeating the message over and over and over again.
Quoting Alan Webber, former editor of the Harvard Business Review, “The most important work in the new economy is creating conversations.” The free flow of information must be a paramount concern during all stages of management. “If a company is going to win against its competitors, everyone in the organization must know what they are aiming to achieve” a quote from the book The Leadership Engine. Quite often the seller or customer does not know exactly what they need at the start of a new product. A reason for this is that new product development is an evolving process in which features and functions are more clearly understood as real applications are experienced. Satisfying the customers' desires and needs has resulted in countless improvements to products. Lack of a solid understanding of the market by the seller has also caused products to fail with changes being required after the initial product is released for sale.
The length of the average development cycle often in and of itself renders the product obsolete or at the very least does not meet current expectations by the customer. Global competition can also quickly provide the impetus for changing the product. Additionally, as more people see, touch and use the product, more applications are often discovered requiring a slight change or tweak to occur. Even after a new product has been “successfully” introduced, unforeseen fit, form and function problems can appear which will quite often require a painful and expensive change to the product. The bottom line is this; many different types of change will bring about chaos in the development of new products: however, good and pervasive information flow will greatly minimize much of the chaos experienced during new product development.
Just about every member of the modern organization can identify with the concept of “chaos” without a moment’s hesitation. Chaos is the form of change that has become part and parcel of our daily work experience. As a result of technology and the globalization of markets, change is no longer a controlled occasional event; it is now a constant condition. In today’s world we can no longer hope to manage change. We must become comfortable living and working in an environment of chaotic and ongoing instability, which much of the time offers us no fixed horizon. This creates high levels of anxiety within a great many organizations and their people.
The prized worker of today is one who learns quickly and continuously, who works collaboratively, and who is comfortable in an environment of experimentation and risk. The new “knowledge workers” perform their work largely without supervision, and are those individuals who are engaged in collaborative efforts and do so as members of networked self-organizing teams. Knowledge workers are generally more devoted to their professional activity or project activity and accomplishments, than they are to the organization they belong to. Contributing to the success of a new product is the development of a knowledgeable and focused “networked project team.” As I see it, indeed, the metaphor of the Information Age is the “network.” The great revelation behind the network metaphor is that we don’t lose our individual identity when we combine our strengths and work collaboratively. We in fact learn to depend on our ability to build networks of relationships that have impact on the outcome of our contribution. Exceptional communication skills and the ability to deal with change become key attributes in our tool kit of core competencies when working within a network structure.
Change of all kinds – economic, social, cultural, technological, and political – is happening at an accelerating rate. Dealing with change is becoming much more than a quickly moving serial process along a well-defined path. Change constantly comes at us from many different directions. In a high performance organization, change can look like and feel like a Forth of July fireworks display. I like to call the pace of change in which we now find ourselves “a hyper change environment.” The change process starts off as a powerful rocket shot high into the air. This is followed by a big explosion, which in turn sprays several multicolored (multi-change) bomb bursts out in several directions. Each one ad’s up to a fantastic display of simultaneous and often revolutionary change actions.
Change can exhibit itself in many different forms and in many different ways. A thing, system, process, etc., can be altered, converted or replaced by giving it a different form through transformation, reengineering or reinventing. The reason for change occurring can also be reactive or proactive. The point being, change has become our constant companion in many different forms and from many different directions. Those people and organizations that can develop the capacity to undergo spontaneous change will most likely be the ones who will be best prepared for the future.
To complicate matters, much of the future is clouded with a high level of ambiguity. That is, the relentlessly increasing complexity of the change process does not allow for a well-defined decision-making framework or theory to evolve. It’s not a simple matter of picking the right choice as much as it is picking the best interpretation, of what will most probably occur. Unclear and lacking clarity of meaning, obscure, hidden, vague or a lack of definite form, uncertain, doubtful of the outcome, and susceptible of multiple interpretation, all describe the essence of ambiguity. This does not sound at all like an environment in which successful people or organizations can operate. Yet this in fact is where we find ourselves as we move into the next century.
As a leader, a highly developed sentient skill will be critical as you deal with change and ambiguity. Having a keen perception of what’s going on and experiencing the feeling and flow of the organization and how it is reacting to its environment will be key attributes of the new leader. In his book Empires of the Mind, author Denis Waitley explains it this way. “The new leaders actually benefit from change. Like surfers, they ride the waves, using their power to take them where they want to go. Rather than trying to resist change, they seek harmony with it.” Do organizational members communicate with a pattern of language from the heart, which produces both the satisfaction of the individual and the accomplishment of the mission or objectives required of the organization?
The leader will have to develop his or her “intuitive intelligence” to the point where it successfully complements their logical or reasoned thinking. Their hunches and gut feelings will play an important part in providing fresh and personal perspectives to the problem solving and decision making process. Intuition, visioning, perception, dynamic response, face-to-face communication and implicit insight are all key skills or tools which can greatly reduce the stress of indecision brought on by ambiguity. The leader of the 21st century works in a world of possibilities not in a world of absolutes. A leader’s communication style in the way he or she acts or responds is also important. Most often leaders must appear to be precise in an environment of imprecision because most people expect leaders to lead.
A challenge for the leader is to gather in every way possible, enough information so he or she can develop a context of knowledge and meaning, which will help, produce the best possible management solution for the situation. This is not a precise process, which explicitly identifies a list of possible decisions, but rather a constant gathering of knowledge so it can be used to help make the gut feeling decisions required in response to a constantly changing environment. The above approach suggests that the best path or course for leadership behavior and organizational structure is the “pluralistic model.” That is, a constant dependence on lots of different perceptions by all stakeholders on a continual basis. This is truly a reflection of the world we live in and the world successful businesses thrive in.
A cursory look at virtually any organization will reveal that the internal environment of the organization is made up of a complex mix of its strengths and its weaknesses. These strengths and weaknesses are affected by a variety of different aspects. These include but are not limited to: purpose (the mission, goals and objectives), structure, roles, processes, competencies, attitudes and behaviors. These all help produce an organizational work culture. Additionally, the products or services the organization provides also have an affect on the internal complex environment of an organization. Adding to the internal complexity are the outside opportunities and threats that continually impact the organization. These include: new knowledge, emerging trends, government policies, markets, practices, technologies and global competition. All of the above complexities push an organization to constantly re-position and reorganize itself.
Grudgingly or simply out of habit it appears that most organizations try to react to their ever-changing complex environment using linear industrial age thinking. This normally means trying to make the organization a smooth running machine. Get the systems, processes and incentives right, get the strategic plan, policies and job descriptions in place, get the financials in order – and everything will be just fine. Typically, management tries to fix a part or parts of the organization, thinking all will be well. Often parts are fixed and not even communicated to the rest of the organization. When you don’t give people information they make up their own. When a top-down hierarchical process, through decisions developed behind closed doors is the only means used to drive significant change, people don’t feel included, empowered, confident or inspired. Doubt will be present, rumors will be spread and people will be highly anxious about what they already perceive to be an already uncertain future. People are left wondering what was done, why was it done and puzzled at the fact they were not asked if the change was expected to have any affect on their piece of the action.
It is almost impossible to make change happen unless people understand what’s going on and how they can impact change in a positive manner. Most if not all of the time when a part of the organization is “fixed” it has a ripple effect on other parts of the organization creating new problems elsewhere. Also, the tendency of most organizations is to use only their existing strengths to fix problems and then quickly seek the comfort of stability. However, one of two situations normally occurs. Either the organizations is so tightly structured that it can’t react or it is so chaotic that it can’t react. Typically the next move is to call an outside consultant.
Because of this use of old thinking to deal with new problems I believe many organizations are at the critical crossroads of determining and understanding how they will work successfully in the future. It appears the major roadblock to accepting or understanding the new paradigm, is that organizations and their collective people do not truly understand the internal and external environments in the information age. It is as if the organization is trapped in a twilight zone. The new way of organizing for the future has not unfolded and in most instances can barely be discerned and yet the past way of organizing is for the most part not working very well.
Many people and organizations feel trapped in uncertainty between the old linear world and the new world of chaos. Partly to blame for this condition is the fact that collectively we fail to remove the filters that screen out reality. Most organizations not wanting to face reality continue to cling to the rigid structure of the organizational chart. They believe that if they simply rearrange the chart that will foster increased productivity, redirect responsibility and improve the financial picture.
As Michael McGill states in his book American Business and the Quick Fix, “Managers need to focus on what employees do instead of where on the organization chart they do it.” It seems as if we are continually searching for the one right organization, the silver bullet organization. We want quick solutions to today’s problems not stopping to realize that most often, today’s solutions become tomorrow’s problems. We fail to realize that there are no quick fixes to complex problems. The truth is, the complex problems will continue, and a rigid or traditional organizational structure won’t fix it. The ultimate Swiss army knife that claims to do everything does not exist when it comes to an answer for organizational structure, explaining organizational behavior or the intricate workings of individuals or teams. There are no panaceas. What must be done however is continually search for new ways of doing both old and new things.
Einstein said that no problem could be solved from the same consciousness that created it. This says to me, you must step out of what you are currently thinking and doing in order to see things with a fresh image. The quintessential act of organizational change or rethinking leadership is the act of changing our minds and hearts, or more to the point, changing the mind and heart of the leader and of each member of the organization. When I step back, I see that now and in the future a winning strategy will require the generation and sharing of great amounts of knowledge from both inside and outside the organization. The essential “substance” of the organizational enterprise will be human thought, influenced by a totally shared information flow. To quote Bob Noyce, co-founder of Intel and the integrated circuit, “knowledge is power and knowledge shared is power multiplied.”
Leaders need to develop a high degree of appreciation for the intangible knowledge captive in the minds and experiences of those they lead. The essence of knowledge sharing is open and honest communication. Communication is the key because it is involved in all human relations. Keith Davis states it well in the Articulate Executive “Communication is the nervous system of any organized group, providing the information and understanding necessary for high productivity and morale.” Now and in the future, the creative use of information will be the load-bearing structure of the organization.
Passionate communication by the leader is important because it persuades. Success will be measured on how extensive the organization's communication and information networks have permeated the very heart and soul of the organization and its individual people. This too is at the core of developing an effective new project team. Information will dictate the structure and success of the team. I am reminded here of the feelings expressed by John P. Kotter, in his book Leading Change. “People will not make sacrifices, even if they are unhappy with the status quo, unless they think the potential benefits of change are attractive and unless they really believe that transformation is possible. Without credible communication, and a lot of it, employees’ hearts and minds are never captured.”
There will not be one right way to organize. Every organization will dictate some change of its individual makeup and process to best address the objective. Information flow from outside and within will be key. How well all members of the organization are networked to outside agencies and networked among themselves will determine success. A new leadership style will be required, one that understands and fosters the importance of people, passion, relationships, information, and networking. Leadership must understand that in addition to communication being used to inform, communication is also the life blood of a groups relationship building ability and an important factor in how a group “networks in, new members” as the organization changes.
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