Inspiring business change

Getting your people to think and act differently

Sharon Varney

Overview

Trying to separate leadership from change is like trying to separate a flavour from the food. In an ever more dynamic working world, leadership and change are intertwined. Leading change has become an essential part of every leader’s day job.

The easy part of leading change is developing the new strategy, designing the new structure, introducing the new system or recruiting the new people. The hard part is inspiring people to change by getting them to think and act differently. It is about changing mindsets, behaviours and culture. If you fail to achieve that, then the hoped-for benefits will never be realised.

What makes changing mindsets, behaviours and culture so difficult is that you cannot simply tell people what to do. It does not work. Even if you are in charge, the make it so approach will not give you the results you are looking for. And it might even give you some that you would rather avoid. Nor can you just sell the idea and expect people to buy into it wholesale. Instead, you have to inspire change.

While the ability to inspire change is fast becoming a critical success factor in every leader’s role, not every leader feels ready or able to fulfil that part of their job description.

Partly, this is due to a common misconception that inspiring leaders possess traits that others do not, like exceptional amounts of drive, intelligence, charisma or self-confidence. The underlying assumptions are that inspiring leaders are few and far between, and that they are naturally endowed with certain characteristics that are enjoyed by only very few people.

That way of thinking about leadership is old thinking. It is tied up with stories of heroic leaders fronting the charge into battle against their enemies. But such ideas are vastly out of step with today’s more complex working world, which increasingly demands a more multi-faceted and engaging leadership approach.

Today we cannot rely on just a few heroes. Instead, leadership is about everyday inspiration. And the good news is that you can inspire change without having to jump into your superhero costume on the way to the office.

This book will help you to become more effective at inspiring change. First, it will clarify the leader’s role in inspiring change. Next, it will introduce you to the five steps of inspiring change – starting with yourself. Then it will help you to understand what actions you can take to inspire change more broadly, like ripples on a pond.

Context

When it comes to change, many organisations get it badly wrong. Too often, they spend the majority of their time and resources on designing the change. Then they allocate whatever is left over to implementation. Yet, implementing change is the most difficult – and the most vital – part of the process. It needs to be taken seriously. For, if the implementation fails, the organisation will incur all the costs of change without realising the intended benefits.

Leaders like you often find themselves thrust into the role of implementing change. They are expected to inspire people to think and act differently with little help or guidance on what that means. Typically, they feel ill-informed about what is going on and ill-prepared to take charge. To make matters worse, the implementation phase is frequently shoe-horned in at the very end of the project plan. So, those who are charged with implementing change, often find themselves short of time and critical resources.

To make matters even more challenging, teams often expect great things from their leaders. They demand transformational heroes who can single-handedly solve intractable problems. As people struggle to cope with volatile and uncertain times, their demands on those in charge – that is you, by the way! – can become particularly unrealistic. By placing unreasonable expectations on their leaders, followers are absolving themselves from having to think and act differently.

So, there you are, sandwiched between the conflicting demands of those above and below you in the organisational hierarchy. Your managers expect you to inspire change by getting people to think and act differently, whilst your team members expect you to inspire change by solving thorny problems for them, so they don’t have to think or act any differently.

Now, let us turn to your own expectations. Often, leaders have unrealistic expectations of themselves. The idea of inspiring change can easily polarise people. Those who are awed by images of hero leaders tend to underestimate their own abilities, whilst those who buy into it tend to be bullish about their own abilities, but underestimate the task.

If you are questioning whether you have what it takes to inspire change or you find yourself on the receiving end of unrealistic and conflicting demands, then read on. This book will demystify your role in inspiring change and help you understand how to get people to think and act differently.

Challenge

It is much easier to tell others what they should do than it is to change ourselves. But, inspiring change starts with you. If you really want others to think and act differently, it is the only possible place to start.

We have each built up a lifetime of habits and beliefs. While they may have served you well in the past, as a leader it is time for a reappraisal. If you change who you believe you are, then it will become easier to change your actions in line with those new beliefs.

Changing yourself can be exciting, but it can also be a daunting prospect. As a leader, caught in the spotlight of other people’s attention, changing yourself means changing in public. People are watching and listening to what you do and say.

Breaking habits is not just a challenge for individuals. Organisations also find it difficult to break out of established and, hitherto, successful routines in order to develop new ones. Organisational routines are patterns of behaviour that are repeated and they are often seen as a source of stability in organisations. Formal routines might include standard operating procedures. These are probably the easiest to change because writing them down makes them formal and explicit. But many organisational routines take the form of informal patterns of behaviour, which are not written down or discussed. An example of an informal routine might be a tradition of bouncing decisions up the organisational tree.

Informal routines often are intertwined in formal ones. So, if your mission is to change formal processes, procedures or ways of working, you will, almost certainly, bump into some informal routines along the way. It is important to look out for them.

Key leadership approach

Step 1: Be the change you wish to see

Mahatma Ghandi reputedly said, ‘Be the change you wish to see in the world.’ What Ghandi was explaining was that, as a person changes themselves, other people’s attitudes will change towards them.

In essence, this powerful idea means that, if you want to inspire change, you need to start by changing yourself. Your aim might be to get those in your team to think and act differently. You may have your sights set on change in the wider organisation. Or, perhaps your aspiration is to create change in the wider world. Whatever your level of ambition, inspiring others to think and act differently starts with you.

And what that means is that, if you want others to think and act differently, then you will have to change, too.

If you want to change yourself, you need to know yourself. Knowing yourself is at the heart of what is called authentic leadership. Simply put, authentic leadership is about inspiring others by being more yourself as a leader. This view of leadership is not about trying to wriggle into an ill-fitting ideal about what a leader should be like. It is about developing a clear leadership style that is unique to you and that convinces others to trust and follow you.

Professors Rob Goffee and Gareth Jones pose a crucial question about leadership: Why would anyone want to be led by you? Their research reveals that inspirational leaders have four qualities:

1. They show vulnerability by revealing some weaknesses.
2. They read people well and sense underlying currents of opinion.
3. They practise tough empathy – balancing respect for the individual and for the task.
4. They capitalise on their uniqueness.

Goffee and Jones tell us that the big challenge facing prospective leaders is to be themselves, but with more skill.

The basis of developing your authentic leadership style is to understand your personal leadership vision. These ten questions will help you to develop your ideas:

1. Which values do you refuse to compromise?
2. What is the single most important thing to you?
3. What makes you distinct as a person?
4. What are five words or phrases people would use to describe you?
5. How comfortable are you with who you are?
6. What makes you distinct as a leader?
7. What are five words or phrases people would use to describe your leadership style?
8. How do you want to treat people?
9. What contribution do you want to make as a leader?
10. What do you wish to be known for? And what do you want your legacy to be?

Write down your personal leadership vision. Then get to know it and use it to guide you in leading change. You could think about it as your personal leadership compass, helping you to steer on the stormy seas of change. Ask yourself which aspects of your leadership vision are more vital in making a particular change successful. Which aspects do you need to develop? Expect to revisit and evolve your vision. You will develop more clarity over time as you put it into action. Share your leadership vision with people you want to inspire. If they understand your guiding principles, they may be more willing to follow your example.

Step 2: Inspire a shared vision

The second step of inspiring change is about your team. You may lead a team of direct reports, or you may lead a project team with a dotted line reporting relationship. Perhaps you do both.

With a team of direct reports the tell style may get you off the starting blocks with change because you are in a position of authority. But it is unlikely to get you very far. Telling people to think and act differently does not get beneath the surface of compliance. Nothing fundamentally changes, so new behaviours can fall back quickly into old habits.

Instead of telling people what to do, you need to inspire them to think and act differently. This is about influence rather than authority. It is about leadership rather than management. It is about getting underneath the skin of compliance and tapping into people’s motivations to engage them in change.

Each time you embark on a change process, note down a list of all the people you need to inspire to think and act differently in relation to that change. Then, for each person on your list, assess (i) how important they are to the success of this change (low-medium-high), and (ii) how engaged they are in this particular change (low-medium-high). Your highly important people are the most critical. You will need a strategy to get them and keep them highly engaged.

According to leadership gurus Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner, a key task for leaders is to inspire a shared vision. A good place to start is with the personal vision that you began to shape in Step 1.

Once you have developed your personal vision, you can begin to share it with your team. Do not fall into the selling trap – see potential pitfalls, below – by formally presenting your vision. Instead, take an informal approach by introducing elements from your personal vision into conversations with team members. As you share your vision, notice how it is landing. What grabs people? What do they have energy for? What questions do they ask? Each person is inspired by different things, and you need to find out what those things are.

Sharing your personal vision is a catalyst in inspiring a shared vision. You can use it to stimulate conversations about the hopes, dreams and aspirations of the people you want to lead. So, invite people to comment, ask questions and to share their thoughts. What ideas does it provoke for them? What feels inspiring or engaging for them? What could make it even better?

After a series of conversations, you will have a better idea of the hopes and aspirations of team members and the potential points of connection with your personal vision. If you used your vision to stimulate reflection, then each team member will be better connected with what is important to them. This is a good time to work together to try and articulate a shared vision that is inspiring for everyone.

It is important to get creative with the design of that session. Creativity can tap into what is important to people. Two useful approaches are:

• picturing your shared vision
• reporting your shared vision.

Whichever approach you choose, start by setting a date in the future where you want your vision to be a reality.

Step 3: Get people to join you on the journey

Creating a shared vision with your team is just part of the story. Change today is a complex endeavour. More than ever before it requires multiple, interdependent efforts and mutual adjustments, all of which must happen at the same time. Step 3 considers how to create ripples of change beyond your immediate team by getting people to join you on the journey.

Getting others to join you on the change journey involves finding the right people to engage with; forming relationships with them; and then building high-performing networks. It can be summarised as:

1. Choose your partners.
2. Develop your partnership.
3. Join the dots.

Step 4: Accentuate the positive

Anyone who embarks on change has set out on a journey into the unknown. Getting people to think and act differently is an unpredictable process that probably will take some unexpected twists and turns. Surprises are common during the dynamic patterning of change. So, before you can accentuate the positive, you have to understand what is changing.

Not knowing where you are can feel like shifting sands. People tend to want certainty, even in change, where the reality is often a dramatic increase in uncertainty. As a leader, people will look to you for assurance.

You need to keep people with you on this journey into the unknown. A key task, therefore, is to make sense of where you are on a regular basis. This involves paying close attention to the wider organisational context, by looking out beyond your immediate team and trying to scan across the whole organisation for the patterns of change that are playing out.

You will not have all the answers here, and nor will anyone else. But everyone who is involved will have a piece of the puzzle. Make the most of that by getting people together and inviting them to share their perspectives. Ask them what they have noticed that is new, different, surprising or unexpected. They might tell you about people flocking to join, or leave, a particular team. Perhaps they have noticed more rumours flying about. Or they might share how they are feeling about senior managers’ preoccupation with xyz. So capture all those snippets and look for patterns.

Raise your horizons beyond the confines of the particular change you are working on, and beyond the particular team you lead. You are searching for changes in the organisational context that might impact – positively or negatively – on your own particular field of focus.

Watch closely for the positives. When you notice something working, where people are beginning to think and act differently, pay close attention and learn what is going on right there. Then, just like the song says, you have to accentuate the positive, latch on to the affirmative and spread joy up to the maximum, if you want to inspire a ripple effect of change.

This approach to change is informed by positive psychology, which suggests that positive emotions are associated with greater curiosity and exploration, greater willingness to accommodate ambiguity or uncertainty, and higher team performance. It recognises people as resourceful and adaptive rather than resistant to change. Highlighting the positive can help people build on their strengths to create change.

So try and catch people doing something right. And, when you do, find out what made that possible. What was it about them that made that behaviour possible? What was it about their context that made it possible? What was it about the systems and processes that made it possible?

When you learn what is going right, you want to create the conditions to amplify that behaviour and encourage it to spread. There are many actions you, personally, can take. You can recognise and reward behaviours that you would like to encourage. Start with some personal recognition by saying thank you. You can create similar conditions elsewhere to encourage those kinds of behaviours to flourish. You can share stories about the positive difference and nudge people into adopting similar behaviours. As a leader, you can tag what is important and help focus attention on it.

But that is only part of the story. Behaviours often change virally across organisations through peer-to-peer influence. So, encourage the people involved to talk about what they are doing and to connect with others to share their stories. Find out who your informal change champions are and support them to widen their sphere of influence.

Step 5: Keep going

Do not stop now! Step 5 is not about sitting back and admiring the view. At Step 5 you need to keep going.

Keeping up the momentum is vital. In the early stages of change, it takes more energy to produce new behaviours or to adopt new ways of working, than it does to fall back into old habits. Old habits are comfortable and familiar, less demanding than thinking and acting differently.

Change guru John Kotter warns that failing to anchor changes firmly in the corporate culture is one of the key reasons that change fails. It is like declaring victory before the war is over. Instead, he tells us, you need to build on the change and make it stick. By all means, celebrate small successes along the way, but settling for too little too soon may mean that you lose it all.

As a leader, your job is to ensure that improvements are consolidated and change is integrated. You are trying to reach a tipping point, where there is so much momentum for the new ways of thinking and acting that it would take more energy to go back to old habits.

There is also a second sense in which you may want to keep going at Step 5. Going back to our ripple effect, you may want to inspire change beyond the boundaries of your immediate organisation. You might want to light fires and build momentum for change in sister companies, subsidiaries, partner organisations, suppliers, customers or in industry bodies.

There can be very good business reasons to do this. Your company might be part of a bigger group or you may need to work formally or informally with other organisations to deliver common objectives. Each organisation is part of a wider organisational system. Changing the wider organisational system helps to make change stick.

You can map out your organisational system using a mind map. Take a piece of paper and put your organisation in a circle in the middle. Draw branches out from that centre circle for group companies, partners, suppliers and customers. From the group companies’ branch, draw a branch out for each sister company, parent company or subsidiary. Now repeat the process for key partners, suppliers and customer organisations.

The tips and techniques you have already been using in Steps 1–4 will all serve you well here. But the way to create bigger ripples on the pond is to draw on your social networks to help you. Where do you start? Start where the energy is, by finding one person who is working towards a similar goal.

Success

Let us be very honest. Inspiring change is, undoubtedly, one of the hardest tasks of leadership. While it can be hugely rewarding, it can also be emotionally demanding. Success will build over time. So, you will need patience and resilience along the way.

Look after yourself. You are the instrument of change here and you need to look after that instrument. Your emotional, intellectual and physical well-being all matter. Neglecting them is a recipe for burnout. So, make sure you take care of body, mind and soul and find time to recharge your energies.

Here are ten useful tips:

1. Organise your diary to include time for reflection.
2. Practise mindfulness to develop inner awareness and self-knowledge.
3. Get a full night’s rest.
4. Eat well.
5. Drink a glass of water.
6. Move about more. Walk, dance, run, cycle, swim – whatever works for you.
7. Breathe deeply.
8. Listen to music.
9. Express your creative side.
10. Connect with people.

Everyone is different. So, find out what works for you – what rejuvenates and restores you to your best.

Checklist