#ChangeManagement

Aug 8

Defining Moments - Short, Memorable, and Meaningful Experiences

“Our lives are measured in moments, and defining moments are the ones that endure in our memories.” -Chip Heath & Dan Heath In The Power of Moments, Chip and Dan Heath talk about defining moments. A defining moment is a short experience that is both meaningful and memorable. We tend to remember flagship moments: the peaks, the pits, and the transitions. Peaks: Moments that make us feel engaged, joyful, amazed, motivated. Pits: Negative defining moments—moments of hardship or

Jun 2

How Steve Jobs Reframed The Competition To Rally The Troops

Photo: Screenshots of Apple 1984 Super Bowl TV Commercial I have been in companies that operated with an extremely competitive culture and mindset and worked alongside people who were hypercompetitive. In one instance, it became so competitive that a company was forced to cancel a fundraising event because employees had taken things too far the prior year. One of the techniques I’ve discovered to redirect and channel hypercompetitive employees’ energy is to get them to work T

May 11, 2020

3 Reasons Physical Offices & Face-to-Face Meetings Are Not Going Away

The traditional, physical office is not going away any time soon despite advances in technology allowing people to work remotely, either at a home office, coworking space, virtual office, or another remote location (such as a coffee shop, library, or bookstore). Similarly, face-to-face meetings will not disappear, even though we can use email, phone, text, or virtual conference calls to conduct business meetings. The COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic reignited the debate about

Nov 1, 2019

Pygmalion Effect – A Leader’s Attitude and Expectation Set the Tone

In the book, Extreme Ownership, Leif Babin (a U.S. Navy SEAL officer who was a SEAL instructor overseeing the Junior Officer Training Course in the Naval Special Warfare Training Center) shared a story about the performances of two boat crews during Hell Week. Boat Crew II (which dominated and had a strong leader) and Boat Crew VI (which came in last in almost every race and had an indifferent and inexperienced leader). A SEAL senior chief officer (one of the SEAL instructors

Dec 3, 2018

Layoffs (Usually) Don’t Work and Why They Harm More Than Help

“Layoffs are mostly bad for companies, harmful for the economy, and devastating for employees.” -Newsweek (2010) In December 2017, I (along with many of my colleagues) got laid off by the parent company that had acquired our smaller company in 2014. I think what struck many of us was that this larger company was (and still is) very wealthy and extremely profitable (constantly emphasizing this point in their town hall meetings) and they repeatedly reassured us that our jobs wo

May 1, 2018

Why Organizations Need More Star Followers and Less Yes People

Many of us miss a key point about the importance of followership. Indeed, most people hold a negative view of followership (Kelley, 2008). They can’t imagine anything good or positive that might come from the role of a follower. However, conversations about leadership must include followership “because leaders neither exist nor act in a vacuum without followers” (Kelley, 2008, p. 5). To me, there can be no leader if there are no followers, and people will not follow you if yo

Dec 1, 2017

Book Review: Awaken, Align, Accelerate by MDA Leadership

Awaken, Align, Accelerate (2011) is a leadership development and coaching guide from MDA Leadership Consulting. The book harnesses “the art and science of developing leaders into a unique collection of self-assessments, development suggestions, case studies, sample leadership development plans, coaching recommendations, and cross-cultural coaching tips” (Nelson & Ortmeier, 2011, p. 1). MDA Leadership’s Awaken, Align, Accelerate is a big book. But once you flip through its bra

Aug 13, 2017

The Many Benefits of Coaching Employees

“Coaching is helping another person reach higher levels of effectiveness by creating a dialogue that leads to awareness and action.” -Brian Emerson and Anne Loehr “When an employee has the skills and ability to complete the task at hand, but for some reason is struggling with the confidence, focus, motivation, drive, or bandwidth to be at their best, coaching can help.” -Brian Emerson and Anne Loehr In the classic coaching book, Coaching for Performance (2009), the late John

Jul 2, 2017

Book Review: The Leadership Challenge, 6th Edition

[Note: This post was updated July 2020 for freshness & clarity.] “The notion that there are only a few great people who can lead others to greatness is just plain wrong. Likewise, it is wrong to suggest that leaders come only from large, or small, or already great, or new organizations, or from established economies, or from certain industries, functions, or disciplines. The truth is leadership is an identifiable set of skills and abilities that are available to anyone.” -Jim

Mar 7, 2017

How To Manage A Team That Keeps Growing

Athletics carrying a crew canoe over heads | Credit: Clerkenwell I was contacted by a freelance writer working on a blog post for the project management platform, Wrike, for my thoughts about how you manage a team that keeps growing. Question: What are some notable differences between leaders of small teams (let’s say 10 people and under) and leaders of large teams (100 people and over)? I’m sure there are numerous differences in the way they should communicate, delegate, etc

Feb 1, 2017

Reasons Why People Resist or Support Organizational Change

“Change can generate deep resistance in people and in organizations, thus making it difficult, if not impossible, to implement organizational improvements.” -Thomas Cummings & Christopher Worley Oreg, Vakola, and Armenakis (2011), in their 60-year review of quantitative studies involving change recipients’ reactions to organizational change, discovered that recipients’ reactions to organizational change involve cognitive (what they think), affective (how they feel), and behav

Jan 4, 2017

Results-Only Work Environment (ROWE)

Much of the original research on Results-Only Work Environment (ROWE) came from the field of sociology. Two sociologists from University of Minnesota’s Flexible Work and Well-Being Center, Dr. Phyllis Moen and Dr. Erin Kelly (Kelly is now at the MIT Sloan School of Management), were the original researchers invited in 2006 to observe and study ROWE as it was being implemented at Best Buy (Flexible Work and Well-Being Center, 2015). Background of ROWE Results Only Work Environ

Dec 3, 2016

Characteristics of a Team and Barriers to Effective Team Functioning

Before delving into the barriers of an effective team, you must first understand the difference between a team and a group: “The distinction between a group and a team is an important one. All teams are groups, but not all groups are teams. A group consists of people who work together but can do their jobs without one another. A team is a group of people who cannot do their jobs, at least not effectively, without the other members of their team” (Spector, 2012, p. 303). A tea

Oct 12, 2016

Don’t Waste Time Trying To Discredit Others

Whether in my personal or professional life, when I observe myself and others around me, one of the biggest personal and professional missteps I witness is being a blocked learner. More than blocking learning, I think of it as repelling learning — as if it were a mosquito or bug. On professional networking sites (e.g., LinkedIn), I now observe, much to my dismay, individuals going out of their way to put other people down and/or intentionally trying to harm other people’s pro

May 9, 2016

The Link Between Industrial-Organizational Psychology, Organization Development, & Change Management

[Note: This post was updated February 2022 for freshness & clarity.] I often find people confusing and commingling the terms “organization development” and “change management”, even I-O psychology experts and authors. To set the record straight and help clear up this persistent and ongoing confusion, I offer this post on the link between Industrial-Organizational (I-O) Psychology, Organization Development (OD), and Change Management. One problem is that different people defin

Jun 5, 2013

Locus of Control: Stop Making Excuses and Start Taking Responsibility

[NOTE: This post was updated June 2020 for freshness & accuracy] In my former career as a mental health counselor, I encountered many clients who struggled with taking charge of their own lives. While their struggles might have differed, the idea behind helping them was almost always the same, and quite basic. We’re taught to guide clients from seeing themselves as being victims of life’s circumstances to being movers of those life events. In other words, help clients reach d

Feb 5, 2010

Implementing Change and Overcoming Resistance

[NOTE: This post was updated November 2016] In “Leading Change,” John Kotter (1996) outlined an 8-Stage Process to Creating Major Change: Establish a Sense of Urgency: Examine market and competitive realities; identify and discuss crises, potential crises, or major opportunities Create the Guiding Coalition: Assemble a group with enough power to lead the change; get group to work together as a team Develop a Vision & Strategy: Create a vision to help direct the change effort;