A Simple Perspective on Incremental Change

 In daily life at home, at work, or in other places change can be brought about in small steps. Many a time we might dread "Oh how can I bring about change? It's too big an effort"Wanted to share that it's often the power of compounding that can come in handy. 

Take for example in any activity, task, or effort a 1% increment may be more achievable and reasonable to our mind. It can bring down the resistance in our minds drastically. If we make a 1% improvement every day take a guess how much improvement in output, effort reduction, and task completion can one achieve in a month. STOP !!! Don't read further but pause and make a guess before reading further.

If you guessed it's about a third or thereabouts you are perfectly right.

You can bring about a 33% improvement in about a month just by a small incremental change of 1% daily. That's something that we fail to imagine and often end up overamplifying the difficulty of achieving targets.

Visually shown in the chart above is a trend line with a 1% increment for each day and end of the month you are 1.33 times where you started. This kind of change in a month is the envy of many organizations and surely worth pursuing. 

So next time you are faced with an uphill task think about how you can break it up in small incremental steps and bring about a significant change.

Big Bang is not always the best approach, compounding power can come to your rescue many a time.

For the nay-sayers who say my work cannot improve by 1% per day, suggest you should take a shot with compounding by the week or even month and the effort will seem to roll like a well-oiled wheel.

Happy Festival Season !!

ARISE, AWAKE DON"T BE A BOILED FROG !!!

When change stares you in the face what do you do?   Depending on how you see change there can be two things that happen. You act on it or you let it go by.   To understand the implications better let us consider the boiled frog experiment.  Whether this was actually an experiment conducted in a laboratory or someone's kitchen should not be the point of debate. The issue is understanding change and how this is handled.  

In the boiled frog experiment you put a frog into boiling water and it reacts and jumps out instantly.  It survives.  However you put the frog into a vessel with cool water and slowly start heating the same the frog eventually dies.   The frog does not realize the change in temperature and snugly sits in the warming waters and eventually can't react and dies. 

In the same way it is important for us to understand the changes happening and know how they would affect us in the long run.  Else a day would come when it might leave you like the boiled frog.  Not understanding the deterioration of a condition and waiting without action is something we have seen often either in our lives or in the lives of people we know. 

In our personal lives it can be things like a vice which we could tackle saying "one more time" .... just "one more time" and then its done. By the time you want it "no more times" it is too late.   Similarly in professional life we keep procrastinating and pile up work or leave an issue unattended...day after day enjoying the comfort of warm waters.  We can end up like the BF.

How does one overcome and realize something is deteriorating.  There is no other option but to keep tab.  Which means focus on what you think is going on.  When you focus you are able to tune in to your situation and understand it better.  Read my blog on Focus:  What Gets Focus Gets Attention; What Gets Attention Gets Done.  So if you focus on the problem you have and try to understand you may do the right thing to address the same and give a miss to being the next boiled frog. 

The Quest for Delivering Lasting Change?

There is a saying that goes like this.... "Put a Changed Man Into an Unchanged Context and he eventually goes back to his old ways of doing things".  

 This is a paradox for trainers.  General quest for trainers is to see change come about. Their role is that of a change agent.  However the lasting change does not come by because of the above.   Which means... The trainers should understand the context from which the trainee (who you expected to change) came from and eventually went back to.  

Understanding the context and seeing that in light of the training is very important.  Therefore the role of the trainer is also to collaborate with the owner of the context (here it is the line manager)  to understand stumbling blocks as well as enablers for the desired change.  

For e.g. you wanted to make people more proactive through a training program.  However the situation on the ground once the trainee went back (here it is say one of the operations floor for customer X) was one where any hint at addressing something which was not raised as an issue by the client or any other stakeholder is not welcome and looked at with suspicion is a sure shot recipe for the trainee going back to old ways.   Why rake up issues, why search for embers to burn your feet... these are the kind of manifestations of feedback.

So what do you do?  Trainers can pass the baton to designers and say the context should be taken care of during design.  Yes but the product you create is what gets back to action in the context... (in example above it is the operations for Customer X) and it is in the trainers interest to work with the managers or leaders in the floor of operations for Customer X to see how people are encourage for being proactive.   The managers need to be sensitized that one has to encourage, reward, cajole people to be proactive just in case they have been so used to not being proactive and waiting for fires to be doused.

Operationally using Kurt Lewins - Force Field Analysis helps in identifying barriers to change and resisting forces and as a group the Trainers can work with leaders to eliminate the opposing forces.   Thereby it becomes a much easier task for trainers to achieve their goals of bringing about lasting change once the context issues have been addressed to facilitate changed behaviors. 

HOPE To Kindle OUR Lives !!!

There are optimists and there are others.  While one group sees it as light at the end of the tunnel and the other considers it as tunnel vision.  

 

The quotes below capture aspects that have to do with light at the end of the tunnel.

 

 

Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning.

- Albert Einstein

 

When we stop questioning learning stops and so does development. Imagine what would happen when a drug company stops asking questions about pain. Questions lead to answers and progress.

 

 

We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope. 

-Martin Luther King Jr. 

 

All the pools of disappointment will only dry away but the lake of hope is infinitely deep and wide.  You will always find if you look for it. 

 

 

Hope is a Talent Like Any Other !!

- Storm Jameson.

 

Might seem Strange but true, talent is something that helps us achieve and so does hope. Keeps the fires burning

 

Where there is no vision there is no hope

-George Washington

 

As this of any team that was dejected, that was lost, that was drifting and they had probably lost sight of their vision.

 

I am prepared for the worst, but hope for the best.

-Benjamin Disraeli

 

 

After all who does not want the BEST.  But Yet, Keep Your Plan B in Mind.

THE BYSTANDER PROBLEM IN ORGANIZATIONS

Ballu came over late afternoon.  Summer was now at its peak and the fellow generally lazed around my home most afternoon's.  The curtains were half drawn to prevent the scorching sun rays from heating up the room.  Ballu started off…yet another narration.

The year was 2005.On a crowded platform at a suburban railway station in Mumbai a huge crowd was waiting for the next local train to arrive.  A traveler was sitting on one corner filming the maddening pace of activity and the popular morning frenzy on the platform with his new camcorder.    People were anxiously peeping over the platform edge to see if the train was arriving.  And suddenly on the screen of the camera the traveler noticed a training arriving and one of the contraptions fitted to the train knocked down a man who was bending over to get a view of the train at the edge of the platform.  The man fell bleeding on to the platform.  The camera captured this silently and surely.   The filming continued.

 

Meanwhile the man lay there bleeding for several long minutes.  The man continued to film the busy platform, the fallen man and the several hundred people watching from the side lines.  The traveler must have captured over 15 minutes of recording after the incident.   No one seemed to come forward and attend to the injured man.   Finally help arrived more than half an hour later.  By the time the fallen man was taken to the hospital he had lost his life.  The bleeding was too much for him to survive.   Perhaps, if he could have been taken to the hospital earlier he might have been saved. 

“So what happened Ballu”, I asked.  “What are you trying to tell me?”

“Well, well”, said Ballu. “Several hundred people including the traveller who was filming the incident saw the man fall after being hit by the train… But No One Came forward to help”.

Staring at the window I asked, “So why didn’t anyone help”

“You see”, said Ballu,   “Each one thought that someone else would help the person and in the process no one actually went forward to help”   This is like a freezing point,  things just don’t move then.  Everyone thought that someone would come forward and no one thought that no one would come forward.   So the most important thing that needed attention went unattended.   This we call the “BYSTANDER PROBLEM”.

“Now tell me”, said Ballu “Does this happen in your organization too?”

“O I see”,   It began to dawn.   When at times we wonder why the same problem gets no attention.  It keeps lingering.   There is a lowering of morale due to issues not being addressed and month after month there is nothing done.   HR thinks ops will own and solve the problem,   Ops thinks someone else is there to address that problem,   and Managers think that team leaders will address the problem.   Team Leaders are just not sure who would take up the problem to address and so on a so forth.   Meanwhile employees start getting frustrated,  some quit and some start showing signs of slowing down and so on.  

Well it was getting terribly exciting …. How does one solve the BYSTANDER PROBLEM?  I shouted out.  

“Let me come back” said Ballu and ran away through the main door.   I was wondering and continued for a while.....  Was it the absence of people,  No.... I realized... it was the presence of people around that was the real problem.   Had the person shooting the film been the only one around would he actually have just stopped filming and started paying attention tot he injured man?

Lets address this issue in a later post.

A Sure Recipe for A Failed Change Effort

In one of the conversations I was having with a colleague he/ she asked "Why are these things changing so frequently, every now and then".   Cant' we have a permanent change once for all".... Paradoxical it seemed at first but in hind sight it goes to remind us that change is permanent.  It is here to stay and will always be... it was slower but will be faster.... it is something permanent.

Not Only is change permanent, the effects of that can also be permanent.... like going out of business for ever,  or taking a hit on your performance and leading to a downward seemingly never ending downward trajectory.  OR alternatively.... you can manage change to ensure you don't get the wrong side of where you wanted to end up.

In an earlier blog I spoke about the capabilities required to manage change that every organization should look for.  Read Here

What is interesting is that there are some conditions when change cannot be successfully navigated (I like this term as it draws from turbulent conditions akin to a mid ocean storm or air turbulence which skillful commanders are used to handling every day).   One kind of sure condition for failure is when the organization faces disruptive forces (Externally) and at the same time faces internal resistance then you can read it as a signal 4 hurricane sure to leave the scars for long on the landscape of your organization. 

Here is an example:  Imagine a new product is launched in your industry that magnifies some service capability or product feature or deliverable by a factor of X.   This can be anything ranging from "new low cost airlines with a completely untested model entering a fragment airline industry" leading to mass adoption by flyers,   a robotic automation tool by a competitor that can make a fully functional document format meeting your customer spec in a time which is a fraction of the manual effort,  or a completely different retail format where economy of scale can deliver volumes at huge discounts.    

Now if you are in one of these contexts and you have internal dynamics where people resist your ability and efforts to counter that then your organization is heading for failure.   Imagine a situation where your employees are focusing on bargaining wage hikes,  working hours reduction etc when the industry is facing the threat of  disruptive force.  Or if your employees resist automation and are completely uncooperative when a new bank brings in unheard of service quality with great amount of automation and technology adoption then you have little chance of surviving long or you can survive as long as you decide to do something to address the disruptive forces. 

When faced with this diabolic choice then the only way out is "sense making" driven by the organization's change leaders.  The reluctant participants should understand the choice between fighting for more of what they want versus not existing (as an organization) to fight any more.  The more effort put in by the organization to communicate this aspect the better the chances to overcome this resistance and tide through the crisis of sorts that might prevail.  

A combination of disruptive forces combined with internal resistance is something that can be a sure shot recipe for failed change efforts. 

Read More on Change Management  Below

Arise Awake, Don't Be a Boiled Frog

HOPE To Kindle Our Live

The Quest for Delivering Lasting Change

Economy in a Sweet Spot? Implication for HR

Euphoria over new Government taking office in New Delhi is slowly fading away.   Now all eyes are on the future.  Economic trends globally are showing an uptick in recent months.   A global survey of over 1300 CEO's including 77 from India shows that 49% of the CEO's surveyed are very confident of their growth prospects in short term and 70% have a very positive outlook on growth in the next 3 years.   

The days to come will now see talent wars as growth and economic confidence returns.  When chips are down you don't worry much about attrition, you give cursory attention to talent shortages (with exception of few critical areas each time there is a down turn) and tide the calm without much problem.  

As things change now,  it is interesting to know that over 55% of those CEO's surveyed saw the loss of key talent as a key threat in coming days.   HR Leaders and Managers need to consider how to ride this wave of growth and progress and how their organizations can come out unscathed.  Some points to consider

a) How do you retain your top talent?  If you have ignored them in the recent years, now's the time to pull levers on all fronts to retain the top talent.  Engaging the solid citizens who contribute to your growth is key.  They need to see something valuable for them, a good career, rewards, recognition (constant reinforcement) and providing greater responsibilities.  Easier said than done.  However for those organizations who looked the other way during the slow down or low growth period the challenge will be enormous.   Your best folks who felt they got a cold shoulder would be the most vulnerable one's when it comes to "continuance commitment" dimension. 

b) Look for alternative talent pools?  In many industries smart thinking in terms of how you can augment your talent supply is very important.  Otherwise the companies will out price themselves on the compensation front and eventually make the industry uncompetitive.  Remember your competition is not going to come just from your industry, so HR and Talent managers should be on the look out where the next boomerang comes from E.g. e-Tailer flipkart.com  is suddenly growing and needs hundreds of new employees every month to keep their supply chain running.  They are giving a run to folks in the pizza delivery chain.   

c) Build Capabilities for the next wave:   As you grow it won't be wise to look at linear growth.  100$  2 people,  1000$,  20 people.  This formula won't keep you growing.  Companies have to look for productivity improvements,  technology and automation to deliver the same with less and keep the bottom line in shape.  This will call for investments both in the people development space to build up and quickly create capabilities required to run the new technologies.   Training functions will also need to rehash their strategies to quickly up skill and / or re-skill sections of the workforce based on the changes anticipated. 

d) Relative Growth of Industries will Vary:  As economies revive the turn around rates will differ across industry. Some will speed up faster and other relatively slower.  But remember your HR challenges does not necessarily come from your own industry.   When Business Process Services companies grew at a rapid 30% plus rates in India in the early years the pressure was felt by banks, accounting firms, financial services companies as well as by retailers.  The need for industry vertical experience among the BPS organizations to serve their global customers led to influx of many banking, financial services professionals as well as retail experts moving into another industry.  HR Leaders need to assess where the next challenge would come from.  

e) How do you attract the right talent:  When economies review the other challenge for HR and Talent Managers is about how to attract the best talent.  After all you would need to hire for growth and this is tough in a growing market.  There will be cost pressures if you relentlessly pursue a wage war to get your talent.   With digital forces like social media and a host of networking platforms making a big presence felt now, it is imperative that the next wave to attract new talent would be predominantly digital marketing challenge. This will need employer branding focus in organizations and creating that pull factor with the right audience.   

While the above are not prescriptive suggestions it is important for HR and Talent managers to reassess their strategic position in the talent market and equip themselves with the right approaches and tactics to survive getting hit by the talent war as economic revival seeps in.

What Capabilities? Change Management

Change is here to stay.  Managing change follows logically.  It is no longer a rare event occurring that needs to be managed rather it qualifies as a function by itself.   No wonder over 50% of companies today have some kind of change management functions. 

They say change is constant which can only mean that it is constantly present.  In relative terms change is variable. The pace of it is getting faster and faster.  For e.g. each year technology is making us adopt new ways, give up the old.   Business models are getting disrupted with new inventions.  Organizations are reinventing themselves.   To do this we need people who can manage the change agenda.  What are the top three competencies that change management folks require.   Read on....

Consider this....We communicated so hard,  we sent mailers, we sent reminders,  we put up posters and we did road shows for our diversity program but there has been very lukewarm response from the managers?  

Managing the communication effectively is a key capability in change management.   Understanding which sources resistance can come from and who are the opponents who are the fence sitters and who are the "friends" of change is important.   Change champions should be from bucket 3 and should attempt to put in more than just an effort to convert the fence sitters to rally behind the change.

Sample yet another familiar situation...By the time we went to the teams with news about the policy changes there was a lukewarm response as they already seemed to know through the news papers and grape vine.

Keeping employees informed as and when change is effected is very important element of building trust.  Openness,  honesty and  transparency are elements that reinforce trust building. The noted management guru Chris Argyris had emphasized the role of trust in high levels of performance of employees.  So building trust is the second capability required by the members of the change management function.  Trust is broken when they fail to keep stakeholders in the loop, when false promises are made verbally and refusal to put them in writing, when misguided decisions are upheld and when changes anticipated are not communicated.   

Nurturing collaboration is the third capability dimension that is important.  Today almost all change programs involve inter disciplinary efforts and team work.  In such situation a collaborative environment is essential for success.   Collaboration fosters successful team outcomes and rates high among the team building success factors.   

So when you consider the change management function do look at how you can build up a team who can operationalize these three capabilities viz; creating an environment of collaboration,  building trust in the change process and finally communicating effectively, unambiguously and with the right intent.   Remember Intent Content Gap blog post posted earlier.