A SIMPLE PERSPECTIVE ON WHY CHANGE IS DIFFICULT

Wondered why it is difficult to change. Asking WHY is the key? Many times in organizations and even in our personal lives some behaviour, some style of working, or some way of making decisions comes across as so very sticky because it was a manifestation of success at some time in our experiences. 

We accumulate a lot of wisdom based on successes we derive in one space or context and then superimpose that in other spaces and maybe even literally in everything that we do. Edgar Schein the culture expert speaks of culture as a residue of success.

Let us go back to an old story of the monkeys in a cage with bananas hanging at the center. Each time a monkey climbed to pluck the banana's a strong jet of water was sprayed on the monkey and the monkey fell down from the ladder when trying to reach the bunch of bananas. Every attempt by any monkey was met with the same fate. Over a few such experiences, the monkeys collectively learned that it was not right to pick the bananas and a cause-effect relationship was etched in their mind. Go for Bananas and Get Knocked down. Soon, one of the monkeys is removed from the cage and replaced with a new monkey. The water jet is also removed. As soon as the new monkey sees the bananas and climbs to reach the bunch the other monkeys quickly pull him down. This happens as a pattern and after a few unsuccessful attempts that new monkey too gives up and does not try to get the bananas after learning the cause and effect. One by one all the original monkeys are replaced by new monkeys and the socialization process continues now it does not matter that all original monkeys are not in the cage the pattern of behaviour continues and no monkey can get the bananas.  None of the new monkeys actually experienced the cause and effect but they learned the shared ways of avoiding the bunch of bananas and it became an unquestionable action to be followed, and none would question such an action. 

This is how a practice gets established based on past experiences and cause and effect relationships helped us learn to do things a certain way and then slowly forget to question it. If we need to change we have to use a different frame or lens. What we viewed in the context of the early days when the monkeys and the jet of water were present was no longer relevant once the jet was removed. However, this did not happen and the behavior was sustained. So unless the behavior is analyzed and viewed in the context of the new situations the behavior won't change. This applies to our work as well as our personal lives. It is important to check the assumptions, clarify the current understanding, and then decide. What worked in one context may not be relevant at all in a different context. One of the ways to change something for good or better is to understand WHAT and follow up with WHY that is happening. When we understand the "WHY" then the root cause of the action or behavior can be understood and then necessary change may manifest.  Understanding the WHY addresses one of the aspects of driving change. Other ways of driving change will depend on specific reasons the change is difficult and will address a couple more in later posts. Cheers !!!    

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FAULTY THINKING LIES AT THE ROOT OF MOST PROBLEMS

Learning Analytics & Metrics

I spoke to about a dozen Learning & Development Leaders  on what kind of metrics they track.... Most common among the responses I got included

Course completion %ages

Exit scores obtained

Completion rate on courses offered

Person Learning days

Competency Base Line

Learning Capacity 

Trainer Effectiveness Scores

Wonder if any of this can ever be used to give us an understanding of how well the learning and development efforts are helping the organizations.   All of these people who responded came from about ten or so different well known organizations and were participating at a 3 day National HR conference.

To understand whether training is making sense as an investment we need to understand what impact the training can create.   It can either help improve your service level,  it can improve efficiency or help you deliver better / higher productivity levels.   It can also help you get into a new service if it is something new that you are trying to acquire as a capability.  The need is not for totally new metrics but putting them in a way that makes sense to the business leaders who are ultimate customers of your learning and development offerings.

So our first challenge would be to understand what we measure and how much of it.  What will create a view of whether I am doing good, improving,  becoming better or simply regressing back as I spend more and more of my money on learning and development.  Remember the 70-20-10 rule,  70% of learning comes from experience,  20% from feedback and collaboration at work or in a given situation, and only 10% learning comes from formal training programs or learning. Instead of giving prescription of what metrics to use, I will illustrate some approaches that will give a direction of how you look for the metrics that will be most relevant to your context and then you can customize, stretch,  modify and use the one most relevant.

When you rattle metrics like PLD or Trainer Effectiveness scores per se it does not excite the business leader.   What would be more relevant would be if you are able to give a story through your metric.  For e.g.  Of the total 10 PLD's we have achieved this year,  6 were through Web Based Access and only 4 through Instructor led.   The effectiveness was not undermined by replacing the instructor led but gave more space and time and satisfaction scores were in line.  The trend over past 3 years shows we had 9 on 10 days through instructor led training three years back.

Or instead of telling the business leader that you created 40 hours of digital content for 3 courses you can give inputs say:  of 3 most popular courses put together we had 72 hours of learning and 40 hours of that has now been digitized and people come over the the class room well prepared and learning is more effective. 

The other aspect of learning is the shift to MOOC driven learning via platforms like Coursera.  These learning efforts also contribute in a big way to your development efforts and capability building. Integrating this into the learning metrics of the organization is something L&D and HR Managers should think of.  A simple way is how to capture the learning effort through your learning system by configuring the same in the LMS and then feeding the certifications manually to start with.  Technically advanced user organizations can think of linking through integration of the portals like Coursera with their LMS through some scripting and meta data.

Finally shift from incidental training to capability building is the way L&D evolved on a maturity scale over the past 2 decades.  Metrics to capture impact via results is something that organizations should focus more on alignment with business.  How is the availability of On demand learning keeping pace with the needs of a mobile work force, of new networked organizations. 

MIssed Opportunities?

Here's a pic from one of my presentations prepared in 2010 when I tried to capture some of my favorite quotes and juxtapose them with appropriate pictures.

They say opportunities come knocking. Not once... but.. several times.  But we often ignore them or overlook them. As Winston Churchill said "A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity while the optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty."

This can happen only when we are aware of the opportunity. So, coming from a positivist school, I believe the world is not full of pessimists.  Then the question is why do people miss opportunities. 

First the problem of not being able to identify opportunities.  Reason can be explained as unawareness.  Did you remember someone you knew saying " I could have taken the Design Course.. but ....." or"I could easily have done engineering.....' but  or I was up for a top modeling assignment but chose medicine.... imagine what life could have been today OR the more common one among investors "I was about to invest in XYX stock.... only if I did I could have been millionaire like my friend."   One of the  most common mistakes made by students who get into the wrong course (they dislike after joining) or graduates getting into wrong jobs (hate the profession)  is they did not do enough homework preparing to understand what it meant. Most often doing some home work or some kind of scrutiny would have helped make better decisions. 

The other point about missing out opportunity is being overly cautious.    We fear taking risks, fear the unknown, fear not being able to make it, fear the hard work and thus ... miss out the opportunity.    Thus you end up giving a let go to something that you should have seized.  I remember one person telling me that he got into IIT Mumbai in the 1970's but did not go as it was too far and he preferred staying at his village and studying in a college nearby but.. the real reason when we explored more was about the fear of going to the city and competing with the boys there. 

Another reason especially among those who are talented, gifted or have some strength they never capitalized is their inherent lethargy.   Left to themselves they would prefer to chill, enjoy life as it comes and no one was there to push them to the wall and drive them.  So it is mostly talent wasted kind of situations that fall in this category. 

Next think of the dreams you had but never converted to reality.   To give wings to dreams you should have a plan.  Lack of Planning  is another way one has missed opportunities.  By the time the race had to be run you were still working on the equipment and missed the race.   

In human relationships we can often hear someone say "if only I could have made up with him / her.. Now he's no longer here..." .  This happens when we don't mend relationships or build broken bridges with someone while they are there with us but regret it later when they moved away to something new and no longer are with us or when they unfortunately pass away from this world. 

In all probability you find that when people are old and in the evening of their lives they often think and speak about what they did not do... the missed opportunities.  But I think being aware of how one can avoid the chance of categorizing the wrong one's and regretting them is something we should understand.   I will be discussing a very simple framework on how to avoid regretting the wrong missed opportunities.   It is a very simple framework I use in my coaching sessions and training programs. 

Even Inventing Is a Process....

They say that human society progressed on stepping stones of inventions.   This is nothing but reality.   The world has changed more, there has been more progress and more inventions in the last  sixty years or so than previous three centuries.  Such is the contribution of invention that has made this possible. 

We think that invention is the forte or realm of few different kind of people.   Some may be wondering if invention is a random,  hit and run, trial and error,  way of getting new things created, thought of or implemented.  This may have been in the past as there was no framework or pattern that could be generalized and imposed on the process of invention. 

However over past few decades thinkers have come up with frameworks for innovation and invention.   One such methodology I came across was the TRIZ framework. (Pronounced and TREEZ) that was developed in USSR and now being explored in many parts of the world.    While it may apply to engineering inventions it can be extended to other kinds of inventions too.

So from a understanding that it was impossible to learn how to invent today there is clear evidence on how to learn to invent.   I am not going to elaborate what TRIZ methodology is all about.  Google can do it for you but what I would like to emphasize here is that there is yet another process that can be broken down into a set of logical steps.   Can be mastered, can be transition and will provide opportunities for outsourcing in the future days.   Some of it may already be done in bits and pieces but along with robotic automation,   transformation etc,  will be things to watch out in the future.

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FIVE LEVERS WITH TODAY'S MANAGERS AND LEADERS

 Who does not want happy people?  Who does not want a motivated team?  Who does not want to see and celebrate successful performances? 

With so many distractions,  disruptions, chaotic situations, upswings, declining trends,  competitive slugfest, and demands for constant change on today's leaders and managers the levers that are most effective in order to keep up motivation levels and enable a strong performance culture are just five simple levers as I call them.   These are based on what successful and engaging managers and leaders do in organizations large and small.  

One needs to constantly think and reflect on how each of these levers manifests in the workplace. This also makes sense in our professional lives beyond just routine work environments. 

Quote , Unquote !!!

"He who chooses the beginning of a road, also chooses its outcome." -  Unknown

So true, they say well begun is half done.  That's the other way to look at it. You start off on the wrong track and have to reverse the road travelled already.  Also it is good to remember that  the roughest roads make the best drivers, so you need not look at the rough one as the wrong road   

"Keep trying, It's only from the valley that the mountain seems high."  Zig Ziglar

So very true, its all about perspective. Raise your self above the problem and you see it in a different light.  That's the way it looks from the valley... all insurmountable, but once your reach somewhere at the top you feel you have conquered it all.   


"There is no limit to what can be achieved, when no one cares who gets the credit". - John Wooden, Coach

The team is sometimes the enemy of the goal.   So true that you have a goal and everyone understands it but in the quest to get name and credit the goal is side tracked.  You can always identify such people.  They will be playing ball on the sides,  send separate emails without including others who are relevant,  try calling out and dropping names and often the one's who try to take credit for others outputs.  These are missing in action but fully present at reward time. 


"Before we can properly handle a problem we must know all of the problem" - 

Einstein, once said, a problem can't be solved at the same level of understanding as that at which it was created.... he means you need a higher level of understanding.   That's why we say "Experience is the best teacher"  You can get to see various turns (understand the problem better or more in detail when you have experience.   Also it is about being wise with the worldly experiences and therefore able to handle problems as they say with grace and confidence.

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.