Confucius and Change

Posted on by AMIconsultancy
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The first new guest blog of the year by Marjon Oosterhout. On the importance of patience in culture change. Or ‘Slow time’ as we like to call it nowadays.

“A little impatience can ruin a great plan”. This is a quote attributed to Confucius. I’m pretty sure in his time the term change management didn’t exist. Yet Confucius must have understood one of the key success factors for change: Patience.

This is particularly true for culture change initiatives. I see so many organizations starting culture change initiatives, often with a kind of big bang. They expect to the see people change almost immediately. Typically between one and two years after the kick-off the change is being changed. Either because a new (change) leader takes over or because leadership hasn’t seen enough progress.

It’s a bit like growing crops. Image that a farmer, after preparing the soil and sowing the seeds would expect to be able to harvest immediately. That in his impatience he would start ploughing the land again, just at the time that tiny bits of green are appearing, It’s pretty obvious he would never get to the point where he would be able to harvest.
Culture change should also start with the groundwork, making sure the seeds of change land in fertile soil. Next follows the period of patience, being open for and celebrating he first small successes. Removing the weeds that can overgrow the young sprouts. This means actively rewarding the new behaviors as well as visibly not tolerating undesired behaviors.

Only when you persist with patience the new behaviors and the new culture will grow so strong that they’ll dominate. Unfortunately statistics suggest that the majority of change initiatives are killed at the time the sprouts are starting to grow. The only difference with the farmer is that the seeds of culture change take much longer to germinate than seeds
of most crops!

www.marjonoosterhout.

(RM-AMIconsultancy)

All change is people change! Do you know what drives behaviour?

Posted on by AMIconsultancy
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This was an interesting post at Blogging Innovation.  Roy Luebke described the basic principles of social behaviour of people and how these principles have a major impact on business development. Because all business is people business and really understanding people is the core of any long term sustainable business development.

These ‘ingrained’ behaviours are:

  • Reciprocity
  • Consistency
  • Social Proof
  • Liking
  • Authority
  • Scarcity

The principles of social behaviour were based on reseach by Dr. Robert Cialdini who published many books on this subject.

What I find interesting is that you can also apply these fundamentals on change management and social innovation processes within organizations. So you would get these ‘rules of change’:

  • Invest in people and really listen and they will take your initiative seriously (reciprocity).
  • Include people in the initiative and they will feel responsible (consistency).
  • Identify change agents by including the (in)formal hero’s at the very beginning (social proof).
  • Adopt the principles of appreciative inquiry and focus on successes (liking).
  • Get formal leaders in the organization to adopt the change (authority).
  • Let there be a crying need AND a perspective with value (scarcity).

All change is people change! (RM)

impact of social factors on innovation by Roy Luebke

Do you prefer hard or soft…?

Posted on by AMIconsultancy
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To be honest, I’m sick and tired of the discussion about hard and soft skills in Project Management. In every meeting, every training and every conversation we used to say: Well, the contemporary project manager need hard skills AND soft skills.

We all know that a project manager needs to know how to plan and control the project. That used to be the hard skills. Since there has been a change in project management, also called the change to the more process wisely working with an eye for the HUMAN factor in projects, the soft skills came in. For years it was completely normal to distinguish hard and soft skills. Everyone knew why you said it and what you mean with it.

BUT! Nowadays, during every meeting, training and conversation, people hesitate to call it hard and soft. Either they draw a converted comma in the air while pronouncing ‘soft’ skills. Or they immediately say: well, we shouldn’t call it soft, because most of the time the soft skills are more important. And they make it possible for project manager to differentiate themselves.

Well, I totally agree! Soft skills are more important! So, there are three options. One, we stop feeling ourselves guilty when using the word ‘soft’ for the most important skills of a project manager. It’s just a word. Two, from now one, we call the soft skills hard skills and vice versa. Or three, we bundle the skills and call them together the ‘required skills’. Your choice…

(LS – AMIconsultancy)