The other day I was having lunch with a former colleague who had recently become the VP of HR & Recruiting at a large company.  She was frustrated.

“I don’t know what the heck the problem is,” she sighed.  “I know the department was a disaster when I came on board last year, but I got rid of the two managers who were causing most of the problems, I’ve brought in new technology to replace the outdated system that had been on its last legs for years, and I even brought in an improv coach to do some fun team-building exercises.  But everyone still seems demoralized and I don’t know what more I can do at this point.”

Since this is a classic change management dilemma (“We made all the right changes - why hasn’t productivity/morale/business improved?”), I asked her a few questions.

There is such a thing as being too positive

Most of us know there’s a lot of truth in the old adage, “If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.”  Generally speaking, it’s a good motto for both our personal and professional lives:  No one wants to be friends with a Debbie Downer, and no one wants to work with (or promote) someone who spends all their time complaining.

However.

When you’re the leader of a change initiative, and the change is happening because the pre-change state is best described as ‘a disaster’, refusing to acknowledge that disaster doesn’t make you look like a positive, Dale Carnegie type - it just makes you look like maybe you don’t actually understand the situation.

That’s what had happened with my lunch companion.  She’d been brought in specifically to transform the HR/Recruiting department, but as a new hire who prided herself on her professionalism and positive attitude, she didn’t want to alienate her new team members by being negative about what had gone on before her arrival.  So instead of announcing that the two managers had been unceremoniously fired, she let everyone think that they’d simply ‘moved on to other opportunities’; instead of acknowledging that the existing technology was a productivity-sucking blight on the organization, she talked about the increased usability of the new system; and instead of acknowledging that the bad managers had created a lot of dissention within the team, she positioned the improv coach as a fun activity to help her get to know her new staff. 

Most importantly, when her direct reports alluded to the previously disastrous situation, she pretended not to understand and instead just refocused the conversation on how great things were going to be once the changes were complete.

The result 

Her employees - already on edge as a result of an extended period of bad management - concluded that she was just another dingbat brought in to make their lives difficult, and that the changes she was making wouldn’t actually fix anything because she hadn’t understood the problems in the first place.  So they didn’t bond with the new managers she hired, they resisted using the new technology system, and half of them mysteriously had urgent appointments on the days the improv coach was scheduled to come in.

The lesson

As a change leader, being relentlessly positive isn’t always the best approach.  Of course you don’t want to spend a lot of time talking about how terrible things were before you arrived, and it’s never a good idea to speak badly about former employees, even if they were idiots.  But it’s crucial that you let people know that you are, in fact, well aware of the pre-change problems, and that you understand how those problems affected your team’s ability to work effectively.   You can acknowledge the problems without being negative:  Instead of ignoring an employee’s snarky comment about how cumbersome the previous technology was, you can say “I know - it was brutal!  That’s why I’m so excited about the new system.  Let me tell you about it…”

When people realize that you understand their frustration, they’re more inclined to see you as someone they can work with rather than just another adversary they have to work around - which will make them much more enthusiastic and responsive to the changes you’re trying to implement.

Reading this article about organizational culture in the Harvard Business Review the other day, I was reminded of my long-standing belief that the term 'organizational culture' shouldn't just be a noun that describes a 'thing', but also a verb which describes an action - the action of creating and maintaining a culture.

The notion that organizational culture exists has been around for a long time, though the term itself wasn't yet popular - I can remember having conversations in the 1990s about whether so-and-so was a 'good fit' for this or that organziation.  We might have used terms like 'corporate environment' or even 'company vibe' to describe the way a particular organization operated, but what we really meant was 'culture'.

Then the dot-com era arrived, along with Herman Miller furniture, free snacks in the lunchroom and super-cool offices in converted downtown warehouses, and suddenly 'culture' was a big selling point for fast-growing companies who were competing for top talent.

The problem is that you can't just give people Aeron chairs and unlimited free diet Coke and assume that will create a culture.  'Culture' may be a noun, but creating and sustaining organizational culture is an ongoing activity which isn't top-down or bottom-up - it's more like a scatter graph with arrows and squiggles and dotted lines connecting everyone in the organization, and even lots of people outside the organization, to each other.

Culture isn't a static thing; it's constantly in flux.  And it's not just imposed on an organization on a Monday at 9am via a memo entitled "Our New Culture".  It's created through individual activities over an extended period of time.  That's why when I was writing my doctoral thesis, back in 2000, I coined the term 'culturing' - using a verb rather than a noun is a good way to remember that it's a process, not an event or a finite state.

Organizational culture is really all about relationships:  The relationship the organization has to its employees, the relationships those employees have to the organization and to each other, and the relationships the organization - and its individual employees - have with outside stakeholders like clients and suppliers.  Relationships are the product of a series of interactions over time:  When the interactions are positive, the relationship deepens and is lasting; when the interactions are negative, the relationship deteriorates and finally ends.

But it's more than that.  The nature of individual relationships is a product of the nature of the interactions, too:  When your interactions with person A consist mainly of weekly golf games, and your interactions with person B consist mainly of romantic dates, you naturally end up having a different relationship with person A than you do with person B.

With that in mind, 'culturing' is the term I use to describe actively creating specific interactions designed to build the organizational culture you want.  It's not enough to hand people a list of "Our Core Values" and then hope for the best.  Culturing is about helping the individuals within an organization - from the senior leadership team right down to the junior interns - to apply those values to their day-to-day activities.  It could be as simple as reminding people that since one of the organization's core values is 'responsiveness', on a day-to-day basis they should be making an effort to respond to phone calls and emails as promptly as possible, or it could be as complex as ensuring that 'responsiveness' is reflected in a commitment to a nimble supply chain functino.

And here's the thing:  When you start thinking about culturing rather than culture, you'll end up getting the culture you want, faster - and more effectively.

In our previous posts on Positive Psychology, we've talked about what positive psychology really is, about how neuroplasticity affects the way we learn, about the essential factors in creating the motivation to change, and about the implications of all this for organizations.

Now we're going to look at the ABCs of positive psychology:  Affect, Behavior and Cognition.

All 3 of these - affect, behavior, cognition - are necessary for change to occur.  They are important individually, but their real power is in the way they intersect and align.

Today, we're going to talk about Behavior.

Behavior

Sometimes, we go to a class or a workshop and we leave all fired up:  We've learned a new way to approach problem solving, or gained a new skill in handling conflict, or we've just been inspired by someone who is doing great things in their field.

We go back to work, full of ideas about how we're going to Change the World or even just our own corner of it...and then, after a few days or weeks, the changes we had resolved to make either fail to launch or fall by the wayside.

Why?  Because any real, lasting change requires real, consistent behavior change.  

Whenever I work with a group, the last thing I ask at the end of the day is "What will you do differently tomorrow (or on Monday morning)?"  It's a critical question, because in order for our situation to become different, we have to behave differently.

Work smart - and then smarter

In 1993, Anders Ericsson studied elite musicians.  He found that they work hard, but more importantly, they work smart - and then challenge themselves to work even smarter.  Elite musicians practiced:  they worked at their craft consistently, day in and day out.  They worked smart:  they had teachers to coach them and provide feedback all along the way.  And they worked smarter:  they didn't practice too much - 4-6 hours a day, no more.

Edward Taub, a leading neuroplasticity researcher who works with stroke victims, found a similar trend with his clients.  After 4 hours of therapy a day, stroke victims made no more positive gains when they spent additional hours on speech or mobility therapy.  At that point, they simply reached a point of diminishing returns.

Ericsson found that elite performers needed to avoid exhaustion to maximize gains from long-term practice - the same could probably be said of Taub's stroke victims.  This flies in the face of what we learn in the business world:  We're told and taught - and most of us think - that the more hours we work, the better we'll be.  We don't take vacations, or even a day off without our iPhone or Blackberry.

However, most of us would find that we'd think better and be more productive if we actually took more time off.  Disconnecting for 48 straight hours on a weekend doesn't mean you're not committed to your career - it means you return to the fray rested, recharged and able to tackle challenges more effectively than you do when you're chronically exhausted and drained.

Behavior, action and lasting change

In positive psychology, 'coping' is a term used in relation to self-esteem.  The idea is that we learn when we take action - when we put ourselves at risk in some way and then cope with the consequences.  It's acting outside of our comfort zone which builds our self-esteem.  It doesn't matter if you succeed or fail - simply taking action drives the new neural pathways which lead to greater positivity and success.

People who enjoy lasting change have a bias for action - and for working smarter.  The same can be said for organizations.  When organizations try to change but then fail to implement behavioral changes which will reinforce the change, the change won't stick.  Similarly, if change isn't accompanied by sufficient downtime for individuals to process, adapt and build positive new neural pathways, the change won't deliver the desired results.

Next time we'll talk about the C in the ABCs of change:  Cognition.

In our previous posts on Positive Psychology, we've talked about what positive psychology really is, about how neuroplasticity affects the way we learn, about the essential factors in creating the motivation to change, and about the implications of all this for organizations.

Now we're going to look at the ABCs of positive psychology:  Affect, Behavior and Cognition.

All 3 of these - affect, behavior, cognition - are necessary for change to occur.  They are important individually, but their real power is in the way they intersect and align.

Let's talk about Affect first.

Affect

Typically, when we think about emotions in the workplace, we think of them as being negative.  We think that 'real professionals' don't bring their emotions to work, and they definitely never reveal their emotions in the boardroom - to do so would be seen as a sign of weakness.

Except that all of us have emotions, and it's not all that easy (or even possible) to leave them at the front door of the office.  We may experience anger, frustration or fear as a result of something that happens at work; we may also experience more positive emotions like joy, satisfaction or excitement.

All of these emotions are giving us important clues about ourselves and our situation, and if we pay attention to them, rather than doing our best to suppress them in the name of 'professionalism', we might succeed in using them to our advantage.

When an organization is going through change, it's often the negative aspects of emotions which are most talked about:  Those who oppose the change, those who challenge the change, and those who resist the change.  But even these negative reactions to change provide important information to the organization.

We don't always focus on the positive emotions associated with a change, but I think it's important to pay just as much attention to them as we do to the negative emotions.

Did you know that 80% of individuals who experience some kind of trauma actually experience post-traumatic growth, not post-traumatic stress?  That's a good endorsement of our inner strength and resilience.  However, we most often hear about the 20% who suffer from PTSD.  Now, I'm not minimizing that 20% - their experience is real and difficult.  But it's interesting that we don't focus on the majority who experience something more positive - and it leaves many of us with the notion that there is only one way to respond to trauma (PTSD) when in fact many of us respond much more positively.

When we examine PTSD and PTG (post-traumatic growth), we see that it's often a single event which leads to either one.  Remembering what we learned about neuroplasticity, we know that a single experience creates a new neural pathway in the brain.  When that channel is seen as negative, we end up with PTSD; when it's seen as positive, we end up with PTG.

We know that a single negative experience in our work life can set up a negative pathway that lasts (all it can take is one manager, early in your career, telling you that you'll "never rise to a senior leadership position" to change your career aspirations forever).  But if that's true, can a single positive experience in our work life have a similar outcome?  Can it create a channel that will permanently increase our well-being and a positive response to challenges?  The answer is yes.  Sure, it depends on the experience - but it also depends on what we do with it.

Reinforce positive experiences

When something bad happens at work - someone yells at  you, you make a mess of a presentation in front of the whole team, etc. - we tend to replay it in our heads over and over again, which of course reinforces the negative pathways the experience created.  But when was the last time you replayed a positive experience over and over again?

Many of us are taught to downplay our successes ("Don't get cocky!" or "No one likes someone who's full of themselves!"), so we tend to move on from positive experiences faster than we do from negative ones.  But there's nothing to stop you from replaying a positive experience to yourself.  Journaling is a fantastic way to do this:  By taking the time to describe the experience to yourself and write it down, you're reinforcing the positive neural pathways that were created, and making it part of your personal narrative, which will enhance the results.

Another way to fortify positive experiences is simply to take the time to do so.  In 2006, scientists demonstrated that rats who were given time to rest and 'hang out' ended up learning a maze faster than rats who were simply forced to repeat the (unsuccessful) attempts over and over again.  As humans, giving ourselves sufficient downtime is critical both to the creative process and to allowing us to fortify our positive neural pathways.

Affect and change management

How does all of this relate to change management?  Well, we can deny the existence of emotions in the workplace all we want, but the truth is that when change happens, it always generates emotions in the individuals required to carry out and live with that change.  If we can acknowledge the negative emotions, we can do a better job of managing their consequences. More importantly, if we can harness the positive emotions, we can use them as powerful tools to create real and lasting change that delivers the results we want.

Next time, we'll talk about the B in the ABCs of change:  Behavior.

Well, it's almost the end of June, which means we're already halfway through 2013.  It's always hard to believe how quickly the months go past, and I think it's a good idea to make time to take stock.

With that in mind, here are our 5 most popular blog posts of 2013 so far.

1. 5 Easy Ways to Lose Top Talent During a Change

Going through a change initiative can leave even top performers feeling spooked and looking up the names of recruiters.  Here are 5 ways you can almost guarantee your top talent will leave you instead of sticking it out.

2.  Change Challenge:  A long-term employee refuses to change

What do you do when a long-term, highly-valued employee just won't get on board with changes that are designed to move the company forward?

3.  Change Leadership:  A tale of two departments

When one department does a great job of adapting to a change initiative, but the other doesn't, the answer probably lies in the different leadership of the two departments.

4.  Do 'Empathy' and 'Business Results' Really Go Together?  Yes.

The truth is, ignoring the emotions  that happen as a result of a change in the workplace will end up costing more than acknowledging them.

5.  Change Management:  The Zombie Apocalypse

IT may have tried to kill change management, but it's not dead yet.

In our previous posts on Positive Psychology, we've talked about what positive psychology really is, how neuroplasticity affects the way we learn, and about the essential factors in creating the motivation to change.

Today we're going to look at the impliations of all this on organizations.

Individuals and organizations

In many respects, organizations ask themselves the same change-related questions that individuals do:  What is my motivation for change?  Do I really want to change?  Does my interest in changing outweigh the perceived effort required to change?

However, these questions are asked both by the organization and by each individual affected by whatever change is being introduced.  If the organization says "We want to become a more nimble organization," this has implications both for the organization as a whole and for each individual involved in the change.

Remember, if the subconscious doesn't agree wtih the change, it won't happen.  In organizations, the 'subconscious' can be seen as individual employees.  So if the organization says that becoming more 'nimble' means 'hiring more temps who we can fire at will', the organization risks alienating existing employees, who start to feel that the organization no longer values a commitment to the organization.  That doesn't mean this change won't work - it just means that management needs to speak openly about the reasons for these temps and how the process will work.

Motivation for organizations

As we discussed earlier, motivation to change requires that the desire to change is greater than the perceived effort required to make that change.  Without sufficient passion, change is difficult even when it doesn't require a whole lot of effort:  "They tell me that spending 15 minutes changing my settings on this CRM system will do something, but I dunno...I've kind of gotten used to it now."

At the same time, when the perceived effort is too large, it can be hard to generate sufficient passion to make it seem worthwhile:  "I know the existing CRM system isn't perfect, but now I have to sign up for a 5-day course to learn the new system!  Ugh.  Don't they know I have work to do?"

In both cases, senior leadership has good reasons for wanting the change - a more efficient CRM system means better sales processing, better customer service, and ultimately a more productive sales cycle - but in neither case have they communicated these reasons effectively.  The result is that while the organization may be motivated to change, the organization's subconscious - the individuals involved - isn't.  Which means that the change won't happen, or won't happen effectively.

Emotions of any kind are a big part of change.  They're often disregarded in favor of a focus on the technical aspects of change - the training, the processes, the expectations - but it's important to remember that building positive emotions will provide the momentum to move the change forward, while negative emotions (or a lack of emotional engagement) will have the opposite effect.  The only way to effect change within an organization is to leverage the ABCs of positive psychology:  Affect (emotions), behavior and cognition.

Next time, we'll delve into these ABCs.

NEXT:  Part V - The ABCs of Positive Psychology

Last week I got a call from a colleague:  "Well, it's happened again," she sighed.  "My prospective client just spent $2.5 million on a new accounting system to unite their global operations, but they told me that my $50,000 change management strategy - to make sure the system is implemented effectively - is too expensive."

If you're reading this, you've probably experienced the same thing, either as a consultant or as a change leader within an organization.  You watch senior leadership spend millions on a great idea - and then watch as that idea fails to launch because someone thought the implementation of that idea suddenly seemed 'too expensive'.

But here's the thing:  Change handled badly costs more money - because it's never over.

The problem is that the cost of badly-managed change is never properly quantified.  When a good idea goes wrong, there is never any shortage of excuses:  "The market wasn't ready," or "The marketing strategy wasn't effective," or "The technology never worked properly."  But rarely does anyone - well, outside of the change management consultants, who by that time aren't in the room - suggest that maybe the problem was simply that the change process wasn't managed by a professional.

Change Architecture, or Change Management, isn't sexy.  Neither is your electric bill.  But, like electricity, change management makes good economic sense because it enables other stuff to get done.  Here's how change management delivers value:

• Clarity about the change.  The kind of clarity that means people spend less time asking each other what they think the change means and more time working on their projects and deliverables
• Clarity about the direction.  So the organization's top performers don't put 'update my resume and call a recruiter' at the top of their to-do list, instead of the tasks they're paid to do
• A communication plan with clearly articulated goals.  So leaders and employees spend less time interpreting what the change is about and what it means, and more time actually working toward the business goals the change is designed to help achieve
• Change focus.  One of the biggest risks for big change is a loss of focus - which can mean serious and steep declines in the bottom line.  Without an independent change expert to keep the organization on track, an otherwise-great initiative can become derailed because no one is keeping their eye on the ball
• Tactical monitoring.  I've written before that it's important for employees - not external consultants - to own the change management process, but bringing in a third-party change management expert to oversee the tactical implementation of a change will mean that fewer balls get dropped

You think you can't afford a change management consultant?  In my opinion, you can't afford not to hire one.  Without a change management expert, you'll end up spending more money than you planned, without getting the results you wanted - and you won't know how it happened.

In our previous posts on Positive Psychology, we talked about what positive psychology really is, and how it's important when you're thinking about change, and about neuroplasticity and how it affects the way we learn.

Today we're going to look at how this applies to the motivation to change.

Neural pathways by any other name...

All organizations have neural pathways - but we call them 'processes' or 'the way we do things around here'.  As with neural pathways, processes tend to be self-reinforcing.  That may be because they're official and written down, or because they are part of the unwritten, accepted culture - but they're still self-reinforcing.  When they're working well, they become stronger and that can be a good thing for the organization, but they can make it harder to change something which is entrenched within the organization.

Motivation to Change

Dr. Ellen Langer, a noted Positive Psychologist, conducted a study in which she asked study participants if they wanted to change from being rigid, gullible or grim.  She asked each participant if they valued consistency, trusting and seriousness - and those who said yes had the most difficulty changing.  This is because thought I might say I don't want to be so rigid, if I value consistency it will be hard for me to really want to change - my desire to become less rigid is fighting with my desire for consistency.  So I need to learn to distinguish between the positive and negative parts of the characteristic before I can begin to make any changes.  In other words, I need to unbundle rigidity and consistency if I hope to make a substantive change. 

Motivation to change starts with having some feelings about what I want to change.  Studies show that without emotions we cannot act.  Do my feelings, divided by perceived effort, equal at least 1?  If the perceived effort is greater than the emotions I feel and the equation is less than one, I will not act.

In 1965, Dr. Howard Leventhal and associates conducted a study in which researchers tried to get students to get their tetanus shot.  At first there was no reaction.  Then they increased the emotional component:  They showed students pictures of people who hadn't had a tetanus shot and what had happened to them.  Some students were motivated to take action, but most did not.  Then researcheers demonstrated the reduced effort it would take to get the shot - on one flyer they included the location of the clinic, the hours of operation, and even the phone number.  Only then did they get a large response.  By lowering the perceived effort required to get the shot, the researchers finally got students sufficiently motivated to take action.

The second component of motivation to change is recognizing the need to change.  This only happens when we take responsibility for our actions, rather than blaming others.  For example, if the attitude within the workplace is "I couldn't get that done because I didn't have enough lead time and then I didn't have the right tools to get the job done," then it's hard to drive change because no one feels responsible for the process or the outcome.  On the other hand, if the attitude within the organization encourages a more positive approach - "If I need better tools to get the job done, it's my responsibility to request those tools" - then it's easier to recognize the need to change.

The third component of motivation to change is believing change is possible.  Whether I do or don't, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.  If I have a growth mindset - if I think that we (the organization and I) can grow, change and adapt - then it will happen.  At the same time, if I feel that it's not possible, it won't happen.  A growth mindset can be taught:  Talking about neuroplasticity can help, and fostering a workplace culture that values and encourages growth and development will also make a difference.  But like all organizational neural pathways, these mindsets have to be reinforced.

NEXT:  Part IV - Implications for Organizations

Most change management initiatives start with needing the answer to a specific business question, like "How do we get ahead of our competitors?" or "How can we reduce costs while increasing productivity?"

These questions can seem straightforward from a business perspective:  Questions about getting ahead of the competition or improving the bottom line appear to be rooted in solid business imperatives and designed to deliver a demonstrable ROI.

However, the truth is that a question like "How do we get ahead of our competitors?" is much broader than it first appears - which means that the answer isn't nearly as simple as you'd think it should be.  After all, your competitors may be doing all kinds of things better than your organization:  Maybe they have better economies of scale, or better patents, lower prices, better customer service, a bigger marketing budget - the list of possibilities is virtually endless.  Suddenly, trying to answer a 'simple' question becomes a whole lot more complex.

But maybe the problem isn't finding the answer, but asking the right question in the first place.

In the late 1980s, British Airways was in trouble.  Recently privatized and struggling to compete with the new Virgin Atlantic Airways, BA needed to rehabilitate its image and win back brand loyalty.  After several years of trying to answer the wrong question - which got them in a lot of legal hot water - they finally changed the question.

Instead of asking themselves "How do we beat Virgin Atlantic?", they asked "How can we give travellers a fantastic flying experience with BA?"

So while Virgin was still talking lower prices and no-frills travel, BA sought to bring back the glamour and romance of flying, injecting more emotion into the experience.  Those of you of a certain age will no doubt remember this famous commercial, which won all kinds of awards at the time:

Service was improved, meals were upgraded, staff were trained to be more entrepreneurial - and soon, customers were less concerned about saving $20 on their flight and more interested in how comfortable that flight would be.

The result?  By 1990, British Airways was one of the most profitable airlines in the world, even as other airlines were struggling to stay afloat.

The lesson?  When you're struggling to come up with the right change strategy, it may be time to reconsider the question that got you thinking about change in the first place.  BONUS TIP:  Questions that may not look particularly ROI-related at the outset may, in fact, be the questions that have the most effect on the bottom line in the end.

The senior management of the organization has done a thorough analysis and assessment, and everyone's agreed:  The sales department is holding up the rest of the organization, and needs some radical change.

So you redraw the sales territory boundaries, give them some new CRM software, write a new sales training program and hold a 2-day retreat designed to get all the salespeople engaged in the new system.  It seems to be working and everyone in the sales department is excited to be moving forward.

But...a month after the changes take effect, you discover that the supply chain is in disarray, the accounting department is fuming because they aren't getting invoices in a timely manner, and the entire customer service team is about to mutiny because they're getting so many angry calls from clients. 

What the heck happened?

You forgot that changes to the Sales organization didn't happen in a vacuum.  When you changed the way Sales functioned within the organization, you changed the way the whole organization worked.  When Sales changed the way they processed orders, it had in impact on the way Accounting processed them; when Sales put a big push on Product X, that had an impact on the way Supply Chain sourced it; and when Sales changed the message it communicated to customers, it had an impact on Customer Service.

At its core, change management is really about being able to see the big picture and mapping out how a change - or a set of changes - in one area is going to affect other areas of the organization, and what needs to happen in order for all the elements to work together effectively.

When proposing a change that seems to affect only one department or division, here are some questions to ask:

-  How will this change affect the day-to-day activities of the key roles within this department?

-  How will this change affect the day-to-day activities of key roles in other departments?

-  Can we draw before and after process maps of key procedures within the organization to identify what will happen as a result of these changes?

-  Have we asked for input from key stakeholders in other departments to help identify how a change in Department A will affect Departments B-F?

-  What communication and training will other departments/divisions need in order to be working in concert on Day 1 of the change?

Asking these questions - and taking the time to plan for the answers - can add a little time at the outset of a change initiative, but I guarantee they'll save time (and headache) when the change starts to take effect.