It’s their ability to be forward-looking and focus on the future. To become a better leader or distinguish yourself as someone primed for promotion, you’ll want to develop your capacity to envision the future.

Focusing on the future sets leaders apart. The capacity to imagine and articulate exciting future possibilities is a defining competency — perhaps the most important one, next to honesty.

In The Leadership Code (Harvard School of Business Press, 2009), Dave Ulrich, Norm Smallwood and Kate Sweetman reviewed leadership theory and distilled leadership competencies into five overarching roles:

1. Strategist — Leaders shape the future.
2. Executor — Leaders make things happen.
3. Talent manager — Leaders engage today’s talent.
4. Human capital developer — Leaders build the next generation.
5. Personal proficiency — Leaders invest in their own development.

While leadership has evolved over time, these five areas of focus have remained constant as key functions of effective leaders, across all industries. Leaders must be able to answer the question, “Where are we going?”

We look to our leaders to envision a future, figure out where the organisation must go to succeed, evaluate ideas for pragmatism and determine if they fit the company’s core mission. Leaders focus on how people, money, resources and organisational capabilities will work together to move from the present to a desired future.

To become a strategist, your thinking must be future-oriented. You’ll need to become intensely curious about trends, both inside and outside your organisation’s field. You’ll need a systematic way of staying informed and tracking changes. This requires you to engage everyone in the organisation and collect new ideas from various sources. Invite everyone to participate in creating a better future ( D. Worrall, 2009,  A Climate for Change Ch. 1 & 2)

What People Want from Leaders

Leadership professors Barry Posner and Jim Kouzes, after surveying thousands of people on ideal leadership qualities, reveal that the ability to look forward is second only to honesty as the most admired trait.

On average, 70 percent of workers worldwide select “forward-looking” as a key leadership competency. Think about the leaders you’ve followed or admired. The great ones are visionaries who serve as custodians of the future. You want to partner with leaders who can create a better future.

As we age, gain more experience and move up the organisational hierarchy, our desire for a forward-looking leader increases, according to Posner and Kouzes. While only about one-third of undergraduate college students ranked “forward-looking” among their most important leadership attributes, more than 90 percent of senior executives had added it to their lists.

Some leaders are naturally future-oriented; many others excel as executors or talent managers.  Still others shine at getting things done and making things happen; others bring out the best in people.

While achieving great results with people is always rewarding, it’s not enough for promotion to higher levels of responsibility and leadership. To take that step, you must expand your ability to communicate a vision for the future. Forward-looking leaders can spot opportunities in their day-to-day work, and they excel at anticipatory thinking.

How Far Can You See?

Do you look beyond what’s in front of you — especially when daily tasks take up so much time and energy?

How do you become future-oriented and still handle day-to-day challenges?

While the ability to focus on the future separates leaders from the rank-and-file, many of us fail to understand and appreciate its importance. We devote almost no time to developing this vital quality, which then becomes a huge barrier to future success.

The challenge of being forward-looking escalates with each managerial level. Front-line supervisors are expected to anticipate events about three months ahead. Mid-level managers have timelines for more complex projects and need to look three to five years into the future. Those in the executive suites must focus on goals that are often 10+ years away.

How to Develop Future Focus

How do you develop your capacity to be future-focused?

Carve out some time each week to peer into the distance and imagine what may be out there.

Start with 30 minutes a day, using the time to learn about what’s going on in your industry, with customers, with the potential future of your products and services. You can read magazines, books and/or online research.

Top executives estimate they spend only about 3 percent of their time thinking about, and getting others on board with, the critical issues that will shape their business 10 or more years down the road. It’s simply not enough time.

Sparking Energy for What Really Matters

Here’s the problem: In tough economic times, everyone hunkers down on tactics. They focus on survival and results. Decisions become pragmatic. After a while, however, this short-term approach grinds us down, and we lose sight of the big picture.

In today’s difficult times, people need to be reminded of why they are doing what they do — and why it matters. This is when leaders can step up and make a difference. Leadership is more than encouraging high-performance; it’s about reminding people of what they are trying to build and why it matters.

In many ways, leadership supplies oxygen to keep the fires going. When people are mired in day-to-day work details, they can lose their bearings. An effective leader makes a difference by helping people see their role in building a better future.

3 Ways to Grow Your Future-Focus

There are three ways to expand your ability to become more future-oriented and hone your leadership effectiveness. In The Truth About Leadership (Jossey-Bass, 2010), Posner and Kouzes urge readers to spend time learning about the future through:

1. Insight
2. Outsight
3. Foresight

Insight: Explore Your Past

This exercise that follows will help you connect your past experiences and values with your current work. When you look backward, you can see farther ahead and imagine future possibilities.

Look for repeating themes in your life — the recurring messages that keep reminding you of what matters most. For younger leaders, there’s less past to recall; however, it’s still important to use the richness of your life experiences to uncover ideals.

Here are some questions to explore:

• Identify the recurring theme in your life.
• To which topic do you return again and again?
• What story do you keep telling and retelling?

Search your past to find the theme. It will probably form the basis of your core values and higher purpose. When you know more about yourself, your dreams and your purpose, it will be easier to keep this information in mind each time you visualize the future.

Outsight: Imagine the Possibilities

To be a credible leader, you need to spend more time reading, thinking and talking about long-term possibilities. Develop the discipline to spend more time studying the future.

Establish a “future committee” dedicated to collecting ideas, articles, information and resources about trends affecting your organisation. Track publications, both off- and online. Circulate these ideas to stimulate discussions and innovative thinking.

For example, The World Future Society recommends examination of six distinct business-trend categories:

1. Demographics
2. Economics
3. Government
4. Environment
5. Society
6. Technology

Improve your understanding of the world around you, not just in your industry. A game-changing product in an unrelated field could impact your customers and their need for your services. No one can afford to be short-term–oriented in a globally connected marketplace.

Foresight: Survival of the Optimists

“Optimists have a sixth sense for possibilities that realists can’t or won’t see.” ~ Warren Bennis, leadership professor

There is a dramatic difference between people who react to roadblocks with a sense of futility and pessimism and those who react with determination and optimism. Psychologist Martin Seligman has validated that the most successful business leaders are inspired by a sense of optimism.

Those who learn to be optimistic about life and work are far more likely to be successful than those who view a current event through the pessimist’s lens. Being optimistic doesn’t mean ignoring reality or the hardships required to get great results. Leaders can define a business reality, yet defy a negative verdict. By being optimists, leaders give people the hope, energy and strength needed to carry on.

The more you understand reality, the more prepared you are to endure hardships and adversity. Optimism, and a vision for what’s possible, supplies the energy to keep going, persist through challenges and come out on the other side.

One of the best ways to expand your potential leadership abilities is to work with an executive coach, who can help you see what you don’t yet see. An experienced coach will stimulate your thinking and conversations about what’s possible.

You Can See Forever

To become a better leader, or to be seen as a high-potential leader, spend more time in the future. At some point, a future focus will permeate your thinking and saturate your communications.

Everything you do and say will remind people of the future you want to create —for yourself, your colleagues, your customers and the organisation. You will draw upon your past experiences, your core values and your guiding purpose.

You will become well-read about trends as you study the future and talk with other people about the exciting possibilities. There’s no doubt that we live in interesting times, and game-changing ideas, products and services are popping up all the time.

Being part of the future allows you to contribute to its creation. You can’t do that without taking time to develop your capacity to be future-focused. And you can’t become future-focused without discipline and action.

As any fan of The Office can attest, negative managerial behaviour severely affects employees’ work lives.

Managers’ day-to-day and moment-to-moment actions also create a ripple effect, directly facilitating or impeding the organisation’s ability to function.

The best managers recognise their power to influence and strive to build teams with great inner work lives.

In The Progress Principle: Using Small Wins to Ignite Joy, Engagement, and Creativity at Work (Harvard Business Press, 2011), Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer describe how people with great inner work lives have:

• Consistently positive emotions
• Strong motivation
• Favorable perceptions of the organisation, their work and their colleagues

The worst managers undermine others’ inner work lives, often unwittingly. Through rigorous analysis of nearly 12,000 diary entries provided by 238 employees at seven companies, Amabile and Kramer found surprising results on the factors that affect performance.

What matters most is forward momentum in meaningful work—in a word, progress. Managers who recognise the need for even small wins set the stage for high performance.

But surveys of CEOs and project leaders reveal that 95 percent fundamentally misunderstand the need for this critical motivator.

What Really Motivates Us?

If you lead knowledge workers, you likely employ these conventional management practices:

• Recruit the best talent.
• Provide appropriate incentives.
• Give stretch assignments to develop talent.
• Use emotional intelligence to connect with each individual.
• Review performance carefully.

Unfortunately, you may miss the most fundamental source of leverage: managing for progress. Recognising even the smallest win has a more powerful impact than virtually anything else.

In a survey by Amabile and Kramer, 669 managers ranked five factors that could influence motivation and emotions at work:

1. Recognition
2. Incentives
3. Interpersonal support
4. Clear goals
5. Support for making progress in the work

Managers incorrectly ranked “support for making progress” dead last, with most citing “recognition for good work” as the most important motivator.

Your ability to focus on progress is paramount. Video-game designers excel at this mission, hooking players on the steady pace of progress bars.

Facilitating Progress

When you focus on small wins and facilitate progress, your employees will find the energy and drive required to perform optimally.

Two key forces enable progress:

• Catalysts—Events that directly advance project work, such as:
  • Clear goals
  • Autonomy
  • Resources, including time
  • Reviewing lessons from errors and succes
• Nourishers—Interpersonal events that uplift workers, including:
  • Encouragement and support
  • Demonstrations of respect
  • Collegiality

Dealing with Setbacks

Three events undermine people’s inner work lives:

1. Setbacks—The biggest downer, yet inevitable in any sort of meaningful work
2. Inhibitors—Events that directly hinder project work
3. Toxins—Interpersonal events that undermine the people doing the work

Negative events carry a greater impact than positive ones. We pay more attention to them, remember them, and spend more time thinking and talking about them.

Example 1:

Catalyst  - Did I discuss lessons from today’s successes and problems with my team? or

Inhibitor – Did I “punish” failure, or neglect to find lessons and/or opportunities in problems and successes?

Example 2:

Nourisher – Is there a sense of personal and professional affiliation and camaraderie within the team? or

Toxin – Is there tension or antagonism among members of the team or between a team member and me?

Source: T. Amabile & S. Kramer, The Progress Principle: Using Small Wins to Ignite Joy, Engagement, and Creativity at Work (Harvard Business Press, 2011)

That’s why it’s so important for managers and team leaders to counteract negative events with positive perceptions and comments. Research shows it takes three positive messages to balance a negative one.

To better manage your people:

1. Focus first on the day’s progress and setbacks.
2. Next, think about specific events: the catalysts and nourishers that affected progress.
3. Finally, prepare for action: What’s the one step you can take to best facilitate progress?

Recognising small wins is the best way to motivate your team—the key principle revealed through rigorous analysis of daily journal entries by Amabile and Kramer.

Every day events affect our inner work lives, and managers are certainly not exempt. As a leader, you must tend to your staff’s inner work lives by providing support each day. You, too, will perform best when your inner work life is positive and strong.

Review each day’s events and how much you’ve accomplished—no matter how difficult or disappointing. Even if gains seem relatively miniscule, you’ll benefit from an honest assessment. Remember: Setbacks are inevitable, but they serve as learning opportunities.

 Progress triggers a positive inner work life. To boost yours, focus on providing your people with catalysts and nourishers. Buffer them, as much as possible, from inhibitors and toxins. This sets the sta

In 1999, leadership expert Ira S. Wolfe coined the term “perfect labor storm” to describe a convergence of demographic and socioeconomic developments that would result in an unprecedented shortage of skilled workers in 2011—the year the first Baby Boomers hit 65 and start to retire.

But a severe and prolonged recession has delayed Dr. Wolfe’s predicted storm. Economic uncertainty has caused many Boomers to remain on the job. Until we see the inevitable changing of the guard over the next decade, the workplace will be inhabited by a multigenerational stew of younger and older workers.

This environment will provide real opportunities and significant technological problems, Dr. Wolfe notes in his latest book, Geeks, Geezers, and Googlization: How to Manage the Unprecedented Convergence of the Wired, the Tired, and Technology in the Workplace (Xlibris, 2009).

Eighty percent of polled adults believe Gen X and Y have a distinctly different point of view—the highest perceived disparity since 1969, when generations clashed over the Vietnam War and civil rights. Younger adults (18 to 29) report disagreements over lifestyle, views, family, relationships and dating. Older adults criticize their “sense of entitlement.” Gen X and Y tend to be more tolerant on cultural issues, while Boomers cite manners as the greatest source of conflict.

New information technologies also divide the generations. Only 40% of adults ages 65–74 use the Internet daily, while 75% of those ages 18–30 go online daily. The gap is wider when it comes to cell phones and text messages.

Older generations’ complaints about the next generation are nothing new. Conflicts replay throughout every decade. No generation is better or worse than another, and prevailing attitudes are neither right nor wrong—just decidedly different.

But learning how to work, live and play together is crucial, and every manager must master ways to bridge generational gaps. Managerial survival calls for a coordinated, collaborative strategy to leverage each generation’s strengths and neutralise its liabilities.

Who Are the Generations?

First, a quick review of how the generations are grouped in the modern workplace:

1. Veterans, born between 1922 and 1945 (52 million people). This cohort was born before or during World War II. Earliest experiences are associated with this world event. Some also remember the Great Depression.
2. The Baby Boomers, born between 1946 and 1964 (77 million people). This generation was born during or after World War II and was raised in an era of extreme optimism, opportunity and progress. Boomers, for the most part, grew up in two-parent households, with safe schools, job security and post-war prosperity. They represent just under half of all U.S. workers. On the job, they value loyalty, respect the organisational hierarchy and generally wait their turn for advancement.
3. Generation X, born between 1965 and 1979 (70.1 million people). These workers  were born during a rapidly changing social climate and economic recession, including Asian competition. They grew up in two-career families with rising divorce rates, downsizing and the dawn of the high-tech/information age. On the job, they can be fiercely independent, like to be in control and want fast feedback.
4. Generation Y (the New Millennials), born between 1980 and 2000 (estimated to be 80–90 million). Born to Boomer and early Gen Xer parents into our current high-tech, neo-optimistic times, these are our youngest workers. They are the most technologically adept, fast learners and tend to be impatient.

 Gen X and Y comprise half the U.S. work force. Baby Boomers account for 45%, and the remaining 5% are veterans (many of whom are charged with motivating newer employees).

How Are They Different?

What happens when generations don’t share the same values and beliefs about workplace success?

Business consultant Cam Marston presents insights into managing across the generational divide in Motivating the “What’s in It for Me?” Workforce (2007, John Wiley & Sons).

Now, more than ever, American workers born after 1965 aren’t following in their elders’ footsteps. They have different workplace values and definitions of success.

Baby Boomers occupy most positions of power and responsibility on organisational charts. Most of today’s corporate management practices still reflect the systems and values of their predecessors, the veterans.

Gen Xers and Millennials therefore present unique challenges for Boomer managers. They aren’t interested in time-honored traditions or “the way things have always been done.” Rather, they’re single-mindedly focused on what it takes to get ahead to reach their perceived career destination.

This group shuns past definitions of success: climbing the company ladder and earning the rewards that come with greater responsibility. The company ladder, in their view, is irrelevant.

Mature workers and Boomers in managerial and leadership positions struggle with these differing values and beliefs, wondering how to motivate their younger colleagues. If promotions, raises and bonuses fail to motivate, then what does the trick?

We can identify several differences in values. The new generation of workers has:

1. A work ethic that no longer respects or values 10-hour workdays
2. An easily attained competence in new technologies and a facility to master even newer ones with little discomfort
3. Tenuous to nonexistent loyalty to any organisation
4. Changed priorities for lifetime goals achievable by employment

The most significant changes in perspective involve time, technology and loyalty. The most common clash points at work involve generational differences in the definition of work, modes of communications, meetings and learning.

Clash Point #1: How We View Work

By 2021, Gen X will be the senior members of the work force, and both Gen X and New Millennials will be in leadership positions. Big changes are already beginning to appear and, in 10 years, the world of work will be significantly different.

Older workers talk about “going to work” and have always had a specified work schedule like 9-to-5. In the manufacturing economy, everyone used to be under the same roof, at the same time, to achieve maximum productivity, but times—and jobs—change.

Younger workers view work as “something you do,” anywhere, any time. They communicate 24/7 and expect real-time responses. The rigidity of set work hours seems unnecessary and even unproductive in the information age.

To younger workers, success isn’t defined by how many hours one spends at a desk. Success is defined not by rank or seniority, but by what matters to each person individually.  Younger workers want to cut to the chase and define their true value. They don’t want to be paid for time; they want to be paid for their services and skills.

For younger employees with working spouses and children, work-life balance and flexible conditions have greater priority. Is someone who arrives at 9:30 a.m. necessarily working less hard than those who arrive at 8:30 a.m.? Differences in generational attitudes must not interfere with progress and productivity.

Clash Point #2: Communications

Ask anyone over the age of 40 about younger workers, and you’ll hear stories about texting, cell phones and ear buds. Common complaints include:

• They can’t spell or write.
• They multitask, so I’m never sure they’re paying attention.
• They’re attention-deficit kids, unable to focus for long.
• They expect instant feedback and email responses.

These tech-immersed young workers are just as frustrated with older workers, who respond days later and think setting up a team meeting is the answer, when a few text messages could get faster results.

Older workers can’t expect the newer generation to digress into the past. Technology needs to be understood and used by everyone to improve productivity.

Communications and relationships remain essential, regardless of how technology is used. Both sides need to use and benefit from each other’s strengths in this domain.

Clash Point #3: Meetings

Older workers expect a phone call or visit on important issues and will immediately schedule and plan a meeting to involve significant stakeholders. This frustrates younger workers, who want to meet on the spur of the moment, as soon as possible.

They see nothing wrong with texting superiors and peers instead of scheduling face-to-face meetings, and they like to communicate and solve problems virtually. When faced with a need to meet, they try to contact everyone immediately and begin videoconferencing, chatting, texting, talking and tweeting—often all at the same time.

Older colleagues prefer to find a time and day that fits everyone’s schedule—which can delay meeting for days or weeks. They fit things into their routines and calendars. To Gen Y, the ritual of workplace scheduling is stifling, unproductive and a waste of time.

The younger people may have a point. But to older colleagues, a seat-of-the-pants approach is irritating. They also have a point: It doesn’t give them enough time to think things through, nor to adequately prepare for a politically influential outcome.

Clash Point #4: Learning

Older generations are linear learners, comfortable sitting in classes, reading manuals and pondering materials before beginning to implement new programs.

Newer workers learn “on demand,” which to Boomers means they just want to “wing it,” figuring things out as they go. Gen-Y learning is interactive, using the Internet, Wikipedia and blogs. They rely on Google and web searches to find answers.

Gen Y doesn’t hesitate to call a friend or send an email directly to the CEO. They ask questions and get their information instantaneously. They are easily bored by training sessions, manuals and programs that spoon-feed information over time.

Issues You Can’t Ignore

Here’s why your company can’t afford to keep doing things the way they’ve always been done, hoping people will work out the details among themselves:

Gen X is a smaller generation, almost half the size of the Boomer generation. Gen Y is large—very large. This newer generation is much larger than the 77 million Boomers. Combined, Gen X and Gen Y already outnumber the Boomers and Seniors, making the 40 and younger crowd the largest segment of the workplace. Boomers no longer hold the majority vote, although most hold positions of power and responsibility.

This transition in power and influence is not something organisations can avoid or ignore. Managers must learn to leverage each generation’s strengths for the benefit of all, or risk becoming less efficient and productive because of the inherent conflicts.

There is no room to allow tradition and convenience to hinder changes that boost performance and productivity. There’s also not much room for generational judging or complaining.

Managers must create opportunities for a multigenerational work force to share its differences. To hire and retain high performers, leaders must also provide flexible options. Look for ways to benefit from each generation’s assets to inspire understanding, collaboration and creativity.

Businesses are also becoming more intrinsically complex. It’s harder to predict outcomes because intricate systems interact in unexpected ways.

Interpreting data also proves more challenging because:

1. The degree of complexity may lie beyond our cognitive limits.
2. Past behaviour may not predict future actions.
3. In a complex system, an outlier may have a disproportionate impact.

In a September 2011 Harvard Business Review article, business professors Gökçe Sargut and Rita Gunther McGrath distinguish between organisations that are merely complicated and those that are genuinely complex.

Complicated Versus Complex

Simple systems feature few—and extremely predictable—interactions. When you turn a light switch on or off, you expect the same result every time.

Complicated systems have many moving parts, and they operate in patterned ways. We can make accurate predictions about how they will behave. For example, flying a commercial airplane involves complicated, but predictable, steps. As a result, it’s reliably safe.

In contrast, complex systems may operate in patterned ways, but their interactions are continually changing. Air traffic control is a complex system that constantly changes in reaction to weather, aircraft downtimes and other critical variables. The system is predictable not because it produces the same results from the same starting conditions, but because it has been designed to continuously adjust as its components change in relation to one another.

Two problems commonly surface in complex systems: unintended consequences and difficulties in making sense of a situation. With multiple independent and interrelated parts in a system, it’s hard to predict all of the possible consequences of a change in one component. And with so many data and informational components to deal with, it’s tough for an individual decision maker to visualise and master an entire complex system.

Most executives tend to overestimate the amount of information they can process, but humans have cognitive limits. No manager can understand every aspect of a complex business, yet many refuse to acknowledge this reality.

Managerial Blindness

Focusing on only one thing can prevent us from seeing other key areas—a concept known as inattentional blindness. Furthermore, an outlier or rare event may be ignored when it doesn’t appear often enough for us to learn how it will affect the system.

Collectively, these problems may cause confusion and hinder job performance. Unfortunately, many companies deal with increasing complexity by further complicating their systems, adding new coordination procedures and structures. Extra layers of management or measurements only serve to decrease effectiveness.

In the same issue of HBR, consultant Yves Morieux reports that managers in the most complicated companies spend 40% of their time writing reports and up to 60% in coordination meetings. Today’s companies, on average, set six times as many performance requirements as they did in 1955. Back then, CEOs committed to four to seven performance imperatives; today, they commit to 25–40.

Many businesses adopt conflicting performance imperatives:

• They strive to satisfy customers with low prices and high quality.
• They seek to customise offerings for specific markets and standardise them for the greatest operating return.
• They want to innovate and be efficient.

If managers are challenged with these complexities, imagine the effect on workers. People at all levels crave clarity and simplicity. A manager must navigate murky waters and emerge with plans that inspire cooperative action. It’s not that simple.

Real Cooperation

More than ever, leaders need input from others to grasp complexities and determine how they affect other parts of the system. This requires them to ask a lot of questions. In Morieux’s words: “Real cooperation isn’t a matter of getting along well; it’s taking into account the constraints and goals of others.”

Staying on track is much easier with a guide or checklist. Michael Useem, a professor at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and bestselling author of The Leadership Moment, has published The Leader’s Checklist to create a clear roadmap for navigating any situation. Key questions help customise the list to fit specific needs.

A leader must be able to keep the big picture in clear view, while attending to all of the small executions that will lead to the right outcomes. Each principle should generate a set of questions that help leaders test, retest, refine and update their preparedness for any situation.

The Leader’s Checklist

Professor Useem’s list is presented here in condensed form, as space allows. Sample questions are presented with each principle.

1.       Articulate a Vision: Formulate a clear and persuasive vision, and communicate why it’s important to all members of the enterprise.

1. Do my direct reports see the forest, as well as the trees?
2. Does everyone in the firm know not only where we are going, but, most importantly, why?
3. Is the destination compelling and appealing?

2.       Think and Act Strategically: Make a practical plan for achieving this vision, including both short- and long-term strategies. Anticipate reactions and resistance before they happen by considering all stakeholders’ perspectives.

1. Do we have a realistic plan for creating short-term results, as well as mapping out the future?
2. Have we considered all stakeholders and anticipated objections?
3. Has everyone bought into, and does everyone understand, the firm’s competitive strategy and value drivers? Can they explain it to others?
   

3.       Express Confidence: Provide frequent feedback to express appreciation for the support of those who work with and for you.

1. Do the people you work with know you respect and value their talents and efforts?
2. Have you made it clear that their upward guidance is welcomed and sought?
3. Is there a sense of engagement on the frontlines, with a minimum of “us” vs. “them” mentality?
   

4.       Take Charge and Act Decisively: Embrace a bias for action by taking responsibility, even if it isn’t formally delegated. Make good and timely decisions, and ensure they are executed.

1. Are you prepared to take charge, even when you are not in charge?
2. If so, do you have the capacity and position to embrace responsibility?
3. For technical decisions, are you ready to delegate, but not abdicate?
4. Are most of your decisions both good and timely?
5. Do you convey your strategic intent and then let others reach their own decisions?

5.       Communicate Persuasively: Communicate in ways that people will not forget, through use of personal stories and examples that back up ideas. Simplicity and clarity are critical.

1. Are messages about vision, strategy and character crystal-clear and indelible?
2. Have you mobilised all communication channels, from purely personal to social media?
3. Can you deliver a compelling speech before the elevator reaches the 10th floor?

6.       Motivate the Troops, and Honour the Front Lines: Appreciate the distinctive intentions that people bring to their work; build on diversity to bring out the best in people. Delegate authority except for strategic decisions. Stay close to those who are most directly engaged with the enterprise’s work.

1. Have you identified each person’s “hot button” and focused on it?
2. Do you work personal pride and shared purpose into most communications?
3. Are you keeping some ammunition dry for those urgent moments when you need it?
4. Have you made your intent clear and empowered those around you to act?
5. Do you regularly meet with those in direct contact with customers?
6. Can your people communicate their ideas and concerns to you?

7.       Build Leadership in Others, and Plan for Succession: Develop leadership throughout the organisation, giving people opportunities to make decisions, manage others and obtain coaching.

1. Are all managers expected to build leadership among their subordinates?
2. Does the company culture foster the effective exercise of leadership?
3. Are leadership development opportunities available to most, if not all, managers?

8.       Manage Relations, and Identify Personal Implications: Build enduring personal ties with those who work with you, and engage the feelings and passions of the workplace. Help people appreciate the impact that the vision and strategy are likely to have on their own work and the firm’s future.

1. Is the hierarchy reduced to a minimum, and does bad news travel up?
2. Are managers self-aware and empathetic?
3. Are autocratic, egocentric and irritable behaviours censured?
4. Do employees appreciate how the firm’s vision and strategy affect them individually?
5. What private sacrifices will be necessary for achieving the common cause?
6. How will the plan affect people’s personal livelihood and the quality of their work lives?

9.       Convey Your Character: Through storytelling, gestures and genuine sharing, ensure that others appreciate that you are a person of integrity.

1. Have you communicated your commitment to performance with integrity?
2. Do others know you as a person? Do they know your aspirations and hopes?
    

10.   Dampen Over-Optimism: To balance the hubris of success, focus attention on latent threats and unresolved problems. Protect against managers’ tendency to engage in unwarranted risk.

1. Have you prepared the organisation for unlikely, but extremely consequential, events?
2. Do you celebrate success, but also guard against the byproduct of excess confidence?
3. Have you paved the way not only for quarterly results, but for long-term performance?

11.   Build a Diverse Top Team: Although leaders take final responsibility, leadership is most effective when there is a team of capable people who can collectively work together to resolve key challenges. Diversity of thinking ensures better decisions.

1. Have you drawn quality performers into your inner circle?
2. Are they diverse in expertise, but united in purpose?
3. Are they as engaged and energised as you?

12.   Place Common Interest First: In setting strategy, communicating vision and reaching decisions, common purpose comes first and personal self-interest last.

1. In all decisions, have you placed shared purpose ahead of private gain?
2. Do the firm’s vision and strategy embody the organisation’s mission?
3. Are you thinking like a chief executive, even if you are not one?

Not all of these questions are applicable to every situation, but it is the questioning that counts. Whether you are facing a typical day at the office or walking into a crisis, ask yourself and others these questions to inspire correct actions. Only then can you make sense of the complexities you encounter.

Leaders learn to manage complexities not by prescribing specific behaviours, but by creating an environment for optimal behaviours to occur—even though “optimal” cannot be defined in advance.

Problems are solved when you leverage others’ cooperation, skills and ingenuity. Employee satisfaction and performance will concurrently improve. There’s less need for complicated layers of management, with more energy available to manage situations wisely and effectively.

How we respond to failures and bounce back from our mistakes can make or break our careers. The wisdom of learning from failure is undeniable, yet individuals and organisations rarely seize opportunities to embrace these hard-earned lessons.

Harvard business professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter is unequivocal: “One difference between winners and losers is how they handle losing.” Even for the best companies and most accomplished professionals, long track records of success are inevitably marred by slips and fumbles.

Our response to failure is often counterproductive: Behaviours become bad habits that set the stage for continued losses. Just as success creates positive momentum, failure can feed on itself. Add uncertainty and rapidly fluctuating economics to the mix, and one’s ability to get back on track is sorely tested.

Long-term winners and losers face the same problems, but they respond differently. Attitudes help determine whether problem-ridden businesses will ultimately recover.

Luckily, most of us can learn to become more resilient with training and coaching.

The Best of Times, the Worst of Times

Take the example of two typical MBA graduates who were laid off from their positions during the recession. Both were distraught. Being fired provoked feelings of sadness, listlessness, indecisiveness and anxiety about the future.

For one, the mood was transient. Within two weeks he was telling himself, “It’s not my fault; it’s the economy. I’m good at what I do, and there’s a market for my skills.” He updated his resume and, after several failed attempts, finally landed a position.

The other spiraled further into hopelessness. “I got fired because I can’t perform well under pressure,” he lamented. “I’m not cut out for finance; the economy will take years to recover.” Even after the market improved, he was reluctant to apply for positions and feared rejection.

How these individuals handled failure illustrates opposite ends of the spectrum. Some people bounce back after a brief period of malaise and grow from their experiences. Others go from sadness to depression to crippling fear of failure—and in business, inertia and fear of risk invite collapse.

Optimism and Resilience

Research clearly demonstrates that people who are naturally resilient have an optimistic explanatory style—that is, they explain adversity in optimistic terms to avoid falling into helplessness.

Those who refuse to give up routinely interpret setbacks as temporary, local and changeable:

• “The problem will resolve quickly…”
• “It’s just this one situation…”
• “I can do something about it…”

In contrast, individuals who have a pessimistic explanatory style respond to failure differently. They habitually think setbacks are permanent, universal and immutable:

• “Things are never going to be any different…”
• “This always happens to me…”
• “I can’t change things, no matter what…”

The Team Management Systems (TMS) suite of psychometric tools offers a sophisticated assessment that can help you understand your habitual approach to interpreting events, whether they tend to be more optimistic or more pessimistic, and  how you can more effectively approach change, setback  and uncertainty.

University of Pennsylvania psychology professor Martin P. Seligman believes most people can be immunized against the negative thinking habits that may tempt them to give up after failure. In fact, 30 years of research suggests that we can learn to be optimistic and resilient—often by changing our explanatory style.

Seligman is currently testing this premise with the U.S. Army’s Comprehensive Soldier Fitness program, a large-scale effort to make soldiers as psychologically fit as they are physically fit. One key component is the Master Resilience Training course for drill sergeants and other leaders, which emphasises positive psychology, mental toughness, use of existing strengths and building strong relationships.

This military program will no doubt provide insights for civilians who wish to become more effective within their workplaces and organisations.

Learning from Mistakes

“That which does not kill us makes us stronger.” ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

Failure is one of life’s most common traumas, yet people’s responses to it vary widely. Many managers have learned to reframe personal and departmental setbacks by stating: “There are no mistakes, only learning opportunities”—and it’s a great sentiment. In practice, however, their companies often continue to view failures in the most negative light.

Part of the problem lies in our natural tendency to blame. We perceive and react to failure inappropriately. How can we learn anything if our energy is tied up in either assigning or avoiding blame? Still others overreact with self-criticism, which leads to stagnation and fears of taking future risks.

In the 1930s, psychologist Saul Rosenzweig proposed three broad personality categories for how we experience anger and frustration:

1. Extrapunitive: Prone to unfairly blame others
2. Impunitive: Denies that failure has occurred or one’s own role in it
3. Intropunitive: Judges self too harshly and imagines failures where none exist

Extrapunitive responses are common in the business world  (Worrall 2009, A Climate for Change, P 152). Because of socialisation and other gender influences, women are more likely to be intropunitive.

Fortunately, managers at all organisational levels can repair their flawed responses to failure. Business consultants Ben Dattner and Robert Hogan suggest three highly effective steps in “Can You Handle Failure?” (Harvard Business Review, April 2011):

1. Cultivate Self-Awareness

First, identify which of the three blaming styles you use. (Note: They occur automatically and immediately, so they are unconscious emotional responses.) Do you look to blame others? Deny blame? Blame yourself?

It’s hard for us to see our personalities clearly, let alone our flaws. It’s harder still to learn from our mistakes if we’re caught up in the blame game.

Next, take at least one self-assessment test to help broaden your view of your interaction style. Two popular assessments are the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and the Big Five Personality Test. (You can take a free version online at personal.psu.edu/j5j/IPIP/ipipneo120.htm.) 

Finally, work with a coach or mentor to improve your level of self-awareness. While it takes some time to shine a light on our attitudes with respect to failure and blame, each of us can benefit from such reflection and discussion.

For example, think about challenging events or jobs in your career, and consider how you handled them. What could you have done better? Ask trusted colleagues, mentors or coaches to evaluate your reactions to, and explanations for, failures.

Pay close attention to the subtleties of how people respond to you in common workplace situations. Ask for informal feedback. If you’re in a managerial position, you may underestimate how what you say may be perceived as criticism, due to the hierarchical nature of your job.

2. Cultivate Political Awareness.

Whereas self-awareness helps you understand the messages you’re sending, political awareness helps you understand the messages others are receiving. It requires you to know how your organisation defines, explains and assigns responsibility for failure, as well as how the system allows for remedial attempts.

Political awareness involves finding the right way to approach mistakes within your specific organisation, department and role.

3. Develop New Strategies.

Once you’ve become more aware of your failure response style (and your bad habits), you can move toward more open and adaptive behaviours.

Practice these strategies the next time mistakes and failures present challenges:

Listen and communicate. Most of us forget to gather enough feedback and information before reacting, especially when it comes to bad news. Never assume you know what others are thinking or that you understand them until you ask good questions.

Reflect on both the situation and the people. We’re good at picking up patterns and making assumptions. Remember, however, that each situation is unique and has context.

Think before you act. You don’t have to respond immediately or impulsively. You can always make things worse by overreacting in a highly charged situation. 

Search for a lesson. Look for nuance and context. Sometimes a colleague or a group is at fault, sometimes you are, and sometimes no one is to blame. Create and test hypotheses about why the failure occurred to prevent it from happening again.

Admittedly, some mistakes are more blameworthy than others. As a manager, how do you make it safe for people to report and admit to mistakes?

How many of the failures in your business are truly blameworthy? Compare this to how many are treated as blameworthy, and you’ll have a better understanding of why so many failures go unreported.

You cannot learn from your mistakes when the emphasis is on blaming. You cannot learn to become more resilient when your energy is tied up in assigning or avoiding blame.

Perhaps Procter & Gamble’s Lafley said it best in his Harvard Business Review interview: “I think I learned more from my failures than from my successes in all my years as a CEO. I think of my failures as a gift. Unless you view them that way, you won’t learn from failure, you won’t get better—and the company won’t get better.”

As a competency skill, empathy is poorly understood by those who need it the most. Some hard-driving managers eschew the need to develop empathy because they assume it’s for “touchy-feely” types. Other tone-deaf leaders blindly walk around, relying solely on logic and wondering why others fail to see things their way. 

Research by the Center for Creative Leadership reveals that executive “derailment” is primarily caused by deficits in emotional competence:                                                                                                                                                    

1. Difficulty in handling change

2. Inability to work well in teams

3. Poor interpersonal relations

The inability to understand matters from others’ points of view means some people lack the flexibility required for change. These individuals simply cannot work well with, or relate to, others, which makes them workplace liabilities. This is particularly true for leaders who lack these fundamental skills in times of change and uncertainty.

Defining Empathy

Empathy is the ability to “walk in someone else’s moccasins.” Psychologist Daniel Goleman,  author of  Social Intelligence: The New Science of Human Relationships, defines it as the ability to read other people by sharing and identifying their emotional states.

According to Goleman, empathy is a foundational skill for all social competencies in the workplace:

1.  Understanding others: Sensing others’ feelings and perspectives; taking an actve interest in their concerns
2.  Service orientation: Anticipating, recognizing and meeting customers’ needs
3.  Developing others: Sensing others’ developmental needs and bolstering their abilities
4. Leveraging diversity: Cultivating opportunities among diverse people
5.  Political awareness: Reading the political and social currents in an organisation

Successful leaders score high marks in these areas, which leads to goal completion—not to mention opportunities for promotion and greater likelihood of success leading outcomes in times of change. When combined with focus, perseverance and concentration, empathy breeds achievement.

The Trickle-Down Theory

Empathetic managers are more likely to inspire others. They are generally well liked and command greater respect, which means their direct reports will be motivated to go the extra mile. The goal is to achieve balance in empathy and goal-orientation for optimum effectiveness.

Empathy is even more critical when managers:

• Assign unpleasant tasks
• Provide sensitive feedback or criticism
• Deal with employee disputes
• Dislike an employee or customer
• Deliver bad news (termination or denial of promotion)

Fundamental Interactions

The good news is, for the majority of individuals, empathy can be learned with the assistance of a skilled coach. So, where does one start?

1. Uncover the truth about your empathy skills.  Connect with a coach who has specialised skills in assessing this competency with a high degree of accuracy
2. Deal with any negativity by empathising with others.
3. Next, return the focus to the goals and tasks at hand.

The first step requires true curiosity, the desire to understand another’s point of view, and a genuine interest in what the person is saying and feeling. The best way to accomplish this step is through questions like:

1. “Can you say more about that?”
2. “Really? That’s interesting. Can you be more specific?”
3. “I wasn’t aware of that. Tell me more.”
4. “I’m curious about that. Let’s discuss this in greater depth.”
5. “Let me see if I understand you correctly. Here is what I hear you saying…”

Nonverbal Cues

Be sure to focus on emotional cues. Appreciate not only what others are saying, but also why they are saying it. Also listen for what’s not being said.

Without empathy, you will have a tendency to misread other people. You will neglect to ask clarifying questions, and you will miss nonverbal cues. If you listen only to others’ words, facts and figures, you will miss the emotional context of what’s being said.

Research tells us that we remember only 7 percent of someone’s message from their words. The rest is communicated through nonverbal cues: facial expressions, body language and tonality. Strict attention to words will mislead you, so make sure that nonverbal communication is consistent with what you’re hearing.

10 Steps to Improving Empathy

The following steps can help you improve your empathy skills. As with other emotional competencies, empathy requires practice, so consider working with an experienced coach if you continue to face obstacles.

1. Take note of situations in which you demonstrated empathy (versus the times you failed to do so).
2. Recall times when people’s underlying concerns were not explicitly expressed and/or addressed.
3. Identify emotions the other person may be experiencing. Explore the possibilities, without assuming your suspicions are true.
4. Develop a list of questions for your next encounter with this person.
5. Practice listening without interrupting. Wait until others fully express their points of view before offering your own.
6. Avoid being defensive. Your goal is to create an open dialogue, during which possibilities can be freely explored.
7. Allow enough time for people to express their opinions and ideas without judgment.
8. Practice active listening. Always confirm the meaning of what was said.  Paraphrasing people’s words helps clear up misconceptions and deepens understanding.
9. Always focus on desired outcomes. Be sure to balance empathy and focus to achieve optimum effectiveness.
10. Continue to practice this balance of focus, goal-orientation and empathetic listening.

Every person in an executive role is expected to exercise wisdom in their decisions. However, senior leaders are often more concerned with meeting the numbers and therefore fail to come close to being astute over the long term.

Defining Wisdom

The Oxford English Dictionary (1998) states that wisdom is “the capacity of judging rightly in matters relating to life and conduct; soundness of judgement in the choice between means and ends; sometimes less strictly, sound sense in practical affairs; opposite to folly.” One must apply a combination of judgement, decisions, and actions.

Robert J. Sternberg, former Dean of Arts and Sciences at Tufts University, sees wisdom as the application of tacit knowledge in pursuing the goal of a common good. In the case of executives, their decisions must consider the needs of customers, suppliers, employees, the organisation, financial profits, shareholders and the environment, often globally.

According to Sternberg (2005), “Effective leadership is, in large part, a function of creativity in generating ideas, analytical intelligence in evaluating the quality of these ideas, practical intelligence in implementing the ideas, and convincing others to value and follow the ideas, and wisdom to ensure that the decisions and their implementation are for the common good of all stakeholders.”

Finding Wisdom

Wisdom in the workplace typically implies two distinct areas of wise behavior:

1. The wisdom of corporate decision-making:
   1. Knowing what information to use in decision-making
   2. Creating a culture of knowledge in order to acquire that information in a timely fashion
   3. Assessing it in both short- and long-term frameworks
2. Reaping the financial rewards that come with shrewd financial choices.

Wisdom in Action

In order to make a smart decision, a wise leader must draw upon intellectual, emotional, and social comprehension. One must:

• Gather information
• Discern reality from artifice
• Evaluate and edit the accumulating knowledge
• Listen with both heart and mind
• Consider what is morally right
• Weigh what is socially just
• Consider others as much as self
• Think about the here and now
• Consider future impact

In times of crisis, however, wisdom sometimes demands the paradoxical decision to resist action or judgement.

When called upon in any challenging situation, no matter how trivial, if you slow down long enough to ask yourself the question, “What would be the wisest thing to do?” you will already be moving closer to making a more appropriate and apt decision.

The Contradictions of Wisdom

There are recurrent themes and qualities that comprise wisdom:

• Humility
• Patience
• Clear-eyed, dispassionate view of human nature
• Emotional resilience
• Ability to cope with adversity
• A philosophical acknowledgement of ambiguity
• Recognising the limitations of knowledge

Action is important, as well as inaction, at times. Compassion is central to wisdom, but so is emotional detachment. Knowledge is crucial, but often wisdom deals with uncertainty and complexity. These inherent contradictions are embedded in any definition of wisdom. In fact, they are the essence of what makes wisdom so critical to leaders.

Business Intelligence

“Business intelligence is the systematic use of information about your business to understand, report on and predict different aspects of performance,” according to Professor Tom Davenport of Babson College in Massachusetts.

His examples of current sage leaders include Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com and Warren Buffet, the investor. Buffet is known for his financial wisdom built upon a foundation of expert accounting knowledge, however, his true brilliance stems from a deep understanding of people and human nature.

Social Intelligence

A less appreciated dimension of wisdom is social wisdom which is critical for understanding and incorporating the diversity of “people factors” into business decisions to create a greater common goal.

Exercising social wisdom in the workplace, promotes performance, goal alignment and social unity by:

• Decreasing stress and conflicts in the workplace
• Improving Job satisfaction
• Promoting Quality in the workplace
• Nurturing the sense of personal fulfillment
• Providing for more Innovative and creative opportunities

Developing Your Wisdom

Psychologist and author Richard R. Kilburg presents questions for improving leadership wisdom that can be reviewed in coaching sessions (Executive Wisdom: Coaching and the Emergence of Virtuous Leaders, APA, 2006).

1. Take a moment to relax, then ask yourself the following questions:
   1. What is the stupidest thing you have ever done as a person or as a professional?
   2. If you are a leader in an organisation, what is the stupidest decision or action you have ever taken?
   3. What made the decision or action stupid? When and how did you know it was stupid? What criteria did you use to judge its merits?
2. Now, ask yourself,
   1. What is the wisest thing you have ever done as a person or as a professional?
   2. If you are a leader in an organisation, what is the wisest decision or action you have ever taken?
   3. What made the decision or action wise? When and how did you know it was wise? What criteria did you use to judge its merits?
3. Can you develop any internal sense of how you created, accessed, and used a sense of rightness in the situations in which you believe you acted wisely as opposed to stupidly? If so, jot down and reflect on what you think and feel went into the emergence of that sense of rightness.
4. Take a few minutes to talk to someone out loud about what you have explored or, if you are reluctant to share it with another person, dictate some notes onto a voice recorder and then listen to yourself afterward. The experience of giving voice to inner work can often provide additional insight and learning.

Discussing these issues with your coach will help you develop a powerful link to leading with wisdom.

Changing people’s behaviour is the most important challenge for business leaders competing in unpredictable environments.

“The central issue is never strategy, structure, culture, or systems,” asserts Dr. John P. Kotter, a retired Harvard Business School professor who specialises in leadership. “The core of the matter is always about changing the behaviour of people.”

A Fast Company article, “Change or Die” (May 2005), reveals that when faced with a health crisis like heart disease, only one in nine individuals makes the necessary, lifesaving changes required to live longer. 

Minds are hard to change, yet so many aspects of our lives are directed toward doing just that. We face a supplier who needs to respond more quickly, a subordinate who must perform a task differently, or a peer who should recognise the importance of our project and commit to it. We clearly acknowledge the need for others to change their minds and act differently. We also know we need to change our own minds at certain times.

Many of us are professionally involved in the business of changing people’s minds. A CEO, executive, or team leader must convince and secure commitment; a salesperson must close the sale and persuade consumers to think differently about new product features; consultants and coaches must change minds to motivate groups and individuals to perform more effectively for improved results.

Why are our brains wired in a way that seems to resist change so tenaciously? In their book How the Way We Talk Can Change the Way We Work (2001), authors Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey describe the process of resistance and our body’s and mind’s natural tendency to revert to what they’re used to doing—a process called homeostasis.

In this new millennium, with ever-increasing discoveries about the brain, has cognitive neuroscience discovered clues to what is required to help people change their way of thinking so they can modify their behaviour? Professor Howard Gardner, a lifelong researcher and expert on the mind, believes we’ve reached this point:

“Of all of the species on earth, we human beings are the ones who specialise in voluntary mind change: we change the minds of others, we change our own minds. We have even crafted various technologies that allow us to extend the sweep of mind change: powerful mechanical artifacts like writing implements, televisions, and computers…In the coming decade, mind changing will continue and, in all probability, accelerate.” —Changing Minds, 2004.

What must we understand about the brain to better grasp the process of changing others’ minds? And what happens when we try to change our own mind to employ and sustain new behaviours?

7 Levers to Change a Mind

Leaders must consider several critical factors to changing someone’s mind. Gardner has identified seven levers used to change minds:

1. Reason: When we are trying to persuade others, reason plays a pivotal role—especially among those who consider themselves educated. Most businesses rely on analysis and logical processes when making decisions. The rational approach involves identifying relevant factors, weighing each in turn, and making an overall assessment.
2. Research: The scientific approach collects relevant data and analyses it in a systematic manner (often statistical) to verify or cast doubt on promising trends. Research needn’t be as formal as this, however. It may entail identifying events and forming judgments as to whether they warrant a change of mind
3. Resonance: While reason and research appeal to the cognitive aspects of the mind, resonance applies to our emotions. Appealing to one’s feelings and creating emotional resonance are among the more powerful means of changing minds. Resonance is often achieved after one hears reason and research arguments, but it may occur on an unconscious level. As a relationship of trust or connection to the mind-changer develops, one is persuaded to change.
4. Representational Redescriptions: This term describes what happens when a change of mind becomes convincing in several different ways that reinforce each other. For example, a PowerPoint presentation may present the same concept using percentages, bar graphs, and other graphic images, all of which explain the same key concept in distinct ways.
5. Resources and Rewards: So far, the possibilities for mind-changing lie within reach of any individual whose mind is open. It is sometimes more likely to occur when resources are available. In psychological terms, this is known as positive reinforcement. Ultimately, however, unless the new course of thought is congruent with the other criteria—reason, resonance, and research—it is unlikely to last beyond the provision of rewards.
6. Real-World Events: Wars, terrorists, natural disasters, and economic depressions can influence mind-changing. On the positive side, so can prosperity and peace. It is easier to convince a nation to go to war after a terrorist attack, even when the facts are lacking.
7. Resistances: The six factors involved in changing minds have thus far been positive. It is unrealistic to assume that you won’t encounter resistance—the strong force that negatively affects mind change. In our early years of life, we change our minds frequently to develop, learn, and become competent. Research demonstrates that changing minds becomes more difficult with age. We develop strong views and perspectives that are resistant to change

Any effort to understand the process of changing minds must take into account the power of resistance.

A mind change is most likely to occur when the first six factors operate in concert (they are coordinated and congruent), and when resistance is relatively weak. Conversely, a change of mind is unlikely to occur when resistances are strong and the other factors fail to point strongly in one direction.

Changing Minds in an Organisation

Getting people to replace one frame of mind with another is harder still when you’re working with large groups. Gardner, a MacArthur Fellow “genius” award winner, has studied what works for heads of state and corporate CEOs: “When one is addressing a diverse or heterogeneous audience, the story must be simple, easy to identify with, emotionally resonant, and evocative of positive experiences.”

When change is introduced to an organisation’s members, leaders will experience greater success when they:

1. Make good use of narrative, telling stories to which people can relate.
2. Present data using as many of the seven levers of change as possible (for example, facts and emotions).
3. Express a clear understanding of areas of resistance.
4. Achieve emotional resonance with people whose “buy-in” is required for successful change.
5. Give people opportunities for ongoing support and dialogue.

1. The Power of Stories

Stories can be a key element in changing minds. In a story, you have a main character, ongoing activities to achieve a goal, a crisis, and a resolution.

Leaders must analyse the current situation, determine what needs to change, and envision an altered state of affairs. They must then create a convincing narrative and present it to those whose minds they hope to change.

Success will depend on various factors, including the effectiveness of the narrative, the ways in which it is convincingly conveyed, and the extent to which leaders and those around them actually embody the presentation. The more personal and authentic the story, the more people will identify with common themes.

2. The Power of Variety

One’s level of familiarity with a concept determines how we successfully process and accept it. Delivering the same content in multiple forms is a powerful way to change people’s minds, which may explain the popularity of PowerPoint presentations.

People must not only hear the message, but also see it—often in the form of images, graphs, and diagrams. For example, many motivational speakers use music, humor, and strong emotional stimulation to deliver their messages and inspire action.

Using more than one delivery method gives people an opportunity to form mental representations in their preferred learning mode. Some people do well with logical arguments, while others require an emotional connection.

3. The Power of Resistance

When it comes to changing someone’s mind, Gardner says, “The biggest mistake people make is not understanding the other’s resistances.” Each of us has ingrained beliefs (fundamentalism). We are committed to maintaining our opinions (the status quo). For some, this is a defense mechanism, and any attempt by others to change our thinking would come at the expense of self-esteem.

What never works when trying to change someone’s mind is a direct assault on his or her point of view. When you go in determined to change someone, you’re triggering defensiveness.

Gardner advises us to pay attention to unspoken cues and listen carefully to the other’s perspective: “Try to put into your own words tentatively, not threateningly, what you think the other person’s concerns are,” he says. “Most people will appreciate your efforts if you say, ‘It seems to me you’re saying such and such.’ Then they can answer, ‘Well, no, that’s not exactly what I’m saying.’ ”

Even the most eloquent argument is likely to fail if you lack insight about the person you’re trying to sway. The real trick is to take the other person’s perspective. Once you understand someone’s resistance, you can try to find a common solution.

4. Appealing to Emotions

Emotional persuasion isn’t taught in business schools, nor does it come easily to the engineers, scientists, lawyers, physicians, accountants and managers who run organisations. Most CEOs have higher educations and are trained in statistical analysis to a degree that allows them to make sound decisions. They must then convince others, using as many methods as possible—not just the facts.

According to Dr. George Lakoff, a professor of linguistics at the University of California at Berkeley, “Concepts are not things that can be changed just by someone telling us a fact. We may be presented with facts, but for us to make sense of them, they have to fit what is already in the synapses of the brain. Otherwise, facts go in and then they go right back out. They are not heard, or they are not accepted as facts.”

Minds rely on frames, not facts, according to Lakoff and other experts. Frames are mental structures that shape the way we see the world, part of the cognitive unconscious, and they exist outside of our awareness.

Because of the way the brain learns, messages have a better chance of being retained when our emotional centres are engaged. When individuals experience a positive emotional resonance with the person trying to change their minds, they’re more easily persuaded—a phenomenon that can occur  even in the absence of reasonable facts to support change.

5. The Power of Ongoing Communication and Support

Every action has an equal and opposite reaction, according to Newton’s Third Law of Motion. In organisations, this reaction often takes the form of avoidance, resistance, and exceptionalism.

Change feels more natural when you have participation and engagement at all levels. Your goal? To introduce ideas into the mainstream, without excessive use of authority. When more people can contribute to finding solutions and helping each other, there is a better chance of achieving real behavioural change. The more people communicate and support one another, the easier it is for everyone to stay on track.

Change initiatives are more likely to fail when there are no ongoing discussions or support. This is why 90% of cardiac patients revert to unhealthy habits after their heart attacks, despite overwhelming evidence that points to a need for change. In one 1996 study by Dr. Dean Ornish, president of the Preventive Medicine Research Institute in Sausalito, California, 77 percent of heart patients managed to sustain behavioural lifestyle changes and avoid surgery after three years by participating in a twice-weekly program that offered support and training.

In summary, changing minds is not easy, but there are clear methods for increasing the probability of effecting real behavioural change. Provision of coaching services is highly recommended to support change initiatives.

Resources:

Deutschman, A. (May 2005). “Change or Die.” Fast Company.

Gardner, H. (2004). Changing Minds: The Art and Science of Changing Our Own and Other People’s Minds. Harvard Business School Press.

Kegan, R. & Lahey, L. (2001). How the Way We Talk Can Change the Way We Work. Jossey-Bass.

Raffel, D. (May 2005). “Brain to Brain: How to Get Anyone to Agree with You.” O Magazine.

Worrall, D. (2009). A Climate for Change (Chapter 2 Inspire Others to Embrace Change), Life Success Publishing.

Today’s fast-paced economy demands that businesses change or die. Few companies manage corporate transformations as well as they would like. It is said that anywhere from 50 to 80 percent of all change initiatives fail.

Between 1980 and 1995, researchers at the Harvard Business School tracked the impact of change efforts among the Fortune 100. Only 30 percent of those initiatives produced an improvement in bottom-line results that exceeded the company’s cost of capital and only 50 percent led to an improvement in market share price. Each of the companies invested $1 billion in change programs over the 15-year period.

For years, companies have struggled with growing competition by introducing improvements into every function and process. But the competitive pressures keep increasing, the pace of change keeps accelerating and companies must continually search for higher levels of quality, service and overall business agility. The treadmill moves faster, companies work harder, but results improve slowly or not at all.

One problem is that too few people at every level really support the initiative with their hearts and minds. To foster pro-active effort and imaginative thinking, not only do you have to engage more employees, you’ve got to engage them more fully.

Change is intensely personal. For change to occur in any organisation, each individual must think, feel or do something different. Even in large organisations, which depend on thousands of employees understanding company strategies well enough to translate them into appropriate actions, leaders must win their followers one by one.

Part of the problem stems from applying mechanistic models that were first used in scientific management under the legacy of Frederick Winslow Taylor. These principles were first applied to managing physical work in manufacturing plants. When superimposed on the new model of today’s knowledge organisation, change initiatives are broken into pieces and then the pieces are managed. But today change is dynamic and the pieces are constantly in motion. The challenge is to innovate mental work – not to replicate physical work.

Thinking in anticipation of changes

How do you teach thousands of people to think strategically, recognise patterns, and to anticipate problems and opportunities before they occur? There is a new level of complexity and “chaos” that can be managed only when information flows across boundaries. When we recognise that critical information can be held anywhere in and out of the organisation, we create opportunities for those with information to influence decision-making.

An organisation may simultaneously be working on TQM, process re-engineering, employee empowerment, and several other programs designed to improve performance. How do you connect and balance all the pieces? In managing change, the challenge is to understand how the pieces balance off one another, how changing one element changes the rest, and how sequencing and pace affect the whole structure.

Managing change means creating conversations between the people leading the change effort and those who are expected to implement the new strategies. It means managing the organisational context in which change can occur, as well as managing the emotional and intellectual connections that are essential for transformation.

“All real change involves major uncertainty, and we cannot deny the questioning time to others simply because we have already answered the questions for ourselves.”    – Bernice McCarthy

Feelings and perspectives

Change is fundamentally about feelings and perspectives. And companies that want their workers to contribute with their heads and hearts have to accept that emotions are essential to the new management style. The old management paradigm said that people are allowed to have feelings, as long as they are positive ones. The new management paradigm says that managing people is managing feelings, whether they are positive, negative or neutral. In the most successful change programs, large organisations connect with their people most directly through values – and values, ultimately, are about beliefs and feelings.

When an organisation denies the validity of emotions in the workplace or seeks to permit only certain kinds of emotions, two things happen. The first is that managers cut themselves off from their own emotional lives. And in doing so, they cut off the ideas, solutions, and new perspectives that other people can contribute.

Facing negativity

So how, then, to deal with negative emotions which are so common during changes? It’s true that getting a group of people together and allowing them to vent their emotions can initiate a negative spiral. A manager who is results-oriented may not be comfortable or prepared to deal with what his people have to say when it is negative.

Here is an approach that works:  A project director in one large organisation scheduled meetings twice a week for his team undergoing a complex change effort. For the first 15 minutes, staff members were allowed to complain and vent. But only for 15 minutes. Each person was allowed to say anything they felt. But the second 15 minutes were devoted to bragging about gains and successes. Ending the meeting on how people overcame obstacles became an energising process.

During the year of the change project, these meetings built up a remarkable degree of camaraderie among team members. Although harder for some to participate in than others, everyone came to realise that the conversion project was hard for everyone. They began to give each other ideas about ways to handle tough situations. As they began to tell each other about their little victories, they felt like a winning team. When the project was over, they felt better about themselves and their organisation than they had at the beginning.

Some consultants specialise in helping organisations navigate mergers, acquisitions, re-engineering and major change initiatives. Such change agents can help answer the questions: What makes for a successful change process? What can be learned from the multitude of change failures?

 “It isn’t the changes that do you in, it’s the transitions. Change is not the same as transition. Change is situational: the new site, the new boss, the new team roles, the new policy. Transition is the psychological process people go through to come to terms with the new situation. Change is external, transition is internal.” ─William Bridges, Managing Transitions, 1991

Dealing with loss

The failure to identify and be ready for the endings and losses that change produces is the largest single problem that organisations in transition encounter. No one can accurately foresee how many people will experience the “improvement” program as a loss of something related to their job. However,  a robust impact assessment of the program on affected people is a good first step.

All change involves letting go of something. Even good changes such as promotions and expansions involve losses and endings. Before you can begin something new, you have to end what used to be. In order to learn a new way of doing things, you have to unlearn the old way. Change and endings go together; you can’t have one without the other. The problem is – nobody likes endings.

It isn’t necessarily the change that people resist. It’s the losses and endings that they experience. It does little good to talk about how healthy the outcome of the change will be. First you have to deal directly with the losses and endings. But how?

1. Identify who is losing what and why.
2. Accept the reality and importance of the subjective losses. (Don’t be surprised at “overreaction.”)
3. Expect and accept the signs of “grieving.” Acknowledge the losses openly and with empathy.
4. Give people information again and again; define what’s over and what isn’t, what has changed, and what stays the same.
5. Mark the endings; treat the past with respect.
6. Provide plenty of forums for discussion about both positive and negative changes.
7. Provide coaching services, preferably from outside sources.

Providing coaching for change

An effective way of dealing with these issues is by offering the services of coaches to deal with change management. Individual time and attention with a professional coach is an excellent way for people to deal with their experiences. The opportunity to discuss the un-discussables with an outside person can create smooth transitions.

The second step through transitions involves the acceptance of a neutral zone, a sort of no-man’s land between the old reality and the new. It is the time between the old identity and the new. It is a most uncomfortable time because of the insecurity of not knowing. If you don’t expect this period and deal with it, you may mistakenly conclude that the confusion you feel is a sign that there’s something wrong with the program.

If you try to rush through this period, you risk compromising the change program – but also you will lose a great opportunity. As painful and uncomfortable as people feel in this neutral zone, it is the individual’s and the organisation’s best chance for creativity, renewal, and development.

The neutral zone is both a dangerous and an opportune place. It is the very core of the transition process. It is the time that people want most to leave and to abort the process. It is the place and time when the old habits that are no longer adaptive to the situation are extinguished and new, better patterns of habit begin to take shape. It is the chaos in which the old form of things dissolves and from which the new form emerges.

People make the new beginning only if they have first made an ending and spent some time in the neutral zone. Yet most organisations try to start with the beginning rather that finishing with the old first.

First You Lose, and Then You Win…

When major changes are announced, they emphasise all the benefits that will follow with the successful new strategies. While fanfare and power point presentations can be theatrical and entertaining, the danger lies in giving little attention to the reality of loss that the changes are bringing. Change means loss. The loss has to be processed before people will change their behaviours in the desired direction. Here are some common reactions that arise:

Anger: This may be evident as grumbling, as foot-dragging, mistakes, and even sabotage. Listen to what is being said. Don’t take on the blame, however, when anger is being misdirected at you. Distinguish between acceptable feelings and unacceptable acting-out behaviours.

Bargaining: There may be unrealistic attempts to get out of the situation by trying to strike a deal. Distinguish these efforts from real problem solving. Don’t be swayed by desperate arguments and impossible promises.

Anxiety: The fear of an unknown future may lead some to create catastrophic fantasies. Such feelings may be silent or expressed. Again, acknowledge and accept these emotions as natural. Don’t make people feel stupid for experiencing anxiety. Communicate new information as it becomes available. Commiserate with them when it is not.

Sadness: This is the heart of the grieving process. It may be experienced as everything from silence to tears. It is often behind feelings of anger. Encourage people to say what they are feeling and share your feelings too. Trying to reassure people with unrealistic suggestions of hope may fall flat. You can empathise as long as it’s genuine.

Disorientation: Even organised people may experience forgetfulness, confusion and clumsiness during this period. These feelings are so uncomfortable that people will do strange things to avoid them. Give people extra support and attention.

Depression: Some people may experience feelings of hopelessness and exhaustion. Depression is hard to be around. You can’t  ignore it; people still have to get their work done. You can help by restoring people’s sense of having some control over their situations.

If you suppress the feelings and push people to get over them, it will be difficult to successfully enter into the new changes with any sense of commitment or enthusiasm. If you want to engage people to support an initiative with their hearts and minds, you must recognise their feelings, and acknowledge their losses before moving into new beginnings.

Resources Managing Organisational Change

Bridges, William, Managing Transitions: Making the Most of Change; Perseus Books, 1991

Duck, Jeanie Daniel; “Managing Change: The Art of Balancing,” Harvard Business Review, Nov.-Dec. 1993.

Kotter, John P.; Leading Change, HBS Press,1996.

Kotter, John P; “How to Get Aboard a Major Change Effort,” Harvard Business Review, September 1996.

Larkin, TJ. and Sandar Larkin, “Reaching and Changing Frontline Employees,” Harvard Business Review, May-June 1996.

Pascale, Richard, and Mark Millemann and Linda Gioja, “Changing the Way We Change,” Harvard Business Review,  Nov.-Dec. 1997.

Senge, Peter, The Dance of Change, 1999.

Worrall, Di, A Climate for Change, Life Success Publishing, 2009.

One study of CEOs showed that positivity training could boost their productivity by 15 percent, and managers improved customer satisfaction by 42 percent. Despite such training’s amazing results, many leaders remain completely unfamiliar with the concept.

In business, positive emotions yield:

1. Better decisions. Researchers at the UC Berkeley Haas School of Business studied how positive moods affect managers. Managers with greater positivity were more accurate and careful in making decisions, and were more effective interpersonally.
2. Better team work. Managers with positive emotions infect their work groups with similar feelings and show improved team coordination, while reporting less effort to accomplish more.
3. Better negotiating. At Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, researchers learned that when people negotiate complex bargains, positivity again surfaces as a contributing factor for success. Negotiators who strategically display positivity are more likely to gain concessions, close deals and incorporate future business relationships into the contracts they seal.

Positive emotions directly correlate with:

• Increased creativity
• More curiosity and interest in the world
• Better health
• Better social relationships
• Optimism and perseverance
• Longevity

The business benefits of positivity include:

• Lower turnover
• Improved customer service
• Better supervisor evaluations
• Lower emotional fatigue
• Higher job satisfaction
• Better organisational citizenship (ethics)
• Fewer work absences
• Improved innovation
• Better safety records

Emotions’ Role in Business

For businesses and organizations, emotions are functional. Both negative and positive emotions work to drive results. Negative emotions serve to limit our thoughts and behaviours, helping us to act more decisively in times of stress or crisis.

Positivity broadens your outlook, opens you to new solutions and ideas, and brings more possibilities into view. Positivity fosters vital human moments that go beyond optimism and a smiling face. It infuses your mindset and outlook, affects your heart rhythms and body chemistry, reduces muscle tension and improves relationships.

The Broaden-and-Build Model of Positive Emotions

Psychologist Barbara Fredrickson, PhD, outlines her “broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions” in Positivity: Groundbreaking Research Reveals How to Embrace the Hidden Strength of Positive Emotions, Overcome Negativity and Thrive (Crown Archetype, 2009).

Dr. Fredrickson suggests that positive emotions (enjoyment, happiness, joy, interest and anticipation) broaden our awareness and encourage novel, varied, and exploratory thoughts and actions. Over time, this expanded behavioural repertoire helps us build skills and resources.

In contrast, negative emotions prompt narrow, immediate, survival-oriented behaviours.

Positivity and High Performance

For years, organisational psychologist Marcial Losada, PhD, studied the characteristics of high-performing business teams. As part of his work, he designed a meeting room to capture the real-time behaviour of business teams in action.

The room resembled any ordinary boardroom, but it was fitted with one-way mirrors and video cameras that allowed research assistants to record every statement during company teams’ hour-long meetings.

In particular, Dr. Losada tracked whether individuals’ statements were:

1. Positive or negative
2. Self- or other-focused
3. Based on inquiry (asking questions) or advocacy (defending a point of view)

By the mid-’90s, 60 different teams had been observed and coded. At the same time, each team’s performance level was identified based on independent data. Twenty-five percent met the criteria for high performance based on three distinct indicators:

1. Profitability
2. Customer satisfaction ratings
3. Evaluations by superiors, peers and subordinates

About 30 percent scored low on all three factors. The rest had mixed profiles. Dr. Losada also rated team behaviour on connectivity (how well tuned or responsive members were to one another).

When he later divided the teams into high, low and mixed performance levels, striking differences emerged. High-performance teams stood out by their unusually high positivity-to-negativity ratios: about 6:1. Mixed-performance teams scored ratios of 2:1, while low-performing teams scored 1:1.

High-performing teams also had higher connectivity ratings and an interesting balance on other dimensions. Members asked questions as much as they defended their own views, and they cast their attention outward as much as inward.

Low-performing teams, however, had far lower connectivity, asked almost no questions and showed almost no outward focus.

The Tipping Point: 3:1 Positivity Ratio

The positivity/negativity ratio has been found to be a critical parameter in ascertaining what kinds of dynamics are possible for business teams. It is measured by counting the instances of positive feedback (e.g., “that is a good idea”) vs. negative feedback (e.g., “this is not what I expected; I am disappointed”).

Dr. Losada’s findings can be summarised as follows: If a team is highly connected, its members will tend to maintain an equilibrium between internal and external focus, as well as between inquiry and advocacy. They will also maintain a positivity/negativity ratio above 3:1.

If connectivity is low, the team will be more internally focused, it will advocate strongly, and its positivity/negativity ratio will be below 3:1.

Dr. Losada’s research correlates with Dr. Fredrickson’s, in that both independently arrived at a 3:1 positivity-to-negativity ratio for optimal functioning (whether for individuals or teams).

Improve Your Ratio

You can take a self-evaluation of your positivity/negativity ratio at Dr. Fredrickson’s site, www.positivityratio.com. To improve your ratio, you must decrease the number and intensity of negative moments, increase the positive moments, or both.

The goal is not to eliminate bad thoughts. Negative emotions are appropriate and useful. We need to become aware, however, of gratuitous negativity. Fortunately, simple awareness of negativity has a curative effect. Once you learn to spot it, you can defuse it.

To reduce negative thinking, adopt these useful techniques from the field of cognitive behavioural psychology and Dr. Fredrickson’s book:

1. Dispute negative, black-and-white thinking habits (always/never, most/least, internal/external).
2. Break ruminative thinking (use distractions to change mood).
3. Become more mindful (observe without judgement).
4. Reduce bad news streams.
5. Avoid gossip and sarcasm.
6. Smile more often at people.

It may take a while for positive thinking to become natural and habitual. Try these frequently cited exercises to create positive thinking habits:

1. Practice gratitude. Keep a daily gratitude list. Ask yourself questions like “What went right?” and “What was the best part of today?”
2. Practice positive feedback. Catch people doing things right. As you practice this skill and express your appreciation more often, people will shine.
3. Envision your best possible future. When you daydream about your future, you set yourself up for goal-directed behaviours. Envisioning your best possible future helps you persevere and provides hope.