A tool to help with the How when the When is at risk to change

An outstanding read for anyone that is involved in the challenge of driving and implementing change is Ryan Holiday’s “The Obstacle is the Way.” The wording in the jacket best describes it “how we can turn adversity into advantage.” In the previous blog post, I provided a model that dealt with the adversity and complexity of multiple variables in planning and delivery. It was around collaboration and engagement in looking forward when developing and executing a larger plan. In this entry, I will provide a visual tool to help provide you and your team the ability to prepare for the changes that will come as you move forward with a specific project, initiative implementation, or just try to get your business or department back up to full speed. It is designed to aid in discussions with team members and stakeholders to be aware of the consequences, positive and negative, as things change and evolve. As I have shared, I will be happy to volunteer my time to share this on a video call and help use the tool in one of your real-world situations as everyone is challenged at this time. When you are in charge of leading projects and groups, at some point your business will be impacted by a dramatic change. Changes in ownership, changes in organization, changes in strategy, changes in technology platforms, and changes in the economy. I am confident that one thing that will not change for most of us during these times are expectations. Expectations from our bosses, our staff, our peers, our stakeholders, our partners. Those expectations may be ambiguous, especially now, but they are there…and that is OK. You are up to the challenge. For those that know me personally, I do not view anything in the world as static. Nature is dynamic. If someone says, “you want to protect the status quo,” my guess is you will take that as a negative. However, if you assume the world is dynamic, doing nothing does not protect anything. If you want to preserve or maintain something, then you have to DO something dynamic. Consider the Last Supper in Milan. Many people (mostly Americans) will show up at the door of the Church thinking they can just walk in like the Louvre and see this famous artwork, only to find out entry has been sold out for weeks, or months during the busy times. They do not take it well. Unlike the Mona Lisa, which is oil on canvas painting, the Last Supper is a fresco on the wall of a building painted in the late 1400’s. How many times have you repainted the walls in your home? Even though it has had many restorations, to “maintain” the ability for generations to enjoy it (and since they realized they could not move it), they have engineered specific air quality systems and only allow only a set number of visitors at a time. Think it will be there forever, ask the people in New Hampshire about the Old Man in the Mountain how dynamic nature can be when trying to maintain the status quo. So, if the world around us is dynamic, even when we are trying to maintain our ability to execute and deliver, then we have to have a dynamic process. I recently heard a psychologist discuss on a podcast about intentionality, goal setting, and implementation intentions. It was pretty interesting. One of the things that he passed along from some reading he had done was that the most important thing you can do after you set your goal is to figure out all the barriers and challenges you will face to achieve it, and the majority of your work should be in removing and overcoming those. A so-called pre-mortem. I could not agree more and frequently told my staff my job was to remove the barriers AND give them the resources to help them achieve their goals. If you are facilitating a workshop, that is also your goal – remove barriers AND provide the framework to achieve the desired output. It is about the AND! So many times leaders, managers, facilitators, trainers, etc. fall short because they do one OR the other. This simple tool can turn the adversity of changes or delays in upstream projects or decisions that have a knock-on effect on delivery of your plan and outcomes. The higher up you are in the organization, the less you have to do with physical delivery and the more important your role is to mitigate delivery risks, remove obstacles, and overcome barriers. And many of these have to do with perceptions of performance as well as resource availability. The opportunity for you as a leader is in a collaborative and engaging environment. Using a visible process and tool like this can provide the foundation of hope and optimism that you and the team can get through the uncertainty. In addition, it helps show stakeholders that they can have confidence in you and your team to address challenges and deliver. A secondary benefit is it allows engagement so questions and concerns can be addressed in a proactive manner rather than 11th hour reactivity that seem to befall many projects. The attached PowerPoint file (at the bottom of the page) has more detail. I tried to use an example related to an IT Tool implementation since I believe most of you at some point have been impacted by new tool implementations. This is from the lens of you as the manager or leader that is supportive of the tool and sees it benefits, maybe you are a sponsor of the project. However, you also have a business to run and numbers to deliver. Since the accountability for the project delivery rolls up through another business unit that is not directly impacted or engaged in your business results, the accountability of delivering results, regardless of “headwinds” or “technical issues” or “fill in the blank” falls to you and your team. And quite frankly, that is how it should be as on the positive side it can drive collaboration, create organizational alignment, and foster a great culture. On the negative side, it can leave you exposed if the expectations are you were delivering before the solution so you should be able to deliver if the solution is delayed. A simple exercise to check the health of your focus. How much of your time spent “managing” your business or organization over the past few weeks has been around numbers and Excel spreadsheets related to budgets, forecasting, and revenue projections? Now, honest answer, have you spent as much or more time on the “how” you are going to get there? It is about the “what” are we going to deliver AND the “how.” If you give this tool a try, I think it will help you and your team with the how and that will need to less anxiety and more confidence in these uncertain times – because let’s face it, we live in a dynamic, uncertain world all the time and isn’t that exciting!

Paceline LLC Go Live Tool.pptx

Download PPTX • 159KB