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adapting to change

How to lead successfully through uncertainty

December 16, 2016 by Jan Leave a Comment

“I think we’re lost. Yeah, we’re lost. I KNOW we’re lost!”

Does that sound like the worried buzz at the company where you once worked – or the one where you work now?

Did the path forward once seem SO clear, so destined to be successful during the cool logic of business or project planning?

And now, does that plan seem to be pure fiction, or a dream, perhaps?

These “we’re lost” quotes were not from an employee sometime, somewhere.

These were the fears of our then-12-year-old son, Matt, as his 20-year-old sister, Anne, tried to lead us back to our hotel in Paris when we were trying to find our way to home base on the last night of a family trip there.

Anne was our leader in this case because she was, effectively, the only French-speaking member of the family.

She’d been nervous about taking on the communications and navigation leadership role at the beginning of the French portion of this family trip. She grew into the role beautifully, though.

Her skills were really being tested this final evening. And she did get us safely back to the hotel, despite the doubts of some of her followers.

What worked in this situation can help you, too, to succeed when you must adapt best-made plans quickly in order to lead successfully through uncertainty.

Try these approaches to help you be successful:

Make yourself easy to follow

Be clear about your vision, plan and directions. Use simple language and descriptions that everyone can understand. Speak in specific, concrete terms. Help your team understand what’s different in this situation from the original plan.

Be clear about your assumptions

We all know stories about teams that made incorrect assumptions in planning and then never adjusted them, despite the facts. In many of these cases great difficulties, even tragedies, occurred which might have been prevented. Be attentive to whether your assumptions are solid…or need to be revised…as you play your plan. Use good data. Know what it’s telling you. Adjust both your plan and actions if facts make it clear you must.

Trust your instincts, but check the facts

One of the primary strengths of the way Anne led us back to the hotel that evening was that she started with a vision of success that held up in spite of the nervousness around her. She also paid close attention to her intuition, combined with the facts and feedback she could gather from the team (her family, in this case) and the environment. Finally, she held it all together with a healthy spirit of adventure that made the team successful, and the experience memorable, in a positive way.

Show confidence, courage

This is often a major key to tipping the balance of a team’s focus from fear and anticipation of failure – particularly when plans must change rapidly – to confidence and conviction. Armed with a vision, a revised or flexible plan, and guided by facts gathered along the way, you and your team can move with assurance in whatever circumstances you find.

Make simple agreements – and keep them

Agree with your team on the milestones at which you’ll check your progress, and the data or metrics you’ll use to evaluate whether you’re on- or off-course. Then keep those agreements. You’ll build a strong experience of being a team – and improve your outcome – as you face uncertainty together.

Keep communication flowing

Success requires strength, confidence and everyone’s willingness to stay fully involved. Keep lines of communication open, free-flowing. As a team leader, be clear about how you’ll make decisions. Ask for information or feedback you need. Listen fully. Acknowledge, sort, synthesize and incorporate essential information you receive (if you don’t, people may stop bringing it to you). Keep communication moving. It can be the difference between success and failure.

Follow through

This one can’t be said enough. Confidence grows when teams see a growing trail of small victories, one success leading to another. Follow up. Follow through. Complete each task and keep moving.

Encourage others

If you’re discouraged in the unexpected situation in which you find yourself, others on your team are probably even more so. They’re watching you very, very closely, and your mood shows more than you know. As the leader, it’s your job to get the group successfully and safely to their destination, despite the circumstances you find yourselves in. Your job will be easier if you help to lighten the team’s load, even by letting them know that you see how much they’re carrying. Show appreciation for their efforts and their flexibility.

When you’re right, no gloating, no showboating

Finally, congratulate and thank each member of the team, whatever role they played in the team’s success. Remember – you got to your final destination together, not alone.

Filed Under: Change management, Leadership, Teams and teamwork, Vision and strategy Tagged With: adapting to change, leading through uncertainty, resilience

Try this quick “Ten A’s” exercise for focus, energy, action, results

March 15, 2016 by Jan Leave a Comment

On a whim one recent Monday morning, I brainstormed a list of words to inspire and challenge myself as I tried to get the day and week off to a great start.

It was an accolade and aggravation-filled list, as you’ll see, below. It helped me prioritize and refine my plans…and amused me, too…all in the space of about 3 minutes.

See if this brief exercise works for you, too. If the words I chose don’t work for you, replace them your own.

Here are a few guidelines to make this exercise work best:

– Keep the list short.

It’s a rapid-cycle brainstorming exercise to get yourself warmed up for the day or week.

– Use words that you react to, either positively or negatively.

Success is made up of the ability to respond well to positive and negative situations. You’ll be better prepared or more adaptable if you consider both types of circumstances, right from the start.

– Fill out the list quickly.

You may be surprised at what you learn in this rapid-cycle check-in with yourself. That surprising information may be the spark of energy, or the note of caution that makes all the difference in how you focus and invest your day or week, and the results you produce.

These were the words and questions that I used. Use these, or create your own list, if you like the idea of this exercise, but know that other words and questions will work better for you:

1. Admiration

What can I do to earn my own admiration today? This week?

2. Aspiration

What do I aspire to do, be, or achieve today? This week?

3. Accomplishments

Do I have any accomplishments that I’ve overlooked, or taken for granted so far?

4. Accolades

Are there accolades I should be giving myself for great work done recently…even if the work is not yet complete? What’s an appropriate way to recognize or celebrate them?

5. Action

Are the actions I planned for today still the right actions for moving ahead, given what’s most important right now? What are the 1-3 most important things I must get done, if nothing else?

6. Angst

Are there things I’m worrying about? What can I do to make the situation better?

7. Acceptance

Are there things I need to accept but which I have not actively accepted yet? (Acceptance is a far more active state than many people think of it as being. It’s far from passively giving up).

8. Admonitions

Are there warnings I need to pay attention to, or information I need to get? Are there assumptions I’ve made, but had better double-check?

9. Aggravations

Are there problems that I need to clear away in some way, such as through a process improvement? Is there a task that I need to delegate?

10. Avoidance

Are there things I’m avoiding that I really need to attend to? Is there important information that I’m trying to ignore?

Filed Under: Change management, Process design and management Tagged With: action-oriented, adapting to change, change, focus, get out of your own way

What do you do about a goal you forgot…or have been resisting?

March 15, 2016 by Jan Leave a Comment

Are you finding, as you build momentum in this new year, that there is a goal you “forgot”?

It can happen.

It may be a goal that:

– You hoped you could, and others would, forget about.

– Was something you never wanted to do, but knew you needed to.

– Was buried, day by day, as more immediate issues got in the way.

If there’s a goal like this for you as we move farther into 2022:

1. Decide if this forgotten goal is something you still want to achieve.

Sometimes there’s a goal we hope to get to, but it’s big enough that we just don’t grasp quite how to begin to tackle it, much less know how to completely meet it.

At other times, the forgotten goal may be one you once had, but have now outgrown or, for other reasons, no longer hold.

2. If this is a goal you still want, get excited about it again.

Maybe there are great benefits to getting this work done which you haven’t focused on fully yet.

Take some time to imagine you’ve achieved the goal. Experience that feeling of victory in its full glory…all the sights, sounds, and elation.

Also imagine the process of getting there. See yourself rising above each challenge that may crop up along the path.

3. Accept it if this is something you have to achieve, whether you want to or not.

This may be a “should” or “must” that you still have to carry forward.

If so, accept it (easy to say, but hard to do…I know that from experience). And get moving.

There is a lot of power in acceptance. The energy you’ve spent running away can be used in far better ways. You may, and probably will, find that you’ve met your goal far more quickly than you expected, once you’ve buckled down and gotten the work done.

Suddenly, the goal will be met, and the burden will have been lifted, as well.

4. Increase your dissatisfaction with the status quo.

This is the opposite of getting excited about a goal you still want to achieve.

To get to the point of action, sometimes we have to wait until we’re really ready to let go of the past. And, well, sometimes that takes a lot of unhappiness with the status quo. We have to be far more ready to go than to stay in the situation we currently find ourselves in.

How can you increase your dissatisfaction with your current situation, making you less willing to tolerate the status quo?

5. Take your big goal and turn it into a series of smaller, more accessible and achievable goals.

Put those smaller goals on your calendar and work to achieve each of those, one by one.

You’ll create a steady stream of achievements, which has far more benefits than you might realize now.

Filed Under: Change management Tagged With: action-oriented, adapting to change, change, decision-making, focus, get out of your own way, leadership skills, resilience

Are you really change-ready?

March 15, 2016 by Jan Leave a Comment

You may think you’re ready for change — until you get up to the starting line and the action is about to start.

And when you do – much like standing at the starting line of an important race – that’s no time to find out you’re unprepared, or that you really don’t want to make the change, at all.

Change isn’t easy, no matter what type of change you’re making (or being asked to make), and no matter who else is involved.

But change works out far better if you’re ready for it – and all the twists and turns it can bring.

It works better, too, if you seek change, rather than to be caught reluctantly by it.

Better still is change you yearn for.

And best of all is if you’re driven enough to accomplish the change you seek to make and are so driven that you can unquestionably move over, around, or through any barriers you find that could stand in the way of the success you’re trying to create with that change.

Change, of course, comes in many forms.

We all know from experience that not all change is change we welcome.

Here are just a few of the types of major change that you may face at some time, and ways that you can adapt to them:

1. Change can be thrust upon us by life circumstances.

A lot of the process of change requires acceptance (which is, by the way, far from a passive state and sometimes a state that not easily arrived at). Adaptability is also essential. And sometimes figuring out ways to “make do” for a while is required, too.

These are not experiences that dreams are made of. They are, however, sometimes the stuff that heroic stories are made of.

And like it or not, these experiences can be some of the ones that toughen us up most and make us strong, ready for even greater challenges of other types, later in life.

2. Great change may happen serendipitously.

For example, let’s say you have an interesting opportunity, and decide to take it. An interesting experience occurs, as a result.

You notice that you liked the experience, and decide to repeat the experience or experiment.

An interesting path starts to unfold.

Through these types of gradual change experiences, career interests or passions are sometimes discovered, new skills are developed, opportunities emerge, and rewarding relationships often emerge, too.

3. Change that you yearn for is the change that dreams are often made of.

If these changes are really big ones, they often take hard work and careful planning, skill development, and coordination with other people.

These changes are often driven by a very powerful and compelling vision you hold of the outcome you seek.

Whatever the change you face, to the degree you can be, it’s best if you’re ready for the race and challenge of change.

But that’s not possible in every case.

And no matter what happens, or why change occurs, you can’t anticipate and plan for all twists and turns, opportunities, challenges, and differences ahead that will emerge, no matter what type of change has arrived.

Change doesn’t have to buckle you to your knees, nor does it have to overwhelm you, even if it is the type you didn’t seek.

Change is a fact of life. Being change-ready and change-responsive — if it’s not yet one of your strengths — is a skill you’ll be glad to have when you have achieved it.

Filed Under: Change management, Leadership Tagged With: adapting to change, change, focus, leadership skills, leading through uncertainty, resilience

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