Unlocking Change: Understanding Your Team's Change Style

Slow down, take a deep breath, and think for a minute about this question:

As a leader, what is the single most important thing you are trying to change in your organization?

Do you have that ONE thing in mind? Now write it down.

In my work as an organizational consultant and executive coach, I often work with leaders who have several things they are trying to change at the same time. They are trying to make their organization more efficient and more focused, and they want to have their employees think in a new or different way.

It would be fairly easy to lead if you only had to make one change at a time, and you could do this linearly and synchronously. No one I know in leadership has this luxury though.

Change is all around you, coming at you from every side:

• Budgets change

• People change

• Expectations change

• Visions change

• Customers change

• Products change

• Regulations change

• Bosses’ minds change

Often all of these types of changes can happen at the same time. Sometimes you are in complete control of these changes, and other times you feel like you are in more of a reactionary position.

No matter the position you find yourself in, as a leader, one thing is clear, part of your calling is to be able and willing to change.

Style Preferences:

One of the things I have been thinking more about over the past several months is not necessarily the types of changes or even my level of control over them, but more so about how my team members and customers approach change in general. In our organization, we have a lot of changes going on sometimes all at once:

• We add new team members

• We launch new websites

• We take on more projects

• We add new courses to our teaching repertoire

• We start to do executive coaching in new industries and with new clients

Change is everywhere.

However, I have been trying to focus less on the “what” that is changing and more on the “how” each person on my team responds to change.

Let’s face it. Some of you are change junkies. Change gives your brain a huge dopamine rush and you get an overwhelmingly positive feeling when things are changing. Some of you like to move so fast that you end up getting several steps ahead of everyone else and you are forced to slow down or lose others completely. Others of you realize that change is imminent, but you have more of a slow-and-steady-wins-the-race approach.

Experts on change agree that while there is no one-style-fits-all approach, each of us has our own approach that we are more comfortable with when it comes to change.

Change Style Indicator:

A tool that I use to better understand the change styles of my team is the “Change Style Indicator”. This is a simple and easy-to-use assessment you can look up online that gives people a glimpse into their style preferences when they are faced with change. The assessment takes less than 10 minutes to complete, then you are scored on a change style continuum of three styles that represent distinct approaches when responding to change. The continuum ranges from a Conserver Style to an Originator Style, to a Pragmatists Style, occupying the middle range of the continuum.

I have found that working with my team in light of this assessment has helped us to manage all the changes we are facing more productively. While this tool does not give any indication of whether or not we are good at change, or even if our styles are effective for the type of changes we are facing, what it does for me as a leader is:

• Allow me to approach everyone on my team as an individual in the ways they like to approach change

• Get a better feel for the underlying emotions and anxieties associated with the change

• Better understand some of the natural conflicts that arise between team members based on the changes they are facing

• Get better at responding, helping to enhance collaboration, and even encouraging the team to innovate more

I asked a member of my team to answer a few questions about their perspective on the Change Style Indicator.

1. How easy was this assessment to take and how long did it take you to complete it?

   It only took me about 15 minutes, including the time to read the instructions. The questions are straightforward and ask you for the response that immediately comes to mind. There are no "right" or "wrong" answers, you are just asked to be candid in your responses.

2. What is one thing that you learned about yourself from the assessment that you didn’t already know?

   I have utilized several personality and communication style assessments, but I've never taken one directly related to dealing with change. I enjoyed reading the detailed results report, which indicated I am a "Pragmatist" with a "Conserver" orientation. This means that I prefer the kind of change that happens for practical reasons, and I want to make sure any change is a group effort, keeping in mind what is best for the team.

3. How can you see yourself using this assessment as you influence others on our team?

   The results report provided a useful outline of my strengths and weaknesses when dealing with change. This is helpful for my work in the future as it gives me tools to explain to other team members how I can best contribute to change within our organization. If everyone on my team utilizes the Change Style Indicator, it can help us when planning our work so that the assignments and expectations are tailored to suit the strengths and weaknesses of each team member.

4. What advice would you give to someone who wanted to be more influential as a leader in their organization?

   Self-awareness is an essential skill for any leader. When working with a team, you not only have to understand yourself but you have to also be able to adapt your style when necessary to get the best results with your group. The Change Style Indicator is a useful key to self-awareness in managing organizational change.

Simple tools like this can be quite effective in helping us as leaders to assess our teams and what the best approaches might be to maximize our change opportunities.

Takeaway:

Go back to the change that you wrote down at the beginning of this post. Now think about all the people on your team who are affected by that change. What words would you use to describe the way they approach change? I think taking some time and assessing how people respond to change can make all the difference in how effective we are as leaders in making change happen.

What Is Your Change Style?

Stop and think for a minute. Slow down, take a deep breath, and think for a minute about this question:

As a leader, what is the single most important thing you are trying to change in your organization?

Do you have that ONE thing in mind? Now write it down.

In my work as an organizational consultant and executive coach, I often work with leaders who have several things they are trying to change at the same time. They are trying to make their organization more efficient, plus more focused, and they want to have their employees think in a new or different way.

It would be fairly easy to lead if you only had to make one change at a time, and you could do this in a linear and synchronous fashion. No one I know in leadership has this luxury though.

Change is all around you, coming at you from every side.

• Budgets change

• People change

• Expectations change

• Visions change

• Customers change

• Products change

• Regulations change

• Bosses’ minds change

Often all of these types of changes happen at the same time. Sometimes you are in complete control of these changes, and other times you feel like you are in more of a reactionary position.

No matter the position you find yourself in, as a leader, one thing is clear, part of your calling is to be able and willing to change. No one these days is interested in people who can just lead the status quo.

Style Preferences:

One of the things I have been thinking more about over the past several months is not necessarily the types of changes or even my level of control over them, but more so about how my team members and customers approach change in general. In our organization, we have a lot of changes going on sometimes all at once:

• We add new team members

• We launch new websites

• We take on more projects

• We add new courses to our teaching repertoire

• We start to do executive coaching in new industries and with new clients

Change is everywhere.

However, I have been trying to focus less on the “what” that is changing and more on the “how” each person on my team responds to change.

Let’s face it. Some of you are change junkies. Change gives your brain a huge dopamine rush and you get an overwhelmingly positive feeling when things are changing. Some of you like to move so fast that you end up getting several steps ahead of everyone else and you are forced to slow down or lose others completely. Others of you realize that change is imminent, but you have more of a slow-and-steady-wins-the-race approach.

Experts on change agree that while there is no one-style-fits-all approach, each of us has our own approach or style that we are more comfortable with when it comes to change.

Changes Style Indicator:

A tool that I use to better understand the change styles of my team is the “Change Style Indicator”. This is a simple and easy-to-use assessment you can look up online that gives people a glimpse into their style preferences when they are faced with change. The assessment takes less than 10 minutes to complete, then you are scored on a change style continuum of three styles that represent distinct approaches when responding to change. The continuum ranges from a Conserver Style to an Originator Style, to a Pragmatists Style, occupying the middle range of the continuum.

I have found that working with my team in light of this assessment has really helped us to manage all the changes we are facing in a more productive way. While this tool does not give any indication of whether or not we are good at change, or even if our styles are effective for the type of changes we are facing, what it does for me as a leader is:

• Allow me to approach everyone on my team as an individual in the ways they like to approach change

• Get a better feel for the underlying emotion and anxieties associated with the change

• Better understand some of the natural conflicts that arise between team members based on the changes they are facing

• Get better at responding, helping to enhance collaboration, and even encouraging the team to innovate more

I asked a member of my team to answer a few questions about their perspective on the Change Style Indicator.

1. How easy was this assessment to take and how long did it take you to complete it?

   The Change Style Indicator assessment only took me about 15 minutes, including the time to read the instructions. The questions are straightforward and ask you for the response that immediately comes to mind. There are no "right" or "wrong" answers, you are just asked to be candid in your responses.

2. What is one thing that you learned about yourself from the assessment that you didn’t already know?

   I have utilized several personality and communication style assessments, but I've never taken one directly related to dealing with change. I enjoyed reading the detailed results report, which indicated I am a "Pragmatist" with a "Conserver" orientation. This means that I prefer the kind of change that happens for practical reasons, and I want to make sure any change is a group effort, keeping in mind what is best for the team.

3. How can you see yourself using this assessment as you influence others on our team?

   The results report provided a useful outline of my strengths and weaknesses when dealing with change. This is helpful for my work in the future as it gives me tools to explain to other team members how I can best contribute to change within our organization. If everyone on my team utilizes the Change Style Indicator, it can help us when planning our work so that the assignments and expectations are tailored to suit the strengths and weaknesses of each team member.

4. What advice would you give to someone who wanted to be more influential as a leader in their organization?

   Self-awareness is an essential skill for any leader. When working with a team, you not only have to understand yourself but you have to also be able to adapt your style when necessary to get the best results with your group. The Change Style Indicator is a useful key to self-awareness in managing organizational change.

So, as you can see, simple tools like this can be quite effective in helping us as leaders to assess our teams and what the best approaches might be to maximize our change opportunities.

Takeaway:

Go back to that change that you wrote down initially at the beginning of this post. Now think about all the people on your team who are affected by that change. What words would you use to describe the way they approach change? I think taking some time and assessing how people respond to change can make all the difference in how effective we are as leaders in making change happen.

Unprecedented...Really?

I noticed something about the conversations I was having with my clients last week. I was repeatedly using a word that, until recent weeks, I don’t think I used all that much.

Unprecedented. 

The word means “never done or known before.”

On one hand, there are a lot of specific things I am experiencing for the first time. 

For example:

• This is the first global pandemic I have been through in my lifetime

• According to the Wall Street Journal on April 16, 2020, over 22 million people sought unemployment benefits

• People are wearing masks at the grocery store

• It is hard to purchase paper towels and toilet paper

• A drop of 2997 points in the Dow Jones Industrial Average

• I can’t fly to Peoria and have coffee with my mom at her kitchen table

• I can’t fly to Ohio and hug my two grandbabies! 

All of these seemingly unprecedented events were starting to cause me some stress. I could feel it all building. As I would think about the pandemic and the many people dying, I get a little stressed because I don’t want to get sick and die. I go to the grocery store and see all the people wearing masks and I can not buy paper towels and I get a little stressed.  When I read the news at night, half of the stock market pundits say the market is going to recover and the other half say it is going back down. This uncertainty adds stress.  I can see my two precious granddaughters on FaceTime, but I cannot hug them…wanna talk about stress?!

Pretty soon, I can feel all of this stress adding up. I can actually start to feel the weight of it all. I think it is starting to affect my mental game, my positive attitude, my overall optimism.

Then it hit me like a blinding flash of light, what I know about stress is killing me.

That last statement might seem a little odd, but hang with me. I want to unpack it with you.

Henry Thompson, in his book, The Stress Effect, draws this conclusion, “When stress increases, cognitive and emotional intelligence are compromised. Perception changes and, in many cases, become less accurate and more biased.”  When complexity increases and our control decreases we do not see things as they really are and we mentally run to our familiar comfort zones.

And if that is not enough the Mayo Clinic cites body, mood, and behavioral effects like headache, anxiety, and overeating, along with stomach upset, feeling overwhelmed, and exercising less.

Like you, the last two paragraphs were not new information for me. I know that stress affects my decision making and I know it makes me anxious and causes me to feel overwhelmed at times. I also know that if I let myself slip, I will take on other unhealthy behaviors like overeating and sleep difficulties. 

What I know about stress is indeed killing me.

As I was feeling the weight of all this stress, I came to realize that I needed a very different response. So, in my journaling this morning, I spent some time just writing and trying to figure out all this seemingly unprecedented stuff, and the stress it was causing me.

Out of nowhere, another blinding flash of light: is this event that we are experiencing really unprecedented?

Just Hear Me Out

At first glance when thinking about the impact of Covid-19, there might be an argument for describing it with the word “unprecedented.”

I don’t ever remember not being able to go out and have dinner in a restaurant. Certainly, that has never happened before in my life. From my very first memories as a kid growing up I could go into Steak and Shake with my Aunt Betty and order a fried egg sandwich on white bread and those classic french fries.

But as I was thinking about this micro event of dining in at Steak and Shake back in the 1960’s, it really isn’t the dining in the restaurant, but more about my ability to have control to do what I want, when I want.

Yet none of us always gets to do what we want, when we want.

Is this unprecedented feeling I am having really all that unprecedented? Or is it a lack of control I am experiencing in the moment?

I have been pretty open in this column, and in my conversations with my clients, and even on the Facebook Watch Parties (sign up for my next one here) I have been hosting about how I am starting my day. In fact, just yesterday I was on a coaching call and a client said to me, “So, Scott, tell me how you are starting your day?”

Here is what I told him:

• I am walking the dog

• I am exercising

• I am having coffee and reading my Bible 

• I am spending some time in quiet reflection and meditation

• I then go into my office and start working

Then I told him I am really digging this routine. One thing I did have to change was looking at the news. I open the Newsfeed on my iPhone and skim the headlines to see if there is something new or breakthrough that happened overnight. Then I close the app.  I don’t want to infect my day with a bunch of news I already know is bad.

Why am I telling you all this, you might be asking?

The Point

Today I am in my morning routine and reading my Bible and one of the verses in the study I am doing is Ecclesiastes 1:9 which reads, “What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.”

I really had to stop dead in my tracks.

How could something be unprecedented and yet there be nothing new under the sun?

While the microcosm of what we are all experiencing right now might be new, the lack of control we are experiencing certainly is not.

The inability to control our situations or our circumstances is not new. For centuries, people have had to adapt and change because of what is going on around them. And for centuries, these events have been stressful.

What I am asking myself is, “Do I have to succumb to the stress of the situation?” 

What I know about stress is killing me, and if I don’t change something, the stress just might do me in.  

I will have a free tool for you to download after my Facebook WatchParty event this Thursday at noon Eastern time.  I hope you will be able to join me!  I have a very special guest who will join me to help us continue this discussion around stress. See you Thursday!

Every Leader Needs to Acknowledge This One Thing Right Now

I LOVE MY TEAM’S AMYGDALA!

Let me explain why...

These are for sure some crazy times we are living in. I just spoke to my neighbor, Bill, who is almost 80 years old at the mailbox. “I have never witnessed anything like this in my life,” Bill told me.

Then I called my mom, who is 83, and asked her, “Mom have you ever experienced anything like this in your life?”  “No, I do remember your Aunt Betty telling stories of when she was a baby (Aunt Betty would be 98 this year if she was still with us) of being quarantined with your Grandmother because she had developed a case of Scarlet Fever.”

So, unprecedented for sure. And full of emotion for all of us and the people we lead on our teams.

My daddy always told me there are 3 situations where I needed to be really careful when making decisions:

1. When I had been drinking. 

2. When I was in a heightened emotional state.

3. After a significant loss.

I think the first one is self-explanatory, except on occasion I will get a call from a client who has said something or done something or punched something when too much alcohol was involved. I have witnessed first hand at least 5 people lose good careers over too much wine or whiskey at a company dinner. 

Now, on the heightened emotional state, I am pretty sure this was a warning from my daddy about being with a girl. However, with the current state of affairs in our world, are we not in a heightened emotional state? Fear and panic have gripped our society. 

I was listening to a podcast of Dave Ramsey the other day. For those of you who do not know Dave, he is famous for helping people get out of debt so they can lead generous and giving lives.  A lady called in who was 67 years old, along with her 70 year old husband. They were frightened by the “crashing” of the stock market and sold everything they had invested. Please try to resist judging these souls. I am sure we all have opinions about if they should be in the market, or if they should have sold or not. Fine, you can have your opinion, but I was stunned by the emotion and lack of logical, rational thinking that had overcome them.

Fear and panic will cause all of us to do things we normally would not do.

Here is a short video where I explain, in very simple terms what happens in your brain when this is going on.

The final situation we leaders need to recognize are times of significant loss.  

In my younger days I used to do some counseling type work at the church we went to. Often times we would be called to provide support to someone who had just experienced the loss of a spouse or loved one.  In our training, we learned to listen to them and help them unpack their feelings. In addition, we were to encourage them to not make any significant decisions for about a year. People need time to grieve the loss and they need time to process what has happened to them. We tried to help them form a plan for moving forward day to day without making any big decisions that would be life-changing. 

You may know some people who have experienced a significant loss right now. Many of us know people who just 3 short weeks ago had vibrant careers but are now being laid off or furloughed. With that in mind, I wanted to give you some ideas to help you connect with the emotional moments we are all experiencing.

3 Strategies To Love Your Teams Amygdala

1. Find ways to reduce or eliminate unneeded stressors. You may have someone who needs to go comfort a spouse who just lost a job very unexpectedly, and your policy doesn’t allow for something like this.  It is time to put relationships and people ahead of policy. Or someone might be working from home and their internet speed isn’t high enough for quality HD video. This is not the time to call them out and create stress because of petty items. 

2. Choose leadership strategies that engage the Neo-Cortex. Remember the Amygdala is the strategic inflection point if good, creative, and reflective thinking is occurring, or if the person is going to be in Fight/Flight/Freeze mode. Here are some ways to help engage the thinking part of the brain:

   1. Tell Stories - Rather than give orders or lists for people to do, engage them in a story and remind them of how their task is helping the organization or the customer during times like this. Stories calm people down, help them think about the characters, and engages their personal creativity.

   2. Be Optimistic - Optimism is not pollyannaish, it is being hopeful for the future. We all know this virus is going to be short-term. In 10 years we will look back and likely be critical of many things we did in the moment. Help your team have hope for the future. We are all going to ride on airplanes again, and stay in hotels, and go on vacation again. Sure, there might be some short-term adjustments for all of us, but the future is bright for your company. You are in a storm right now, but storms do not last forever.

   3. Express Gratitude - At the beginning of every day let’s thank people for being on our team. And make it the last thing we do at night. Thank them for coming to work (even online). Tell them how important they are to the organization.  How much you appreciate them.  Gratitude that is real and heartfelt calms things down and helps people pull through tough times.

3. Give Them A Plan. A few years ago, my good friend and colleague, Dr. Tim Gardner, and I wrote a one-day training called: What You Know About Stress Is Killing You. (The title is meant to be cute and is not a typo). One of the most important things you can do as a leader right now is to sit down one on one (social distancing rules apply) and help them identify places they are stressed and to help them write a plan that would alleviate the stress.  Once it is written down, they can cognitively focus on what to do. Sure, it might feel a little directive, and it is!  If they are stressed and the amygdala is preventing clear thinking then a written plan to follow is just what the doctor would order.

It is my hope that these strategies might be useful to you. If you are a leader of leaders, why not sit down with your team and go over this list? Talk about how they can help their team perform under such trying and difficult times.  

If I can help, please do no hesitate to call or write.  If you think a workshop on emotional intelligence or stress would be helpful for your team, I would be happy to do this for you. We can do it online in a day or take an hour each day, whatever might work best for your team structure.

Best Hopes,

Scott

Making Change is Hard, This is Harder

 So most of you who read this blog with any regularity know that I pay fairly close attention to my health.

I try to make healthy food choices. 

I actually enjoy working out.

I value my faith in God and personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

I love my important relationships: My wife, my family, my team, my customers, my close friends.

At my most recent appointment with my physician, the incredible Dr. James Scelfo, he asked me a number of follow up questions from my previous visit. Here is the one that was the most interesting to me:

“Scott, you have lost about 5 pounds. We had a goal of 10, and 5 is really nice progress. Can you sustain it?”

Provocative Question

Did you catch it?  The good doctor inferred a change in behavior based on the outcome: The loss of 5 pounds. He also questioned if the shift in behavior and habits was one that I could continue. I thought his question was a really good one. He wasn't curious how it did it, but rather if I could sustain it.

Not improve upon it.

Not make it better.

Not lose 2 more.

Sustain it.

Sustain: What an interesting word! Not one that gets too much focus in the world of leadership development. We are always looking to say, "Can you improve? Can you give me a little more? Can you do just a little better? There might be one more promotion out there, if you do this one more thing!"

Dr. Scelfo didn't ask that. He is a really smart dude. He knows that before I can commit to giving him one or two more pounds, the real question is can I keep it up. Can I stay where I am long enough to learn new habits? Learning new habits becomes one of the key elements to sustainability.

What does it mean to sustain?

I was so intrigued by this question. I had to go back to my car and look up the word in the dictionary. I thought I knew what sustain meant and one of the definitions provided was pretty close to my thinking: “To keep going an action or process."

Although, that's not what caught my eye. What was fascinating to me was one of the other definitions given: “To undergo, experience, or suffer (injury, loss, etc;) endure without giving way or yielding.”

To sustain means to recognize that you have undergone a process, had an experience and even suffered and you are enduring without going back to your old ways.

Celebrate Observable Change In Behavior

Personally, I don’t know if there is anything more rewarding than when I observe a client making a change.

I recall a client several years back who, unbeknownst to himself, would interrupt people and finish their sentences for them.  I remember like it was yesterday sitting with him, being in the conversation, and having him cut me off mid-sentence. As he would do it, I would stop him in his tracks and say, "There, you did it again."

In our coaching, he really worked hard on increasing his impulse control and at the same time decreasing his need to feel heard. 

Not easy work. In fact, it's really hard work.

When I did a mini-360 check-in with some of his key relationships they were surprised at the dramatic change he had made. The question the president of the affiliate had for me was, “So coach, do you think he can sustain the change?”

In our coaching, let’s not ever fool ourselves into thinking that just because we are seeing some behavior change, that we are seeing a new habit.

How Coaches Can Help Finish Change

There are times where a coaching relationship just ends too soon or for internal coaches, the behavior change happens and then we move on to whatever is next. All of this in the context of the person has “moved” to a new change behavior.  The question we all have to ask ourselves is have they made the change? Have they obtained sustainability?

Think about a change that you want to make or one you've tried to make. What would your life look like if you made that change? Are the habits for that change sustainable, something you can live with long term?

Next week, I'll share 5 steps you can take to make sustainable changes or coach someone through it. In the meantime, leave us a comment about what sustainable success you've had. How did you do it and what advice would you give others?