I literally wrote the book on change management...and still got my own go-live wrong.
What a wood duck!
But this is a tension all of us leading complex change need to manage; the "fast thinking" instinct to feel "done" pulls us away from the more deliberate and effective thinking behind a well executed change.
The 'sprint to Christmas' is on - where are you at risk of prematurely celebrating a go live?
Read MorePragma is my AI change advisor available at app.pragmaticchange.com.au.
It has fielded the same sentiment four times this month:
"I am accountable for this change and I control none of the levers that would let me deliver it."
Sound familiar? Nobody puts it on a slide.
Responsibility without authority is the working output of a design. It didn't simply happen to you.
Four moves for the middle layer, and two for the senior leader who is now recognising they designed an "accountability sink"...
Read MoreIt's tough at the top of a 115 year old machine; mostly because no one will tell you it's tough.
You are the best-briefed person in the building and the worst-informed person on your own change.
You can feel the sanitisation even when you can't see it. And the standard response is to blame culture, the consultants (it's fine, we're used to it...) or a lack of courage — why won't people just tell me the truth?
Most leaders fail to see that the machine is working exactly as designed; it's just that it was designed in 1911.
So in an era of folding iPhones, what are the mechanisms for getting your best and brightest to speak up?
Read MoreWe all know what I mean when I say 'the vibe was off'. But is this a genuine consideration in leading complex change?
Last year I won a 'once in a lifetime' transformation role at a major South Australian institution.
I turned it down — for a couple of defensible reasons, and one new scenario for my career....
Sitting in the foyer before the interview, I watched a meeting end.
Disgruntled body language. Bemused glances. Passive-aggressive shrugs on the way out the door.
Felt like danger and I could sense the upcoming slog, even if the role was 'high profile'. The vibes were off...and I was out.
Paranoia? An Adelaide neuroscientist convinced me otherwise: your read of a room is your nervous system reporting data it genuinely collected.
Gut feel is the real deal, if you understand the science.
(And The Universe delivered a confirming sample that same evening...in the most unexpected place...)
Read MoreYour engagement survey says the culture is strong.
The corridor behaviour says something else entirely...
Which one IS the culture? If I'm leading change...what do I pay attention to?
Both. Here is a pragmatic definition for each, that leaders can actually use.
Read MoreYou wouldn't engage me if you didn't have a financial strategy…so why should I take you seriously if you didn't have a cultural strategy?
A transformation without a functional budget (that's regularly contextualised) is going to fail. Every senior leader knows the financial version of this.
So what is the cultural or behavioural equivalent in your program?
And why do I even have to ask that?!
My answer has a name — and a tool your leadership team can run this week.
Read More2003. First passport photo, frosted tips and all. I'm posting it as evidence of our ability to learn and evolve.
Between 2016 and 2022, employee support for workplace change collapsed from 74% to 43%. A knee-jerk and misguided conclusion: people have lost the ability to adapt.
Human nature doesn't move 31 points in six years. We are built to adapt — it's arguably our defining trait as a species. What broke was the dated playbook, and the collective trust in leaders who stick to it.
The neuroscience remains consistent; we physically change our brains in the right conditions. And not just the part responsible for haircuts...
Please understand: you are better at change than you realise. So is everyone in your organisation.
So what do leaders do about this? My thoughts on Pragmatic Change below 👇🏾
Read MorePsychology is WEIRD…and that’s a problem. Not a diversity problem. A validity problem. 96% of the psychological research your change frameworks are built on came from populations representing 12% of the world. Most of it was built on American college students. Then generalised to your manufacturing workforce. Your regional council. Your healthcare organisation. Your university with significant first-generation student populations. And when the frameworks produce mediocre results…we blame resistance. Poor sponsorship. Inadequate resourcing. It might simply be that the framework wasn’t built for these people.
Read MoreWhat two moments will your transformation be remembered for?
Not the months of stakeholder engagement. Not the training rollout. Not the governance forums. Not even that beautiful documentation you’ve laboured over.
Over the long run: The emotional peak. And how it ended.
That’s what the research says. And if you’ve led (or been lead into…) a major change, I’d wager it matches your own memory too.
This is called the Peak End rule and applying it deliberately is one of the most underused lenses in change leadership.
Read MoreIn crafting up the final touches on Apricot's First Principles of Change (coming soon 👀) I revisited the most consistent guidance I give to leaders and their teams: know what the Planning Fallacy is and actively outsmart it.
The Planning Fallacy is a cognitive bias where individuals underestimate the cost, time, and risks involved in a project while simultaneously overestimating their own previous experience and capabilities.
It's important to grasp the duality of this; we underestimate tangibles and "knowns" (cost, time and risks)...yet we overestimate the intangibles of 'experience' and capability. Take a quick moment to reflect, on how much of organisational life is skewed towards a trust in experience - sometimes for very good reason, but not without consequence.
And the real shocker: if you give highly experienced leaders, new information which challenges their original planning estimates...they tend to be reluctant to change it! 😧
Reasons why this happens and some high-level guidance on mitigating the Planning Fallacy in the full article, but working through the unique cultural nuances and particular 'friction points' within organisations is the kind of work we love ❤️
#change #projectmanagement #organisationaldevelopment
Why?
1. We don’t focus on the behaviours that really matter in a given context
2. We don’t measure return on investment, through applied results
Read More
