Peter's Top Book Pick

Do you like reading? We do! And there are some really interesting books around, like this one; Syntheism - Creating God in the Internet Age.

This is a book that dares to describe individualism as a religion and paint a reality that is primarily virtual, rather than physical. While the authors don’t mind challenging the reader’s view of the self and the world, their main intention is to induce passive receivers of the future to become more active participants. Engaging observations and perceptive interpretations of contemporary society. Alexander Bard and Jan Söderqvist are Swedish philosophers and authors of the internationally successful Futurica Trilogy. They lecture the world over about the current global internet revolution.

Bard & Söderqvist are regarded as pioneers in the literary genre futurica, where philosophy, social theory and futurology merge. After joining forces in the late 1990’s, Bard & Söderqvist argued that the interactive revolution is the most profound and radical of all technological revolutions in history, that it completely transforms society, politics, the economy and the culture, social power structures, the collective world view and the whole concept of being human. They demonstrated the effects of digital dynamics on various levels of a globalized world. They not only made controversial predictions in the early years of the new millennium (and cleverly foresaw both the dot.com crash and September 11), they have since then been proven right in virtually every aspect and even in the most minute of details. Not only did Bard & Söderqvist foresee revolutionary innovations such as Google, Facebook, Al-Qaida and Wikileaks; they also went deeper and looked into the very power struggle of the on-going revolution itself.

Peter Håman,

Core Team Consultant @ Lorensbergs

peter.haman@lorensbergs.se

My Favourite Resources!

I have been foolishly promising the delivery of my favourite resources to the good leaders of Spotify for some time now. And when I finally sat down to do it all I could think was... well, what are they then?

Some of you may have noticed my fascination with neuroscience. :-) I do indeed love the addition of the brain into conversations about leadership. It puts words to why we do what we do, what drives us and what causes us pain. Many of my chosen books or links here reflect that.

Here are the top 10... and then some. In no particular order:

1. To Sell is Human: the Surprising Truth about Moving Others
2. Mindset: the New Psychology of Success
3. Anything about neuroscience... like this goodie
4. Amy Cuddy and her power-posing (this finds me standing Wonder Woman style in many a meeting)
5. And speaking of Ted Talks: How great leaders inspire action: Simon Sinek
6. The Tipping Point- Malcolm Gladwell (Outliers and Blink by Gladwell are fascinating as well)
7. Drive- by Daniel Pink (or A Whole New Mind)
8. The Power of Habits
9. The Advantage: Peter Lencioni
10. The Fifth Discipline: Senge
11. and another: Sivers' Leadership Lessons from a Dancing Guy

For Team-Building

1. The Big Book of Virtual Team-Building

2. Gamestorming (a must)

I have a pile of other favourites around learning and how the learning organisation will adapt in the future... but I take those at another time! 

Chris- over and out!

Idea: Use a "10 Minute Tidy" in your virtual meetings!

Lives are hectic. True. And I am sure that at least once or twice a week you wake up to find your house in disarray... a half-emptied suitcase sitting open, a stack of open mail or advertisements sitting around, or wine-stained glass unwashed. No? Is that just me? :-O

It is hard to start a day working from home in those conditions. That's why when I read about the 10 Minute Tidy, I thought 'GENIUS'. Every night before getting ready for bed, do a quick 10 minute tidy and feel less cluttered in your head when you wake up the next morning. Simple.

Then the question, why don't we start implementing this rule in our virtual meetings? Save 10 minutes at the end of the meeting so everyone can reflect on the processes that have happened during the meeting or during the week. Instead of complaining about the meeting or about working from a distance, a team makes a point to tidy up loose ends, give feedback, and raise the bar for next time.

I worked with a group last month that had such a practice. They didn't call it that.. but now they do. They expressed how everyone was expected to participate. If Joe needed to leave at 11.50 instead of 12.00, the ten minute tidy started at 11.40. If they couldn't be flexible like this, Joe was expected to prioritise his team's meeting. If there was little to add, they spent time getting to know one of their team members better by sharing stories. And all of them mentioned how quickly they were able to jump into their next meeting together. Less start-up time and talking about the weather.

As research is showing us more and more, trust needs to happen quickly when meeting from a distance or our little silos become even bigger silos and since we cannot make others more trustworthy, we need to be more trustworthy ourselves. The Ten Minute Tidy gives you the opportunity to demonstrate trustworthiness. Are you honestly sharing feedback about the meeting with the team? Are you contributing with credible information? Are you reliably participating every time? These 10 minutes are an investment in trust. Anyone have a simliar practice to share? 

#Getyourtidyon!

Christina Hogan

Job-aids...gone crazy?!?

Just-in-time Learning is a toolbox of learning experiences that creates a pull-system in the organisation and eliminates waste. But it isn't so standardised and it isn't so time-consuming and it isn't at all boring. It is a new age of learning. It is learning when you need it and where you need it. Think job-aid.. gone crazy! (What do you think of that for a slogan?)

I started my journey with JITL by observing where motivation hit me to learn more... one day I was working in PhotoShop and couldn't manage to cut out an image. Instead of opening a monstrous book about PhotoShop or ordering the book and waiting one week, or calling and harassing a friend or reading through a million Adobe forums, I went directly to YouTube and watched a 12 year-old very pedagogically give me 3 steps to solve my problem. (for the record, yes, I began to dislike 12 year-olds and yes, I can help you cut out an image). The ease of using YouTube was key. I knew the tool, I was confident there was a smug 12 year-old out there, and I knew it would take seconds.

It isn't unlike the problems I see when working with various sales organisations. They have 1000+ products in their portfolios and they are expected to position themselves as product specialists while out in the field. And the information they get is curated from Subject Matter Experts that love what they do... and possibly the 1000000 powerpoint slides that come with it. They run a week-long course to help sales professionals and in the end, sales professionals either don't need the information because the product changes or the need for it does, they don't remember the information, the learning budget is tightened or it is simply easier to sell something less complex. There are a bundle of reasons.

That is why Lorensbergs is wrapping itself in the Just-in-Time Learning toolbox. Small snippets of knowledge, skill and motivation over a spaced amount of time. Letting the brain focus on the result instead of how and where and what information to seek. Here are our JITL principles.

How are you and your organisation getting just-in-time?

-Chris

The Power of Cartoons in Learning

We've all heard the saying 'a picture paints a thousand word', what you might not be so familiar with is the research that shows how powerful imagery and cartoons can really play in helping with the creation and sharing of learning. 

One of the most powerful 'after action reviews' we ever facilitated was at the gathering of a group of change experts from several large companies who exchanged views on the key insights they had created in helping their organisations embrace continuous improvement as a way of working. We ran the session with the help of the cartoonist Graham Shaw and to this day, the participants still have a rich and vivid recall of the key messages....so why is that?

Well, there's some really interesting research regarding the power of cartoons and using them as metaphors for learning:

1. Our brains actually interpret images concurrently whilst text on the other hand is processed linearly.
2. This means we understand, grasp, retain and recall images and their associated meaning better than words.
3. Research has shown that the best remembered part of any message is the cartoon
4. Brain research suggests that using metaphors, pictures and symbols helps cement lessons and transfer learning to everyday life and future learning. A visual representation of an experience can be effective long after the experience is over, reminding a group or participant of the key lessons learned. (Willis, 2006, 2010)

Here's a sample of some of the images that captured the key lessons in leading a change in culture. Of course there's no need for a text commentary...that would defeat the object. It's enough to say that these key insights we carry with us in helping clients with complex change to this day.

So with this in mind, how can you transform your learning processes to create rich and lasting insights with cartoons and metaphors?

Happy cartooning!

Move over Just-in-Case Learning!

Here comes Just-in-Time

How many of you have noticed that while you enjoyed the two-day training programme you went to last week, you haven't really applied a lot of the theories from it...yet? You learned a lot about cultures and planning dynamic meetings and although you are immersed in culture and have non-stop meetings, you still haven't implemented the learning... where has your motivation gone? Your good intentions are just sitting there in the darkness... when does the magic of transforming them into strong behaviours happen?

Not to point fingers... but Just-in-Case learning has a bit to do with the struggle here. Yes, we need to learn things "just-in-case" as we did with second languages when we were younger or when we discover how cultures affect each other. “Just-in-case” we are in those particular situations, we will need that understanding, empathy or that skill-set to thrive. Just-in-time learning on the other hand is what you need when you are about to run out the door and pitch a product but need the product features and benefits right there and right then. You can’t wait 6 months until the course happens. And you can’t invest one week for a product you need just-in-case.

Ta da: Just-in-Time Learning! JITL is a toolbox of methods, apps, materials, job-aids, eLearnings, webinars, surveys…etc.. etc… you get the point. It is something that appears when needed, that is easy to use and when motivation is high for implementation. This concept is another way to bridge the gap between formal learning (organised with learning objectives) and informal learning (the opposite and incidental)… It is Non-Formal Learning. OECD defines “non-formal learning” as something not clearly defined, something flexible, where learning may be initiated by the learner or a by-product of an organised activity. Check out: http://www.oecd.org/education/skills-beyond-school/recognitionofnon-formalandinformallearning-home.htm

Whatever the weather, start the reflection… what kind of learning are you engaged with? Just-in-case… or just-in-time?

-Christina Hogan

How can we use Spaced Learning?

Have you ever heard of spaced learning? Wiki it! Essentially we are talking about modeling learning after the way long-term memories are created. In practice, this means learning for 10 minutes and then jumping into another thoughtful activity aside from the task itself like juggling, sudoku, or standing on your head. Ok, maybe not standing on your head but the image made me laugh and it is Friday morning.

Preparing for take-off...

Whether fruitful in practice or not; the research is there. I read an interesting case about a high school in the USA that practiced spaced learning. The results are interesting…


http://www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storycode=6007908 and they suggest that the students learned better in their two-hour spaced learning session than they did in 4 months in a tradional classroom. Now that is efficient.

Neuroscience has finally gotten a choke-hold in education. How can we embrace this more? What would accountability in spaced learning look like in organizations?

Personally, I am looking at its affordances with big and shiny, wide eyes. Here is our virtual training loop. Let’s be engaged with content and method for 10 minutes online and then move onto something else. Are you the person with a million browswer tabs open? Brilliant. Are you the person who listens to music, talks on the phone and answers emails all at once? Fantastic. The future of learning is upon us. We gap our lives in such a way… why wouldn’t we try to do the same with our learning experiences?

What happened to trust in virtual teams? Yahhhhooooo?

Is there anything more demotivating than your CEO expressing to the world that your company is suffering from a lack of creativity and connection in the hallways? I was demotivated just reading about it in the news for the last few weeks. I can't imagine how the employees feel packing up their home offices and joining the lanes of traffic, losing time here and there: all to be a "part" of the new corporate Yahoo culture.

Is it just me or does that scream "I don't trust you"?

While we can all agree that leadership has changed and evolved over the years, we can also see something of a trend in virtual leadership. Everything begins and ends with trust. We know that from leadership lessons of years past. Yet with virtual leadership, the principles are the same, the practice is different. We know the WHAT. We just need to figure out the HOW. How can we trust when we don't see each other everyday? How can we create a spark around an idea when we are sitting in our home offices? How can we bump into Fred at the coffee machine and walk away inspired?

And let’s stop saying it can’t be done. Let’s change the conversation from what it isn’t, to what it is. Here are three best practices for virtual teams.

1. People need connection; make a connection. They might not get that spontaneously at the coffee machine. Instead of calling everyone into the office, start looking at the HOW. The principles of connection are the same.. the practice is different. If Twitter proves anything, it is that connection can be made by the abstract, linking the theme, and initiating a conversation. Start connecting and remember: to get trust, give trust.

2. People need clarity; create clarity. In F2F teams, this came from popping by with simple questions or reviewing a project during the walk down the hallways. Now people are dealing with endless Lync powerpoint dumps and presenters that sound like Charlie Brown’s teacher. Where’s our HOW? Visual project sites, the art of open questions, and interactive meetings are good places to jump start.

3. People need inspiration; start inspiring. Start building context with picture language for your team. Where are we now as a team? Where do we want to be? How can we get there? The “get back to the office so we can build a corporate culture” message is not inspiring. Especially when the intention was to inspire creativity happening in the hallways. Think back to your last inspiring a-ha! moment. Were you exercising, relaxing, or walking down a crowded corridor? Chances are you were exercising or relaxing and letting your brain process information. Start instead thinking about how you can activate someone from a distance. Inspire them with a-ha’s all over the place. Check out this advice to leaders for how to inspire creativity.

Yes, Yahoo's argument is to go back-to-basics… but now I wonder why we want to go backwards? Let’s evolve. Let’s keep working with our HOW to make virtual teams work. Let’s connect, clarify, and inspire!

Chris Hogan
christina.hogan@lorensbergs.se

You’re Invited to an After Action Review….be afraid, be very afraid!!

I overheard this tongue-in-cheek remark from a project leader who was referring to his organisations approach to reviewing projects. The prospect of attending a project review in this company filled those invited with dread at the possibility of being made a scapegoat.

The After Action Review (AAR), was first introduced by the American Army in the mid 1970’s as a way of capturing lessons from simulated battles and they gradually became embedded in the army’s culture during the Gulf War. AAR’s sprang up spontaneously as small groups of soldiers spent time in the desert hidden in bunkers and under vehicles reviewing their most recent mission.

The technique is now used by many organisations as a formal way of capturing learning at the end (and occasionally in the middle) of large projects with huge success. There's even a trend of using this approach in regular discussions among teams on their operational performance. The AAR can be formal or informal and has been used by large groups and small and can be a quick 5-minute chat or a long reflection lasting hours or even days. Whatever the approach, the questions that are used in an AAR seem revolve around:

1. What did we set out to achieve? 
2. What actually happened?
3. Why did it happen?
4. What are we going to do next time?

This is where the challenge lies. The nature of these questions can lead to an unhelpful ‘witch-hunt’ if not facilitated very carefully. Question 3 in particular is a cause/effect style of question which works really well when doing problem solving with machines, however when people and relationships are involved it's not too far away from '...and who's to blame?' 

Another difficulty is that the first two questions are very much open to interpretation when reviewing complex projects. Try asking individuals on project you work with what each individual sees as the target for the project and you will be amazed at the different range of answers you'll get back.

Some time ago I worked with the Solutions Focus expert Mark McKergow to develop an approach that can help capture the learning from from projects that is more Solutions Focused in approach.  We called it  a ‘Project Booster’ and is similar to the AAR in that it involves the project team answering 4 questions, however these questions that are noticeably different:

1. What were we trying to do from everyone’s perspective...what would have been a 10 out of 10?
2. On a scale of 1-10, how did we do (you can break this into a number of categories if required)?
3. How come it’s that high?
4. What do we need to remember for next time and what would be useful first physical steps.

I've now used this approach on several complex projects and found it to be very enlightening and importantly, useful for the project teams involved. 

Question 1 gives space for different perspectives to be explored without there being 'one right answer'.

Question 2 uses scaling, a key questioning tool in Solutions Focus and also described in Daniel Pink's recent work 'To Sell is Human'. Again, this allows different perspectives to be shared in the group.

Question 3 focuses on what's working already, what's helping and where the solution exists already (rather than why was it so bad and what/who is to blame)

Question 4 captures both learning for the future and also some specific small steps.

We also replaced the name 'After Action Review' as it seemed to imply that it is best done at the end of a project whereas experience tells us that useful change can be explored before and during projects too. This of course might be a bit tricky in the middle of a military exercise but it's more than possible in projects. We also liked the idea of describing more actively what the approach does.....boost your projects.



Trevor Durnford
trevor@lorensbergs.se

Solutions Focused Contracting

When I’m facilitating workshops and improvement teams, I’m always delighted when team members tell me that they are familiar with the concept of team ground rules or a ‘team contract’. And yet it leaves me with some disappointment that the value of this powerful tool is actually used so infrequently – it’s almost as if it’s seen as too ‘soft and fluffy’ to be of value.

At its best a group contract can establish norms describing how the group will operate and what behaviours will bring out the best in the team.

I’ve recently been using an approach kindly shared with me by Mark McKergow, author of ‘The Solutions Focus’, which has been really helpful in creating solid useful contracts. This is how it works:

1. At the first session or opening of a workshop, describe the purpose and benefits of a group contract
2. On a flip-chart write the following questions:
• Suppose we had a really productive session, how would we be acting?
• What would be the tiny signs on the way?
3. Split the group into threes or fours and ask them to explore and capture (on post-its) the questions raised.
4. After 5 to 10 minutes draw out the key points from the team and record them on the flip-chart , paying particular attention to the ‘tiny signs’ part of the question.
5. Check that the team REALLY buys into the contract and is prepared to own it’s existence in the team
6. Bring it along to every future meeting so it can be seen and frequently check with the group what tiny signs they are noticing.

The value of using this approach is that avoids the group coming up with broad concepts like ‘trust’ and ‘openness’ as is often the case in building ground rules. Instead the group comes up with really specific behaviours.

For example, I was facilitating a leadership workshop recently and the contract included these statements:

How would we be acting: learning and capturing our reflections.

Tiny signs: We’d be turning to our action plan on page 55 and writing some notes.

When I checked with the group what tiny signs they were noticing, the group immediately reflected that whilst they thought they were learning a huge amount, there wasn’t too many ideas being captured on the planning page of their notes…..they corrected this of course.

Have a go and I’d be delighted to hear how you get on :)

Cheers

Trevor

New Ground Rules for a New Generation

I suppose it comes with age but I’m noticing some huge differences emerging in the attitudes and behaviours of young adults that are making me fundamentally rethink the way in which we establish ground rules with groups. It’s only a question of time before today’s teenagers are participating in meetings and problem solving groups..and here’s my fear. If we impose the ground rules that we (older ones) have grown up with, we run the risk of imposing a straight jacket on the thinking potential of the future.

Our received wisdom

It’s not uncommon to find groups developing their ground rules, norms or contract to help them in their work together. Here’s some assumptions about participation in groups that I have grown up with and importantly the resulting ground rules that we hold dear in our meetings.

Questionable assumption 1: Clarity of thinking can only be achieved by doing one thing at a time. Also called multi-tasking, the thing that us males are apparently not able to do. I agree this might apply to some but what about the new generation. I observe teenagers watching television whilst at the same time cruising the web, catching up on facebook, twittering , participating in multiple chats on skype and msn….all at the same time and seemingly able to keep track of everything in parallel. Maybe Winston Churchill was right we he said “We are only operating at a fraction of our capacity”.

The problem with Assumption 1 is that it drives ground rules in groups such as ‘Mobiles off’ and “No interruptions” and “E-mails at breaks”. An if a new generation is exposed to this straightjacket, is there not the risk that hyperactive brains that are used to doing many things at the same time will become occupied with other things that are not helpful to the team of organization. In fact recently I participated in a highly productive meeting, oozing with creativity and quality decision making with several team members in their 20’s and 30’s many of whom were adopting the ‘Blackberry Prayer’ position (head bent down, both hands together clutching the Blackberry responding to e-mails) but were still able to absorb all that was being said and to build on it too.

Questionable assumption 2 The Ideal state for learning is an energized state. This assumption triggers outbursts from frustrated presenters, facilitators and trainers when they see participants become chilled, relaxed and even closing their eyes. But this is exactly what I observe in our younger generation. One minute multi-tasking, holding 7 different conversations lasting no more than 140 characters in each exchange and then followed by a zombie like state, watching repeats of programmes like Friends that have been watched a thousand times.

The problem with this assumption is that individuals can be in an extremely resourceful state without exhibiting energy. A reflective, zen-like state is completely lacking in energy. Additionally, there is research to suggest that we are most creative when we have ‘Alph-Theta’ levels of brain activity, something that comes with deep relaxation.



Questionable assumption 3. People will only receive and act on feedback if it’s constructive. I am a huge fan of the philosophy of Appreciative Inquiry and Solutions Focus in finding out what works and doing more of it. Of giving feedback which is a combination of ‘What I like about you is….’ and ‘What would raise the bar is…’ It seems to be a lot less harsh the alternative of letting others know how bad they did.

But I notice a shift here too. Simon Cowell is universally disliked for the straightforward feedback her gives young hopefuls in the ‘X-factor’. But the effect he has is to shake people to their core and it seems that after some reflection, those on the receiving end value the directness of the feedback.

One of the best pieces of feedback I ever received was from a dear friend, Patrick Hare, who said to me once, “When are you going to stop ***** about and behaving like a real consultant. It was the wake-up I needed.

I’m also fascinated by the concept of ‘Curling Parenthood’. This is the notion that youngsters today are being ill-prepared for the life of uncertainty and change that awaits them because their parents have done all the problem solving for them. In the same way that a good curling team will expend much energy smoothing the ice in front of the stone to make sure it glides easily to it’s target.

The problem with this assumption is can create ‘Curling Teamwork’ where the bumps and knocks are avoided because they will be too uncomfortable. And even worse this lack of transparency, in my experience results in the feedback being shared in the corridor out of earshot of the person who needs it most.

Questionable assumption 4. People need to feel secure that they won’t get quoted before they can be truly transparent. We’ve seen the ground rules “What’s said here, stays here” or “What goes on tour, stays on tour”. I’ve experienced these to be helpful to groups I’ve worked with especially on sensitive subject. However, are the next generations demanding much greater levels of transparency? Is the growing disillusionment with governments and financial institutions today primarily driven by the complete lack of openness?

The problem with this assumption is that it encourages behaviours including lack of ownership and secrecy. And are we not exacerbating this trait by introducing the ground rules above into teams?

New Ground Rules

As we consider the different expectations, behaviours and attitudes of the next generations, is it not time for us to challenge the long established ground rules we have used in groups.

Instead of “Mobiles and blackberries off” how about “Do what you need to do for you to be alert on all front”

Instead of “Invest your energy, the more you put in the more you get out” how about “Chose the best state to be in for you and the group”.

Instead of “Give feedback as a gift” how about “Say it as it is because there is no such thing as failure, only feedback’

Instead of “What’s said here stays here, it’s confidential”, how about “We share everything that’s useful”

And hopefully we can begin to create a meeting environment that future generations will thrive in rather than dread.

Is it me, or have organisation's learning and development folk lost the plot?

OK, I realise there's tough time in the economy and organisations have made tough choices about what to cut back. And it's not surprising that those in training and development are feeling the pinch but what I'm missing is the fight back, the spine and courage from those teams to make a stand for what they believe in.

Over the last 6 months, I've come across training teams that have complained of: a reduced number of people signing up for internal courses, budgets being cut in training and a general lack of demand for the services they offer. And in most cases, I'm afraid to say, the typical response has been a resigned 'what do you expect in the current economy'.

Imagine taking that perspective if your livelihood depended on it. Surely it's time for training departments to start asking questions like:

• Despite the current market situation what would our customers literally fall over themselves to attend and get value from?
• What can we learn from great marketeers in how to present our offerings (rather than just dumping the training programme on the intranet and hope for the best)?
• How could we build a communications plan to support our training that functions like a marketing program? What would we do differently if we really came to terms with the fact that every email or communication that hits the participant prior to training affects how they walk into the room (or virtual classroom)
  

Isn't it time for training and development folk to wake up? You bet...and what better time as the economy starts to cough and splutter into the better times.

Resistance to change....ain't no such thing!

One of the most frequent questions that seems to crop up when we're working with leaders and facilitators is: 'What can I do to overcome resistance to change?'

Try doing a search on the internet or browse the bookshelves for help in this area and you will be confronted by dozens of models describing the emotional roller-coaster that change creates along with strategies for overcoming 'resistance' to it.

But how's this for a first response to the question of resistance to change....the isn't any such thing. Think about it for a moment. You would be the first to admit that in the past you have been slow on the uptake, need to be convinced or even prefer other choices when it comes to change but you would hardly describe yourself as 'resistant'. The first problem with this line of thinking is that it somehow categorises all these thoughts about change as wrong.

The second challenge to the notion of 'resistance to change' is that both words are nominalisations i'e' they are both nouns that have been converted from the verbs 'resist' and 'change' and therefore don't exist. All you're left with is behaviour which may be helping or hindering your team or organisation.

So here's what you could do:

1) Dont' make a big thing of it. The more you involve the people concerned, the less of an issue this will become.

And for those who would rather take more of an active approach...

2) Confront it - covertly. Use a 'force field analysis' with the group or individual who seem to be 'resisting' - and get them to come up with resistance to change as a hindering factor. Have them brainstorm strategies for influencing those other people (not them of course!) to move past, get over or work around this. And miraculously they might become "us" rather than "them".

3) Confront it - overtly. Be the honest broker and use the "I'm noticing that...." type intervention. Use a process for getting their real fears out on the table - anonymously if necessary (e.g. they can use post-its or write concerns on cards which others read out and then discuss how to address these). It's important to remember that unhelpful behaviours can have a number of underlying causes such as lack of trust, concerns about the consequences, fear of failure or are even simply defence mechanisms caused by stress.

4) Translate it. It may be that they don't yet have a compelling enough vision of what it's going to be like in the future. What would help is doing more work on helping them translate the vision or desired future into real things that have meaning for them and have them create a list of 'What's In It For Me'. If the future looks really, really positive, we can tolerate some things that we don't like about the journey there.

...resistance to change....there ain't no such thing!

Trevor Durnford

trevor@lorensbergs.se

5 Tips On Facilitating Through Video Conferencing Technology

I had the pleasure of facilitating my first focus group using video conferencing this week. The client is a global pharmaceuticals company and whilst I was based in the UK, the participants were sitting together in the USA. Here's some lessons that I'll remind myself of for next time:

Talking to yourself is not a sign of madness you know!

It was important for me to feel what it was like talking to a TV with no/one else in the room because, in effect, that's what I was going to be doing for duration of the 2 hour session. Spending time doing this before the participants arrived was invaluable - even though the person that walked in whilst I was practicing thought I was completely mad!

Getting Rapport is Key

As it's so difficult to 'connect' with the participants without the fact to face contact, then I had to make an extra effort in other ways. I had met the participants before but it was a long time ago and I had completely forgotten their names. Fortunately I had photographs of the last time we met and I asked someone who knew everyone to remind me of each of the participants. It weas invaluable when we did the intros at the beginning.

Zoom in and Zoom Out

One of the great things about videoconferencing technology is that on the system I was using the camera could scan the room and zoom too. This was brilliant for setting up parts of the room whilst the participants were focusing on what I had written on the flipchart. Simply zoom in and then do other stuff out of camera range...simple. If only we could do it in the face to face sessions!

Is there anybody there!

One of the funniest moments in the session was the sudden appearance of one of the participants from 'right stage'. I had been holding back the beginning of the session until everyone was present. Unknown to me, everyone was actually in the room, but one of them was hiding in glorious solitude out of the camera's eye. Lesson next time.....ask someone to arrange the chairs before participants arrive so that everyone is in shot.

Prepare the room....even when it's 3000 miles away

I had my room prepared - flipcharts, pens, blu-tak, participant list, outcomes etc, etc, and am I glad that one of the participants took it upon themselves to do the same at the other end. Next time I'll go one step further by arranging grapes, nuts, music, posters, pens, large post-its and a whole host of other table dressings to make the participants feel that every effort has been made to create a positive learning environment - 3000 miles apart.

If you have any ideas, experiences that can help facilitators bring their session to life over videoconferencing technology, your ideas would be very welcome.

Cheers

Trevor

trevor@lorensbergs.se

www.lorensbergs.se

How To Change Attitudes

The Way to Change Someone’s Attitude Is To Change Their Behaviour (And the Harder You Try the More they’ll Resist!)

In 1957, Leon Festinger published a ground breaking theory which changed the way psychologists thought about decision making and behaviour, and has also more recently given change professionals much to think about too.

The theory is called ‘Cognitive Dissonance’ and works like this.  The Brain has the capacity to hold millions of ‘Cognitions’ or thoughts such as ‘I’m frustrated in my job’ and ‘Manchester United are playing at home tonight’. Most of the time these cognitions have little to do with each other (like my job and United).  However, some cognitions are related, for example ‘my boss doesn’t care’ and ‘I’m frustrated in my job’.  These cognitions are related and one follows on from the other…they go together or are known as ‘consonant’.

However, we sometimes have cognitions that are related but do not follow on from one another – in fact they may be complete opposites, for instance ‘my boss cares about my personal development and growth’ and ‘I’m frustrated in my job’.  The cognitions are referred to as ‘Dissonant’.

Here’s the really interesting part…Festinger’s theories demonstrated that people do not like dissonant cognitions…so much so that we will go to extraordinary lengths to eliminate it.  For example I could eliminate the dissonance in the example above by rationalising that my boss in only going through the motions, or that my boss doesn’t really have that much flexibility to change my job.

The principle here being that ‘the way to change someone’s attitude is to change their behaviour’

Consider a person in an organisation who is one of the most cynical people you can imagine.  Involving them in an improvement team may result in a response of ‘it’s just a fad…it will disappear like all the other initiatives” (holding this belief will reduce the dissonance for this person).

Invite them again and show them the follow through of actions from previous sessions and the response will shift to ‘I’ll wait and see if this will work’. It’s a small shift in attitude but its movement nevertheless.

Further involvement and tangible results will see yet further attitude change…we’ve experienced the transformation of literally hundreds of so called ‘doubters’ into change champion through this approach. 

"What small changes in behaviour could you bring about that would create a gradual shift in attitude, and what could you do as a follow-up that would change it yet further" are useful questions to reflect on as a leader or facilitator of change.

Employeeship - The Top 8 Mistakes

Enhancing the way in which people interact in an organisation sounds simple but it's not easy. 

Employeeship (or 'Medarbetarskap' as it's known is Sweden) has taken taken organisations by storm but doing it properly eludes many. The concept is simple. Natural teams come together to discuss subjects that we don't tend to discuss at the workplace: what is loyalty, self awareness, work and life goals, openness and transparency, work fulfillment and pride to name but a few. When it's done properly, the result are astounding with reduced stress and absence, improved customer service and profitability and, most importantly the growth of grounded people.

From experience though, there's a few traps lurking that can hinder progress, here's our experience.

1) Too much fear and cynicism. We wouldn't suggest that anywhere that struggles with cynicism starts with Employeeship....it will feel too much like hard work. The foundations require that people are at least able to reflect on how they are being and are able to articulate it. Cynicism would suggest something in the line of Leadership development would be a best first step.

2) Leadership seeing it as something for others to embrace. Often the most powerful intervention is simply to encourage employeeship conversations amongst the leadership community in an organisation. Imagine if your 'top team' were grounded individuals who were transparent people taking responsibility and accountability and who were open to feedback too! Those that expect it to start 'elsewhere' are missing the point.

3) Seeing it as a quick fix. This isn't about developing a flipchart full of actions or a milestone plan of tactics that the team are going to take. This is about reflecting on who we are as individuals who are choosing to work together as a team, changing the way in which we reflect and communicate with each other. This kind of change is self-organising and unpredictable AND very powerful too. Beware the CFO who is demanding a ROI in the first 6 months, rather celebrate a CEO that wabts to bring about lasting, transformational change.

4) Not listening first. We have always started with some focus group work to explore what's really going on in the organisation. This is critical in deciding what is the priority and sequence in the first dialogues. It's also useful to get advice from a cross section of people what seems to work in the way change is embraced. The key is to find out what works and do more of it.

5) Involving managers from different departments in the first workshops. This process of change requires critical mass. In the words of the complex systems change folks, it requires small 'containers'. Getting a large cross section together will dilute the energy afterwards. Go small but concentrated would be our advice.

6) Not developing effective facilitation skills. The word facilitation comes from the Latin root 'facile' or 'facere' which literally means to make it easy. Well trained facilitators are adept at asking high quality questions that probe the thoughts of a group and take the conversation to new depths...Empoyeeship is not trivial or superficial so this skill is key.

7) Reading from the script. A build on number 6 above is the extent to which the facilitator uses the Employeeship dialogues as a support or a script. The latter produces dialogues in the team that are much like working through checklists. However using the dialogues as a framework can allow the conversation to flourish

8) Not having the logistics sorted out. This requires that every natural team sets aside a 3 hour face to face meeting once every 4 - 6 weeks apart over a 6 -12 month period. With cross functional and global teams this can be challenging but it needs planning and committing too at the outset. There's nothing more damaging than a deteriorating level of participation as the process is underway.

With the increasing take-up of Employeeship as organisations are experiencing trauma, we expect to determine much more learning...and we're also very keen to hear from those who are participating in this type of change too so your comments are more than welcome.

Cheers

Trevor