ITLP Tuesday Readings

Today, we turn to a short paper by William Bridges, The Three Questions (PDF). Bridges is a name familiar to many as the author of “Managing Transitions” (2003) and “Transitions” (2004).

In this short piece, he introduces us to three important questions which he often asks his clients:.

1. What is changing?

2. What will actually be different because of the change?

3. Who’s going to lose what?

Simple questions. But, Bridges argues they are central to understanding change. Too, often, he notes, the people sponsoring change cannot describe the change in an understandable fashion. Neither have they thought through what will be different for those who have to make it work. And, finally too many leaders of change just want to get on with it focusing only to what is ahead and not helping workers letting go of what they are currently doing.

Read what Bridges is saying carefully and add his questions to your repertoire .

. . . . . jim

Posted by Jim Hall at 8:48 AM | Permalink

Today, we continue our theme of leading in challenging times with Seven Lessons for Leading in Crisis. The piece’s author is Bill George, author of “True North,” and a professor of management practice at the Harvard Business School. He is also the former CEO of Medtronic.

Virtually every American institution is facing some kind of major crisis today. It’s easy to point to various parts of the financial industry and say that the fault lies there. George argues that the root cause in today’s crisis is failed leadership. And, he also argues that the situation will only be righted by wise leadership. He then offers seven lessons for leaders leading their organizations through a crisis:

1. Leaders must face reality. They must recognize their role in creating the problem and work with their team to uncover and gain agreement as to the root causes. Everyone must be candid in sharing the entire truth, no matter how painful it is.

2. No matter how bad things are, they will get worse. Often, we delude ourselves into believing things cannot get worse. Always anticipating that the worst is yet to come gives you the chance of getting ahead of the situation. Then, you will emerge in a healthier situation position than you otherwise would.

3. Build a mountain of cash and get to the highest hill. This lesson does not apply directly to organizations within a university. There typically are not ways to create and maintain a cash reserve. However, an equivalent reserve can be created through identification and elimination of redundant and otherwise marginal services to free resources. Done wisely, this can cover both budget reductions and provide resources to fund high priority projects needed to meet new opportunities.

4. Get the world off your shoulders. Leaders must have help from all their team members. Bring them into your confidence; receive their help and ideas; and gain their commitment to make the necessary sacrifices to resolve the longer-term situation.

5. Before asking others to sacrifice, first volunteer yourself. Everyone is watching to see what their leader will do. Leaders need to step up and make the greatest sacrifice.

6. Never waste a good crisis. (This seems the to be the watch-word of the day; everyone is saying it.) A crisis gives a wise leader a platform to take the required actions that otherwise might not be permitted.

7. Be aggressive in your marketplace. Business as usual is not going to return. Use the crisis to move to the place you need to be – services offered, staffing levels, etc. – when the crisis ends.

While practicing these lessons may not lessen the pain you experience in getting through the crisis, it will enable you to be at a much better place for the future.

. . . . jim

When leading in tough times, what leadership practice is MOST important to achieving goals? Engaging employees to ensure organizational alignment and commitment. –Right Management survey of more than 650 senior leaders and human resource professionals in January and February 2009.

Posted by Jim Hall at 9:54 AM | Permalink

Beginning with IT•LP Groups that began their journey about two years ago, we instituted a practice of forming a change or vision team within each group. Each teams’ charge is to encourage the group’s participants to take the individual work of learning, using their new tools, and becoming a stronger leader seriously. In other words, to make a difference in their own life and in their organization. The hope was that these teams would continue after “graduation,” being a driver for each person' continuing development and for maintaining the relationships that the cohort developed during their cycle of the program.

Today’s Tuesday Reading, “Keeping Pace with Technology” comes from ITLP IX’s Vision Team. Their graduation was last summer and since then they have continued to write, challenging their colleagues in the next stages of their leadership journey.

I think that you will find “Keeping Pace with Technology” has good advice for all of us. . . . . jim

Keeping Pace with Technology

Critical to being a leader in information technology is constantly scanning the technology landscape; to focus on ensuring we are doing the right things. Our business partners at our universities often turn to us for technology leadership and guidance. If we aren’t aware of where technologies are going and how they apply to our business, then our IT organizations will become obsolete. As such, it is important that we leaders are intentional in developing our personal and divisional technology awareness strategies. Start by taking 10 minutes to create your personal technology awareness strategy. Ask yourself the following:

• What do I need to be aware of in my field?
• What trends do I need to be aware of outside of my field?
• What are my sources for gathering this information?

At Northeastern, our division has been working on ways that we can continue to stay current on technology trends. With the myriad of daily commitments we already face, this task can be seen as adding one more thing to our ever expanding to do list. For some, scanning for new technologies pushes them outside of their comfort zone. To counter these reactions, we offer some simple practices our organization has adopted to help stay current on technology trends:

• Create a CTO team: A small team with representatives across functions with a mission to (1) regularly scan the environment for new trends (2) try out new technologies and (3) recommend alpha or beta tests of technologies to the division.

• Sponsor an Idea Jam: Using a wiki or blog (or low tech white board), pose a question to your team. An example question might be: “What new technology trends should be considering?” Encourage the team (technologists and your customers) to brainstorm as many ideas in a 24 hour period.

• Create a technology news site that uses RSS feeds linking to articles in your field: Identify the top sources of industry trend information. Take 5 minutes out of a staff meeting to browse the headlines and identify a topic that your group is interested in reading more about.

• Offer brown bag show and tells: Have vendors come in and present their technology roadmaps. Invite staff from all levels of the organization and from your functional areas to see what is coming down the road.

• Subscribe to a listserv outside of your field: Consider subscribing to a listserv that offers a functional viewpoint vs. technical.

Your future value as a technology leader is not what you can do today, but what you can learn to do tomorrow. These are just some basic strategies to help keep you current in the rapidly changing world of technology. The next step is figuring out how to apply these to your strategy… when you do you, it may alter your strategic direction and what better way to position your organization to be successful in an every changing world. You create the change.

Posted by Jim Hall at 5:47 PM | Permalink

Today’s Tuesday Reading is Stay Out of the Bunker from the New York Times Under New Management column. There Kelly Holland says that even though this may be a very challenging time for managers, employees still need leadership if they are to function effectively. She suggests seven behaviors for leaders:

1. Treat employees as responsible adults, not as wayward children who can be bossed around or mollified by half-truths. She notes that organizations work better when everyone is knowledgeable and empowered, and when individuals are asked to contribute and show initiative.

2. Be straightforward about bad news. Challenging times require the highest levels possible of transparency.

3. Learn what is happening elsewhere in your organization–- in your unit, in your department, across your university – and in higher education.

4. Understand and respect peers and staff, listen to their ideas and opinions.

5. Be fair.

6. Help staff understand the basis for decisions and see the validity of those decisions. If they understand, they will be more confident that their contributions will be recognized and thus be more motivated and engaged.

7. Find something in your work to take pleasure in and let that be know. It can energize those around you.

Perhaps, there is a behavior here that you need to turn into a practice.

Have a great week. . . . jim

Posted by Jim Hall at 6:14 PM | Permalink