Change

How do you reach the problem person?

May 17, 2013 By Dr David Fraser 1 Comment

Three people in a meeting It’s so often the way, isn’t it? Somebody you’re in touch with really sees the change you can help them make in their business.

The trouble is…

The person who most needs to change is someone else in the organisation, quite probably somebody very senior, perhaps the boss. They’re the business’s greatest strength but also it’s greatest weakness, simply because they have so much influence and everything they do is greatly amplified for good or for bad.

(OK, that’s assuming we’re already being the change we want to see and so on.

How do you help your contact successfully suggest a meeting with you to begin the process of change? How do you help them see what they need to see? How do you get started?

One way is to begin by seeking the problem person’s knowledge and input.

What works for you?

Filed Under: Change, Leadership, Organizations Tagged With: change, Dr David Fraser, greatest strength, greatest weakness

Are you in your vision?

May 15, 2013 By Dr David Fraser 1 Comment

Bridge across a gap Before we can create something in reality, we must create it in our mind. So developing a personal vision is a vital step in achieving something that didn’t exist before.

How clear and detailed does our vision need to be? Clear and detailed enough that if it showed up, we’d recognise it. Without that clarity, it won’t have the necessary guiding effect on our actions. Without that clarity, we won’t notice the relevant opportunities that come our way; we won’t see that they fit; in fact, we won’t see them at all.

That’s all very important.

But here’s the key…

We need to place ourselves in our vision. We need to see where we fit in the end result, and in turn, the journey to get there. Otherwise we won’t truly step into the dream. We won’t connect it with our life. And we won’t take the actions we need to take to make the vision a reality.

It feels safer to see a future state that doesn’t include our role in it. But then we disconnect ourselves from the journey to get there. And so we don’t take the right actions. And our vision doesn’t become a reality.

It takes courage to see yourself in your vision, taking the lead you know you can take.

But that’s what you need to do (if you want to change anything anyway).

Filed Under: Change, Personal Mastery Tagged With: courage, creating something in reality, Dr David Fraser, seeing yourself in your vision, vision

The unchanging nature of leadership

May 10, 2013 By Dr David Fraser Leave a Comment

Admiral Horatio Nelson We’re so accustomed to ever-present change and the need to lead ourselves and others through challenging times, we’re inclined to think leadership itself is a changing field. I am anyway, or I was.

Actually, of course, it’s really the one constant…

I mean leadership in the sense of contributing something to help shape the future, or more literally, “stepping ahead.”

The nature of leading is a timeless quality, resting partly on skill, partly on personal presence, and partly on inner belief and sense of purpose, and more besides—an art much more than a science, and so somewhat elusive.

Our individual knowledge of leadership, of course, changes as we learn and grow.

And yet the nature of leadership probably stays the same, and so a very worthwhile investment.

Sometimes people talk about different styles of leadership. I’m not so sure. I believe all of these styles (or most of them) are part of the range of the best leaders—the ones with the most flexibility. Ultimately leadership encompasses them all.

Filed Under: Change, Leadership, Learning, Wisdom Tagged With: challenging times, changing field, Dr David Fraser, flexibility, leadership, presence, sense of purpose, skill, styles of leadership

It’s not all about anything

May 8, 2013 By Dr David Fraser Leave a Comment

Three senior managers In our enthusiasm for an insight or an aspect of a situation that makes a critical difference, we’re inclined to think that’s the one thing that matters in the end.

Of course, it isn’t.

We say “It’s all about the…”

“It’s all about the relationships,” for example, or “It’s all about the money.”

Vital though that consideration may be, it’s highly unlikely to be the only essential factor. Chances are there are a whole lot of necessary but not sufficient conditions.

Sometimes we may choose the emphasis of the universal statement to make the point, but it helps to remember it’s only one of a number of vital ingredients for success.

It takes them all, and we need to elicit every one of them, not just the ones we see first.

Filed Under: Change, Personal Mastery, Systems Tagged With: Dr David Fraser, essential factors, it's all about the money, it's all about the relationships, necessary but not sufficient conditions

Constrained or radical?

May 4, 2013 By Dr David Fraser Leave a Comment

Tall buildings in London If you’re on the inside, it can be hard to stimulate change in the wider system because although you have some explicit authority, you’re constrained by your stakeholders’ expectations. We can’t really look to you to show the way on a wider front.

If you’re on the outside, it can be hard to stimulate change because although you’re not constrained, you don’t have authority.

But you do have the chance to be radical.

And those on the inside need those on the outside to be radical, because the stakeholders are influenced.

And then those on the inside can do something different because they have authority.

And then the system can change.

Filed Under: Change, Leadership, Systems Tagged With: authority, Dr David Fraser, influence, inside, outside, showing the way

Changing what you know

April 27, 2013 By Dr David Fraser Leave a Comment

Woman reflecting … as opposed to what you know about.

It’s one thing to know about something, quite another to know a subject and be able to deploy it in life. Unless you can do (or be) something, you don’t know it, not really. There’s a world of a difference between knowing your purpose and knowing about purpose, for example.

This comes up with books—a great change resource if used properly…

Sometimes people ask me to post a summary of a book I’ve read for them to access, as if that’ll achieve the same effect. And sometimes, I’m offered summaries by other people.

It would be handy if you could radically cut the time invested and still get the same result, and change by just as much.

You can’t…

You can know about something from a summary, but you can’t truly know it.

The best books take you on a journey of learning. You’re changed by the process of reading from cover to cover. Your unconscious mind accepts new patterns. As a result, you live what you’ve learned, and achieve the corresponding results.

Changing what you know about isn’t the same as changing what you know.

A summary most likely won’t change what you know. Skip the reading and you skip the change.

What do you know about and what do you really know? And how do you tell the difference?

(I think a clue is one’s a head thing and the other’s a whole body experience.)

Filed Under: Change, Leadership, Personal Mastery Tagged With: book summary, change for leaders, Dr David Fraser, knowing your purpose, learning, the difference between knowing and knowing about

Can you see their hesitancy?

April 15, 2013 By Dr David Fraser Leave a Comment

Man thinking, looking upward Sometimes it’s obvious…

We notice when our friends and associates are holding back from committing to something—or maybe someone—which in itself is preventing them achieving the results they want.

We might encourage them to “go for it” or to “have the courage of their convictions.”

That’s after we’ve seen they’re holding back; or after we’ve felt their hesitancy.

I think you’ll agree you notice this in others.

But here’s the thing…

Do you see it in yourself (when it’s there to see, or feel)?

What (or who) are you hesitating about?

Caution, of course, is appropriate, but sometimes we overdo it.

What can you learn about your own hesitancy from how you notice it in other people? What are the signals you pick from them, and perhaps could notice in yourself?

Filed Under: Change, Leadership, Personal Mastery Tagged With: committing, courage, Dr David Fraser, hesitancy, signals

Do you need the big roll-out?

April 12, 2013 By Dr David Fraser Leave a Comment

Group of people listening It’s striking how some organizations think first of the scale required to roll something new out to the workforce at large—a daunting and expensive undertaking.

And yet often the same effect can be achieved with the leadership group attending thoroughly to their own change and growth.

So much cheaper and easier to organize and yet not the usual pattern.

Filed Under: Change, Leadership, Learning, Personal Mastery, Systems, Wisdom Tagged With: change and growth, Dr David Fraser, personal mastery, Roll-out

The trouble with profiling

March 29, 2013 By Dr David Fraser Leave a Comment

Informal meeting Well, one of the troubles with profiling…

In forming teams, it’s a good idea to bring together complementary skills and personality types. Diversity brings performance, though it may not be comfortable at first.

So we reach for the psychometric tests—how handy to be able to profile people and select them for roles in teams.

But there’s a problem…

Actually, probably several problems, but let’s focus on one…

Unless we’re very careful, the use of profiling strengthens the belief in team members that they don’t need to change; that they don’t need to develop their flexibility. After all, they’ve been told they’re an xyz, and perhaps even encouraged to play to their profile, to be an xyz to the full—to avoid flexibility, in fact.

In letting this situation persist, we make a fundamental error…

For a team to be successful, it needs to learn, and for a team to learn, it needs its members to be searching out their individual development, not staying in their boxes.

Otherwise one of the conditions for learning and growth in an organisation—personal mastery (responsibility for one’s own change)—isn’t present.

We’ve taken it away with our profiling.

Filed Under: Change, Organizational Learning, Personal Mastery, Systems Tagged With: change, Dr David Fraser, personal mastery, psychometric profiling, responsibility for one's own change, teams

We don’t laugh at the majority

March 25, 2013 By Dr David Fraser Leave a Comment

High Street scene We don’t laugh at the majority, because the majority has power.

And we don’t laugh at power, because it’s dangerous. It might throw us out.

But we do laugh at minorities, because minorities are weak.

And we do laugh at weakness because it’s safe.

Minorities are different, and different is funny. Really, it is. Unexpected difference is the basis of humour.

Yes, I know, you’re horrified to think you’re involved.

But we all do it, because it’s everywhere. It’s in our culture and our language, and it’s unconscious, in our norms, the little jokes. Sure, we’re mindful in some areas. But not in others.

Sometimes it’s the little, subtle things that hurt, not the big ones, because we don’t notice, but they do.

I know I’ve made these mistakes. It’s a lifelong effort, learning to avoid them.

For all of us perhaps.

Filed Under: Change, Relationship Skills, Wisdom Tagged With: humour, majority, minority, power, unconscious, weakness