change

Is your advocacy unbalanced?

October 25, 2013 By Dr David Fraser Leave a Comment

Three senior managers It’s very easy to make this mistake…

When advocating a change or something new, it’s very easy to miss out that part of the status quo that is also needed.

We’re so familiar—unconsciously familiar—with the way things are at the moment that we’re liable to forget which parts are still needed. We just don’t really see them.

Then in our advocacy we end up with an unbalanced message because it only has the radical component, not the whole solution.

And that means it doesn’t make sense. So the message is liable to be dismissed.

For example, we see the problems of structure and want to dismantle it. Yet we need the benefits the structure brings, or some of them anyway.

And it’s a lot easier to see what isn’t working than what is.

Paraphrasing the old saying…

How do you keep hold of the baby when you’re throwing out the bathwater?

You need to start by seeing the baby properly.

Filed Under: Change, Leadership Tagged With: advocacy, change, Dr David Fraser, radical component, the benefits of structure, the problems of structure, unbalanced message

Action plus brand equals result

August 9, 2013 By Dr David Fraser Leave a Comment

Maybe there’s something we’re missing…

It’s healthy to believe we can replicate others’ success in leading change, or in achieving business results.

We can, and the approach is a good one.

But there is something we need to remember…

There is a missing element…

And that is the esteem in which we (or our exemplar of success) are held by our market, our audience or our constituency – whatever the most appropriate collective word is for the people we intend to influence.

One word for that relationship between a business and its market, or a person and their following, or a change agent and their community is “brand” – a kind of label summing up the relationship. Brand is something we can develop, of course, but only over time.

If you think about it…

Brand really refers to something that exists in the audience, not in the business. And if you want to study a brand, you need to talk to the market.

And…

When we take action in expectation of a result…

Members of our audience weigh our action in its own right, yes, but then they factor in their beliefs about us; how they perceive our standing and credibility; in other words, our brand. And then they decide: Yes or no.

Same action, different brand leads to different result.

So…

What’s your sense of your brand?

How might it be affecting your results?

And how might you develop it differently for the future?

Filed Under: Business, Change, Leadership, Marketing Tagged With: audience, change, Dr David Fraser, modelling others' success, relationship between a business and a market, results, the effect of brand

Change in here comes before change out there

June 28, 2013 By Dr David Fraser Leave a Comment

Woman reflecting We won’t achieve change in an organisation or in the world at large until we put our own house in order, whatever that may exactly entail.

Our personal change work may well have a different form from what we perceive needs to happen in an organisation.

On the other hand…

When it comes to individual others, it’s probable the growth we see for them tells us something about what’s next for us. As Carl Jung said, we notice in others things we are not acknowledging in ourselves.

Either way…

We need to embark on our own change before we can expect anyone else to embark on theirs.

Filed Under: Change, Leadership, Learning, Wisdom Tagged With: being the change, change, Dr David Fraser

Do you fight your influences?

June 12, 2013 By Dr David Fraser Leave a Comment

Group in discussion at a computer That might seem a strange question, but think about it: Do you resist the learning which comes from your influences?

Actually, I think, most of us do.

Because influence means change, and change means discomfort for our ego, we tend to push back on ideas that contribute to our learning, particularly the more profound ones.

In fact…

The more powerful (and important and valuable) the influence, the more likely we are to resist it, at least at first.

Patience, therefore, is something we usually require in the people who influence us.

But perhaps we can learn to be more open. Perhaps we can learn to notice when we are resisting an influence. Perhaps we don’t need to fight it.

How about you? How open are you to the people who influence you?

Filed Under: Personal Mastery, Wisdom Tagged With: change, Dr David Fraser, ego, influences, learning, resisting change, resisting learning

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

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

Sustaining a purpose

March 8, 2013 By Dr David Fraser Leave a Comment

Three people, two shaking hands How do you keep it going?

How do you build your earnings to sustain what you are doing without compromising your leadership “mission” (if that’s the right word)? If you’re not careful, you end up contracted to deliver something that’s at odds with what you see as important, because sometimes money flows more easily to sustain the status quo than to facilitate change.

But if you do it well, you can attract the revenue you need to sustain your mission, assuming it has fundamental merit of course.

So what makes the difference?

1. Articulating your message clearly enough.

2. Committing to what you have to say—going beyond the point of no return—accepting the risk of it not working out.

3. Living the principles you espouse.

In short, being real. Then you attract the right people and the right resources.

Oh and finding how your approach meets the customer’s need at a higher level, as in, “Here’s another, more sustainable way to achieve what you ultimately want.”

What’s your experience of this?

Filed Under: Change, Leadership, Wisdom Tagged With: change, Dr David Fraser, facilitating change, mission

Your innovation – A small step or a big leap?

February 8, 2013 By Dr David Fraser Leave a Comment

Person on a rocky mountain with a large drop Occasionally you learn something truly new and advance the field in some way. It feels like a tiny step to you—one you hardly think worthy of the name.

And yet…

For the rest of us, getting to that new layer you’ve added on top on an existing body of knowledge is a real jump.

Why?

Because we need to catch up with the ground-work before we can get to the innovative step.

Be patient with us please, and help us find a way up. Show us where to place our feet.

Filed Under: Change, Leadership, Learning Tagged With: big leap, change, Dr David Fraser, innovative step, learning

Don’t like change or don’t like feeling unsafe?

October 12, 2012 By Dr David Fraser Leave a Comment

Group of people listening We hear it so often: “People don’t like change.”

That isn’t quite right: After all, most of us would like a doubling of our income, or the gift of a free holiday with everything taken care of. We like that kind of change.

Really, it’s that we don’t like feeling unsafe.

When tackling something new or leading change, remembering that people don’t like feeling unsafe puts a slightly different light on it. It suggests different actions.

Saying “people don’t like change” is too broad-brush.

People might be OK with change, or even welcome it. It depends how you handle it; how you deal with the fear.

Filed Under: Change, Communication, Organizations, Wisdom Tagged With: change, don't like change, don't like feeling unsafe

Do you solve a problem when you can?

April 18, 2012 By Dr David Fraser Leave a Comment

Exhausted and frustrated woman at a computer If you’re anything like me, your first reaction to the question might be ”Of course I solve a problem when I can.”

But do you?

Do you always make the choice to deal with an issue when you have the means to? Or do you sometimes leave the problem because actually it’s easier to be working against something, to have something to push on, or even something to blame.

If somehow—and I know this may be unlikely—you could eliminate all your problems and be free of them completely, would that be a comfortable place or an uncomfortable one? What would you do with your freedom then?

Do you sometimes avoid adopting a simple solution and continue looking for a more complex one that’s somehow more justifying?

I know I do.

But the path of personal mastery, wisdom, and growth means choosing to solve our problems when we can, and moving on.

Filed Under: Change, Personal Mastery Tagged With: blame, change, choosing to solve our problems, Dr David Fraser, freedom, growth, personal mastery, solve a problem, wisdom, working against something