Leading Change
Not too long ago I had ACL surgery. While going through the process I had the opportunity to consider the similarities between my experience with the doctor, and many people’s experience with change in their organizations.
My knee doctor is great at what he does—he’s the head physician for the US Snowboard Team and the US Ski Team. Needless to say, he is used to this type of surgery, and does many of them each week. After my initial exam and MRI, I knew what the problem was—A torn ACL, and the solution—Surgery.
For me, this was a new experience, and over the next month leading up to the surgery, I developed a long list of questions for my doctor—about options, the procedure, recovery, physical therapy, what kind of support I would need at home, etc. For my doctor, this was run of the mill, business as usual. My doctor traveled a great deal, so despite the building number of questions, I had a hard time getting answers. The longer my questions went unanswered, the more stress I (and my wife) felt about the upcoming surgery.
As leaders or drivers of organizational change, you are often ahead of the rest of the organization when it comes to change. You have had a change to strategize, plan, and even work through your own resistance to the change. By the time change initiatives are announced, the leaders have already worked through the challenging transitions that accompany any significant change.
Yet, the rest of the company has not. What may seem straightforward, obvious, or clear to you, may not feel the same way to the rest of the company. Answers that you have already worked through, or are confident about, may not be as clear and obvious to others in the company.
As with my surgery, it was easy for the doctor to be confident and not see the need to answer seemingly obvious questions about options and recovery. Yet for me, like many in the organization, this was a new experience that required lots time and questions, and ultimately, COMMUNICATION.
So the lesson here: As a senior leader, if you are not sick and tired of communicating, you are probably not communicating enough.
Question: What have you done when leading to effectively communicate with your direct reports?
Inciting Leaders 