Jennifer Frahm Collaborations

As the year draws to a close, it is natural to muse on the mental stocktake, you know, what worked, what didn’t, how will next year be different. Last year I shared with you my take on New Year Resolutions (eg the Goal Schmoal, Think Themes). Last year, I dearly wanted to create more Zen in more life. Curiously, I engineered the reverse initially, got stuck in a pattern of poor health, but got  there in the end. I’m now meditating regularly, life is much simpler in many ways, and I am deeply appreciative of good health and back on the path of maintaining that. I am breathing more, and breathing better. Letting go.

But this coming year I want to focus on qualities that will serve me best.

On reflection I may have allowed “Doubt” a little too much air time in 2009. Now, don’t get me wrong, Doubt is very useful, and I am greatful for Doubt’s protection during the year. But when Doubt is given too much opportunity, it paralyses, and undermines, it complicates, and it shoves “Joy“ in a bottom drawer. Doubt subscribes to astrologer’s feeds, re-does budgets endlessly, needs a counsellor to listen to it, and is so very, very tiring.

I’m really looking forward to giving “Trust” a spotlight this coming year. Trust can come and play more often. She’ll probably wear swhirling bohemian skirts, and less make-up. Trust is liberating, doesn’t mind an occasional mistake, actually learns from them really. Trust’s voice is not necessarily loud, but it is steady and had a deep and warm vocal tone. Trust strides confidently forward and acts after consulting doubt. Trust recognises the principle of abundance and is liberating, expecting “Joy” to right around the corner. Trust gets to play with me personally and professionally in 2010. A lot!

One of my most favourite books in all the world is J Ruth Gendler’s The Book of Qualities. Initially published in 1984, it is a gorgeous little book of 98 different qualities illustrated through prose and picture. I think I got it about 20 years ago now, and it is never far away. Seriously, in the words of a local icon “Do yourself a favour”…

Here’s what she has to say about Doubt…

Doubt camped out in the living room last week. I told him that we had too many house guests. Doubt doesn’t listen. He keeps saying the same thing again and again and again until I completely forget what I am trying to tell him. Doubt is demanding and not very generous, but I appreciate his honesty.

… and Trust.

Trust is the daughter of Truth. She has an objective memory, neither embellishing nore denying the past. She is an ideal confidant - gracious, candid and discreet. Trust talks to people who need to hear her; she sits quietly with this who are sceptical of words. Her presence is subtle, simple and undeniable.

Trust rarely buys round-trip tickets because she is never sure how long she will be gone and when she will return. Trust is at home in the desert and the city, with dolphins and tigers, with outlaws, lovers and saints.  When Trust bought her house she tore out all the internal walls, strengthened the foundation and rebuilt the door. Trust is not fragile, but she has no need to advertise her strength. She has a gambler’s respect for the interplay between luck and skill; she is the mother of Love.

So with at least 98 qualities available - my question to you, heading into 2010, is what Quality will serve you best?

What quality do you need to harness, to nurture, to appreciate to create the 2010 you will be happy for?

Happy New Year all, and thanks so much for your comments and emails during the year. I trust we will continue the conversation!

Greetings all, by way of finishing up the year, I thought I might drag out the crystal ball and look ahead to what I see as the Big 5 of the Change Communication Trends for next year. I’d love to hear your thoughts - what have I missed? What’s not on my radar that should be?

1. Enterprise communication solutions will start being used better

Enterprise communication systems will start to be used much better in change projects. This will be the next extension from the move from traditional enterprise communication systems to the social network enterprise communication offerings.  Curiously, I think we will have Facebook to thank. Companies have long bemoaned how much time employees spend on Facebook, but ironically, this will be the enabler. Those staff who have immersed in Facebook will adopt change communication enterprise solutions really easily. “Project status updates within a closed loop network? Oh, it’s just like facebook….”. The real losers will be the companies who have blocked social networking sites.

What to do: If you are in internal comms and likely to be more heavily involved in change, get up to speed with solutions like Beehive, Jive, Yammer, Ning. You don’t have to be experts - just start to understand the concept and start thinking about how you would use them within a change project.

2. Devolution of responsibility for change

This one is a little problematic. CEO and MDs will charge out stating “Change is everyone’s responsibility”. Given that such a high percentage of change projects fail, this statement will strike fear into the hearts of middle managers. Middle managers will “empower” staff lower in  the organisation with responsibility of change and communication of that change.  Some of these staff will be natural change agents and will thrive and get promoted, others will be in a world of unsupported and unskilled pain.  Bleak?  Look I think the overall intent behind the CEO’s statement is good. Organisations do need to be more flexible, agile, resilient and have a greater capability for change.  But I think the journey to that outcome will be quite painful and problematic initially.

What to do:  Ensure that your Training and Development budget includes an allocation for building change capability. Start skilling yourself up by reading books and articles on change and communication.

 3. Cloud will go mainstream and change communication applications will emerge

2010 will be the year that business large and small really adopt “cloud computing“. There will be discomfort as traditional IT departments realise they don’t have as much control, but smart communications managers realise the potential in the access to information and potential for responsiveness.  The introduction of cloud computing will lead to more employees working virtual and the smartphone will be critical. Change management will be made much easier by the use of cloud solutions (eg up-to-date change metrics, opportunities for experimentation, more timely change communication)

What to do: build on existing relationships with IT departments. You are going to need them.

 4. CEOs will not start blogging

After the thrill of seeing Tony Hsieh’s letter to employees about the Zappo and Amazon merge, it was understandable that many thought we would see more CEO’s blogging and reaching out to their own community.  But no. Think about it.  If the CEO starts communicating with the employees, what will the most senior communications managers do?  No - CEOs will ask the question of their support staff, “should I blog?” And the response will be “no, it’s too risky”(the unspoken being: “Hell No! - We’ll lose control”). And if this prediction has you feeling a bit narky, chill, you are one of the evolved. Most of your compatriots are not so savvy. They will also still be complaining in ten years that they “don’t have a seat at the big table”…but I digress.

What to do: Prove me wrong.

5. Sustainability communication will be the new sexy niche specialiastion

In the afterglow (or not!) of Copenhagen, and 2010 being the Year of BioDiversity, more organisations will be focusing on increasing their sustainability efforts. It’s a fearsome change communication effort, changing long ingrained mindsets, habits and culture. Despite 2009 being the Year of the Generalist, if you can communicate science you will be very hot property. As Sandy Skees writes here : “It will take clear communications and the constant updating, contextualizing and story telling that a complex world requires”

What to do: Core skills will be crafting narratives of change, storytelling, and translation.

So that’s it folks… what do you think? Any that you would add?

No doubt you will have seen the increase in the demand for internal ‘change agents’. Rarely are position descriptions produced today, without some reference to the need for the candidate to act as an ‘agent for change’ and drive the business transformation efforts internally.

As budgets have tightened, more businesses are reluctant to rely on external consultants for long. It appears to be a catchall term, regardless of your background or experience, you must be adept at driving change within your organisation.

But should we expect employees in non-specialist positions to do this without any support?

This was the dilemma that one of my clients was facing earlier in the year. She was the team leader of a sustainability team within a government owned agency charged with changing the behaviours of the employees with regards to reducing the use of paper, water, energy and waster.

She needed to build internal capability for change, and create a powerful team of change agents to achive their KPIs. So I worked with her to develop an internal change capability building program.  The results were quite exciting.

I developed a change capability audit using a combination of the Change Management Institute’s Competency framework, and a questionnaire addressing change goals, and a personal SWOT analysis.  From this I created individual coaching plans focused on building the skills and knowledge in the areas that were perecived as weakest.

We rang a series of group workshops to provide a base level of knowledge and  followed up with the individual coaching and the topics covered in the group workshops were:

• Managing people though change,
• Persuasive Communication,
• Strategic Change and
• Change Communication .

At the end of the program, I asked the team members to do the audit again, and reflect on how they had performed with respect to their original change goals.

As a group the change in perceived change capability was noticeable - see here for a graph on the pre and post evaluations. And as you can see from some of the comments below, it was a very effective program.

 I think this process has provided me with the knowledge on how to effectively communicate change and influence people in a positive way.

  I believe the team has broadened its communication and influencing tools and has become more proficient in influencing effectively; they are overall more aware of their behaviour and how they communicate. I have seen this program as a great development opportunity for my staff who have greatly benefited from the theory provided as well as the individual one-on-one coaching sessions.

We met all of these goals for the past financial year. We used our change skills to help meet them, as without a fair amount of influencing we may not have got there.

One of the interesting observations from the team, was that even though the coaching was individual, they had developed a common language as a group to discuss change related matters, and were more effective at communicating internally, as a result.

So as with all client engagements, there’s always some great lessons to be shared and I’ve prepared a coaching case study that you can download. Here’s 6 tips on how to create change agents based on some of the learnings of the program.

1) Be clear on what you want to change - is it behaviour, processes or thinking? Describe what it means to be a change agent

2) Be clear on how you can measure the outcomes and the changes. Your team will be more motivated to continue using new skills if they can see change in their efforts. Take check points often.

3)  Ensure that you team members are comfortable with the coaching process. Don’t force people to undergo coaching if they are not comfortable with it. Good coaching respects boundaries.

4) Stay flexible. As your change agents learn new skills they may wish to take on different roles within the business.

5) Provide space for the team members to practise their new skills. Understand that initial attempts may be a bit clumsy. Encourage and support your change agents.

6) Allow time for the program. Individuals have different speeds at which they learn and process new knowledge. Allow for 6 - 12 coaching sessions per person and time for reflection.

I hope you find them useful. Would love to hear of your experiences of creating change agents within!