by admin | Dec 14, 2023 | InBiteSize
Can you believe it? It’s already December. With that comes a frenzy of holiday shopping, a slew of reunions with coworkers and old friends, and potentially a string of looming thoughts about the year to come. We get it. With all the excitement and good cheer, one could still get overwhelmed and start ruminating over all the things that could have been. Never fear, we’re here to talk about James Clear’s, Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones.
In this blog post, we’ll be giving you a snapshot of Clear’s four laws to help you get your head in the game, now. When the new year comes around, you’ll already be moving one step closer to the person you aspire to be.
What makes Clear’s book so fascinating is that he provides you with an unconventional way of building good habits (and reducing bad habits). It’s obvious to us that change takes time. Or else, why would there be tons of motivational books and quotes flooding our newsfeeds. To help us visualize the impact of our small changes, he tells us to imagine an ice cube sitting at 25 *F. With each degree change, not much happens. However, once the temperature reaches to 32*F, it melts. Even though we cannot see it, every step we take moves us towards or away from our goals.
Clear also teaches us that we should focus on the processes we leverage to achieve our goals instead of our goals themselves. For the agilist out there, does this concept ring a bell? (Hint: do you recall the Scaled Agile Framework Principle #2: Apply systems thinking?) One of the many problems of focusing on a goal is that once we achieve it, we have a tendency to revert back to our old, bad habits.
In my case, after completing my first Duathlon back in August, my Strava has completely flatlined. Instead of focusing on my goal of finishing my race, I should have been putting in effort to build my system, which could include how often I should workout, how I would handle plateaus, or how often I should take time for rest and recovery.
Lastly, Clear brings forth the idea of having identity-based habits over outcome-based habits. He provides us with an example of a smoker who is trying to quit. When offered a cigarette, there’s a profound difference in response #1) No thanks, I’m trying to quit vs. response #) No thanks, I’m not a smoker.
The reason why some folks fail to achieve their goals is that although they have changed their behaviors, they haven’t changed their identity– something that we hold dear. This dissonance may cause us to relapse to our bad behaviors. As we strive to build good habits and eliminate bad habits, we need to pivot our identities, too.
To do this, he has a two-step process.
- Decide the type of person you want to be.
- Prove it to yourself with small wins.
In my case, I want to be an athlete. By reshaping our thinking and formulating atomic habits–regular practices or routines that are not only small and easy to do, but also the source of incredible power– we will be on our way to reaching our goals and beyond.
In the following sections, I’ll first focus on how you can apply Clear’s four laws to build good habits.
The first step of any habit-building is to make it obvious. One method Clear shares is called Pointing-and-Calling, which is leveraged by the Japanese railway system. By calling out all the things you do in a day, you can start to identify things you can adjust.
From there, you can make your habits more obvious by using the cues of time and location. To emphasize cues related to time, you can use Habit Stacking, where you pair a new habit with an existing habit. For me, whenever I am out of water, I do five squats [new habit] before I go downstairs to refill my cup [old habit].
For cues related to location, you can look at ways you can enhance your environment. Clear mentioned a case where a physician at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston rearranged a cafeteria by adding more water bottle stations. As a result, the sale of water increased by 25.8%, while the sale of soda reduced by 11.4%. An individual person didn’t have to make any adjustments on how they ate. Water was just more available, so it became easier to choose it over soda.
For this second law, Clear explains the power of dopamine, our neurotransmitter involved in our motivation. We actually get more excited in the anticipation of our reward than the reward itself. As a result, we could use temptation bundling, where we stack a habit we want with a habit we need. For me, after I pull out a bag of chips, I will write one paragraph. After I write one paragraph, I will eat the chips! By using this tactic, I begin associating writing with the same feeling of excitement I get when I get my hands on a bag of chips.
Secondly, you can also surround yourself with like-minded people. Clear talks about a Hungarian man named Laszlo who aspired to raise chess masterminds. As a result, Laszlo found a partner that shares his values and created a family that rewarded a love of chess. When asking his daughters if they disliked the environment that they grew up in, they said that they couldn’t get enough of the sport.
In conclusion, social norms play a huge role in our behaviors whether we like it or not. Therefore, we should use them to our advantage. Haven’t you just felt more empowered to do that extra rep at the gym versus when you’re at home? In my case, does anyone know of any Swiftie Workout Meetups in the Bay Area? Please send them my way.
Since habit formation is a journey, Clear introduces his third law, making it easy. The problem with building good habits is that it’s not about how long we’ve been practicing the new behavior, but instead the number of times we actually practiced the habit in a given time. Therefore, our new habits should be executed as easily as possible.
One thing to consider is how you can reduce the friction surrounding habits you want to form. Being an athlete, I lay out my workout clothes in the morning and keep my running shoes by the door instead of in the closet. Another practice is priming your environment. Have you ever been in a situation where you had every intention to eat a salad for lunch, but caved in and ordered Doordash? To combat this, you can prepare meals for the week and have your fixings ready for your salad so that the easy choice is something that is already ready to go.
Another practice you can do is perform one time actions that lock in good habits. In his book, Clear speaks about John Henry Patterson, a manager of a supply store that was facing a problem of employee theft. To curb it, he leveraged Ritty’s Incorruptible Cashier that locked the register after every transaction. By investing technology that automated ethical behavior, Patterson went from losing money to making a profit! For example, if you’re trying to save money, you could unsubscribe from promotions or create automation rules in your inbox that automatically move offers to a hidden folder.
If those don’t work, Clear has a two-minute rule, when you start a new habit, it should take less than two minutes to do. As I add strength training into my routine, what I can start with is just doing one rep each day. What this rule forces me to do is to show up. Each time I show up, I up my practice count, which helps my habits settle in a little bit more.
For this final law, it’s all about ensuring that we keep on making the changes we need to reach our goals. With the rise of mobile gaming and social media, we have become a society of instant gratification. Therefore, the fourth law is all about using that to our advantage.
To open this section, Clear shares a story on how a public health worker named Stephen Luby drastically reduced health incidents of children in Karachi, Pakistan by introducing a soap that people loved to use. Safeguard was a soap that was super sudsy and smelled great. Whenever they used it, they were immediately rewarded by its scent and the feeling of cleanliness from the suds.
To leverage instant gratification, you can incorporate small wins through strategies like habit tracking. For me, I get a little thrill every time I check another day off on my calendar whenever I workout or cross off something from my to do list. Another tactic is rewarding yourself when you did nothing. In my case, every time I don’t spend $5 on a new bag of Kirkland Signature Kettle Chips, I can put $5 towards my vacation budget.
And finally, we are all human, and we will miss a day. The all-or-nothing mentality will derail our journey towards our goal. Clear’s only suggestion is that if this happens, we don’t miss it twice. In the end, do what makes sense to you as long as you’re putting in “practice” every moment you get.
When it comes to bad habits, you take the antonym of Clear’s laws. Instead of making it obvious, you make it invisible. As an athlete, it’s important that I maintain a healthy diet. As a result, I have either hidden or stopped buying potato chips, my guilty pleasure. I have also modified my environment by deeming my office as a no eating zone to reduce snacking.
Instead of making it easy, you make it difficult. As a result, I sometimes put my chip bags on the highest shelf of my pantry. In order to get it, I have to use a step ladder that is in the garage. The more steps and barriers you implement, the better chances you have of reducing that habit. You get the picture? All you have to do is take each law, flip it, and stick to it to eliminate a bad habit.
As Clear mentioned, there’s no need to make great leaps to your routines now. It’s all about starting small. As I wrote this post, I told myself “Cassandra, you just need to write 250 words today and then, another 250 tomorrow. By day four, you will have written 1000 words and you can call it a day!”
Therefore, do what you can today. Tweak something about your environment. Spend one minute reflecting on who you want to be. Whatever it is, choose something that you can digest. In fact, we might even recommend that you find something that is small enough that you would call it bite size.
Identify as a lifelong learner & coach? Here are a few posts you can check out: Tribal Unity Book Review, Trick or Treat: Facilitator’s Edition, and Collaborate with Mural,
by Rochelle Tan | Nov 28, 2023 | InBiteSize
If you’re searching for ways to create a happy and collaborative workplace, look no further than Em Campbell-Pretty’s book: Tribal Unity. With real-life experience as a foundation, Campbell-Pretty offers a practical guidebook on building Tribal Unity. She doesn’t claim to introduce a new idea, but instead references various sources that have been successfully applied by her and her team.
Drawing inspiration from David Logan’s Tribal Leadership, Campbell-Pretty simplifies the concept of Tribal Culture as an organization to an Agile Release Train (ART) or Team of Agile team perspective as Tribal Unity. She encourages readers to strive to become Stage 5 tribes for increased productivity. Imagine an ART where everyone feels like family and productivity is off the charts. Currently, only 2% of US organizations have reached this level, with examples like Olympic gold medal teams and Apple Macintosh.
Campbell-Pretty presents the key elements necessary for building effective and motivating tribes. Get ready to feel motivated and energized with your team every single day.
The Agile Release Train (ART) is a long-lived team of Agile teams that incrementally develops, delivers, and often operates one or more solutions in a value stream.
© Scaled Agile, Inc.
To establish a culture of oneness, start by allowing team members to self-select into their teams. This method helps ensure that team members have a sense of belonging and ownership over their work. This is done by providing the team members the mission and vision of the product along with clear constraints (e.g., number of people per team, teams need to be co-located, teams must have cross-functional skill sets). Then, leaders allow them to use this information to self-organize.
Implement work practices such as daily communication and inspect and adapt on cadence to support collaboration and continuous improvement, respectively. Visualizing the work and making the vision, dependencies, and blockers clear helps promote alignment and transparency. If any of these work practices are too overwhelming to implement, at the very least make time to conduct the inspect and adapt. There’s nothing worse than expecting the team to improve if they do not take the time to identify areas for improvement and do something to resolve it.
While co-location is ideal, embrace technology to bridge the gap for distributed teams. Communication, collaboration, and delivering exceptional products can still be achieved.
• Daily communication is also known as daily stand-ups or team syncs.
• Inspect and Adapt is also called as sprint retrospective or iteration retrospective.
In order to foster a sense of unity within your team of teams, it’s important to create a shared identity and experiences. One way to do this is by using themed team names, such as Rocket Ships or Bird Names. You can also utilize innovative games like “product box” to align the team’s understanding and vision.
In addition, adopting a whole-of-tribe perspective can help bring teams together and emphasize the importance of unity. Chapters and Guilds provide a unique approach, focusing on similar skills and competencies rather than traditional functional teams. In these groups, members don’t have a direct manager, but instead come together to share challenges, learnings, and collaborate on solving common problems within their teams.
Participation in Chapters and Guilds is voluntary, allowing members to join or leave as they wish. And don’t forget to celebrate as a tribe and implement Tribal Kaizen to encourage a continuous search for improvement opportunities.
To further strengthen your tribe, consider organizing events like a unity hour, where everyone synchronizes, or a joint chant like the Haka. Another great idea is to have a breakaway day or sports day, which allows team members to get to know each other beyond their work roles.
Kaizen is a Japanese word that means “change for the better.” It was introduced Taiichi Ohno as part of Toyota’s Production System.
Kaizen is about changing the ways things are. If you assume that things are all right the way they are, you can’t do kaizen! So change something! – Taiichi Ohno
The vulnerability paradox: It’s the first thing. I look for in you and the last thing I want you to see in me.
—Brené Brown
To truly bring leaders into the team, it’s important for them to also walk the talk. They need to show vulnerability and embrace their humanity. This means being actively involved in the changes and connecting with their team on the ground level.
Simply stating the desire to support and connect with the team isn’t enough. Leaders need to invest time in going to where the work is happening and truly understanding the system. By doing this, they can better relate to their team and become subject matter experts themselves.
The author shares her own experience of joining a tennis-throwing activity and displaying her bad hand-eye coordination. She also shares a bad attempt at the Bus Stop dance move in response to the team’s feedback about her not doing the Macarena dance. This shows vulnerability and breaks down barriers between leaders and their teams, even if it may be challenging or embarrassing for the leader. It can be a powerful tool for fostering stronger connections between leaders and their teams.
To truly embrace an idea, it’s not enough to simply share the vision and mission. Consistent reinforcement and alignment are key. But what if there’s not enough time to learn and understand new concepts? Campbell-Pretty had a similar challenge with their EDW team. So, they came up with a solution: a book club. By setting aside dedicated time for reading and discussion, they created a space for learning, alignment, and execution of their team’s vision.
When introducing new ideas, it’s natural to encounter opposing views. There will always be both supporters and detractors. Campbell-Pretty has a great approach to handling detractors: observe and listen. They provide evidence of change and stay true to their ideas. By demonstrating the impact, value, and boost in team morale, they show that an idea can make a difference. Having detractors doesn’t mean giving in or compromising. It’s about giving their ideas a fair chance while remaining open to necessary changes.
…change sticks only when it becomes “the way we do things around here”, when it seeps into the very bloodstream of the work unit…
—John Kotter, Leading Change.
Building a strong team and connecting them to a common vision is a great start, but how do you maintain that momentum? This article explores the importance of metrics like NPS and eNPS to gauge customer and employee satisfaction. Sharing team success stories and making them visible to everyone is also key. Additionally, setting up successors for success and maintaining discipline will ensure ongoing success. Learn how to avoid complacency and keep your team thriving in this insightful read.
It is important to remember that management is not the enemy. They want to do a good job just like everyone else. To gain their support, here are some tips from the author:
- Make Tribal Unity relevant to them
- Appeal to their empathy
- Celebrate small victories and involve leaders in the process
- Propose small changes to get things started
One way to change the narrative is by turning to Brené Brown’s book, Rising Strong. Brown explores how the stories we tell ourselves shape our perception of the world. Often, our assumptions about leaders are incorrect or incomplete. To bridge this gap, perform a quick reality check by comparing the stories you tell yourself with the actual situation.
Sometimes proposing something small is the best way to get management to try new things. So, choose an endeavor that you’re almost sure will work. Get agreement to get it done. Once you have a successful implementation, you can leverage your new ticket to play by getting approval for the next small thing.
Implementing these parts may require some time, effort, and patience. However, the benefits of Tribal Unity are invaluable. By fostering a sense of belonging, shared vision, and consistently reinforcing this mindset, you can establish and uphold a culture of unity within your team. Take the first step towards building your team’s Tribal Unity today!
Don’t forget to check out our review of A Sense of Urgency.
by Rochelle Tan | Nov 14, 2023 | InBiteSize
AI, or Artificial Intelligence, is significantly transforming our work and daily lives. According to Coursera.org, AI refers to the creation of computer systems capable of performing tasks that historically only a human could do, such as reasoning, making decisions, or solving problems. AI encompasses a range of technologies, including machine learning, deep learning, and natural language processing (NLP). These technologies enable machines to perform tasks that previously only humans could do, like generating written content, steering a car, or analyzing data. It allows computers to think or act more human by processing information that is provided or gathered and deciding its response based on what it knows or learns.
By harnessing the power of AI, experts can amplify their abilities, while leaving mundane and tedious (sometimes complicated) tasks to machines. Imagine a world where traffic lights change seamlessly, self-driving cars navigate the roads safely, customer queries are answered promptly, and job applicants are selected efficiently – all thanks to AI.
The practical applications of AI are limitless. From IBM Watson’s cutting-edge NLP system, which outperformed human experts on the game show Jeopardy, to OpenAI’s ChatGPT, revolutionizing text-based conversations, AI is revolutionizing communication. Google’s writing assistant, Bard, assists in producing high-quality content, while AlphaFold revolutionizes drug discovery by predicting protein structures. Computer Vision technology accurately identifies objects, streamlining processes, and self-driving cars are revolutionizing transportation. Furthermore, NLPs enhance the efficiency of customer support centers, while image recognition solutions read documents for compliance and validity or provide visual inspection of potential product deficiency or machine failure. AI’s potential applications expand daily.
However, we must approach AI with caution. It has so much potential and capabilities that its misuse can lead to detrimental and long term effects. AI can be subject to bias and discrimination based on the data it uses or associated attributes, which may not necessarily include information such as age, gender, and ethnicity but data with attributes that lead to the association to these data points. Here are some potential scenarios to consider:
- Job applications: Companies should be vigilant about sensitive attributes like age and ethnicity, even if they are indirectly inferred by the AI from other attributes. This can lead to unfair exclusion of certain groups of applicants without the recruiters being consciously aware of it.
- Security and policing: Racial profiling, a form of bias, can occur if facial recognition systems are trained on data that discriminates against specific groups of people given that there’s more data available on areas that they live in.
- Healthcare: While AI and machine learning solutions can predict adverse conditions and coordinate care, organizations must ensure that these technologies do not reinforce existing biases or discriminate in providing care due to skewed or insufficient data. Otherwise, they risk failing to serve the areas or groups that need care the most.
- Marketing: AI techniques used in marketing can effectively generate custom content tailored to specific segments or target customers. However, the same technology can also produce misinformation and conspiracy theories that manipulate people’s thinking, raising ethical concerns.
To mitigate these risks, industry leaders like IBM, DataPrime, and Google have implemented Responsible AI frameworks. Let’s examine their core pillars or guiding principles.
First, we’ll take at IBM‘s AI implementation framework1, which is guided by five core pillars:
- Explainability: Building trust by making transparent decisions and providing clear explanations.
- Fairness: Addressing biases and promoting inclusivity by assisting humans in making unbiased choices.
- Robustness: Protecting AI systems against threats and ensuring their reliability.
- Transparency: Sharing information about AI use with stakeholders of diverse roles.
- Privacy: Prioritizing and safeguarding employee privacy rights throughout the AI lifecycle.
Secondly, DataPrime emphasizes Accountability, Impartiality, Resilience, Transparency, Security, and Governance as vital aspects of responsible AI. Each element is described below, with detailed information within the original article:
- Accountable: Algorithms, attributes and correlations are open to inspection.
- Impartial: Internal and external checks enable equitable application across all participants.
- Resilient: Monitored and reinforced learning protocols with humans produce consistent and reliable outputs.
- Transparent: Users have a direct line of sight to how data, output and decisions are used and rendered.
- Secure: AI is protected from potential risks (including cyber risks) that may cause physical and digital harm.
- Governed: Organization and policies clearly determine who is responsible for data, output and decisions.
Finally, Google puts focus on the following principles:
- Fairness addresses the possible disparate outcomes end users may experience as related to sensitive characteristics such as race, income, sexual orientation, or gender through algorithmic decision-making.
- Accountability means being held responsible for the effects of an AI system. This involves 3 dimensions.
• transparency, or sharing information about system behavior and organizational process, which may include documenting and sharing how models and datasets were created, trained, and evaluated.
• interpretability, which involves the understanding of ML model decisions, where humans are able to identify features that lead to a prediction.
• explainability is the ability for a model’s automated decisions to be explained in a way for humans to understand.
- Safety includes a set of design and operational techniques to follow to avoid and contain actions that can cause harm, intentionally or unintentionally.
- Privacy practices in Responsible AI involve the consideration of potential privacy implications in using sensitive data. This includes not only respecting legal and regulatory requirements, but also considering social norms and typical individual expectations.
Above are just examples that have been formally shared with the public. Each organization has the flexibility to define their guiding principles and shape their own responsible AI framework. However, what matters most is putting these principles into practice, despite the complexities of AI solutions.
Overall, AI holds immense potential for improving our lives. However, it must be used with ethics and responsibility in mind. By adopting frameworks and prioritizing guiding principles, we can harness the power of AI while safeguarding against its potential harm.
Is your organization thinking about Ethical AI? Does your organization have a Responsible AI Framework? What are your guiding principles?
Don’t forget to check out our blog about Microsoft Whiteboard.
by admin | Oct 29, 2023 | InBiteSize
In honor of Halloween, we are sharing our treats. Because the holidays are around the corner, we are aiming to be extra sweet! Over the past several months, we have been sharing with you some of the tools, such as Miro and Mural, that we leverage in order to engage our teams in a hybrid world. In this blog post, we will be diving deeper and covering a collection of tricks and treats that you can use to build your facilitator’s toolkit.
The topics we will cover include:
- Having the right mindset
- Building connections across your team
- Engaging with your customers better
First, we want you to have the right mindset. Whether you are a Project Manager, Agile Coach, or a budding servant leader, you have to remember that your “personal” agenda should NOT be the driver of any meeting. Lyssa Adkins, the author of Coaching Agile Teams, describes behaviors you should move away from, such as knowing the answer & fixing problems, and actions you should move towards, such as focusing on business value delivery & guiding your teams.
Two other mantras from the Agile Coaching Institute (ACI) that you can follow include:
- I create the container. They create the content.
- My actions enhance their self-organization.
The key takeaway is that you should focus on the outcomes and objectives set up by the owner(s) of the meeting. For example, if you are in a Daily Scrum, the owners of the meeting are the team. If folks are getting too technical and focusing on solutions instead of their intentions for the day, you have the right to interrupt and remind them of their goals for the session.
Now that you are aware of the mindset that you should embrace, here are some tools to help strengthen your team’s connection with one another. They can be used when your team is coming together for the first time or when they have lost their way and need to revisit their purpose.
The first thing you should start with is putting together a poster that describes your team’s goals, needs, mission, and purpose. Some of the templates we have found useful include The Team Canvas, Voltage Control’s Focus Finder, and Atlassian’s Team Poster. (Note for the Team Poster you and/or your organization will need to have an Atlassian license to access their playbook). Choose the one that makes sense given the state of your teams. In fact, you can use a combination of these templates and then, synthesize the results. Remember to take the time to review your team’s canvas on a set cadence.
Another way to build a connection is to use icebreakers. Of course, there are the traditional ones, like two truths and a lie, and never have I ever. The problem with these options is that they are overused and do not incite engagement. After taking the ACI’s Agile Team Facilitation course, we were introduced to the concept of Tribes and Constellation. These exercises get people moving and teach your team about the system they operate in. They can be used with a variety of team sizes and can be adapted in a hybrid environment. For example, for Tribes, you can use the Raise Hand function of Teams for people to opt-in and out-out.
Once your teams have started to create a connection, it is time to connect with your customers. The typical methods involve large-scale forums or suggestion boxes that become overflowed with requests. The problem with these is that they may dehumanize your customers. In fact, we have seen where forums have become customer complaining sessions. There were lots of high emotions and very little action. Therefore, it may be good to take a setback and understand what value you bring your customers.
To do this, we recommend leveraging Strategyzer’s Value Proposition Canvas. As a facilitator, there are instructions you can follow. There is also a short video that you can use to introduce the concept to your teams. Plus, it can be done virtually, in person, and in a hybrid setting. After building the canvas, you’ll have a clear view of how your team can add value, and it can be iterated over the evolution of your products.
Another set of options includes Luke Hohmann’s Innovation Games. Have you ever been in a situation where your customers really want something, but can’t seem to give you a list of requirements? Never fear, Hohmann introduces to us 12 games that we can use to better understand the product that we are building. He does this by challenging our audience to think outside of the box. Some of our favorites include Buy A Feature and Give Them a Hot Tub. Just like Strategyzer, he provides an in-depth analysis of how to leverage the games. Therefore, you will know how to set up the game, facilitate the session, and then, summarize the findings.
In conclusion, the above are just a sample of tricks and treats that you can share with your teams. Some of our favorite websites to get inspiration from include tastycupcake.org and gamestorming.com. If you prefer a more guided experience, check out Training from the Back of the Room by Sharon L. Bowman. It has a collection of techniques you can use so that your teams remember and use what they have learned.
In the end, having the right mindset is the foundation of every toolkit. Another way to put it is that you do not need to use a hammer when a mallet is good enough. As a facilitator, you need to be aware of the tools that you have and use them in a way that makes sense to your teams. Do not use something just because it is shiny and new. It is all about finding the right balance and using tools that enhance your team’s experience.
Want to learn more? Comment below on other areas you would like to build up. Also, don’t forget to check out our Book Review: A Sense of Urgency.
by admin | Oct 13, 2023 | InBiteSize
Did you know? There’s something spooky right under your nose. It has been making its way through industry after industry for the past 100 years. It’s not picky on how big or small or young or old the company is. It simply won’t stop. Say hello to complacency, or as Merriam-Webster defines it—self-satisfaction especially when accompanied by unawareness of actual dangers or deficiencies.
In 1996, John Kotter released a book called Leading Change, which documented an eight-step approach to drive meaningful change across an organization. Over time, Kotter heard from many of his clients and readers and learned that many struggled with the first step, creating a sense of urgency. In response, he released A Sense of Urgency in 2015 where he defined a strategy and four tactics to help kickstart an organization’s move towards greatness.
In this blog post, we’ll dive deeper into his strategy and arm you with the tools to combat this hidden threat.
Before we dive into the tactics, we wanted to share with you how Kotter defines complacency and a sense of urgency.
- Complacency is that warm and fuzzy feeling where you know what to do and you do it. It often comes after success. Folks are happy with the status quo and may not be aware of the changes in the market, which may lead the company to ruin.
- A false sense of urgency should remind you of the This is Fine meme. You and your teams may be aware that your company’s Q4 results did not meet expectations or that a competitor’s newest product was a success. However, things are frantic, and there’s a high sense of anxiety, frustration, and fear.
What we are aiming for is a true sense of urgency, where people move with purpose and are powered by the desire to win. Now, how do we get there? We start with developing a strategy that caters to the heart and mind.
When presenting your strategy to your teams, Kotter recommends that you aim for the heart. He starts the section speaking about a company that had a head of IT who knew that his company needed to update their systems or else, a competitor would take over their market share. The head put together a 150-page business case that documented every issue and recommendation and presented the facts to all necessary groups. What happened? The case was all logic. People knew the consequences, yet didn’t move with urgency. The project took an extra year to complete. It was 40% more than the target cost and only delivered 70% of the promised functionality.
Kotter says that yes, you must use logic just as the head of IT leveraged previously. And, you should communicate your goals in a way that arouses determination. Instead of showing a collection of slides, you can keep it simple. Tell a story about the company’s history and its impact on you. Use humor tastefully. Avoid lighting that would prevent you from seeing your audience. Your goal is to connect with them and give them that desire to win.
Although Kotter agrees with the use of logic and communication of goals, it must be delivered effectively. The head of IT could have kept it simple. Kotter shares these simple techniques: Tell a story about the company’s history and its impact on you; Use humor tastefully; Avoid lighting that would prevent you from seeing your audience. Your goal is to connect with them and give them that desire to win.
After setting the stage, Kotter dives into the four tactics to help you generate a sense of urgency. As an organization grows, there’s a tendency to draw inward. We may not see the challenges and opportunities in the market. We start to become satisfied with the status quo and slip into complacency. To combat this, Kotter states that you must bring “the outside in” aka tactic #1.
The easiest place to start is by listening to your teams that are already customer-facing. Kotter speaks of a district manager who visited his stores and got direct feedback from his cashiers. By doing this, he found out that the customers didn’t like the music in the stores— a data point that would have been missed if they sent out a paper survey.
Other methods include capturing videos of your customers using your product, decorating your office space with diagrams that depict the latest trends and news in the market, sending your teams out to conferences and events, and bringing external experts in.
Wherever this data comes from, Kotter urges you to not shield it from your teams. Remember to speak to your teams’ hearts and be honest with the information you have received.
With Kotter’s second tactic, you are in control. It is up to you to act with urgency in the way you speak, act, and move. He begins this section by introducing Ninan, a manager who runs three offices in Hyderabad. His firm was falling behind as new competitors entered the market. Ninan was determined to win and saw this challenge as an opportunity.
First, Ninan responded fast and moved “now”. When in meetings, he explicitly said what he was doing and by when. If someone reached out to him to chat, he immediately made time for them. How was he able to do this? He delegated and cut distractions ruthlessly. If something was not adding value and was deemed low priority, it was either removed from his slate or delegated to someone else.
In the end, Ninan led by example and cultivated a culture that led with urgent patience.
Kotter’s third tactic revolves around crises. When it comes to crises, companies either avoid and control them, use a crisis to generate urgency, or create one themselves. Each option comes with a cost. By controlling them, you may generate complacency since teams are shielded from reality. For the latter two, there’s a risk that fear and anxiety will dominate over the desire to win.
Kotter presents four mistakes that will prevent you from finding opportunity in a crisis. First, never assume that a crisis will create a sense of urgency. You must have a plan to actively address it. Secondly, don’t create problems for the sake of creating problems. A Midwestern manufacturing company manager created processes that intentionally slowed down progress. As a result, folks felt manipulated and focused their attention at the manager instead of course correcting their plant.
Thirdly, don’t wait for a crisis. Remember, tactic #1 and #2. Continue to listen to the market and act with urgency. Lastly, don’t underestimate the power of a crisis. It can quickly become a disaster if folks are unaware and act with a false sense of urgency. Instead, he urges you to be proactive on how your teams will react and develop a strategy to bring people together.
For the final tactic, Kotter opens this section by differentiating between a skeptic and a NoNo. A skeptic is actually open to new information and willing to have his or her perspective change. However, a NoNo is someone that says everything is fine and will have an excuse not to act on every challenge and opportunity that arises. They choose what information they want to hear and actively shut down any ideas, which may generate anxiety and frustration.
The two things that Kotter doesn’t recommend you doing is inviting your NoNos into your committees or leaving them out. Rather, there are three options you can leverage. First, you can distract them. Kotter shares how one company sent a NoNo to Shanghai instead of keeping them in London. The NoNo was the perfect fit. He knew how to impose discipline in order to bring Shanghai back on its feet. At the same time, the groups in London could push forward with their initiatives.
Second, you can let them go. Given your country’s employment laws, you can be direct by offering them a retirement package or firing them. Although this may be an uncomfortable method, Kotter reminds you to think about the bigger picture. Will this moment of discomfort bring greater success to your organization?
Thirdly, you can immobilize them through social pressure. At one company, after reading Kotter’s Our Iceberg is Melting, a book that talks about change by telling a story about penguins, an admin brought a stuffed penguin and hung a sign that said “NoNo is _____.” A manager’s name popped up on the sign, and then, he adjusted his behavior. Folks were able to bring the NoNos to the forefront in a lighthearted way.
By leveraging a strategy that speaks to your teams’ hearts & minds and implementing Kotter’s four tactics, your teams can move with urgency and reach success. However, the hard work doesn’t stop there. After celebrating and recognizing the success, one must anticipate that urgency will falter. You must continue to apply the four tactics to keep you and your company moving forward.
The goal is that acting with a sense of urgency becomes intertwined into you, your team, and your organization’s mindset. The journey will not be easy, and this is where all your tricks and treats will come. You might present facts about the industry in a different way or reuse a phrase that really resonated with your teams. Mix it up. Keep it light. Make one small change each day. Whatever you decide, never settle for the status quo.
In conclusion, this is the perfect day– Friday the 13th– to spend the night in and reflect on how the week has passed. Have you been frustrated by the lack of change? Do you sense anxiety among your teammates? Are people fluttering about in a state of business, but in reality, nothing is really getting done? Then, it may be time for you to arm yourself with Kotter’s tactics so that you’ll be ready to meet Jason at the door. Are you ready for it?
Don’t forget to check our review of Make it Stick: The Science of Successful Learning.
by Rochelle Tan | Sep 28, 2023 | InBiteSize
In today’s fast-paced world, it’s not enough to have a great idea; it needs to stick. And that’s precisely what Chip Heath and Dan Heath explore in their book, “Make it Stick.” This book review will unpack their SUCCESs formula, an approach to making ideas more memorable and impactful. Whether you’re a coach, consultant, executive, marketer, or sales manager, this book holds universal lessons on how to make your ideas stick and guide the behavior of those around you that will lead to positive change.
The first idea in “Make it Stick” is that simplicity is the key. Compact messages help the listener remember and can be achieved by leveraging concepts that are already in place: things that are familiar to the audience (aka schemas). The authors recommend breaking ideas down into the most essential parts and then reinforcing them. This approach helps make the information more memorable and easier to recall. This is the same approach that journalists take in writing their articles by taking the inverted pyramid model: “Don’t bury the lead”. Usually, the headline provides the gist of the article and provides the critical information early on.
The “curse of knowledge” affects us all when we assume that our audience knows what we know. But The Heath brothers urge us to avoid this and instead use Barry Loewenstein’s “gap theory” to keep our listeners’ interest. This approach presents an open gap between what the audience knows and what they need to know. This piques their curiosity and makes them more interested in the information. In a way, it is about holding your audience’s attention so that they consistently want more. An example of this is when a science teacher presents a question at the beginning of a class, such as, “What makes up the rings of Saturn?” This question keeps the students interested in discovering the answer to the mystery that is unraveled throughout the class.
One of the best ways to make an idea stick is by using vivid and specific examples. The authors cite examples like Jerry Kaplan’s personal computer presentation to Silicon Valley investment capital in 1987. Mr. Kaplan used his maroon leather case, which only contained a blank pad of paper, to illustrate the portability, simple functionality, and a myriad of functionalities (e.g., address book, manage word processing, etc.). His concrete example made it easy for the panel of investors to visualize and understand the features of this innovative product. By using concrete examples, ideas become easily remembered and can act as guiding principles without the need for complicated translation. People respond and remember situations and people more than statistics. It is the same concept that enterprise leaders should adhere to when communicating corporate strategies. When the message is clear and concrete, folks are under the strategy, which drives the right behavior from everyone across the organization.
While it’s tempting to rely on authority figures to add credibility to our ideas, the authors suggest that sometimes it’s better to use antiauthority. One example they cite is Pam Laffin’s anti-smoking campaign by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health. In some cases, internal validation can be far more effective. For instance, by using more vivid details, stories, and examples, we can persuade others without relying on stats and figures that may go over the audience’s heads. This concept was clearly depicted in the case of Wendy’s “Where’s the Beef?” campaign to discredit McDonald’s hamburgers or the Sinatra Test used by Safexpress, which guaranteed film producers the safe and timely delivery of Bollywood movies.
This chapter focuses on how tapping into emotions can help make ideas stick. The Heath brothers point out that people will only act when their emotions are engaged. Emotional engagement can be achieved in many ways, and one of the most effective ways is to help people care enough to act. For instance, priming candidate donors to feel and care about the cause before asking for support helps trigger generosity. An example of priming is leveraging Mother Teresa’s principle: If I look at the one, I will act. It is easier to ask potential patrons to give to an actual person than to donate to an entire cause (e.g., Save Africa, Run for the Cure, etc.)
The final aspect of the SUCCESs model is story. As human beings, we naturally gravitate towards stories; they engage us and make us feel something. Trying to make a point triggers debate. However, sharing our ideas via stories invites our audience to discuss and expand on the topic. It helps make the idea more compelling. One example provided is Stephen Denning’s experience during his stint with the World Bank. Denning employed Zambia’s story on fighting malaria and finding information to combat the disease. Instead of presenting statistics and data, the Zambia story appealed to Denning’s audience and led to the World Bank’s focus on information management.
“Make it Stick” is an excellent read that explores an effective way of making your ideas more impactful. By using the SUCCESs formula, we learn how to keep things simple, uncommon, concrete, credible, emotional, and engaging. Done correctly, compelling ideas have the power to guide behavior and effectively create change. How are you going to use this formula to elevate your ideas and make a lasting impact?
Don’t forget to check our review of The Art of Decision-Making: Insights from Blink for Product Management.
