Musings on Leadership

In a previous post I talked about " The Mousetrap Way " by Manoj Vasudevan. This comes from that same book. When you're trying to inspire others to take action, remember  Now ,  Wow , and  How . Now What needs to change? What stories or anecdotes can you use to prove your point? Make them understand that doing nothing can be painful. Wow Help your team visualize the desired results. Focus on the end result - don't worry about the "how" just yet. Don't make promises you can't keep. How What actions need to be taken? Explain them in a way that makes them look practical and achievable. THIS is where you articulate your idea. Subtly challenge them so that they feel the urge to give your idea(s) a try. Example: A politician that's trying to get you to vote for them. Now  - The current situation is in our country is bad. Wow  - Together we can create jobs and prosperity. How  - Vote for me.

This week's post comes from Tim Kight of the Focus 3 blog . Change is inescapable. It’s going to happen. It’s just a fact of life. You have two options. You can resist change, fight it, try to avoid it – and you’ll find that things become increasingly difficult for you. Or, you can adjust and adapt to the change in a positive and proactive way. Given the pace of change in today’s world, this is an essential skill to develop. The difficult part about change is that it asks you to forget old ways of doing things and learn and embrace new ways that are going to feel foreign and uncomfortable at first. Today I want to talk about the 6 mistakes you should strive to avoid when faced with change. Mistake #1 – Expecting things to stay the same. Unfortunately, we don’t live in a world where things turn out the way we expect. If we did I’d be writing this from my 200-foot yacht somewhere in the south Pacific. The world is unpredictable and constantly changes. So expect, and be prepared for, ...

What IS the change? Self-evident but you should be able to clearly and concisely state the change in a short sentence. Who is responsible for leading the change? Not only who is responsible for leading the change but who will be doing the actual work as well. What does success look like? Probably the most critical thing to define. If you can’t objectively define what success looks like then people will become frustrated. Who is impacted by the change? Some changes impact primary, secondary, and tertiary groups of people. It’s important to understand EVERYONE that will be impacted by the change. How will we know when we’re successful? This is similar to #3 but more related to the overall organization and the overall change. Who needs to be trained; and on what? Consider creating a training plan to make sure everyone gets trained so that you have a record of it. Also consider refresher training just before going “live” in case the change has taken a while t...