Leadership and the Leaf

"The key to change... is overcoming fear."

~Rosanne Cash

By default people are adverse to change. People will continue in a given path, or paradigm, until their current paradigm becomes too painful to stay in - when their pain overcomes their fear (what a miserable way to grow and develop).


Leading a team to a successful solution often requires change. It may be a minor course correction or the equivalent of turning an aircraft-carrier. Most of the time the definition of success does not come from the team members, but comes from customers, clients, or the management team. The first step is taking the time to make sure that everyone involved understands how success is defined, and that each of them are responsible for making it a reality. 


One common obstacle are team members so ingrained in doing their job/function a certain way that they go through "shock" and see the change as a complete redraft of their "identity." At times they may feel that they are seen as failures because the goal has changed, and that perhaps their efforts weren't good enough. Some employees may take it to the next level of seeing the leaders as personal threats.


Leaders need to continually keep the definition of success in front of the teams' eyes. There needs to be metrics and measurements, reporting of progress,  genuine and specific feedback and compliments. Leaders need to stay confident and focused.

An excellent example is from Disney's movie "A Bug's Life." In this scene, ants are working on gathering food for the winter and a leaf falls into their path. So used to the normal way of doing things, this obstacle becomes insurmountable for the working ants. Following is the dialogue between the ants:

• FIRST ANT IN LINE:  I’m lost!!! Where’s the line?! What do we do?!
• ANOTHER ANT:  We’ll be stuck here forever!
• MR. SOIL:  Do not panic! Do not panic! We are trained professionals. Now, stay calm. We are going around the leaf.
• FIRST ANT:  Around the leaf? I don’t think we can do that.
• MR. SOIL:  Oh, nonsense! This is nothing compared to the “Twig of ‘93”. (He begins to guide them around the fallen leaf.) That’s it…that’s it…good! There you go, there you go!  Watch my eyes; don’t look away. And here’s the line again!
• FIRST ANT:  Thank you! Thank you, Mr. Soil!
• MR. SOIL:  Good job, everybody!

One key to overcoming fear is to look to someone that has already overcome it themselves. Leaders will sacrifice their fear for success. The most common fear is not just of the unknown, but that the consequences of facing the unknown will embarrass or threaten the pride of the individuals.


Real life:
Once I was faced with changing the mind-set of a team of customer service technicians who were dedicated to, and took pride in, troubleshooting computer components to the "nth" degree. Faced with the rising costs of support and the falling margins in product sales, the client reset the definition of success - resulting in a "hard" time limit on how long a product could be troubleshot.
Upon delivering these new guidelines and reaffirming the requirement for high resolution rates and high quality of customer service, the technicians began throwing their hands up in the air and asking how this could be done, etc., etc.


A brief snapshot of "going around the leaf..."

• I re-clarified how the client defined success, answered questions until we were all in complete understanding, and established how success was to be measured. Made sure that everyone understood that they were responsible and accountable for making success happen.
  
• I setup charts, whiteboards, and other reporting components to keep status and the goal front and center, and to keep the team informed. It lets the team know that we are all in this together and that we are keeping an eye on it. Assign the updating of the boards, and etc. to different team members (at times giving it to the lower performer) to reinforce the ownership of the performance.
  
• Take the time to give everyone one-on-one feedback, identify top performers, and set personal goals with the lower performers (when setting goals with team members / subordinates, always include what you as a leader can do to assist them) and never fail to follow-up (and never call public attention to the low performer). Ideally, you get the client or executive team involved in recognizing the individual and team performance.
• Continually remind the team members what their responsibilities are, how success is defined and measured, keep them informed, hold them accountable, and stay positive (!)... Rally the troops!

~ Jason Saetrum