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Implementing Change Without Weirding Out Your Team

As a change maker, you have a lot of tension to manage. 

 

Leaders are rewarded and promoted for results, so in theory, going against the grain and doing things that get you better results is good. 

 

On the other hand, there’s a fine line between subverting a process and being in noncompliance with it.

 

We kind of know this instinctively: unless you’re in an organization that tolerates a lot of difference and a lot of diversity, you can’t stand out too much. 

 

But if you can effectively manage this tension between being tasked with getting better results, and not being “too weird,” you will see tremendous value. You will learn faster, work with more creativity, get more done with less stress, and build stronger relationships with the people you work with. 

 

Learn more about how to manage this tension better by watching my video: 4 Tactics for Implementing Change Without Weirding Out Your Team.

 

 

If this resonates with you and you’re interested in learning a new way of leadership and bringing it into practice in your organization, let’s chat.

 

Click here to book a free leadership exploration call. We’ll focus on your context and your challenges to see whether what we’re doing in the C.L.E.A.R. Path to Executive Leadership might be a good fit for you.

 

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Leading Change Requires Drama

Cue the flashbacks to middle school.

No, I don’t mean drama as in middle school drama. I mean dramatic as in spontaneous and emergent—dramatic because we don’t know what happens next!

Natural disasters, bar fights, first dates, exploration, and play are all dramatic events. They’re dramatic because you don’t know what’s going to happen next.

Contrast that with the theatrical. Theatrical events aren’t really real. Even if they seem real, the circumstances surrounding them are generally predetermined. They are scripted rather than emergent. The outcomes are bound—we already know all the possible ends from the beginning.

A lot of corporate work tends to be theatrical: Board meetings, strategy processes, PowerPoint decks, etc. They are business as usual—we know that aside from someone starting to snore, there won’t be any real surprises.

Dramatic events require us to respond in the moment and to be curious about the outcome.

Doing change work and solving complex problems requires drama, not theatricality.

Complex problems are more than just problems with a lot of moving pieces, they’re problems that require a collective understanding and a movement to action that exists beyond any one individual. They are beyond the ken of any one person or team to solve. The small details matter.

Advancing a complex problem requires co-creation. Believe it or not, this is a dramatic act. You don’t know what kind of reality others want to create, and you don’t know what will happen when you start to collaborate.

Drama embraces the unknown, and it is the way to get a system unstuck.

A lot of change work can benefit from leaders knowing how to shift a theatrical event into a dramatic one.

 

If you’re curious how a little drama can transform the way you approach complex problems, watch my short video, Complex Challenges Require Drama.

In it, I explain how letting go of your outcome expectations and replacing your reliance on predetermined solutions with a mindset of curiosity and flexibility will help you build trust and have a greater impact with your stakeholders.

Give it a watch!


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