Tag: solutions

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Implementing Change Without Weirding Out Your Team

A man with a red clown nose sits behind a work desk.
If you can effectively manage the tension between being tasked with getting better results, and not being “too weird,” you will see tremendous value.

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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Bottlenecked: Complexity and Risk in Simple Operations

A man in a suit crawling through the desert toward a water cooler.
Who knew water delivery could be so complex?

When I first started out in the business world, I would dream of the day I had my own water cooler in my office. I don’t know why — I just always felt like having one would be a sign that I was finally successful.

 

Well, I finally got a brand new, space-age, state-of-the-art water cooler, and I’ve got to say, they’ve changed a lot since the clunky, gravity-fed dinosaurs of days gone by. You know the ones — the water bottle was up top, and you’d have to maneuver it into place, and you’d always spill a little bit, but once it was up there, gravity did the rest of the work. Crude, but simple.

 

My new system has a pump, so the water container can go underneath it, which is nice and convenient, but I just know that someday this pump is going to fail. It might be five years from now, it might be five months from now, but someday it will break, and I’ll need a specialist to come fix it.

 

I asked my water distributor, and he told me that not only is the water cooler company dealing with technical problems and issues with inter-team communication, but it’s also dealing with a costly staffing shortage!

 

Even simple business models with few functions encounter unexpected risk and complexity. Things catch you by surprise. I bet until this year, or until very recently, my water cooler company was not even thinking about staffing as one of their key risks. And yet, as the labor market changes, you still need to get water into people’s offices.

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With capability comes complexity, which is something I talk about in Meltdown.

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Complexity can arise in even the most unexpected places, which is exactly what I ponder in my newest video. Here’s something a simple conversation with a water delivery agent taught me about the unexpected risk of operating a business:

 

 

In Meltdown, we talk about the paradox of progress and how capability adds complexity. There’s always going to be risks out there that you can’t consider.  

 

We have a free sample chapter available here. 

 

Check it out if you haven’t read it yet, and if you have, leave a comment about something you’ve taken away from it. 

 

With that, I’ll say thank you for your attention, and I’ll see you next time.

 

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The Risk of Moving Too Quickly Toward Solutions

As leaders, we love to jump to solutions, often far too quickly. Here’s what’s at risk…

One of the hardest leadership missteps to unlearn is the tendency to move too quickly toward solutions.

 

We see a problem and want it resolved immediately.

 

A question arises and we need an answer, fast!

 

But reacting to a situation before it is better understood places us at risk of missing critical context, which can lead us to make preventable mistakes.

 

When we move too quickly towards solutions, we’re at risk of a few things:

  1. Offering a solution to the wrong problem
  2. Moving forward with the wrong solution to the right problem
  3. Solving the right problem with the right solution but without bringing your team along

 

Why is it so hard to resist jumping right into solutions? There’s something really challenging about not moving forward. As leaders, we crave action and it’s hard to keep in mind that stillness isn’t the same as being stuck, and that not everything needs to happen immediately.

 

A lot of leadership — particularly in complex organizations—is about staying in the space of the undefined, and yet I still struggle when I’m confronted with uncertainty! It’s a lesson I need to reconnect with on a regular basis and a challenge that I’ve confronted with varied levels of success throughout my career.

 

If you recognize a tendency to move too quickly toward solutions in your own complex organizations, or if you are part of a team that struggles with patience when faced with uncertainty, check out my video:

 

Many Leaders Move too Quickly Toward Solutions

 

 

 

In it, I share about a recent situation where I failed to heed my own advice, what it cost me, and what I recommend to fellow leaders when it comes to digging deeper instead of jumping straight to solutions.

 

 

If you want to avoid more missteps in your leadership journey, check out my free guide: Three Mistakes Leaders Make with Change. I developed this guide to help the leaders I work with create better influence, work effectively with resistance they encounter from the team members and stakeholders, and identify pitfalls that prevent them from co-creating better solutions to complex problems. It’s a really valuable read that I believe will help you start to identify patterns that are keeping your change effort stalled.

Clearfield Group
About | Process | Blog | Schedule Call

Clearfield Group
About | Process
Blog | Schedule Call

Too many leaders struggle to create change for their organizations—even when they have a strong vision. I offer coaching and group consulting workshops so that leaders can work with me to learn, practice and apply new ways to make an impact and influence their teams and stakeholders.

3 Mistakes most leaders make with change

And how to avoid them!

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