Show Up and Start Anywhere

“If they had to wait for inspiration or a good idea, few scenes would ever begin.  Players step onto the stage because that is where things are happening.  They just show up.  Then the magic begins.” – Patricia Ryan Madson

We make change too complicated.  We seem to find endless reasons to talk more and do less; waiting for the perfect answer rather than experimenting to develop the right answer.  The secret to great results is focusing on a compelling vision, adapting to changing situations, and above all, taking action.  80% of the battle is just showing up and putting yourself in a position to succeed.

Improv actors understand this principle.  They live in a world of real time creation and creativity, where success depends on taking risk, being present and accepting all offers.  As opposed to most leaders, improv actors spend more time working on adapting to a fluid environment than trying to control their environment through better scripts.  They understand that in order to discover new lands you must be willing to loose site of the shore and embrace the unknown.  In the process however, improv actors also experience the joy of discovery and create unique works of art each time they step on stage.

So how can we apply the principles of improvisational theatre to our change process?

First, don’t wait for million dollar ideas.  There aren’t many million dollar ideas out there to be found and you will pass up millions of dollars in good ideas while you search in vain for the big one.  Second, don’t overanalyze the obvious.  Far too often we give ourselves analysis paralysis by making more out of the situation than is warranted.  Improving a process is not that complicated, so don’t make it more difficult than it needs to be.  “Sometimes a duck is just a duck.”  Finally, don’t worry too much about where to start .  When faced with the task of creating a culture of continuous improvement, trying to find the “right starting point” only wastes time.  Begin with the most obvious need and focus your energy on where you can take action now.  Once you take action and get your first improvements underway, you will have a more realistic perspective of both the problems and the possible solutions.

Above all, rather than worry about what might be, concentrate on what is and liberate yourself from the fear of the unknown.  Focus on developing your current ideas into great ideas through experimentation, rather than waiting to think of “great ideas.”  Once you take action and engage people through active participation, the path to creating the culture you want will begin to reveal itself.

Cracking the Code on Engagement

“An experienced code breaker will tell you that in order to figure out what the symbols in a code mean, it is essential to be able to play with them…to rearrange them at will.” – Gero Miesenboeck

The Rosslyn Chapel was founded by William Sinclair in Roslin, Midlothian, Scotland in the mid-15th century.  The chapel stands on fourteen pillars, which form an arcade of twelve pointed arches on three sides of the nave and its architecture is considered to be some of the finest architecture in Scotland.  Among Rosslyn’s intricate carvings are a sequence of 213 cubes protruding from the pillars and arches with geometric patterns on them.  While no interpretation of the patterns has proven conclusive, Tommy and Stuart Mitchell believe the symbols represent pitches and tones which reveal a melodic and harmonic progression.  Thomas Mitchell combined the code breaking skills he learned during the Korean War with a lifetime knowledge of classical music to unlock a piece of music hidden in the chapel’s arches.  After 27 years of study and research using cymatics (a musical system in which patterns are formed by sound waves at specific pitches), the father and son team produced a tone which Stuart calls the Rosslyn Motet.

Mitchell’s success required dedication, careful analysis, and a bit of luck.  Most of all, it required Mitchell and his son to experiment with sand, sound, pitch and patterns.  We too must be prepared to play with a variety of tools and techniques if we are to discover the secrets of motivating people to participate in change.  Like all code breakers, our goal is to identify a “pattern of right behaviors” which will enable leaders to consistently inspire and engage those they lead.  In our attempt to identify the right behaviors, there are three additional skills we need to successfully crack the engagement code.

First, you need patience and perseverance.  Recognizing the pattern of right behaviors takes time and can often feel as if you are making little progress as your brain wrestles with seemingly contradictory information and attempts to rearrange the inputs to identify the pattern.  You may also need to retrace your steps and/or start over when one line of investigation ends with little to no results.

Second, you must have a strong familiarity with the language in which the code is written, so be prepared to become a student of human behavior and spend time in the trenches working with teams implementing change.

Finally, as you begin to learn the language of human behavior, you need to understand its inherent rules.  All languages (including human behavior) contain redundant qualities and patterns of frequency.  Learning how to read these patterns and recognize redundant behavioral trends can help you understand the messages being conveyed and the reasons behind them.

Code breakers approach complex problems with a mix of experience, ingenuity and curiosity.  Blending their knowledge of the code’s language with a structured approach to experimentation, code breakers identify the underlying pattern to crack the code.   By using a similar approach to the problem of engagement, we may finally be able to “crack the code” of motivating people to change their behavior.

Starting a Movement

It is rare I come across information on the practice of leadership rooted in actionable advice and useful for my clients.  Recently however, I discovered a brilliant 3 minute talk on the role of leaders in starting a movement.  The creator, Derek Sivers, is the former CEO of CD Baby, and now travels the world as a self-proclaimed “nomad” researching, speaking and volunteering his time.  I was so impressed with the content and the delivery of his message, I formally integrated it into a Coaching Camp I created.  The following are a few of the key leadership lessons Derek covers:

First, a leader needs to have the guts to stand out of the crowd and risk being ridiculed.  During the initial phase of any new initiative, success is directly correlated to force of will and willingness to take a risk.  Second, leadership which seeks to engage the people in the change is less about the leader and more about the followers.  The first follower fills a critical role.  Identifying and recruiting the first follower “turns the lone nut into a leader” and future followers look to the first follower for guidance rather than the leader.  Next, to fully engage the follower, the actions must be easy to follow and the leader must embrace the follower as an equal.  This, combined with making the movement public allows the first follower to attract others and spread the change quickly and effectively.  Finally, when each of these elements are in place, more and more followers engage, making the movement less risky and creating an “in crowd” that others want to join.

So what can we take from this?  Creating a movement is more about attracting and nurturing the first followers than it is about the actions of the leader.  By keeping actions simple to learn and reproduce, and ensuring the movement is visible to the organization, the leader is able to create “pull” until the movement reaches a tipping point and takes on a life of its own.  Finally, being a leader is risky.  If you are not willing to take a risk and move the organization in a radically different direction, neither will anyone else.

Build In Order to Think

In his new book Change by Design, Tim Brown presents the idea that we should learn by making…or as he puts it, instead of thinking about what to build, we should “build in order to think.” The brain and the hand are inextricably linked. We rely on the use of our hands to help our brain process information and complete its cognitive search for patterns. Put another way by Stuart Brown (TED 2008), “The human hand in manipulation of objects is the hand in search of a brain, the brain is in search of a hand and play is the medium by which those two are linked in the best way.“

This sheds light on the drawbacks of the common approach to process improvement which relies on heavy data analysis to gain insights. This connection between thinking and using your hands would suggest that prototyping and iterative playing with process improvements may be a better way to achieve deeper levels of process thinking and learning, rather than by mere imitation and analysis alone.

Said another way, it is possible, that when we rely on an “intellectual“ approach to collecting and analyzing data in order to improve a process, we may be circumventing the one activity which leads to true thinking and innovation…the act of using our hands and prototyping in order to ”think“ our way through the process redesign.

Given the brain’s partnership with the hands, the key is to focus on the speed and interactivity of your improvements. The faster you put our ideas into the prototyping process, the faster you will begin to learn and refine your ideas. Start now…what is your 70% solution? Get your ideas into play and don’t get too wrapped up in the details.