How Leaders Derail Change

Welcome to the Team Buffalo podcast. I'm your host, Travis Thomas. And I'm glad to be back with you again for our fifth episode in the series. Today's topic is one I absolutely love. And it has a lot to do with a problem many of you would be experiencing or have experienced in the past or see a leader around you experiencing and you go oof, that's, that's not great. How do we get out of that? Today's topic is ways in which leaders derail change. And this is a topic I cover off on often when we are working with leaders on change management programs. But also, when we're teaching leaders are workshopping how to more effectively lead change. Because look, change management is not a new principle, it's been around for a couple of decades, at a minimum, you know, Kotter talked about it many, many moons ago. And sadly, we're still pretty dismal at it. And I found if you at least understand some of the ways in which you could derail change, we can start to shape some of your change management efforts. Now, this isn't a master class, but we'll get you started with some of the warning signs. And then if you want to find out more, we'll give you some details at the end that you can just grab if you want some of the tools or practices, or if you just want to learn more about change management. Alright, so let's start with ways in which leaders derail change. And we'll start with the first one, which is my favorite and that is what I call assumed consent. It's this notion that, hey, you know, everyone was in that meeting, where we talked about this project that they probably didn't understand, and a template that no one ever uses, and in a vague way, that they probably won't even really know what you're trying to say, until it gets painful. And then what we say is, well, everyone was in the meeting, everyone saw the email after so they've agreed to the change; assumed consent. What's the problem with this? Well, you can't assume consent to a change management program, especially if it's a big change. And it's going to involve change to their jobs, their skills, all the kind of core bits and pieces that maybe are just part of their life, or a small part of their life, or are these massive things that are going to consume 90, 80, whatever percentage of their work, that's a problem, you cannot assume people are on the journey. And if it's the first time you're saying it, it's probably not going to be the only time and it's probably not even going to have landed with most people. So that's wrong. The second one is the thing I call flipping the switch. You know, what we didn't really communicate with people what the change was, we didn't really go into a great level of detail about that change. But guess what, we flipped the switch, it's ready, it's live, they're going to be keen, it's all done, you are out of your mind, if you think that the simple act of turning on a new system or implementing some new procedures is going to lead to change. The switch flip is not the change, the change comes from the behavior that comes with it. So you really need to be cognizant that change management involves a whole lot of work way up early in the pace. And leading change effectively involves even more work. So don't assume that flipping the switch is going to get you there. Now next is what I call the pain free plan. And this one, it's always a bit of a crack up and sad, right? Because you you go through this effort, and you see people thinking it will work, it doesn't. So the pain free plan, I've heard this a bunch of times is we've got a plan, we just need to follow it. Everything will be done on time and on budget. When's the last time you were involved in a successful change management program that was done on time, on budget and with very little resistance, it doesn't happen humans, we make things hard. Yes, you can do things to reduce that pain. Obviously, we can provide you some tips and insights on that. But the expectation that there's no pain or that you've got a plan, and it's just going to be perfect is madness, that's never going to happen. So you need to assume in your plan, that there will be resistance, and you need to use tools to build against that resistance and move it along. Now the next one is what I call the hero. And this is where it starts to get a little bit of oh, we're gonna have some real challenges if leaders are saying these things. And if you find yourself saying these things, you really got to take some time to reflect and go, Can I Can I really want can I believe that? No, not possibly. The hero often says things like the new leader, expert, team member, whoever we're bringing in as a specialist talent. The poor, lowly consultant or coach, or the leader themselves will sort all of this out for us that one person will be the hero to pull us out of change management Hell, no way. That doesn't doesn't work that way. You can't expect that one person can come into an organization of any size from 50 to 5000 employees and go, You know what guys got the plan, gonna roll it out, we'll be sorted. It doesn't work that way. It requires conscious, coordinated effort across a number of leaders to really lead change effectively. But even worse than the heroes, this next thing that I often hear and see from leaders in terms of how they derail change, and that is one of the darkest forms of leadership, the dictator. It's, I've told them, and they don't have a choice, they'll do what I say. Oh, that worked well, for a number of leaders throughout history, hey? This idea that I can just mandate or dictate to the people working here that is what you're going to do, you're going to do what I tell you. I'm in charge, I'm the boss, and you better get on board. Yeah. Okay. Well, I look forward to hearing how that pans out for you. You can't do that. There's a number of reasons right? The first is, why hire intelligent people who are highly skilled, who are, you know, creative, or whatever skill set you've brought into this who are good at what they do, right? And tell them what to do. That's just bonkers to me, You hired intelligent people who can lead these things alongside you, why dictate how they should do what they do? The second is, when people sense that you're a dictator, and that you're going to hold them to a standard that you don't hold yourself to, or you're going to be aggressive in that management, they start to do something really, really terrible. And it's completely your fault if you're the one doing this, but they start to plot your demise. They start to wonder, well, one, should I continue to work here as an employee? And two, if I do, how do I get Joe, Sally, whoever, as the leader, who's dictating all this crap that they don't even do themselves out of here? You know, do we bandy against them? Do we raise formal complaints? Do we contact ministers to block all this? What's the thing we do to stop this change from happening? And then the last one, which you can put in the same bucket, as the dictator in terms of detriment to those involved, and impact, it's not as outright aggressive, but it is almost equally destructive. And that is what I call the victim. The leader who is the victim, and they turn to their staff, to their team, to the whole organization, if they're the CEO, and they say, Look, this is happening to all of us. So we just have to go along with it. It wasn't my decision. That is such a terrible position to adopt. Terrible. So many layers of problems with that, you can probably already think of some. But first is this is happening to all of us does not convey empathy conveys a level of expectation that they diminish the value of their own pain to relate to you. Look, I'm okay with it, it's happening to me, too, you should just be okay with it. Faulty logic. And that just pisses people off. Then the second part, which is we just have to go along with it, then helps us understand that well, you know, actually, you're kind of a weak leader, Hey? You think that we should just go along with something that you've even said is happening to all of us, which means it's not a great thing. And you have no sway over us and influence and everyone else, which then backs up against that statement, it wasn't my decision. Horrible. If it wasn't your decision, but you don't agree with it, you have two choices as a leader, either don't tell us it wasn't your decision and fully get behind it and help make it happen. Help us see the way or go back and fight whoever is pushing this decision upon us. But you cannot face your team and say, it's happening to all of us just have to go along with it. And by the way, it wasn't really my decision. Weak a$$ leadership. And we do not want that people do not follow weak a$$ leaders. And they sure as hell don't stay at companies, where you've got weak leaders. We talked a lot in our last episode around the need to retain top talent, and how the talent wars are really going off. You know, every client I've got at the moment is struggling to find people. So if you think that having that type of leadership set and mindset around leadership is going to get you what you need, and retain top people you are out of your mind. But I know that's not you, because you're listening to this. So knowing all of these types of ways that leaders derail change, what can you do? Well, there are a few things. The first is if it's you, please take some time to look at the way in which you're managing change, and find a better way to do that. The second is if it's not you, or it was you and you've addressed it, look at how is this happening? How are we getting to this place in our organization and what can I do to meaningfully affect change? You can't let this be the culture around change management, and it's not change leadership when that's happening if you're just letting it happen to you. It's poor, you have to be the voice. Even if it's the only voice against the oppression of terrible change. You have to fight back against this. And I guarantee you if you do, if you find ways to win the hearts and minds of the people around you, and to push back on unreasonable change, you will garner such a great loyalty and following and trust from your team, that any future changes will become significantly easier. And when you do have to call on them to do changes that you don't agree with. You won't have told them that but they will still support you. So I challenge you to be that strong, bullish, unrelenting leader regardless of if you're a frontline leader through to CEO, what background you come from, what skill set you have. I challenge you to be that leader that pushes back on these ways that leaders are derailing change, and starts to show people that actually you can work in great organizations, great companies, great startups, where change is normal, but it's not unnecessarily painful. Thanks for listening to today's episode. I hope you got some great self reflection out of the things we covered off on today. Now if you'd like some more tips or tools, or if you'd like that, list sent through to you about the ways in which leaders derail change. You can email us at admin at teambuffalo.co or you can hit us up on any socials, LinkedIn, etc. I look forward to seeing you in the next episode and keep being a kick a$$ leader.