Four steps to Making a Change - Any Change

Four Steps to Making a Change

I know I want to change… Yet, every time I set a goal and decide to
change, I seem to get sidetracked or lose sight of the end point. 
It neverseems to work out as I planned.

How can you effectively make a change? You know how to set goals. You even have a
framework for this: SMART – Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Tangible. So you
set up your goals using this framework. You get specific and say that you want more self
confidence when meting someone new. You set up a measurable outcome by saying that you will
talk with the next person that catches your eye. You see this as attainable; you at least see new
and interesting people all the time. It is a realistic goal and there will be tangible benefits for you
when it happens.

So where is the problem? Why is this the third time you have set this goal? It could be that you
have no plan for accomplishing this change. No idea how to become more effective at meeting
new people. No idea how to become self confident in a different settings. And no ways to
determine if you are even doing the things you are trying to do effectively. So how can you
expect to accomplish this without a new approach? You can’t.

You can’t that is without a plan. Just like you need a plan or framework to be able to set goals,
you need a framework for accomplishing those goals. Just setting a goal never accomplishes
anything. You have to take action. Yet that action needs a direction and its own plan to become
reality.

Making Change Happen: A Plan for Change
The steps are easy.

First you need to discover what you need to know. Do you need a book or a course? Do you need
a life coach? Do you need to talk with friends? Are there tools available that would help? What
ever is needed must be identified and found. In the case above you might need a life coach to
help identify effective ways to interact in new situations and it may be helpful to read about
communication skills. (There may be other things needed depending upon the particular
circumstances, these are offered only as an illustration.)

The second step is to put the information, tools or learning into action. You need to test the new
ideas. This step is all about practice. It is now time to take your new game on the road. In this
case you might practice in a familiar setting with a friend.

The third step is all about feedback. Without feedback you will not know how your performance
went. Feedback is your measurement of results. Part of the feedback will be a self assessment of
the results. You will review the actual result of the practice – the action taken. In this case you
will assess your results in terms how confident you felt, what was comfortable and where did
you have problems. Another part of the feedback can include a discussion with your life coach
that reviews the actions taken and the results obtained.

The fourth step is to use the feedback information to determine if you need to go back to steps
one or two or if the desired results have been obtained and you can check the completed box next
to this goal. If you need more practice, go back to step two and practice until you get the desired
result. If more information or tools are needed, go back to step one and start there again.

The Steps
1) Get the needed information or tools.
2) Put this in to action – Practice the new techniques.
3) Get feedback about results.
4) Make corrections, get new information, practice more, or obtain the desired results and
call the goal complete!

Use these steps for any kind of change. The key to this is to pay attention to what
you are doing and what is happening in the interactions.

So pick a goal and getting going. One, Two, Three, Four – Finished!

© Fritz M. Brunner, Ph.D. 2006, 2011

Reflections on Steve Jobs and Sadness

Sadness...

The sadness I feel since hearing yesterday about the passing of Steve Jobs is a surprise to me.   I have no relationship with him, other than admiration of his accomplishments. I own and have owned many Apple creations going back to my original Mac; however this is a tenuous connection with him and more a relationship with the company than the man.

I had followed his career, at least at a distance and usually when it was rising.  As I have followed those of other people I admire.

So why the sadness? 

My late wife, Margaret, passed away almost ten years ago; it will be ten years next month. She was 54, very close go Jobs' age. Her death was even more sudden than his. I knew Jobs had cancer, but did not know she had any serious illness. Yet, she died less than two weeks after entering an ICU.

Reflecting on this more, the sadness I feel seems connected with knowing that another is suddenly and forever gone. Passed onto or into some realm or no-realm that I have no access to. No apps for this. I'm not trying to make light of this with a reference to apps here, only making a point that solace does not come from an external source. It comes, if at all, from within. 

And solace if it comes, also goes. This is shown to me by my current sadness.

Reflecting further, it seems my sadness is also linked to (hidden) knowledge of my own limits; my own mortality.

Thoughts of this intruded while on a walk this afternoon to get a latte.  My thinking brought up questions: What of my future obituary and who would mourn?  These thoughts lead me to memories of those who missed and most likely still miss Margaret. This lead me to a deeper understanding of my sadness.

It seems not sadness for a specific person, Steve Jobs or Margaret Brunner. My sadness feels deeper, more basic. It arises from a sense of my future ultimate loss; my connection with my life. 

...

And,so what? They died; I will die also.  What am I to do?  Sit and wait to die?  Hardly.

I believe that we create or find our own purpose. To eventually die is not a purpose. Purpose involves "doing." 

So a more important or pressing question for myself is what will be my next step, my next creation, my next conversation.  What will I be engaged with next? 

This is alive with possibility and a more positive alternative to sitting and waiting for an ending.

It also is an antidote for sadness.

A favorite article of mine...

Effective Business Ideas

Be Interactive, not Reactive or Proactive

Run, run, run. React to this, react to that. How can you be effective when you are continuously being pulled into situations? You want a way out and you think the solution is to become proactive. But how? And what does this mean? Are you now simply pushing the same people and situations that used to be pulling you? And how can you know if you are headed in the right direction?

Being reactive implies your action begins after the fact; acting in response to a stimulus or situation, as if simply poised waiting for something to happen. I don’t think this is ever the case. I usually feel reactive when I am hit with something I did not anticipate.

The other tactic is to be proactive, which implies that your response is preceding the action. Creating a solution before being requested to have one. Anticipating what is needed and having it ready. This seems like a great position to be in; however you need to know what to be ready for. You cannot anticipate everything. The important question is how to be selective?

What does it mean to be Reactive or Proactive?

A little analysis will show something about these two tactics or styles of business effort.

Benefits: When you are reactive you know there is a situation requiring action. Unfortunately the correct action is usually needed prior to you hearing about it, so you now take corrective action – clean up the mess or stop the leaks.  A proactive tactic may head off trouble or anticipate a request. Or, you may be off the mark. You may be doing something unwanted. You will only find this out after you are done – the hero if you focused on the correct situation, reacting yet again if you did not.

Learning: Not much is learned in either case. A reactive style doesn't pay much attention to expanding knowledge, new skills or finding a better way. There is not much time to learn when you get one situation handled and another pops up. The proactive style is always looking forward; it rarely reflects or evaluates results.

Costs: A lot of effort goes into both tactics. They each take enormous amounts of energy to keep going. Neither is mindful of resources. The reactive style throws everything available at the situation and the proactive style often uses resources to plan ahead in areas that are not needed or important.

Characterizations: A Reactive style is coiled, anticipating, and defensive. The Proactive style is pushing out, busy, and alert. Both are vigilant stances.

Be Effective, be Interactive

What would be an alternative to these two styles? Being Interactive. This means you get involved and stay involved with people without there being a problem or situation. You know what is happening around you. What are your bosses’ goals? What concerns do your peers and customers have? If you have people reporting to you, what are they thinking about? And don’t be shy about your own goals and needs. Make sure other people know what you are thinking and planning. The more you know about your organization and the more people know about your goals, the more successful the organization and you will be.

An analysis of interactive tactics shows a different picture.

Benefits: You are very involved with your environment.

Learning: High levels of insight and knowledge building.

Costs: Maximization of resources; not waiting, not over planning or jumping the gun.

Characterization: Involved, asking questions, doing research, finding out how things work, what is needed, what isn’t.

Will being interactive mean that you will never be blindsided and start to feel reactive? No. However, when the unexpected happens you will have a better sense of how urgent the matter is because you will know the priorities of your business. You will know who to work with so it can be resolved with a minimum of fuss and effort.  Does it also mean you never have to be proactive? Of course not, in fact a proactive style will be a natural outcome of being interactive.  You will know what is needed and not have to second guess those around you – you will know that you are headed in the right direction and have support and understanding from colleagues and clients.

Will everyone respond positively to this change? No. However most will respond well as they see you are interested in them and their concerns and goals. And others will come around as you practice and model this new tactic and they begin to see the benefits.

How to change tactics

How do you make this shift? Try these suggestions and then share them with everyone.

1)    Take time to debrief with all involved; especially from reactive situations. Work with these questions: What could have been done differently? Do we need a contingency plan in place for this (process, strategy, etc.)?

2)    Create learning situations with clients and colleagues. Teach what you do and know. Learn what others do and what they need. Update this learning often.

3)    Be creative - use the learning to the benefit of all parties. Share ideas, link ideas. Look for best practices, benchmarking, clear roles and responsibilities.

4)    Look for barriers to understanding and cooperation. Then work with others to eliminate these as they arise.

5)    When going into a new situation, ask of everyone: What do you want to happen? How will we measure our success? Look for understanding, past successful actions – start out right.

6)    When completing a task, ask everyone: How could this be better?

Use these suggestions to reduce frustration and anxiety and introduce stability and creativity.

They say it is lonely at the top; this is nothing compared to being stuck in a reactive or clueless proactive position – not being effective when you want to do well. Being interactive gives you a tactic to work well with people. And it might be the tactic that gets you to the top, so you can find out if it is really all that lonely.

© Fritz M. Brunner, Ph.D. 2005

New article

Here is another article that I wanted to share. 

Effective Business Ideas

Two Approaches: Tactical and Strategic

When should you be tactical? When strategic? The usual answer is to be tactical when looking at an issue that needs to be taken care of now and be strategic when looking at the future.

Most corporate contributors are tactical all the time. It’s what they are asked to do. It’s what they get rewarded for. It’s what they need to be to stay “on the ball.” Managers are usually contributors promoted, and hopefully promoted again, because they excel at the tactical. Guess what? They continue to be tactical. And they continue to get rewarded for “taking care of business.” However, they are also asked to be more strategic. So what do they do? They try to be strategic; they use SWOT to determine strengths, opportunities and threats (they often overlook weaknesses), and then they go back to the familiar. Tactical.

How to be Strategic

First lesson – Strategic isn’t a thing you do some of the time. It’s a way of thinking that is done all the time. Yes, even when you are being tactical. Let me illustrate this point. Imagine you are sitting at your desk right now. (You are? Good.) On your desk pad is a yellow Post-It that represents the issue you have been asked to “take care of.” Stretch out your left hand and put a finger on the issue. Look at this issue and now think about how you will solve it. Use your usual tools; teams, task forces, consultants, etc. and get it done and get your pat on the back.

Works well and feels good also. Now your manager asks if you considered how this solution fits with the units’ overall strategic plans. What do you do now? Do you know the strategic plans? Did you consider the plans? Most likely, but you probably did so as an after thought. How could we improve this picture? Remember your other hand?

Sit back at your desk and keep the left hand pointed at the yellow Post-It. Now use your right hand to bring in other ideas. Still work with your tactical tools, teams and all. But bring in some new tools. Your right hand can be pulling out your strategic plan. It can also dial the phone to talk with some new people or do new research. You want to already be doing this research so you are aware of new developments, new processes and procedures, and what the competition is up to. Let this strategic right hand work with your tactical left hand so you bring the best to the solution.

Is this Strategic Planning?

No, it is strategic thinking. Strategic planning is the periodic effort that all organizations engage in to set the direction for the next period. It is the effort that informs your operational plans. Strategic thinking is what you do all the time. It is thinking that keeps you on track. It helps you know that you have your organization structured to support the plans, and that the plans will continue to drive business – up, not down.

Elements of Strategic Thinking

Second lesson – Strategic thinking is not a fixed or predictable thing with a uniform set of tools. It doesn’t have steps or milestones. If you are lucky, you have a mentor that does this well and you can learn for her or him. One problem we all have is that there are few who are proficient at strategic thinking and therefore not many who can mentor and teach.

At its’ heart, strategic thinking is looking at all the elements that go into strategic planning when it is not planning time. The elements you want to look at depend on your business circumstances. It may center on customer concerns, competition, research and development, financials, or all of the above and some I didn’t list. This doesn’t mean you become an expert in all these areas. It does mean that you keep track of them or know who does and talk with them. You stay interactive with others; all the others, not just the usual others. It also helps to look at situations in different ways with different questions – new questions.

New Questions

New questions and new perspectives help you look at issues or situations in ways that lead to strategic and tactical success. Let’s look at some questions. (You may be using these already, if so great. However, do you remember to use them in all situations?)

What is the positive aspect of this issue? What are the negative aspects? What is interesting about this situation? What makes this idea unique or valuable? In what ways can we build on this idea’s advantage? What are the factors for success in this situation? What is the history of this problem? (More on questions can be found in a book by Dorothy Leeds, Smart Questions: The Essential Strategy for Successful Managers.)

Lets try a simple example. You are responsible for the consolidation of two offices. Looking at the positive and negative aspects is a relatively common set of questions to use. You would be looking at costs to move and risks of moving, among a host of other concerns. You would be weighing these positives and negatives to arrive at your decision. Now let us add-in some other questions. What is the history? Have we moved in the past and if so with what results. Where are our customers and would this move impact them? What are our factors for success in this move? And so on.

Let any question be the start for other questions. Look for ways to bring in outside issues or concerns. Let these concerns include areas that might usually be looked at as not relevant. Do this to enlarge and enhance conversation and inquiry. However, do not let it pull you away from making a decision; timely decisions trump endless questions.

Please realize that this type of thinking takes practice. Give yourself time to become proficient in strategic thinking. And don’t give up being tactical – you need both skills.

© Fritz M. Brunner, Ph.D. 2008, Version 1.1

 

A new direction...

I've decided to close my web-site in favor of using my Blog in a more frequent manner. 
So here goes...

For my first "new Blog" I'd like to reprint an article I wrote for business clients that talks about influence.

Effective Business Ideas

Manage Perceptions or they will manage you!

They don’t understand! True and most likely they don’t care either. The question, your question, is how to get their attention so they understand and care.

You sit here in the middle of your life, your career, and your reality. People with whom you need to interact surround you. Some are clients, others may be people reporting to you, others you report to, and increasingly these days there are a lot of people that have a matrix relationship with you – all those other dotted line connections. They all have their own perception of what you do and how well you do it. So how can you help this large group of people understand and care about what you do, or more to the point – How will you be able to work most effectively with them? Answer: By managing their perceptions, their reality.

Is it Real or only your Perception?

Reality is very personal. So much so that my reality is most likely different from your reality in more than just a few ways.  For example, I see myself as a very effective business consultant and coach. JR, a client, saw me as a great coach, especially for someone starting out in the entrepreneurial world. (I had not coached someone as young or in this area before.) CK saw me as a nice person, but a total waste of time. (I am nice.) I could go on, however I believe you get my point – I have my idea of who I am and what I do and this is often at odds with how others perceive me and my effectiveness.

The people you interact with all have their own “real” beliefs about you - their perceptions. The difficulty is their perceptions are usually talking to them louder than your words. So how do you get your point across? How do you inform them about your reality?

Know Thyself

First be clear about what you are doing and why. Be articulate about your goals and which needs (tactics and strategies) are going to help you achieve these goals. State your priorities. And you should know that this all changes as time moves onward – Nothing is permanent and flexibility is a requirement. You must come from a solid and known position to influence others and change their perception.

In your working environment, this means you know how what you do fits into the larger picture or scheme of things. You find this out by talking with other people. Also, you have to know the relative priorities of all aspects of your work. This means not only knowing what to do first, but also what to drop down the list when someone you report to says “do this now.” (And you have to let them know some other item just dropped down the priority list.) This is especially important when you receive a request from one the “matrix” people; not people you report directly to, but very important dotted line people nonetheless. You need to know where their request fits on your list. And you have to determine this so you can tell them how you will be able to help them and when.

Remember that priorities are not fixed; they are positions that can be negotiated. For instance, if Matrix person A already has an item on your to do list, offer to move that item down the list to take on the new request. Be creative with this approach.

Know the Other Folks

Be Interactive. This means you get involved and stay involved with people without the need for a problem to prompt you. You need to learn what is happening around you. For instance, do you know your bosses’ goals? What concerns do your peers and customers have? What do the people in your matrix want? If you have people reporting to you, what are their concerns or thoughts? And don’t be reticent about your own goals and needs. Make sure other people know what you are thinking and planning. The more you know about your organization and the more other people know about your goals, the more successful the organization and you will be.

Will being interactive or staying on top of the situation automatically create positive perceptions? No. You still have to work at creating them. However these efforts will enable you to know more about the goals and needs of others. Conversation and actions change perceptions. Both have to occur continuously.

Some tips on how to Change Perceptions

How do you make this shift? Try these suggestions, practice them and share them with others.

1)    Be clear - What are you doing and why? What is important – what are your priorities?

2)    Be flexible - Keep reassessing your goals, needs, and priorities.

3)    Always question - What does this request mean to the person asking? How does it fit into your priorities? Let them know this.

4)    Know the people you interact with. Do you have direct reports? Who are the other members on your teams or task forces? What does your matrix look like? Who is really at the end of that dotted line and what do they do?

5)    Know the goals and needs of all the people you interact with. A tall order? Yes, and it’s very important for you to be successful at managing their perceptions. If you don’t show you care about their goals, you can never change the perception they have about you.

6)    Recognize the points of intersection between the needs of others and your needs. These are the points of possible synergy. Be on the lookout for these and use them for mutual advantage. Where you have synergy, you usually have an ally. And an ally helps you manage perceptions.

You can use these suggestions to help you manage the perceptions of others.

The most important additional point I need to make is this: Get feedback on everything from everyone. Find out what the perceptions are about you now and keep checking to see how they change. A 360 degree, or multi-rater survey is useful for this task, however they do not take the place of talking with people. Ask direct questions of others and be sure to let them know why you are asking.

© Fritz M. Brunner, Ph.D. 2007