The Ibis and Change

As I ran through a park in Sydney last weekend on a training run, I spotted an Ibis standing on the edge of garbage bin. I had run about 25 km at this stage, so I figured that this would a great spot to have a stretch.

As I re-limbered my tired legs, I watched as the Ibis used its curved beak to lift out rubbish from the bin and drop it to the ground. What struck me was how adept this particular bird was at levering the tops off take-away food containers and the like, so that it could get at the contents.

I'm no ornithologist, but I'm also pretty sure that the diet of an Ibis doesn't generally include hamburgers, Beef and Blackbean or Red Bull.

Maybe it was the exercise endorphins that were coursing through my veins, but as I continued my running journey back across the Sydney Harbour Bridge and home, I thought about people and organisations that are like the Ibis.

What???

Long legged with curvy beaks?

Well, not really. But I do often see people and organisations that have not really adapted to new situations completely. They have made a few minor adjustments - the fiddling around the edges - but they haven't really committed to a change and made the almost evolutionary adjustments needed.

What do I mean?

I'm pretty sure that if you were going to design a bird (or any animal) to scavenge from left over human food, it wouldn't really look like the Ibis. This is not to say that the Ibis isn't reasonably effective at what I saw this one bird doing. Indeed, you could suggest that fishing trash from a bin is much easier than fishing worms, fish and other small creatures from shallow water that the Ibis regularly needs to do.

And that's just the point. Often we stop as individuals and organisations when we have made some of the adjustments necessary to be a little more effective and perhaps marginally more efficient. But is that enough? How would we look if we could start from scratch in designing our work or our lives? Would be different? Would we be better?

Are you an Ibis?

Making Changes

As a consultant, performance coach and trainer, I am frequently asked if what I am doing with an organisation, an individual or a team will result in any real change. The answer is ... it depends!

And this is not just a flippant response.

Obviously organisations and individuals want the reassurance that the service they are paying for will result in a positive - and preferably measurable - outcome. That's great. I want the same thing too. There's nothing more frustrating for most of us than to feel as if nothing has changed when we complete a project.

So why does the answer depend, and what does it depend on?

Well let's remind ourselves that organisations and teams are comprised of people. Yep, I know this sounds obvious, but a lot of change management talk seems to ignore this inescapable fact.

So applying a people lense to change means that we can look at it from the perspective of some of the recent neurological research that has been conducted over the past 20 years or so. Now clearly I am no great expert in this field, but there has been plenty written about it over recent years. Indeed a lot of Daniel Goleman's work (our Emotional Intelligence guru) is based on the neurological research conducted by Joseph LeDoux.

Now we all know that making changes in our own lives is tough, and making changes in organisations can be even tougher. Some of you might even remember that piece of popular advice that it takes three weeks to break an old habit and three weeks to build a new one?

But what the neurological research has done, is provide us with a scientific basis for understanding why making change is so difficult.

Apparently our brains are constructed to quickly detect changes in our environment and unusual or different occurrences. The orbital cortex (sort of behind our eyes) generates these signals in our brain, and the orbital cortex is closely linked with the brain's fear circuitry - the amygdala.

These two sections of the brain (the amygdala and the orbital cortex) compete with the prefrontal cortex of our brain for attention (processing time and speed).

So what? Well it's the prefrontal cortex where our higher and more conscious cognitive processes occur.

When we are learning something new, we need our prefrontal cortex to be working hard.

Think about learning a new language, learning to drive, concentrating on developing your listening skills or whatever.

We need to consciously make the effort to master, think about and practise these skills. It's tiring too. Why?

Again the research has shown that using the prefrontal cortex uses more energy than using the part of the brain where our learned skills reside and can be enacted unconsciously (the basal ganglia).

So, what does this neurological research tell us about making changes?

It's going to take a conscious effort.
It's going to take more energy.
It's going to take some time before we can use the skills unsconsciously.
We will encounter some resistance within ourselves.

So, how do we begin to address these challenges?

The first point to note is that an individual, organisation or team will have to want to change. The coach, consultant or trainer cannot make the conscious effort or conduct all the practice that mastering the change will require. What we can do is provide the background knowledge, some scenarios for practice, and we can provide encouragement and positive feedback.

But probably the most important point to note is that an individual, organisation or team will need to arrive at their own solution. In other words, it has to be their plan. If they do that, then that desire to change is their own.

Change Symbols

A few weeks ago I was speaking with a potential client company about running some seminars for them on culture change. One of the things they asked me to think about was - what would be an appropriate symbol for their change program?

And this did get me to thinking ...

Why? Simply because dry logic only gets you so far with your prime change audience - the people. Logic and reason and facts and data are all important, of course, but not so inspiring or exciting.

So what would be an appropriate change symbol?

Lots of recent research internationally, and also in Australia, points to the importance of having a dedicated, and even a named change program. The Woolworth's Supermarket chain in Australia have 'Project Refresh' for example. (http://www.woolworthslimited.com.au/aboutus/ourhistory/index.asp)

We also often see new logos appear as part of a rebranding strategy - a frequent component of a change program. Think of any of the major Australian banks ... National Australia Bank is now "NAB", etc.

So, we might have a named change program. We might even have spent lots of dollars on a new logo. But how effective will they be in grabbing the attention of the various stakeholders during the change?

So what would work better? What would really grab someone's attention, inspire them, excite them?

My view is that this where the arts really come to the fore. Without doubt the detailed analysis, planning, decision-making, etc all needs to be done, but to capture our attention and excite us, there's nothing like a striking image, or a funky or uplifting tune. I'm not a big Rolling Stones fan, but how good was the Microsoft launch of Windows 95 with 'Start me Up'? And they made US$8million as well! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VPFKnBYOSI)

But you don't have millions of dollars sitting around to spend on a change symbol right? What might work for you?

You've done a lot of the analysis and planning right? Somewhere, somebody has been able to outline the vision - what it's going to look like, feel like, be like if the change program is successful. If someone in your team can put that into words, can the team also think of a picture, an image, a scene from a movie or a song that sums up the journey or the destination? If they can, your team has uncovered a powerful tool that has the potential to excite and inspire your stakeholders. That image or that song will grab the stakeholders in the gut, as surely as the analysis will grab their heads.

So that gets us back to the photos at the start of the blog and below. They are images that I love. It's the Duomo (cathedral) of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence, Italy. (Thanks to http://www.freefoto.com)

Sure, there are lots of old churches that are beautiful across the world. But what is special to me about this Duomo is that it symbolises change so well.

While I was in Italy in September last year, I learnt a little about the restoration of their numerous monuments. Interestingly to me, there is constant debate about the validity of restoration work. Are the changes that are necessitated by the passing of time what the artists originally intended, etc?

This is why Florence's Duomo is so interesting. Because it was constructed over a long period of time, various artists, builders, supporters and labourers were involved with a constantly morphing vision of what the completed Duomo should be. Does that sound familiar to your organisation?

Construction was begun by the sculptor Arnolfo di Cambio in 1296. Numerous local artists continued to work on it during the following century and a half. But, the massive octagonal cupola that truly dominates both the church and the city was the proud achievement of Filippo Brunelleschi, master architect and sculptor and it wasn't started until 1420.

The cathedral of Florence itself had been begun in the Gothic style. But in 1366 the City of Florence, following the advice of certain painters and sculptors, decided that the Gothic should no longer be used and that all new work should follow Roman forms, including the now famous dome built at the east end of the nave.

A modern façade of the cathedral, executed by Emilio de Fabris in 1867-87 in the style of the Gothic Revival, has taken the place of one which was destroyed at the end of the 16th century.

When you see the Duomo today, you can see its Gothic nature, the towering Roman style dome, and the most recent neo Gothic facade.

What a wonderful symbol of change. Evolution not revolution. The engagement of many many workers in its construction and upkeep over centuries. And most importantly, the inspiration of countless visitors over time.

Your organisation could do worse than picking the Duomo as its change symbol.