Great Britain is in the grip of the gold fever that is
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Yorkshire Grit
A highlight of my week was a visit to York; my first as it happens. Learning more about the history of the city on one of those ubiquitous, red, hop-on hop-off buses, I was struck by the waves of change that York has experienced over the last millennium. In the context of the recent Brexit decision, the changes are in a different league. York has been home to Vikings, Romans, Saxons and Normans. The city has been a military stronghold, agricultural trading hub, centre of chocolate production and railways. Today it remains a seat of learning (something always stays the same), has a thriving service sector and, judging by the plethora
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Dog Days
The Dog Days of summer are with us. Near silence has replaced the sound of nearby playground schoolchildren that normally drifts through my office window. The gym is populated only by empty nesters deferring their vacations until September.
It has been 3 months since I left the corporate world and started my consultancy business. I was lucky to have a quick win in the form of some work for my former employer which is now coming to a successful end. Time then to take stock, revisit the start up plan and consider next steps.
Contacts I made in the early weeks have gone cold and may need to be reminded that I am hunting opportunities. Updating my communication plan and developing a new set of key messages is a priority; I am in business, I have successfully completed work as an independent consultant, I am easy to do business with, I can work confidently anywhere in the world.
Do I need to make some course corrections? The Plan, Action, Review cycle
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Friendship
It has been another week of horrendous happenings in the world and further political surprises on the UK home front. Forgive me for focusing instead on my rather more positive, personal experiences of the last 7 days.
For my 60th birthday, my lovely family gifted me a week sailing my favourite charter yacht, Zara, out of Southampton and invited an eclectic group of friends made in
The reactions of the British public, the markets and the European Union Leadership to Brexit are typical of those moments of truth that Change Managers must anticipate and plan to mitigate. Little
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Brexit
The ugly, synthesised word that has, today, come to signify the British peoples’ decision to leave the European Union is now assured of a long life. I am on the losing side and shocked. My readers will not be surprised to learn that I am looking for Change Management lessons even while I think about whether there is anything I can do to protect my selfish interests (I do not think there is).
The received wisdom for binary decisions such as offered to the UK voters is that the status quo will have an inherent advantage. Human nature tends to be risk averse. The case for change has to be rather robust to overcome that instinct. The knowledge that a change will likely involve the roller coaster that is our Change Curve and include a period in the wilderness weighs heavily.
So what happened here in the UK? I should mention at this point that it was mostly the English rather than the British that have forced this pending Brexit.
The Brexit arguments, even when I did not agree with them, were positive and sometimes appealed to another basic instinct; jingoism. The arguments for staying in the EU were often framed as if threatening a naughty child with a loss of privileges.
In this case it seems the good folk of England (ok, and Wales) decided to test the boundaries. As is occasionally observed at international soccer tournaments, we English do have a naughty streak.
So now the challenge is to sell the advantages of Brexit to me and the 16 million Brits who voted and lost. Right now I am frightened, angry and not at all
Strategy Planners often look for low hanging fruit and quick wins to inject credibility and momentum to their Change Management efforts. My business start up has benefited from a quick win; some consulting work for my former employer that required little of the hard sell that other potential opportunites will demand. This early success brings some risks; the temptation is to assume that the early momentum will translate into sustainable change. The Change Manager has to focus on the long haul and ensure his/her plans include energetic action to reinforce and cement early progress. Communication must use multiple channels and key messages be repeated often to reach the target audiences.
Surely the defining quality of the successful Change Manager is the determination to tackle the long haul. Early in a project, the need for structured change management focused on people and processes is often discounted in the pursuit of an IT solution or a reconfiguration of the boxes on an organisation chart. The Change Manager may have to take a back seat; quietly executing communication plans and developing training while the, apparently sexier, implementation progresses.
So enjoy the quick wins and focus on the long haul.
Change is Good.
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Ubuntu
My blog this week comes
An important