pivot Archives - Page 6 of 10 - Dennis E. Gilbert

30
Jul 19
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Organized Change May Not Be Organized.

Are you seeking a change in your workplace? Is the chatter in the lunch room, vending area, or staff meeting about workplace change? Is organized change possible?

It seems almost everyone is seeking some change. Personally, we may seek to get in better shape, lose a pound or two, or quit some bad habits.

Workplaces seek change often. Changes to adapt to customer needs, changes because of economic conditions or government policies.

Do People Change?

It doesn’t take long in a conversation about change for someone to suggest that people often don’t change. Discussions normally center around whether the individual desires the change or not.

It seems then that the trick of having organized change is the organization part. This where change is planned, it is organized. It isn’t spur of the moment, such as a flat tire that alters your plan, or a bad storm halts things at the airport.

Are people going to change to the needs of the organization?

Perhaps, if they become interested enough to be pulled (compelled) to change.

There were the days when people didn’t want to give up their typewriters, fax machines, or corded phones. Eventually, for many, but not all, change won.

Was it organized?

Organized Change

Every individual in the organization has the power to change. They can arrive with a different attitude, pivot bad habits to good, and learn new things. Arguably, if they want to.

When everyone is convinced change won’t happen and change cannot be organized there is still an opportunity. The opportunity is to establish the change in a compelling manner such that the change is better than the alternative.

Change shouldn’t be threatening or bullying, rather a desirable force of the individuals.

Sometimes we call that culture.

-DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and culture expert. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

18
Jul 19
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Change Authority, Do You Need It?

Tags : authority change inspiration pivot

When you take a seat on the committee, board of directors, or task force do you have any authority? Working with your peers, serving the marketing team, or getting information from a different workplace department, do you have change authority?

Many people and employee teams will quickly suggest that they want change but how does change occur?

Change Authority

Some suggest that navigating the workplace environment and creating change only happens when you have the authority?

Other people may suggest that the person who chirps the loudest or most often drives change. They are the squeaky wheel.

There is at least one more camp. That is the camp that suggests the last person who speaks before a decision is made is the true champion of change.

Authority can certainly make things easier, at least on the surface. Command a change and people will likely respond, that is, if you have the authority. Hire, fire, or resource allocation authority will usually spark some action. Authority means power.

The squeaky wheel sometimes gets greased and the last person to speak sometimes seems to win.

What is the alternative?

Other Alternatives

Change often happens without authority. It often happens without complaining and blaming.

You don’t need authority, you don’t need to be the squeaky wheel, and you can skip the blame game.

Taking responsibility and initiative may spark change. You can start by providing positive contributions, offering alternatives, or getting involved through generous actions.

Not everyone quickly jumps on board with the idea of something new, but when it becomes an idea in action, it sometimes becomes a good idea.

Good ideas are a compelling. They bring about change through inspiration, curiosity, and group dynamics. They cause action.

No one forced social media, cell phones, or smart eating habits and exercise, yet they all get their fair share of action.

-DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and culture expert. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

03
Jun 19
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Different Workplace Solutions, Yet Both Are Correct

Tags : change correct pivot problems workplace solutions

There are plenty of sayings. The ones that suggest more than one way to accomplish the goal. What happens when there are different workplace solutions yet both seem to work?

More than one way to crack an egg.

Six of one, half dozen of another.

Half empty or half full.

Largely what happens inside the workplace community is about culture. The words, phrases, metaphors, symbols, and of course the acronyms are largely about just that, what happens inside.

Different Workplace Solutions

Companies make cars, computing devices, bouncing balls, and eyeglasses. Many of these have similarities. Balls are round, cars have wheels, and eyeglasses generally hook behind our ears and bridge our nose.

What happens inside the organization is different. The rules of the game are likely not identical. People drive the culture. They represent the repetitive nature of, “What happens here.”

What happens inside is the correct way. It may always be evolving, it may be a fluid approach, yet that is the way it is done.

We’ve never done it that way.

We’ve always done it this way.

Phrases are as much about the culture as the motion they create. You can choose to agree or disagree. Workplace cultures do sometimes change, they pivot, shift, or accelerate. If you are inside the community you may be considered part of the solution, or the problem.

Changing Ways

Sipping coffee through a straw may seem odd, so is sugary icing on broccoli.

It seems that new ideas have a path. They become cultural norms or they don’t.

What you do at work today may be the correct way, or the incorrect way. Both may still be about a solution.

The culture determines which way, for now.

-DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and culture expert. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

24
May 19
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Workplace Event Disguised As Workplace Change

Tags : change event luck pivot workplace

What happens when the change you believe you are experiencing is just a workplace event? How do you know the difference?

The big sales month, the surprising reaction to the video posted on LinkedIn, or a visit and tour from a high-ranking politician. Are any of these a signal of change or just an event?

Blip or Change?

Occasionally, the angler catches a big fish, the realtor closes a huge deal, and you just happen to catch every green light when you are running a few minutes late. Do you build a plan around these occurrences? Has something changed?

When the biggest customer, the biggest sponsor, or the biggest vendor change, often so does the organization. Is this the result of an event or calculated change?

You may suggest that it could be both, and of course, it could. Usually however, it isn’t.

Workplace Event

Events may be repeatable, but likely are not the norm. Winning the lottery may be an event, but you shouldn’t count on it happening every day. You can pretend it might, but a business model built around pretend is clearly an illusion.

You can pretend you’ll have the biggest sales month ever next month too, and with a good plan you might. Chances are good however without a specific structure and catalyst for this continued success you’ll find a lot of disappointment and misery.

It is valuable to consider how events shape the organization. A blip of success here and there really isn’t something that is calculated. While it may be a promising sign of being prepared to seize opportunity, it may only be an event may and not a sign of the new norm.

The glass of water fills drip by drip, the tree grows a little each year, and the organization that lasts isn’t built from the results of a single event.

-DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and culture expert. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

23
May 19
-

The Workplace Impact of Fear During Changing Times

Tags : change fear pivot trust truth

People will often quickly agree that their workplace is affected by changing times. Times, they are changing, yet what is really happening in your workplace?

Do people fear change? Largely, yes, many people are very nervous and afraid of the impact of change on their job. Everything from promotion to demotion to the possibility of being terminated.

Fear can cause action, that is an absolute. Fear as a tactic to motivate people is usually not a good idea.

Changing Times

The less people understand about change, the more likely they are to fear it. Out of fear they may suggest there are ulterior motives. Yet perhaps, they just don’t want to face the truth.

Clumped together in a group, people may feel more power to slow down the change and shift it to a different direction. The presenting factor is that the change is a bad idea, the truth may be that they fear what is proposed to happen.

A mindset of, hide in numbers, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few is their anchor.

Those who are responsible for the change have a different view. They may look for resistors. Spot them. Ask questions. Get them talking.

In this manner the resistors become known, they’re spotted, and a designated action or reaction can occur.

It is the silent resistors that are the most troublesome. They cause fear for the change leaders. The change leaders wonder, “Who doesn’t agree with this change and what do they plan to do about it?”

Truth in Change

Perhaps if there was more truth, more transparency, and more concern about the impact on human capital our workplaces wouldn’t be so harshly impacted.

People are not just a tool. They are an investment.

In a World of constant change, the status quo may carry the most risk. Protect your investment by allowing change to happen for you, not to you.

Be honest.

-DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and culture expert. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

12
Apr 19
-

Changing Habits By Making Room

Tags : change daily habits pivot results

We are all creatures of habit. Our daily routine, the work week, the weekend, what we do is based on habits. Changing habits is likely important for success but what will you give up?

Habits Produce Results

What we do this week won’t completely shape what we achieve across the next six months.

One small landscaping project tackled at our home on the weekend may improve things, but there will still be maintenance across time to keep it up.

Our daily work habits across the next twenty-six weeks will shape half of the year. What happens across the next three years will be based on the habits of each week of those years.

We do something every day. In fact, we may do many things each day. We occupy twenty-four hours. Eating, sleeping, working, and living life.

When it is time for a change, we must make room. Something goes and something takes its place. We may sacrifice some free time, some TV time, or some phone surfing time. Room must be made.

Ultimately, the question becomes, “What will you give up?”

Changing Habits

Changing habits means you’re going to have to make room. The choice is more important than you may think.

If you give up sleeping, eventually you’ll burn out. Eating or skipping meals, same thing. You recognize that somethings you can’t give up because that supplies the opportunity to achieve other goals.

Everything is a tradeoff.

Setting up your garage with home fitness equipment sometimes seems like a reasonable approach. Only, now you don’t have a place for your car. Worse, if you give up your workout routine the space is completely wasted. You gave up both, everything for nothing.

Making room for new habits is important. Something must change. Give up something.

Just be sure the something doesn’t cost you everything.

-DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and culture expert. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

08
Apr 19
-

Shocking Change Includes Disbelief

Tags : change disbelief pivot shock surprise

By now we all know that change is a part of life. Many people will quickly agree that everything around us is changing. How are you navigating shocking change?

Shocking Change

Change often does come as a shock and is followed with disbelief. Someone wins an election. Someone gets promoted, or the one-hundred-year-old business closes its doors forever.

Some will claim that they saw it coming and it wasn’t really a surprise.

In other cases, change happens so slow people barely notice. People age, trees grow, and a new house is built in a tiny corner of the two-hundred-acre field.

In our home or at our workplace, a room gets painted, a picture hung, and a new chair gets placed in the corner. Perhaps noticed and strange for a moment, but then life goes on. In a few days, we forget that something changed.

Surprised About Change?

Big change or small change, we tend to process it the same. At first there is some surprise, maybe a shock and maybe some disbelief. Shortly thereafter, the shock wears off, the disbelief switches to reality, and now it becomes the norm.

Change doesn’t always happen the way we wanted or when we wanted, but it surely happens.

Some will call it progress others will see it as the beginning of the end. Some changes will stick and some have a strange way of circling back around.

Change doesn’t always stick, it doesn’t always stay, and it sometimes feels unfair.

People were once shocked (no pun) by the light bulb, the airplane, and the breakup of Sonny and Cher.

Don’t be surprised with the disbelief that comes with change. Be surprised how long some things stay the same.

-DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and culture expert. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

28
Mar 19
-

Change Barriers, Are You Jammed Up?

Tags : acceleration barriers change pivot stress

Everything in the world is changing. Truth? Most will quickly say, “Yes!” What are some of the change barriers you are encountering?

Barriers, jams, and bottlenecks, what is hindering forward motion for you or with your team?

Change is Emotion

There is an emotional journey connected with change. Early in the process there is often fear, shock, and frustration. There also may be signs of denial and anger. Our bottleneck, the jam up point, is often connected with stress.

We may feel stuck at stress. Things aren’t moving, or are not moving fast enough. We haven’t let go of the old way and the new way feels too early to be sure. People feel stuck.

Getting unstuck means change. It means acceptance of the new reality, forward motion with the risk of the somewhat unknown.

When things get jammed up, when we are stuck or stalled, something magical happens on the other side. Breaking free of the jam, we accelerate.

Change Barriers

Construction zones on the highway, things slow down, cars merge from two or more lanes into a narrower path. Sometimes traffic stops completely. On the other side, cars burst out of the jam to get back to the speed limit.

This also happens with technology, the server, the router, the processor, things jam up and once free it is like a burst of new energy.

It happens with the ketchup bottle, the mustard, or anything that squirts. Lots of volume, behind a small opening, apply some pressure and it squirts. It’s breaking free from the bottleneck.

Change barriers, the obstacles, the bottlenecks, and even the stress or pressure associated with being stuck or stalled, that isn’t how the story ends. Unless you quit.

On the other side there is acceleration. The pressure is relieved, the flow is great. Things are faster, better, and ultimately more comfortable.

Sometimes we must get through the zone, to get back into the zone.

-DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and culture expert. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

04
Mar 19
-

Is It About Workplace Effort or Workplace Change?

Tags : compelling pivot workplace change workplace effort

“Baby Boomers refuse to change. Millennials only want it their way and expect things handed to them.” Common statements, are they true? Is it about workplace effort or is it more about workplace change?

It is a popular stereotype that traditionals and baby boomers don’t like change. At the same time, similar yet opposite stereotypes are often given to millennials and Gen Z. (Generations Chart.)

Workplace Change

The truth is, adversity to change is a commonality across the generations, not a difference. Tell anyone that they need to change or that their job role is about to change you’ll likely face some immediate concern.

Change breaks that comfort zone for everyone. It makes people of all ages uneasy, nervous, and afraid. It may be very short lived, or it may continue for some time.

However, the argument that change is more difficult for those who are more seasoned may have some truth.

In many cases, but not all, the longer we do something that appears to work, the more convinced we become in the method. It may also be that we don’t like the feeling of the unknown, the feeling of effort required, and the admittance of, “I don’t know how.”

Workplace Effort

Change requires new learning, new patterns of behavior, and it requires giving up something to make room for something different. It takes effort.

As a little kid we may resist learning to tie our shoes, ride a bike, or even perform chores. Of course, at some point, for most, we desire to be more grown up and we commit to learning. Effort is part of the process.

Does an 85-year old feel any need to learn to use the latest smartphone? Do they want to learn how to play the latest video game? Perhaps they don’t see a strong connection with how this impacts their future.

The change required in our workplace isn’t really about age. It is about perceived effort compared with impact. We ask ourselves, “Is this worth it?”

Change feels worth the effort when the reason is compelling.

-DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and culture expert. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

21
Feb 19
-

Achieving a Workplace Culture Shift

Tags : change fear pivot shift workplace culture

Interested in making some changes but struggling to figure out how? It’s not surprising that internal force is seldom as successful as consensus and buy-in. What can you do to achieve a workplace culture shift?

There are many factors that spark organizational change. Everything from government regulations, to economic conditions, to a change in organizational leadership.

Please, Not by Fear

Change is often attempted to be achieved by fear. The do it or die concept. The authoritarian approach. Make no mistake, fear can drive change but it likely won’t satisfy long-term needs or direction.

While there are many problems with change by fear, one big one is that change by fear is often not lasting. A second is, it creates a divide. An attitude of us against them. You don’t care about me so I don’t care about you.

Picking a fight. Dominating with authority. Drawing a line in the sand. None of these will likely leave you with a prosperous and engaged team.

The drama may be interesting but unlikely to change minds, attitudes, or expectations.

Workplace Culture Shift

A better way to achieve a workplace culture shift is to find common ground. Explore options as a team. Discuss possible outcomes and be sure that everyone understands the strategic intent.

Your best shift will occur when the team has examined the options, understands the purpose of a new direction, and agrees that the new path is a good one. Easy and quick to achieve? No, not usually. Worthwhile? Absolutely!

Changing views and changing minds is hard if not nearly impossible. Having team members explore and understand directional choices while finding grounds for agreement is, as they say, “Priceless.”

Picking a fight or pushing people around with authority will likely not create the shift you desire.

-DEG

Do you need some help with strategic direction, implementing a change, or getting buy-in? I can help. Please contact me to start a conversation.

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and culture expert. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

Tag Archives: pivot

Jul 19

-

Do People Change?

Organized Change

Jul 19

-

Change Authority

Other Alternatives

Jun 19

-

Different Workplace Solutions

Changing Ways

May 19

-

Blip or Change?

Workplace Event

May 19

-

Changing Times

Truth in Change

Apr 19

-

Habits Produce Results

Changing Habits

Apr 19

-

Shocking Change

Surprised About Change?

Mar 19

-

Change is Emotion

Change Barriers

Mar 19

-

Workplace Change

Workplace Effort

Feb 19

-

Please, Not by Fear

Workplace Culture Shift

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