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April 26, 2008

We've been watching you...

As I often say, I am a career consultant. I have been doing this since my early twenties and it has been a fantastically enjoyable career.

Like everyone else I didn't start life as a consultant - I started as an Industrial Electrician working in the mines and processing plants of Australia. It was great grounding, and proved to be a fantastic base for everything else I have done.

Consulting gives you a pretty unique view of management, people, technologies and (above all else) of making changes.

I have been watching many of you, in dozens of companies and dozens of countries, trying to make fundamental changes to the way you do business.

It has taught me a lot (A heck of a lot) about how real changes are made. In fact, all of the companies I have worked with who have been succesful have had the following attributes.

1. A bias for action.

Stop thinking start doing, stop planning start acting. Easy stuff.

You have all seen it. Roomful of boffins, working away on the minutiae of the universe, having ever more semantical battles amongst themselves...and nobody outside the room has the faintest idea what they are doing!

Worse - when they finally emerge from the cocoon with their strategic "butterfly" the problem it was meant to resolve has either been diminished buy other pressing issues, or the company has come up with a practical work around.

Start acting - get small scale pilots out there as soon as possible. Test, review, improve, test again.. And so forth.

And with every trial, no matter how small the benefits are, make sure everyone knows about it.

2. A viral approach to influencing decisions.

It seems that taking your idea directly to the boss almost never works. I am not sure I understand exactly why, but for some reason when a good idea is taken upwards it never seems to "get up". This is particularly true for those ideas that seem to take a leap of faith, or call for radical action.

So instead of pushing it, what seems to work is creating a pull for the idea.

Successful changers seem to be great at shopping their idea around to several worthy allies. Getting them to either adopt or or part of it, or to continue to work of spreading the news.

By the time the idea reaches their boss, it has already been tried and proven, or there is already a groundswell of support for it - or both!

3. A revolutionary and inspiring leader.

I have been fortunate enough to have been mentored by a few of these, and I try to emulate their actions. Leaders, real leaders, cut through corporate bureaucracy like a hot knife through butter.

Example 1: IT Director in a UK water utility.

Recognized the dramatic seriousness of a looming issue related to physical asset planning.

Called together a team of 20 to 30 of the companies best minds, and locked them away to start coming up with a solution.

He had no permission to do so, no discussions, and no debating. Just took action.

After a few road bumps this initiated a fundamental change in management that will benefit that company for decades to come.

Acting - not just thinking, backed by a frightening intellect and clarity of thought.

Brilliant to watch.

Example 2: Mining Engineer, open cut mine in Western Australia.

Uncovered a bottleneck in operations reducing potential output by around 4 million tons per year. (That's a lot by the way)

Immediately started to work out the changes required, and building the horizontal (not vertical) relationships required to make them a reality.

Within 6 months he had instituted new shift patterns, new stockpile management strategies, new mining techniques, and new work patterns meaning the mine ran less rather than more.

Achieved his expanded tonnage targets for the following year and went on to transform that company from within.

This was the best and most inspiring example of change I have ever seen.

Again, the key attribute was a bias for action. And again fueled by the leaders' ability to excite others about their vision.

I appreciated working with both of them.

4. An un-bending commitment to follow through.

In the late eighties I was at a mining company when they (we) were launching a wide ranging safety initiative. (NOSA from South Africa at the time)

This covered everything from procedures to PPE and everything in-between.

One of the managers there was getting a little bit proactive. He went down to the shop floor and started to work with the guys doing the job. In doing so he was using hammers without the correct eye protection.

He resigned immediately.

Boom!

Nothing sends stronger signals than an unwavering commitment to the principles that are being adopted - no matter who the perpetrator is.

5. A continual focus on costs vs returns. (Obsessively)

6. Enterprise wide training, mentoring and assessments.

7. An almost religious devotion to telling the stories of success.

8. A small team of thinkers, complemented by a larger team of doers. (With a moving point of separation between the two)

9. Reward success, don't just celebrate it. (Yes... money) - There comes a time when congratulatory emails, or expressions of thanks, just don't cut it anymore.

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