Being willing to do the hard thing you don’t want to do

Being willing to do the hard thing you don’t want to do

Leading change in your organization

Over the past six months, we have been walking through seven core leadership competencies. These seven competencies form a leadership development framework that we can use to develop as leaders. How cool is that!

Leadership is never static. Leadership is fluid, it strengthens, weakens, expands, as well as contracts. Which is why we need to work on these seven competencies consistently and continually. We are lifelong learners!

As we all know, sometimes we are faced with doing hard things that we don’t really want to do. Having these competencies in place helps us.

Here is a visualization of leadership development framework that I’ve adapted from Ginger Lapid-Bogda’s writings in her book What Type of Leader Are You [1]?

Today, we dive deeper into the seventh competency, Leading Change.

As you know, change is all around us. Our world changes every day. Our customers and Clients change every day. Our bodies change every day. We can’t act like this isn’t true.

Yet sometimes we don’t want to change, we even resist it. We like things that way they are. Our organization is doing what we want it to do. Our customers are happy. Our mission is being fulfilled. Everything is going in the right direction.

I don’t really want or even need to change. Hum.

One of my favorite learnings on this topic is from Jim Collins. He describes that what comes first is to understand what should never change: a sense of enduring core values and organizational purpose. Around these fixed points, everything else can change. This was a huge learning for me.

Leading change requires a keen understanding of why we must change in the first place. Knowing why we need to change is essential because it allows us to begin to visualize our desire future state. With this future state in place, we can begin to understand and have empathy for the journey we (as individuals, as teams, the organization as a whole, etc.) are on as we progress and build plans that move us towards our desired future state.

When we have empathy, we recognize that change impacts humans at a very emotional level. For sure, change impacts us in other ways too. Change requires us to learn (to think differently) and to behave (to act differently) in new ways that are unfamiliar to us at first.

It is through the integration of our heart, our head, and our hands that embracing change is possible. Without this integration, change in any form can be difficult.

There is a lot to the concepts of change and that is OK. Change is just like anything else. It is right there in front of us, asking us “are you ready to walk with me into a future that we do not know.” Don’t be afraid.

As a Process Consultant change is a constant companion. Change is with me on my journey as a leader, with my Clients on their journeys as leaders, and with you on your journey as a leader…even as you are reading this blog.

As many of you know, I’m a huge fan of Peter and Ed Schein’s body of work on Humble Inquiry, Humble Leadership, and Humble Consulting. (Just as I’m a huge fan of Otto Scharmer and Theory U, Brian Emerson & Kelly Lewis on Navigating Polarities, Robert Kegan & Lisa Laskow Lahey on Immunity to Change, and Tricia Hershey on Rest is Resistance, the list could go on.)

In their third edition of The Corporate Culture Survival Guide, the Schein’s point to a clear and simple change model. Five steps that bring simplicity to a complex concept. (That describes Peter and Ed in a nutshell!)

I encourage all of my readers to familiarize yourself with these five steps. I’ve listed them here for your easy access:

1. Confirm the need for change
2. Describe the desired future state concretely
3. Assess the present state
4. Plan how to get from here to there
5. Manage the transition

So, the next time you are faced with whether or not you are willing to do the hard thing you don’t want to do, remember you have been here before and you have what you need to do the hard thing. You’ve got this!

Mind how you go,

Lon L. Swartzentruber

Design Group International

Managing Partner & CEO 

Interim - CEO, Society for Process Consulting

[1] What Type of Leader Are You? Ginger Lapid-Bogda, Ph.D. McGraw Hill, 2007.

If you’d like to go deeper in your journey of leadership, please schedule a call. I’d be honored to listen and learn more about your journey as a leader and where you’d like to go next.     

Here is what is in my backpack

Co-Active Leadership: Five Ways to Lead by Karen and Henry Kimsey-House

A New Way to Think by Roger L. Martin

Imaginable by Jane McGonigal