You don’t have to see the whole staircase, you just have to take the first step…
This is one of those little sayings that, like the other one of which I am fond

“Unless you are prepared to lose sight of the shore, you will not discover new lands”

that sets out to make the challenges of change more palatable.
There has certainly been times in my life (and no, I’m not necessarily going to share them with you) when had I known the length of the journey or the challenges I faced en route, I would not have set off. But without the journey, with or without its struggles, I would not have got to where I am today (no, this isn’t going to be a Reginald Perrin’s boss moment). I have learned that the important thing is to know roughly what you want and simply set off in that direction.

If somebody had told me how many steps I had to walk to get to the top of the leaning Tower of Pisa, and that the staircase would get narrower and narrower towards the top, and I might not have been so keen to set off. I was going to get to the top, and maybe, just maybe, actually not being able to see all the steps and that narrowing staircase helped.

So, next time you are faced with something that seems a bit challenging, why not just take a step? Even a single step is likely to move you closer to your goal, and even if it actually moves you away then you have the opportunity to learn something before you take your next step.

Go on, climb those stairs!

Often in my profession, the easy answer to the question “So, what do you do for a living?” is to say “I am a leadership/management trainer”. It’s easy, it’s lazy and it’s wrong!

Now there’s a pretty odd statement to make, so perhaps I ought to explain what I am thinking.

It’s easy, lazy and wrong because of the implications (linguistics wallahs would say “complex equivalences”) of several of the words in the sentence.

 

Let’s take it step by step:

• leadership/management – these are disciplines and I work with people, so in my slightly less lazy moments I say that “I train managers and leaders”
• trainer – well, I have argued that you cannot train anyone to do anything, all you can do is provide the environment in which it is easier for them to learn. You can’t even train a dog – all you do is let its brain associate rewards (or, if you are that way inclined) punishment with particular behaviours, it soon learns to behave in your (and so its’) preferred way. “I help managers and leaders to learn”

Now let’s go deeper:

Managers/leaders, at least the ones I work with, are functionally adults and how we go about helping them to learn is fundamentally important. School teachers learn about pedagogy. Now pedagogy generally refers to strategies of instruction, or a style of instruction. The word is derived from the ancient Greek paidagogeo, literally ‘to lead the child’. In ancient Greece, the paidagogos was a slave who supervised the education of his master’s son. So pedagogy is about children and whether or not we accept that the child’s brain is a tabula rasa it’s certainly clear that they are very open to new experiences and ‘being told what to do and how to do it’.

Adults are different, we have created our own map of the world and constantly seek/notice  reaffirmation of that map; we have our own value set (whether or not we are aware of them!) that drives our decisions; we are more aware of socio-cultural issues, etc. So why do so many organisations and individuals who take on adult learners treat them as children, not least by using pedagogical principles? Because they don’t know ay better!

Well, there is another approach to learning, specifically targetted at adults, usually labelled andragogy, that has a very different set of principles, most clearly expounded by Knowles.

Knowles’ theory can be stated with six assumptions related to motivation of adult learning (thank you Wikipedia):

1. Adults need to know the reason for learning something (Need to Know)
2. Experience (including error) provides the basis for learning activities (Foundation).
3. Adults need to be responsible for their decisions on education; involvement in the planning and evaluation of their instruction (Self-concept).
4. Adults are most interested in learning subjects having immediate relevance to their work and/or personal lives (Readiness).
5. Adult learning is problem-centered rather than content-oriented (Orientation).
6. Adults respond better to internal versus external motivators (Motivation).

Now this is the world I like to inhabit. The one where participants volunteer themselves to a learning experience because they see the advantage for themselves, the one where there is immediate relevance between the learning environment and the day-job, the one where the learning becomes a collaborative and active process and the one where we all go away having learned something and get on applying that learning.

This is not about Powerpoint (although it has its place) or ‘sit attentively and listen to me the Expert (although that has its place) or even ‘this is how you do it’ (because their context is likely to be different. It’s about understanding their motivations, challenge, doing things, making mistakes, eliciting the application of the learning, having the participants co-design both content and process and much more.

…and we won’t even delve deeper into the “I am…” statement at the beginning of my original lazy and wrong statement, that issue of Identity is for another time.

So, next time I am asked, I will say that “I design and deliver/facilitate processes that help adults learn to become more effective”. That might get a question in response – just what good adult learning is about!

 

Just occasionally I am happy to draw your attention to a useful gig being run by someone else – here goes…

Coaching can be a lonely occupation and so I am always pleased to be able to share experiences and grow my capabilities. One way is for me to attend the EMCC Yorkshire events. They are free, just after work and always interesting.

The next session is in Leeds when there will be an interactive session to explore how to be aware of and handle the issues and tensions that arise when coaching in an organisational context

Using a recent case study in the public sector, Christina Heaton and Janet Dean will share their experience of individual and team coaching within an organisation undergoing transformational change. Participants will be able to consider some of the key challenges and identify the range of responses and techniques available to resolve them. The session will provide new insights for those with little experience of coaching in an organisational context, and offer further development and reflection for those with more experience.

You can register your interest at http://tinyurl.com/cr7mzdn   I look forward to seeing you there and PLEASE do let any colleagues who might be interested know all about it – all welcome.

A recent LinkedIn post asked for recommendations for books on change management.I was reminded that a couple of years ago a similar question was asked and I (somewhat laboriously) made a list of all books mentioned. Here it is, with no commentary about the value, as they were all valuable to someone sometime:

 

 

 

 

 

Recommendations posted in response to a LinkedIn question “What is the best book you have read on organisational change?

 

Title	Author
Philosophies of Organizational Change	Aaron Smith, Fiona Graetz
Solving Tough Problems	Adam Kahane
The Lemming Condition	Alan Arkin
Punished by Rewards	Alfie Kohn
10 Steps to Successful Change Management	American Society for Training and Development
The Change Leader’s Roadmap and Beyond Change Management	Anderson & Ackerman Anderson
Leadership and Self-Deception	Arbinger Institute
Polarity Management	Barry Johnson
The Sustainability Champion’s Guidebook: How to Transform Your Company	Bob Willard
The Aesthetics of Change	Bradford Keeney
La stratégie du projet lateral   (in French)	Bruno César and Olivier d’Herbémont.
Making Sense of Change Management	Cameron and Green
The Psychodynamics of Change	CCL
The Invisible Gorilla	Chabris and Simons
The Empty Raincoat	Charles Handy
Switch	Chip and Dan Heath
Integrated Strategic Change: How OD Builds Competitive Advantage	Christopher Worley, David Hitchin and Walter Ross
It’s Your Ship – Management Secrets from the Best Damned Ship in the Navy	Cmdr. (Ret.) Michael Abrashoff
The Leader’s Change Handbook	Conger, Spreitzer and Lawler
The Heart of Change Field Guide	Dan S. Cohen
Managing at the Speed of Change	Daryl Conner
Your Brain at Work	David Rock
Terms of Engagement	Dick Axelrod
Spiral Dynamics Integral	Don Beck
Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln	Doris Goodwin
Taking Charge of Change	Douglas Smith
Change is the Rule	Dr Dutch Holland
Red Zone Management	Dr Dutch Holland
EPIC Change	Dr Tim Clark
Green Eggs and Ham	Dr. Seuss
Process Consultation: It’s Role in Organization Development	Ed Schein
Process Consultation Revised: Building the Helping Relationship	Ed Schein
Helping: How To Offer, Give, and Receive Help	Ed Schein
The Planning of Change	ed Warren G. Bennis, Kenneth D. Benne, Robert Chin
A Failure of Nerve	Edwin Friedman
Complexity, Management and the Dynamics of Change: Challenges for Practice	Elizabeth McMillan
Organization Development	French & Bell
Ship of Gold	Gary Kinde
The Five Books of Moses	God?
Orbiting the Giant Hairball	Gordon MacKenzie
Hope is not a Method	Gordon R Sullivan and Michael V Harper
Exploring Corporate Change	Hope-Hailey & Balogun
Harvard Business Review in Change	ISBN 0-87584-884-2
Designing Dynamic Organizations: A hands-on field guide for leaders at all levels	Jay Galbraith and Amy Kates
The Change Monster	Jeannie Duck
Hard Facts Dangerous Half-Truths & Total Nonsense	Jeffrey Pfeffer, Robert I. Sutton
Leading Change	John Kotter
My Iceberg is Melting	John Kotter
The Heart of Change	John Kotter
A Sense of Urgency	John Kotter
A Force for Change	John P. Kotter
Productive Workplaces	Jon and Gabriel
Leading outside the lines	Jon Katzenbach and Zia Khan
Synchronicity	Joseph Jaworski
Transformation Thinking	Joyce Wycoff
Managing the Unexpected	Karl Weick
The Secret Handshake	Kathleen Kelley Reardon
Who Killed Change	Ken Blanchard
Influencer	Kerry Patterson, et al.
Organizations on the Couch	Kets de Vries, Manfred F. R.
The Leadership Challenge	Kotter and Heskett
Dao De Jing  (or Tao Te Chung, or however you want to transliterate it)	Lao Tzu
Viral Change	Leandro Herraro
Viral Change	Leandro Herrero
Who Says Elephants Can’t Dance?	Louis V. Gerstner Jr.
The Tipping Point	Malcolm Gladwell
First Break all the Rules	Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman
Leadership & the New Science	Margaret Wheatley
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer	Mark Twain
Productive Workplaces	Marvin Weisbord
Development as Leadership-led Change – A Report for the Global Leadership Initiative and the World Bank Institute	Matt Andrews, Harvard Kenny School – John F. Kennedy School of Government
Good Business	Miahly Csikszentmihalyi
Moneyball	Michael Lewis
Charging Back up the Hill	Mitchell L. Marks
Discontinuous Change	Nadler
The Challenge of Change in Organizations	Nancy Barger and Linda K. Kirby
U Theory	Otto Scharmer
Changing conversations in Organizations	Patricia Shaw
Becoming a Practitioner-Researcher: A Gestalt Approach to Holistic Inquiry	Paul Barber
The Principles of Organizational Change Management	Paul C. Wilson
Change: Problem Formation and Problem Resolution	Paul Watzlawick
Engaging Emergence: Turning Upheaval into Opportunity	Peggy Holman
Managing as a Performing Art: New Ideas for a World of Chaotic Change	Peter B Vaill
Change Magic – An Evolutionary Approach to Change Engineering and Organisational Problem Solving	Peter Freeth
The Dance of Change	Peter Senge
The Fifth Discipline	Peter Senge
The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook	Peter Senge
Presence	Peter Senge, Otto Scharmer, Joseph Jaworski and Betty Sue Flowers
The Knowing-Doing Gap	Pfeffer & Sutton
Change at Work: A Comprehensive Management Process for Transforming Organizations	Pieter W. Esterhuysen, Barbara P. Mink, Keith Q. Owen and Oscar G. Mink
(Re)Organizing for Resilience	Ranjay Gulati
Confessions of a Radical Industrialist	Ray. C. Anderson
Maverick	Ricardo Semler
More than a Motorcycle	Rich Teerlink and Lee Ozley
Jonathan Livingstone Seagull	Richard Bach
Changing the Essense	Richard Beckhard and Wendy Pritchard
Beyond The Wall Of Resistance: Why 70% of All Changes Still Fail – and What You Can Do About It	Rick Maurer
Building the Bridge as You Walk on it: A Guide for Leading Change	Robert E. Quinn
Path of Least Resistance	Robert Fritz
Path of Least Resistance for Managers	Robert Fritz
Immunity to Change	Robert Kegan with Lisa Laskow Lahey
In Over Our Heads	Robert Kegan with Lisa Laskow Lahey
Deep Change	Robert Quinn
Free Perfect and Now – a CEO’s true story	Robert Rodin
Anticipate. the Architecture of Innovation	Ron Brown
Dynamics of Planned Change	Ronald Lippitt, et al.
Unshackled Leadership	Scott Hunter
Who Ate My Cheese	Spencer Johnson
The Speed of Trust	Stephen Covey
The Leader’s Guide to Radical Management: Reinventing the Workplace for the 21st Century	Stephen Denning
In the Company of Sacred Cows	Stephen Quesnelle and Geoff Smith
It’s Behaviour, Stupid!: What Really Drives the Performance of Your Organisation	Steve Glowinkowski
The Three Laws of Performance	Steve Zaffron
Organizatie Dynamica      (in Dutch)	Thijs Homan
In Search of Excellence	Tom Peters
Man’s Search for Meaning	Viktor Fankl
Organization Change	W W Burke
Managing Transitions	William Bridges

 

I have just finished my second stint of five days delivering some CMI Level 7 material on organisational change to future leaders in the Abu Dhabi Department of Transport. Someone asked me what it was like and my first thought was it could’ve been Nottingham (nothing particular about Nottingham, it could’ve been Derby of Bradford, Manchester, Bedford or…). What did I mean by that?

Well, you get up in the morning, have your breakfast, get to the venue, deliver your training, go back to the hotel, review how it went and make adjustments for the following day, have dinner, sleep, work up etc. Everything is air-conditioned, so apart from the odd hundred metre walk around the hotel and 20 m into the venue (the Abu Dhabi Men’s College) and the somewhat warmer weather and more exotic birds and plants it could be anywhere.

Actually, I have really enjoyed myself, partly because I really enjoy delivering this stuff and partly because I am very happy for somebody to fly me halfway round the world to a country and culture I have not visited before and pay me doing what I enjoy doing. The pay isn’t actually all that brilliant, and I accepted the gig because it has always been part of my personal vision to do exactly what I described in the previous paragraph-fly around the world offering my knowledge and expertise to anyone who is prepared to listen to me and so long as it doesn’t actually cost me anything and I will consider any offers along those lines.

 

How much of a challenge was it going to be delivering to Arabs in a strongly Muslim culture? Well, being a good trainer. I did my homework and got briefed by one or two people to avoid showing anybody the soles of my shoes, avoid making sexual references, avoid looking women in the eye or touching them, avoid doing this, don’t do that, beware of the other…

But what did I find? A bunch of men and women in their mid-20s to mid-30s who, had they been in Western dress (their employer requires them to wear local dress) you might have had trouble distinguishing from any other bunch of people. I don’t make sexual innuendo or touch women when I meet deliver training in the West. I have always taken the view on matters of culture and discrimination of any kind that I do my best and hope that the participants will not be offended if I make a mistake, but help me learn-this has never failed me. I guess there are sensitivities with any audience-it’s probably best not to make too many jokes about Ford Escorts with no wheels stood on bricks to a Liverpudlian audience or talk too much about the Kray twins to an East End audience. People are people. They all have their likes and dislikes and their quirks and I have no doubt from years of experience that provided you do what you do and say what you say with positive intent, respect and humility. You are unlikely to go wrong. The worst that can happen is that someone will explain to you how you can do better next time.

I’m looking forward to other opportunities to visit new countries and cultures and hope they come my way.