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Apprenticing with the ex-GE masters to learn their Workout Process was an early highlight in my consulting career. Their seasoned perspective on where we were, where we were headed, and whether a situation called for ‘a little sugar, or a little salt’ was invaluable. They were modeling a new way of leading for their clients, and I had a front row seat as I set out to develop my own style of facilitative leadership and organizational change prowess.
In one of my first solo projects, I was having trouble reading the signs about what was happening and instinctively reached for a lifeline. The team I was leading was making progress, heads down, building their case; and, then it happened. Everything they asked for was approved. While this was the intention, no one had really thought about what it would mean. Everyone involved was either on edge about what was going to happen to their work, roles and status; or, rushing around trying to get the slow-moving systems and structures of the big organization caught up with the pace of the change that had been sanctioned (and was now expected).
When I described the details of all this to our lead consultant, she smiled and said, “Yes, this is a clear sign of success, Shannon. You’ve asked the Bear to dance. And, as you know, once you start dancing with the Bear, you don’t get to sit down until the Bear wants to.”
After that experience and sage counsel, I came to expect this feeling of ‘pulled chaos’ during large initiative change work and now recognize it as a distinct indicator of success. So much so that we prepare clients for it, get them more comfortable with this feeling of partnering with something that is much larger and potentially fiercer than they are.
As my practice focuses more on building the individual’s capacity to lead change, I have come to realize that this wise metaphor of ‘dancing with the bear’ continues to apply. The same frightful and exhilarating qualities of surrendering to the organizational change experience seem to show up just as reliably in leadership development, even though the change is occurring at a much more personal level.
It reminds me of Rita, a client who has been actively engaged in executive coaching and development for several years. About a year ago, her CEO tapped her to lead a fundamental, make-or-break the corporation, change initiative. Earlier this month, she convened the senior executives for an update about the initiative’s progress. During the meeting, they began asking questions that made it abundantly clear that they had no sense of the vastness and speed of implications that were already set in motion. What she found particularly maddening was that this group had approved the change along the way. She was exasperated and deflated and was not able to express that in a productive way during the meeting.
She sent me this text to let me know what had happened:
S, they aren’t tracking at all. My mind went to the land of dragons. It didn’t go well. Someday I will learn how to get out of my own way. R
The organizational change consultant in me thought: Stakeholders not paying attention or connecting the dots about implications of change…frustrating, but common. The executive coach in me found the situation much more interesting. We had just moved into some fertile new ground. This immediate, post-meeting awareness of having been held hostage by a part of herself that was exaggerating risk and influencing highly ineffective behavior was a huge indicator of new internal capacity. I was acutely aware that she had many more hours of bear-dancing left in her.
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