Do you demonstrate leadership skills in your public speaking? Here are 10 focusing techniques to make you more dynamic and successful.
When it comes to leading others, you need to be a skilled public speaker. That has always been true. Yet in today's virtual world, what you say may be heard by millions worldwide. Your ability to be fully, extraordinarily present both in person and virtually is therefore essential.
Of course, the higher your profile and influence, the more distractions that may keep you from becoming the speaker you want to be. So maintaining your alignment is a must-achieve task.
Below are 10 theater-based approaches we use at The Genard Method to help leaders stay fully present for audiences. They range from nonverbal communication to storytelling to breathing for speech. Each tip is simple. Together, they're a recipe for presentation excellence and maximum influence.
Ten Public Speaking Techniques for Leadership
Ground yourself. Grounding is a tool for feeling stable and looking steadfast. With feet at shoulder width, grip the floor with your toes inside your shoes. Imagine you have roots that go deep into the ground. The Earth gives you energy and power—two essential attributes of great speaking.
Stand or sit with good posture. Visuals matter in how you look and carry yourself. Posture makes a difference in terms of your credibility and authority. Demonstrate pride in your self-image. It will also make you feel more like the person you want to portray.
Breathe diaphragmatically. That means slowly, deeply, and calmly. "Belly breathe" by taking fuller breaths, so you support the sound to the ends of phrases (where the most important words reside). It also helps calm your nerves and focuses you naturally.
Notice your audience. Your audience is a pool you need to submerge yourself in. Whatever you're saying, watch how listeners react. Then respond in turn. Doing so is part of what makes you a speaker with true focused stage presence.
Slow down. High-profile speaking can make you speak too rapidly because of adrenaline, the "fight or flight" hormone. Take your time to cherish this speaking opportunity, which is only here now and in a moment will be gone forever. Just like an actor, you need to allow enough time for emotional responses. It's one of the ways of knowing how to captivate an audience.
Be more sensual. Take in everything that’s happening, through all your senses. Hear with your eyes. Feel the audience’s reactions as if they were tactile. Taste the ideas in your mouth, etc. Respond with all your being! You'll be in the moment like never before.
Aim your energy outward. Your audience matters, not you! Lose yourself in your message and how it's being received. Since as a leader you probably aren't used to hearing this, I'll repeat it: you don't matter. Send the best of you to the people who do matter.
Make eye contact as you tell the story. The story is what the audience is here for, which is how your content affects people. Whatever you’re talking about, it’s a story, a narrative. In that sense, you're always involved in storytelling. Make that your touchstone.
Trust silence. Silence is one of the most powerful tools in your public speaking toolbox. It helps you pace your presentation. It gives audiences time to fully grasp what you're saying. It also tells audiences, “I'm confident.” (Are you anxious about speaking? Here are 10 Fast and Effective Ways to Overcome Stage Fright.)
Move! Moving on stage will help you think and keep you in the moment. Strong, clean gestures amplify meaning. The body is an essential tool of human communication, which is what 'body language' means. Give physical expression to the important things you're saying. If you don't, we'll miss the human beingbehind the ideas. Here are 6 skills building exercises in body language for public speaking.
A last point: Don't practice all of these techniques at once. Try one or two at a time, preferably in low-risk speaking situations. You'll gradually build up a level of focus and engagement with audiences that any speaker would envy.
This article offers a practical explanation of the Minto Pyramid Principle, developed by Barbara Minto. After reading this article, you’ll understand the basics of this powerful effectiveness and communication tool.
What is the Minto Pyramid Principle?
Minto Pyramid Principle, also referred to as the McKinsey’s Pyramid Principle, is a tool used to process and structure large amounts of information to convey a story, message or presentation without omitting important details. The principle of the McKinsey Pyramid is to cut to the chase in written texts or presentations. This ensures that the audience’s attention is captured and that a riveting story can be created that’s easy to remember and understand.
The Minto Pyramid Principle is applied by structuring points and arguments after the thesis statement has been introduced. The information that is presented subsequently branches off to the specific details in a clear and insightful manner.
‘The Pyramid Principle’, a book written by Barbara Minto, was published in the 1970s by McKinsey & Company. Barbara Minto was responsible for training new recruits into becoming expert consultants in the shortest possible time.
Structure
Writing texts, giving presentations or making recommendations based on the Minto Pyramid Principle is done by applying the following three levels of the pyramid:
1. Start with the answer, thesis or key point
Applying the top-down structure of a pyramid in communication methods means that a direct answer is given to the question that has been asked. These could also be recommendations, the results from a study, thesis statement or other key points.
Minto Pyramid Principle inverts the traditional method that’s used to arrive at a conclusion. Usually, the conclusion in a text or presentation is given after the facts have been presented, and all analyses and supporting ideas have been discussed.
With her McKinsey Pyramid Principle, Barbara Minto explains why the answer is first given in a clear and concrete form. Only then must the supporting reasons or motivations be given. The first reason for this is to maximise and effectively use the limited time of the audience.
In most conversations with a supervisor, for instance, recommendations are made. The reason to first make the recommendation and then offer the motivation is that the supervisors often already see the conclusion or recommendation coming when a flood of arguments and reasons is provided. This because they think in such a top-down way, focusing on the bigger picture.
Moreover, a direct communication method is more convincing than a conversation that beats about the bush. A direct communication style is a display of assertiveness and self-confidence.
2. Group arguments and summarise the main points
Now that the key point has been laid down, the arguments, reasons or motivation for giving the presentation must be discussed. According to the Minto Pyramid Principle, this level is about joining all arguments in main points. Each point represents a summary of specific support for the recommendation or the answer from the first step.
3. Present supporting details and ideas in a logical manner
Subsequently, the pyramid branches out from each argument to the lowest level where supporting details and ideas are given that must show the validity of the presented arguments. The whole of these three levels forms the pyramid structure.
Always first give the summarising idea, on the top of the pyramid. Clarity and logic can be applied in the story by paying attention to the structure and order.
If the arguments and ideas that are given contain a certain flow, frequency or cause-effect structure, these must be placed in chronological order. It’s also recommended to first present the most important arguments and ideas.
McKinsey Pyramid Principle: applicability
It’s not surprising that the pyramid principle arose in the organisational consulting branch. That’s exactly where larger and more complex writing tasks is the order of the day. By structuring texts by means of the Minto Pyramid Principle, the texts are shortened, become clearer and are easier to follow.
This also has a great advantage for the writer himself. By thinking about the cohesion between ideas beforehand, these can be put to paper more efficiently and the main and auxiliary matters can more easily be distinguished.
Facts and thoughts are organised in a way that makes the text more convincing. Moreover, training with such a structure also has the benefit of the person choosing his words more carefully in everyday life, including on the work floor.
By removing all irrelevant matters, the core takes front and centre and the user increases the potential to climb up the hierarchy.
Advantages and disadvantages in using the McKinsey Pyramid Principle
According to Barbara Minto, using the Minto Pyramid Principle offers several advantages compared to other writing structures:
More efficient writing because thoughts and ideas are organised in advance
It helps the reader because reading strategies have been incorporated into the text itself
Consistent quality
Greater persuasion
The Minto Pyramid Principle matches the way the human brain works
However, there are also disadvantages concerned with the use of the Minto Pyramid Principle:
The tool demands a lot of training to create better texts
There is a danger of repeating information
And this makes it difficult to formulate an insightful synthesis
Minto Pyramid Principle is mainly effective for texts with an unambiguous conclusion or recommendation, and not for other types of texts
More information
Minto, B. (2009). The pyramid principle: logic in writing and thinking. Pearson Education.
Locker, K. O., & Kaczmarek, S. K. (2009). Business communication: Building critical skills. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Higher Education.
The adage that “our world runs on data” means that decisions are being based on vast amounts of statistics. Data-derived insights drive what time trains stop running, when Starbucks introduces holiday cups, and the temperature of the building you might be sitting in right now.
Even though most corporate roles now work with data, it’s shockingly easy to forget that people generate most of it. When a user clicks a link, gets blood taken at the lab, or sets up a smartwatch, that person generates data. As people move, buy, sell, use, work, and live, their actions nudge numbers up or down and drive organizational decisions, big and small.
If it’s your role to communicate data insights and persuade people to change their behavior, you’ll have more influence and promote better decision-making if you emphasize the people behind the numbers. In a story, we root for the hero as he or she maneuvers through roadblocks. To use data to steer your organization in the right direction, you need to tap into the human tale your data can tell.
By leveraging four techniques from storytelling, leaders can bring a richer, more human understanding to the problem that the data reveals and better understand the opportunities it presents. Those techniques are identifying the hero and the hero’s adversary, speaking with people generating the data, identifying and addressing conflict, and sharing context.
Search for the Hero and the Adversary in the Data
Because most organizational data is generated by humans, the first step toward insight is to empathetically understand the people whose actions generate that data and who can turn slumps around.
These data-generating people are the characters in your story. In any story, myth, or movie, we get to know various characters and grow to love some and revile others. Some become heroes who overcome the obstacles in their paths and eventually defeat their adversaries.
In a data story, the hero is whoever can play a role in moving the data in the desirable direction. For businesses, the heroes could be employees, customers, or partners.
Consider the scenario of a CEO at a midsize software company where sales dropped 30% in the previous quarter. As she’s faced with the task of course-correcting this sharp decline, she needs to dig into the question, “What happened?” To find out, she’ll have to understand the people behind the company’s numbers and who the hero is who can reverse the sales slump.
In this scenario, the CEO’s determination is that the sales team is the likely hero in the turnaround. The data shows that they have been working harder than ever, and the decline isn’t due to their lack of effort. But perhaps the team has an adversary, something or someone causing the numbers to go down. Or perhaps new inefficiencies have been introduced by a change in process or added bureaucracy.
Speak With the People Generating the Data
Data tells you what has happened in the past, but it doesn’t always tell you why. Talking to the people generating the numbers can help.
To help a hero get unstuck, a leader has to go straight to the source. Reading forums, conducting surveys, analyzing customer comments, and hiring consultants are all tools to help learn what is in the hero’s way. But the best way to really understand people’s issues is to speak with them directly.
To do so, identify a random sampling of data heroes. Speak with them, asking about their concerns, opinions, and motivations. Empathetically listen. You’ll hear things that surveys and Salesforce data simply can’t tell you.
By talking directly with a senior manager, the software CEO from our sample scenario might learn that her sales team has been struggling to fully adapt to new sales software that was designed to streamline a previously sticky process. While half of the sales team has wholeheartedly embraced the change, more senior team members are feeling frustrated. They’re fumbling to learn the new tool and still leaning on a legacy process.
This is a human element of the story that may not have been revealed through data alone. But after speaking with the people behind the numbers, our CEO knows who to work with in order to reverse the trajectory.
Identify and Address Conflict
All heroes in a story face conflict. Having a hero to root for makes a tale engaging. Heroes typically face some classic encounters: discord with another character, clashes with nature, tension with a social group, war within themselves, and struggles with change.
In a business context, heroes can be in conflict with a system (as some of the sales team has been with the new software in our scenario), conflict with another person (a change in leadership could be causing issues within the organization), or conflict with themselves (maybe they’re struggling with burnout or didn’t take the training they were asked to).
By identifying the type of conflict people are facing, a leader gets a clearer view of how to communicate information that will help the hero get unstuck.
Share Context
Current data points, though significant, don’t exist in a vacuum. Data collected over time creates a bigger picture of victories and defeats. Sharing context can help leaders motivate their organizations and move their heroes forward and on to victory, especially after a defeat.
In the sample scenario, if the CEO were to share just the most recent data, her team might not feel that they can recover the lost sales to date. Seeing a 30% decrease could demoralize them. But if the CEO zooms out a little and looks at a longer time frame, she might discover that sales bounced back after a similar decline five years earlier.
Sharing the details about how the sales team recovered in the past demonstrates to them that if they could make a turnaround then, they can certainly do it again.
We should never let our data speak for itself. With big data as pervasive as it is today, it is easily classified as noise, and that’s especially true when there is no real context to support it. Productive people help data move in a desirable direction. In every shocking statistic, hockey-stick growth curve, or line chart that hits the x-axis like a lead balloon, there’s a heroic story waiting to be revealed.
Learning to curate and tell stories within an organization can become a kind of superpower for a leader. By humanizing the data, leaders bring a greater understanding to the problems that data initially reveals. When they take the time to speak with the data story’s characters, get to know the hero-in-waiting’s fears and motivations, address the conflict that the hero is facing, and put the data challenge into an appropriate context, leaders develop a deeper, more human connection to their opportunities for moving forward.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Nancy Duarte (@nancyduarte) is CEO of Duarte Inc., a communications firm in Silicon Valley and New York. She’s the author of DataStory: Explain Data and Inspire Action Through Story (Ideapress Publishing, 2019).
“The art of conversation is the art of hearing as well as of being heard”
We must have all played this game at some point. Maybe, when we were children. Or maybe, as adults. Everyone, at some point, has taken part in ‘team-building’ exercises or activities in a corporate training workshop. One such exercise involves passing a message along a line of people all the way to the end and then seeing how the original message changes as it moves from receiver to receiver. It’s an amusing and interesting game. It’s intriguing because more often than not, the last person gets an almost entirely different version of the original message! Such a simple game, which highlights the importance of communication and active listening.
As children, speaking is one of the first skills we develop — a developmental milestone that is usually the cause of great celebration. But there doesn’t seem to be a developmental milestone for listening. We are taught to speak, but we aren’t taught to listen. We learn how to debate and make a speech, but we aren’t taught how to listen to that debate or speech. But listening is just as important a skill and one that just gets lost in the hubris of life. To me, listening is the biggest gift you can give anyone — a precious act of sharing our time solely for the understanding of another. When you think that way, listening becomes an exploration, a journey into the tangled web of relationship-building, and its true gift is selflessness.
So, that brings me to these questions:
When was the last time you were truly listened to? How did that make you feel? Or when was the last time you truly listened to another?
For most of us, I am guessing the answer may be “not often enough.” Despite knowing the importance of listening, we somehow overlook its importance as we move through the schedule of our busy days. Yet because it’s in listening that the richness of communication gathers its strength, this should be a daily priority.
Aspects of listening
There are two aspects of listening: The one who is listening and the one who is speaking.
Both aspects are critical. It’s like a finely choreographed dance, an involved exchange of thoughts and ideas that enrich each conversation.
When we want someone to listen, we might have already made up our mind on a topic, but we want to reaffirm this from the other’s perspective. Sometimes, we keep regurgitating the same point because we can’t come to an answer and we hope the listening person might provide us with a direction. Evaluating what the speaker wants from us is important to be a good listener.
At times, we want someone to affirm what we are doing or acknowledge what we feel. We want someone to respect and embrace our thoughts. Often, all we want is to be validated.
A listener’s role gets compromised by their emotions. As a listener, you might mentally turn off when we don’t agree. Our emotions become filters that block our ability to have a dialog or give a thoughtful or measured response. Then it most definitely stops being a conversation or helpful to the speaker. It merely becomes a tug of opinions! The act of listening just deteriorates to the act of making one’s point.
So, how can we be heard? As a speaker, what can we do? Likewise, as a listener, how can we be effective? How can we offer the gift of listening?
When we consider the edginess of living, of balancing our thoughts and opinions and our desire to express them, we immediately understand the many complex layers to listening.
Our life is defined by a mesh of four key areas: Family, professional or work, friends or our social network, and our interactions with strangers. We move around in these circles in a constant interplay of conversation, and listening is at the heart of all these conversations, connecting us through all these relations.
Now, picture in your mind a famous, exceptional leader. Almost immediately, one of the first images that may come up is of that leader in the context of talking, of giving an inspirational speech, perhaps. A wonderful leader is one who communicates well not just through speech but through the powerful act of listening as well.
The best leaders are strategic and intuitive listeners.
One of the facets of Nelson Mandela’s leadership was his ability and willingness to listen. The South African rugby team, popularly known as the Springboks, recently won the World Cup, drawing frenzied celebrations across the nation.
But rewind the tape a little. It was back in 1995 that Mandela delivered what was one of the most symbolic and inspirational gestures in modern history when he wore a green Springbok shirt to meet and greet the mostly all-white rugby team. In one stroke, he laid the seeds of unifying a nation that had been torn by apartheid and deep fissures of hate. He listened to the heartbeat of his country and defied tradition to carve a new path for South Africa. A powerful example of listening leadership in action.
That kind of listening can be replicated in the corporate world too. In the organizational setup, great leaders are always learning to listen. They listen to their customers, competitors, peers, critics, and subordinates. They ask questions and elicit feedback.
Learning to listen better
We all can’t become better listeners overnight, but we can take small steps toward achieving that goal. The ability to listen doesn’t depend on intelligence. But to be good listeners, we can apply certain skills acquired through training or experience. Some small resolutions that we can immediately implement:
Give undivided attention: It’s tempting to multi-task, but authentic listening is an act of concentrated focus. Put away the smartphone or the laptop and give the other person your complete attention, at least for the allocated time. For any meetings, I rarely take my phone. Whether it is 15 min or 50 min, once I have agreed to the meeting, that person deserves my undivided time.
Be a trampoline: Good listening is about absorbing with intent what the other person is saying, but it doesn’t stop at that. It involves providing the speaker with a new perspective — a good listener is like a trampoline, always directing the energy of the conversation forward.
Listen to listen and not respond: Sometimes, listening just becomes a reactive activity. We think of our response even while the person is talking! But listening becomes an inherently more compassionate action if we pause and choose to respond, putting ourselves in that person’s place instead of reacting. This kind of listening validates people, connects us to them, and provides meaning.
These are small steps, but with practice, we can build lasting connections that bind us to the people we meet at work or in our personal life.
True listening, at its core, is about using our heart and empathy in ways that also connect us with our self.
The art of listening may be floundering in these days of reducing attention spans. But this is a precious life skill that needs to be honed because it’s the one skill that can help us treasure the finite time and relationships we have, be it professional or personal.
Let me know how you listen and how you make yourself heard.
Sometimes clients don’t fully understand, make full use of or give credit to the value added by communications pros. Yet, these individuals work under intense time or performance pressure, a reason why their positions are ranked as among the most stressful jobs. This work can be a balancing act, weighing big-picture and micro decisions, orchestrating operations across teams of many roles and levels.
Yet communications work can be very satisfying. As I’ve watched communications pros at work over the years, I’ve noticed that something more among the real greats. For them, it’s more than a transactional business.
There's a deeper way that these people learn and connect.
They have a real curiosity about life, which results in their leaving a real impact even on the days when the going gets tough. In thinking about the qualities of seriously effective communications people who’ve inspired me, here are a few key points below:
1. Studying people.
Everything in the communications field hinges on understanding how people think and work.
I’ve noticed that the best communications pros are able to “get under the skin” of their target audiences and really relate to their story, their needs. How do they make decisions? What are their aspirations, pains, unrequited goals?
Look at a target audience. Think about the work of these individuals, their day-to-day hopes and frustrations, the things they wish for while driving to work and what they try to make sense of as they drive home.
With closed eyes, imagine being the audience. Or speak to some members of the ideal audience. Ask lots of questions and really learn from their answers. Become a student of people and build an understanding that leads to having a real communications impact.
2. Understanding stories.
Crafting stories is an art form for top communicators. So often people forget that what seems like a whole book is actually just a chapter, part of a longer-term vision being built. Good authors often have the gift of seeing chapters as whole stories, making them complete while knowing they’re only part of a larger arc.
Understanding how stories work -- and how the human mind responds to them -- is the craftt of top communications professionals. Looking for classic heroes, villains, victims and other archetypes, to the structure of timeless human drama and narrative structure will allow for seeing the world -- and work -- in new ways.
3. Mastering the counterpoint.
I’ve often heard people praise excellent communications partners by saying, “She helps me see the big picture” or “He gets me out of my comfort zone.” A strong devil’s advocate can push others into deeper understanding and prepare them to address unexpected alternatives to the way they see things.
This takes finesse: The idea is to help broaden and strengthen a point of view and not necessarily to change it.
Practice thought tennis. Be the person who makes other people smarter by helping them sharpen their thoughts and expand their view.
Come up with questions (“What would your competition say?” or “What if that never happened?”) that artfully guide people out of their comfort zone. This will elevate the potential impact.
4. Zooming out. Zooming in.
Communications professionals who can immerse themselves in the bigger picture see a whole different view than those on the ground -- and that’s a huge value when it comes to mapping the right path.
Be the thought partner who can go way up to the drone’s eye view. Look at a situation as part of a bigger picture than someone close to it normally would, mapping it out to a bigger landscape. It’s hard to zoom out while being right in the thick of a situation.
5. Geeking out.
Those who skim the surface don't do enough to excel.
In helping people grasp something, be curious enough to understand it. Yes, it takes work to really understand, but do that by researching or always asking questions, digging deeper, learning more. Collect the dots that ultimately allow for connecting them (the more dots, the more connections). And that’s key to excellence in communications.
6. Venturing out.
Communications isn’t a desk job. Communications pros spend a lot of time on the phone and keyboards. But at the end of the day that’s not where it really happens. Being relevant, connecting with others, developing a sense of what’s really happening -- all of that happens best when someone is out in the real world.
Yes, it can be hard to break free, especially in client-driven work. But the best communications people I’ve known have taken lessons from sports, art and the outdoors and inspiring leaders. They try new things, ask new questions and always keep expanding their comfort zone. I like how Steve Jobs talked about it, somewhat irreverently.
7. Earning trust.
Communications pros earn trust when they're informed (studying people, geeking out, getting out), have a ready tool kit of knowledge and experience (understanding stories, zooming out), have the courage to be honest (mastering the counterpoint) and embody the integrity.
Develop these skills and rise as that go-to person who truly creates an impact at work -- and it's possible to gain a lot of satisfaction to boot.
Launched in 2008 by Brian Solis and JESS3, The Conversation Prism is a visual map of the social media landscape. It’s an ongoing study in digital ethnography that tracks dominant and promising social networks and organizes them by how they’re used in everyday life. Social media has democratized information and shifted the structures of influence. The last update to The Conversation Prism was in 2013.
YOUR AUDIENCE CAN USE IT TO:
Create conversations about social media and explain that it goes beyond Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Brainstorm new channels and ways to benefit from social media.
Use it as a tool to create content.
Study the landscape as you plan your next social media strategy.
Show your expertise and that social media is not something that should be ignored.
I’m excited to interview my wonderful friend Erica Dhawan. Erica is the Founder & CEO of Cotential and the world’s authority on Connectional Intelligence. Named by Thinkers50 as “The Oprah of Management Ideas”, Erica is featured as one of the emerging management thinkers most likely to shape the future of business. She’s also one of the Marshall Goldsmith 100 Coaches. In this week’s interview, Erica is going to share with us the three types of Connectors as she defines them in her book, Get Big Things Done: The Power of Connectional Intelligence. Below is an excerpt from our interview.
Marshall: I’m here with Erica Dhawan, one of the great thinkers of our time and one of the 50 top leaders of the future in terms of influencing thought around the world. Erica, I love the work you are doing in Connectional Intelligence. You identify three types of Connectional Intelligence, or Connectors, can you explain that?
Erica: Absolutely! Ten years ago, Malcolm Gladwell coined this concept of a connector as one of the three types of people that create the rise of social epidemics. This idea revolutionized teams around the world and how we build this connector skillset at work.
In today’s era, we’re not just connected, though, we’re overconnected. The average amount of time we spend on email and online meetings is growing exponentially. What I’ve found in my research is that in today’s world, it’s not about being a connector. It’s about how we connect intelligently with our resources.
What I’ve found is that there are three types of connectors you need to lead dream teams today.
The first type of connector is a thinker. Thinkers are great at connecting around ideas. They know how to bring together different ideas. They have a lot of curiosity and courage to think in new ways.
The second type of connector is the enabler. Enablers are the awesome community builders. They know how to bring together all the right people. They are more of your traditional networking types.
The third type of connector is the executor. These are the people who are great at mobilizing.
So, think about it: once you have an idea (thinker), you get the right people (enabler), and you mobilize and turn it into action (executor). And, it’s not about being the best at all of these yourself, it’s about designing a team that leverages your style as a leader.
One of my favorite examples of this is from a woman named Jeannie Peeper. When Jeannie was four, she was diagnosed with a very rare disease called FOP. She spent 20 years going from doctor to doctor trying to diagnose this illness. She finally met a doctor who had seen 18 patients with the disease, and she decided not just to be treated by the doctor, but to reach out.
Jeannie is an enabler. She reached out to every single patient and created the first ever knowledge network for patients with the disease. Today, the network is teaching doctors, medical researchers, and university professionals how to diagnose this illness, because Jeannie understood her style and created a network of people with different skills to address FOB.
What I recommend is that everyone better understand their own style and be mindful of tapping into the diversity of their network and skills that are different than theirs as they are building teams to get big things done.
Marshall: I love what you are doing! Let me give you my personal reflection. I see myself as a thinker and enabler, but not much of an executor. I don’t like to manage anything. I have only two problems with management – one is I have not ability, and the second is that I have even less motivation. The key is to find people who are great at what I’m not great at. I love your model because you don’t have to be good at everything, just know what you are good at, what you do like doing, and then find others who compliment your skills.
Erica: Exactly. Knowing how to find the answer, how to find the resources, is more important than having them yourself. And, that’s really the quotient in today’s world. It’s being that dot connector instead of thinking we’re going to be knowledgeable about everything.
This classic guide to organizational change management best practices has been updated for the current business environment. To read the newest article, click here. Or, to watch a related video, click on the play button above.
Way back when (pick your date), senior executives in large companies had a simple goal for themselves and their organizations: stability. Shareholders wanted little more than predictable earnings growth. Because so many markets were either closed or undeveloped, leaders could deliver on those expectations through annual exercises that offered only modest modifications to the strategic plan. Prices stayed in check; people stayed in their jobs; life was good.
Market transparency, labor mobility, global capital flows, and instantaneous communications have blown that comfortable scenario to smithereens. In most industries — and in almost all companies, from giants on down — heightened global competition has concentrated management’s collective mind on something that, in the past, it happily avoided: change. Successful companies, as Harvard Business School professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter tolds+b in 1999, develop “a culture that just keeps moving all the time.”
This presents most senior executives with an unfamiliar challenge. In major transformations of large enterprises, they and their advisors conventionally focus their attention on devising the best strategic and tactical plans. But to succeed, they also must have an intimate understanding of the human side of change management — the alignment of the company’s culture, values, people, and behaviors — to encourage the desired results. Plans themselves do not capture value; value is realized only through the sustained, collective actions of the thousands — perhaps the tens of thousands — of employees who are responsible for designing, executing, and living with the changed environment.
Long-term structural transformation has four characteristics: scale (the change affects all or most of the organization), magnitude (it involves significant alterations of the status quo), duration (it lasts for months, if not years), and strategic importance. Yet companies will reap the rewards only when change occurs at the level of the individual employee.
Many senior executives know this and worry about it. When asked what keeps them up at night, CEOs involved in transformation often say they are concerned about how the work force will react, how they can get their team to work together, and how they will be able to lead their people. They also worry about retaining their company’s unique values and sense of identity and about creating a culture of commitment and performance. Leadership teams that fail to plan for the human side of change often find themselves wondering why their best-laid plans have gone awry.
No single methodology fits every company, but there is a set of practices, tools, and techniques that can be adapted to a variety of situations. What follows is a “Top 10” list of guiding principles for change management. Using these as a systematic, comprehensive framework, executives can understand what to expect, how to manage their own personal change, and how to engage the entire organization in the process.
1. Address the “human side” systematically. Any significant transformation creates “people issues.” New leaders will be asked to step up, jobs will be changed, new skills and capabilities must be developed, and employees will be uncertain and resistant. Dealing with these issues on a reactive, case-by-case basis puts speed, morale, and results at risk. A formal approach for managing change — beginning with the leadership team and then engaging key stakeholders and leaders — should be developed early, and adapted often as change moves through the organization. This demands as much data collection and analysis, planning, and implementation discipline as does a redesign of strategy, systems, or processes. The change-management approach should be fully integrated into program design and decision making, both informing and enabling strategic direction. It should be based on a realistic assessment of the organization’s history, readiness, and capacity to change.
2. Start at the top. Because change is inherently unsettling for people at all levels of an organization, when it is on the horizon, all eyes will turn to the CEO and the leadership team for strength, support, and direction. The leaders themselves must embrace the new approaches first, both to challenge and to motivate the rest of the institution. They must speak with one voice and model the desired behaviors. The executive team also needs to understand that, although its public face may be one of unity, it, too, is composed of individuals who are going through stressful times and need to be supported.
Executive teams that work well together are best positioned for success. They are aligned and committed to the direction of change, understand the culture and behaviors the changes intend to introduce, and can model those changes themselves. At one large transportation company, the senior team rolled out an initiative to improve the efficiency and performance of its corporate and field staff before addressing change issues at the officer level. The initiative realized initial cost savings but stalled as employees began to question the leadership team’s vision and commitment. Only after the leadership team went through the process of aligning and committing to the change initiative was the work force able to deliver downstream results.
3. Involve every layer. As transformation programs progress from defining strategy and setting targets to design and implementation, they affect different levels of the organization. Change efforts must include plans for identifying leaders throughout the company and pushing responsibility for design and implementation down, so that change “cascades” through the organization. At each layer of the organization, the leaders who are identified and trained must be aligned to the company’s vision, equipped to execute their specific mission, and motivated to make change happen.
A major multiline insurer with consistently flat earnings decided to change performance and behavior in preparation for going public. The company followed this “cascading leadership” methodology, training and supporting teams at each stage. First, 10 officers set the strategy, vision, and targets. Next, more than 60 senior executives and managers designed the core of the change initiative. Then 500 leaders from the field drove implementation. The structure remained in place throughout the change program, which doubled the company’s earnings far ahead of schedule. This approach is also a superb way for a company to identify its next generation of leadership.
4. Make the formal case. Individuals are inherently rational and will question to what extent change is needed, whether the company is headed in the right direction, and whether they want to commit personally to making change happen. They will look to the leadership for answers. The articulation of a formal case for change and the creation of a written vision statement are invaluable opportunities to create or compel leadership-team alignment.
Three steps should be followed in developing the case: First, confront reality and articulate a convincing need for change. Second, demonstrate faith that the company has a viable future and the leadership to get there. Finally, provide a road map to guide behavior and decision making. Leaders must then customize this message for various internal audiences, describing the pending change in terms that matter to the individuals.
A consumer packaged-goods company experiencing years of steadily declining earnings determined that it needed to significantly restructure its operations — instituting, among other things, a 30 percent work force reduction — to remain competitive. In a series of offsite meetings, the executive team built a brutally honest business case that downsizing was the only way to keep the business viable, and drew on the company’s proud heritage to craft a compelling vision to lead the company forward. By confronting reality and helping employees understand the necessity for change, leaders were able to motivate the organization to follow the new direction in the midst of the largest downsizing in the company’s history. Instead of being shell-shocked and demoralized, those who stayed felt a renewed resolve to help the enterprise advance.
5. Create ownership. Leaders of large change programs must overperform during the transformation and be the zealots who create a critical mass among the work force in favor of change. This requires more than mere buy-in or passive agreement that the direction of change is acceptable. It demands ownership by leaders willing to accept responsibility for making change happen in all of the areas they influence or control. Ownership is often best created by involving people in identifying problems and crafting solutions. It is reinforced by incentives and rewards. These can be tangible (for example, financial compensation) or psychological (for example, camaraderie and a sense of shared destiny).
At a large health-care organization that was moving to a shared-services model for administrative support, the first department to create detailed designs for the new organization was human resources. Its personnel worked with advisors in cross-functional teams for more than six months. But as the designs were being finalized, top departmental executives began to resist the move to implementation. While agreeing that the work was top-notch, the executives realized they hadn’t invested enough individual time in the design process to feel the ownership required to begin implementation. On the basis of their feedback, the process was modified to include a “deep dive.” The departmental executives worked with the design teams to learn more, and get further exposure to changes that would occur. This was the turning point; the transition then happened quickly. It also created a forum for top executives to work as a team, creating a sense of alignment and unity that the group hadn’t felt before.
6. Communicate the message. Too often, change leaders make the mistake of believing that others understand the issues, feel the need to change, and see the new direction as clearly as they do. The best change programs reinforce core messages through regular, timely advice that is both inspirational and practicable. Communications flow in from the bottom and out from the top, and are targeted to provide employees the right information at the right time and to solicit their input and feedback. Often this will require overcommunication through multiple, redundant channels.
In the late 1990s, the commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service, Charles O. Rossotti, had a vision: The IRS could treat taxpayers as customers and turn a feared bureaucracy into a world-class service organization. Getting more than 100,000 employees to think and act differently required more than just systems redesign and process change. IRS leadership designed and executed an ambitious communications program including daily voice mails from the commissioner and his top staff, training sessions, videotapes, newsletters, and town hall meetings that continued through the transformation. Timely, constant, practical communication was at the heart of the program, which brought the IRS’s customer ratings from the lowest in various surveys to its current ranking above the likes of McDonald’s and most airlines.
7. Assess the cultural landscape. Successful change programs pick up speed and intensity as they cascade down, making it critically important that leaders understand and account for culture and behaviors at each level of the organization. Companies often make the mistake of assessing culture either too late or not at all. Thorough cultural diagnostics can assess organizational readiness to change, bring major problems to the surface, identify conflicts, and define factors that can recognize and influence sources of leadership and resistance. These diagnostics identify the core values, beliefs, behaviors, and perceptions that must be taken into account for successful change to occur. They serve as the common baseline for designing essential change elements, such as the new corporate vision, and building the infrastructure and programs needed to drive change.
8. Address culture explicitly. Once the culture is understood, it should be addressed as thoroughly as any other area in a change program. Leaders should be explicit about the culture and underlying behaviors that will best support the new way of doing business, and find opportunities to model and reward those behaviors. This requires developing a baseline, defining an explicit end-state or desired culture, and devising detailed plans to make the transition.
Company culture is an amalgam of shared history, explicit values and beliefs, and common attitudes and behaviors. Change programs can involve creating a culture (in new companies or those built through multiple acquisitions), combining cultures (in mergers or acquisitions of large companies), or reinforcing cultures (in, say, long-established consumer goods or manufacturing companies). Understanding that all companies have a cultural center — the locus of thought, activity, influence, or personal identification — is often an effective way to jump-start culture change.
A consumer goods company with a suite of premium brands determined that business realities demanded a greater focus on profitability and bottom-line accountability. In addition to redesigning metrics and incentives, it developed a plan to systematically change the company’s culture, beginning with marketing, the company’s historical center. It brought the marketing staff into the process early to create enthusiasts for the new philosophy who adapted marketing campaigns, spending plans, and incentive programs to be more accountable. Seeing these culture leaders grab onto the new program, the rest of the company quickly fell in line.
9. Prepare for the unexpected. No change program goes completely according to plan. People react in unexpected ways; areas of anticipated resistance fall away; and the external environment shifts. Effectively managing change requires continual reassessment of its impact and the organization’s willingness and ability to adopt the next wave of transformation. Fed by real data from the field and supported by information and solid decision-making processes, change leaders can then make the adjustments necessary to maintain momentum and drive results.
A leading U.S. health-care company was facing competitive and financial pressures from its inability to react to changes in the marketplace. A diagnosis revealed shortcomings in its organizational structure and governance, and the company decided to implement a new operating model. In the midst of detailed design, a new CEO and leadership team took over. The new team was initially skeptical, but was ultimately convinced that a solid case for change, grounded in facts and supported by the organization at large, existed. Some adjustments were made to the speed and sequence of implementation, but the fundamentals of the new operating model remained unchanged.
10. Speak to the individual. Change is both an institutional journey and a very personal one. People spend many hours each week at work; many think of their colleagues as a second family. Individuals (or teams of individuals) need to know how their work will change, what is expected of them during and after the change program, how they will be measured, and what success or failure will mean for them and those around them. Team leaders should be as honest and explicit as possible. People will react to what they see and hear around them, and need to be involved in the change process. Highly visible rewards, such as promotion, recognition, and bonuses, should be provided as dramatic reinforcement for embracing change. Sanction or removal of people standing in the way of change will reinforce the institution’s commitment.
Most leaders contemplating change know that people matter. It is all too tempting, however, to dwell on the plans and processes, which don’t talk back and don’t respond emotionally, rather than face up to the more difficult and more critical human issues. But mastering the “soft” side of change management needn’t be a mystery.
Author Profiles:
John Jones is a vice president with Booz Allen Hamilton in New York. Mr. Jones is a specialist in organization design, process reengineering, and change management.
DeAnne Aguirre (deanne.aguirre@strategyand.us.pwc.com) is an advisor to executives on organizational topics for Strategy&, PwC's strategy consulting business, and a principal with PwC US. Based in San Francisco, she specializes in culture, leadership, talent effectiveness, and organizational change management.
Matthew Calderone is a senior associate with Booz Allen Hamilton in the New York Office. He specializes in organization transformation, people issues, and change management.
