The afternoon began with a fascinating interview with Chip and Dan Heath, co-authors of Switch, discussing organizational change. Using the metaphor of a human riding an elephant (not exactly the most flattering leadership image!), the Heath brothers made some fascinating observations. Probably the most important theme running through the interview was solution focused therapeutic idea of "looking for what is working and going there." Instead of concentrating on areas of weakness, look for current areas of strength, searching for why those areas are successful. Transfer the discoveries to the weak areas, and, voila, much more successful elephant steering! They discussed Jerry Stirnen of Save The Children, frustrated with "whining about weaknesses," deemed the information he was receiving "TBU - True But Useless," tried instead to discover why some children thrived in poverty situations and some did not. Upon discovering those factors, he was able to transfer them to the rest of the children and make enormous changes in the lives of children. Fascinating! Check out the story here. They argued that good leaders must learn how to "reverse engineer successful changes" so we might be able to use those successes to attack other necessary changes.
Another fascinating component of the conversation was the Heath's belief that "big problems are only rarely solved by big solutions." They argued that big changes must be shrunk into the smallest components possible and attacked bite by bite. Very thought-provoking for someone passionate about the importance of the follower! The illustration used here was that of some kids in a South Dakota small town economics class who managed to save their town simply by encouraging everyone in town to spend just 10% more of their money locally. And it worked!
A third issue discussed was the idea of a growth mindset. Successful leaders are never satisfied with success. Like Tiger Woods improving his swing at the height of his game, we too must be constantly willing to look towards the future.
A final issue discussed were the differences between people problems and situational problems. Perhaps many of the people problems we think we have as leaders might actually be situational problems mostly unrelated to the people. Stressed people behave differently than people in relaxed situations. How can we change the situations that might result in behavioral change?
Another thoroughly thought provoking session!
