Our Blog: "The LAST Word on Change"

The ONE Gift for Change Leaders this Season!

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‘Tis the Season, and nothing gives more than the GIFT of TIME!  Do your change leaders fear time, use time as a weapon, or post it as a favored alibi?  Every day I’m coaching change leaders, the same thing features somewhere in their analysis of their greatest challenges—TIME.  You can’t grant them a 25^th hour in each day, but you CAN make time their friend and make a huge difference in their ability to overcome the trap of administering change like a “project” or program and enable them demonstrate true leadership.

A recent blog post on HBR, one of their most popular, illustrated 6 steps for helping your team become “Excellent.”  The guidance there (see link @ bottom) is particularly helpful for Change Leaders—especially the fourth of six points:

“4. Create and protect periods of uninterrupted focus. Don't demand instant responses from your people all day long. Interruptions fracture their attention, and absorbed focus is a prerequisite to high quality work, especially on the most challenging tasks. Stop measuring your people by how many hours they work, and assess them instead based on the value they produce.”  (Tony Schwartz)

So…how do you make time their friend?

Help them “compartmentalize” their time and dedicate time to doing those things that allow them to be at their best (e.g., anticipating, responding to feedback, modeling stated values like adaptivity, helping h/her team grow into competence and confidence, etc.).   In a world where the Change Leader is struggling to balance overwhelming and competing demands on h/her time, granting this blessing pays more dividends than any amount of coaching, providing more resources, project management tools, or knocking down of obstacles.

Learn more about enabling Change Leader success by previewing our new book:

http://www.lastwordonchange.com/our-new-book-on-change-management

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Link to HBR post on how leaders can help their teams become excellent:  http://blogs.hbr.org/schwartz/2010/11/six-ways-leaders-can-fuel-exce.html