Failure. It’s not a four-letter word but it’s still a dirty word in many places.From this starting point, we could explore attitudes towards failure and the importance of psychological safety as a key cultural element.But we won’t.Instead, let’s explore why failure happens.In the September 18, 2018 edition of Forbes, Harvard professor Amy C. Edmonson provided an outline of why people fail. Let me interpret her ideas, ranked from negative to positive. People fail because of:Deviance – they intentionally choose to [...]

What is the critical factor indicating the organisation is ready for the change?This is a great question but before we delve into an answer, let’s stop for a moment and think about ‘the change’. The change (whatever it is) must be a response to a problem (either something is wrong, or there is an opportunity to grasp).  The change could be anything – new IT solutions, new markets, new business processes, etc.Whatever ‘the change’ is, it will probably succeed or [...]

On the Kubler-Ross ModelI have written elsewhere about the Kubler-Ross Model (KRM).I have nothing against the model, but I do have a problem with it when it’s used as a model of change. Unfortunately, it is often used that way in the commercial world, and often by change managers.I won’t go into a description of the model – check it out online if you are not familiar with it.However, I will give you some reasons why it should not be [...]

Whether a business survives and thrives depends on how creatively it adapts to future demands, not how well it has performed in the past. Adapting to an unknown and unpredictable future requires agility. Becoming more agile in how we think and work is the best preparation we can make right now for whatever the future brings. Where Competitive Advantage Comes FromTechnology doesn’t provide much competitive advantage anymore because the same technologies are accessible to most businesses. Real competitive advantage comes from adaptable people working with [...]

Getting to Know Agility What do we know about the strategic creation of agile organisations?In 2014, Schulling reported on a 25 year-long study into this question. Here are 6 insights from that study.Develop an inquiry focus. Don’t base decisions on assumed knowledge but foster an attitude of inquiry.Encourage diverse views. For most business issues, there is no one right answer. Seek multiple perspectives.Create a safe environment. If you want people to think and act in agile ways, they need to [...]

The true value of change fitness becomes apparent when you think of improvements in KPIs. Performance improvements can come from efficiency gains, or they can come from capacity gains. Building change fitness increases performance capacity. We have outlined this in our recent publication “Big Performer”.This of this for a moment. If you could improve your performance capacity by, say, 10% over the next 90 days, what impact on your KPIs would that produce? What would be the dollar value of [...]

The change fitness story Everything has a story. Here’s a quick peek at the change fitness story.About 20 years ago, one of The Change Gym’s founders, Dr Steve Barlow, worked in the NSW prison system delivering anger management coaching to maximum security inmates. He became interested in why rehabilitative programs worked better with some inmates than with others. Why would a program that was highly effective for one person be a total failure with another?The real question was something like [...]

How do you boost performance in your organisation? Do you use incentives to inspire people to perform better? Or perhaps you rely on performance reviews to provide feedback, maintain accountability, and set new targets.Sure, all these can have their place, but they also have their limits. Incentives don’t inspire everyone, and they can create a culture where people only perform if you give them special treats. Performance reviews can sometimes be harsh or not effective at all.There is nothing wrong [...]

What we do We help leaders deliver organisational change projects that are more successful, easier to achieve, with less risk, and at less cost.We do this by helping them build the change readiness of their organisation.This is achieved by focusing on 4 areas:increasing the individual change capacity of stakeholdersimproving the change leadership capabilities of the teamcreating a change-friendly culturealigning the policies, processes, and structures to support change Questions we help you answer How can we understand what change readiness is?How [...]