What’s on your radar

What’s up ahead? Can you see it? 

We check the weather to see what the forecast will be like: what’s predicted and how we might need to be prepared for it, to respond and adapt to what’s coming. 

I love the rain radar. It’s always changing. As showers or storms drift frame by frame, they change in nature and shape. 

The way they look now, where they are now ... it can change. 

You think it’s heading one way and then forces make it move and shift in a slightly different direction or speed. 

What do you see ahead... in this task, project, process, team or product? 

Do you have a hunch of what might or could happen? 

How might what you’re in now, change? 

Be ready for what’s ahead. And be prepared to adapt and change. 

To be able to roll with it, go with it, or be able to handle whatever the forecast - now that’s a great mindset. 

Chilling with a likelihood for change. 

Is it really a pivot or just catching up

As we adapt to new ways of thinking, working and living, the word ‘pivot’ has gained ’traction’ 😩 cliché alert - urgh!

Is it really a pivot or are we just catching up on what needed to be done some time ago? Did we see the need, test the tech and talk about it, only to have initial hopes swamped by "too hard, too complicated, too busy - don’t have time”?

To pivot is indeed to change, rotate, shift direction.

To catch up is to work quicker, to increase your pace so you are ...at pace.

If it’s a big shift, then it is. If it’s doing what we could have started a while ago, we’re catching up. Nothing wrong with that.

In catching up we learn, experiment, gain insight and feedback. We can accelerate, speed up, adapt rapidly. As Madeline Kahn‘s ‘Eunice’ in the classic film ‘What’s up Doc?’ says, ‘Don’t over-dramatise’. There’s no benefit in making what we’re doing even more dramatic than it already is.

Overwhelm, worry, and ‘I need to do better’ live there and the dangers of perfectionism can become painfully visible. We can still do meaningful, purposeful and impactful work without the added panic that we’re also in a dramatic pivot.

How might change ...change

For change leaders in organisations it’s a curious time, looking at the pace and scale of change in the world.

All of those times change leaders struggled to get changes approved, adopted or implemented as they were met with objections and resistance, denial or disagreement.

Now look at what we humans can do. There is evidence now, a kind of precedent that vast change can be made. And swiftly. Resources can be deployed, people can be coordinated and focus can be shifted to new ways of doing things.

Ok yes, some things are required via compliance or directives, but there is still much to see here. There are people to observe, new processes being implemented, new ways of doing things that were ‘too hard to’ previously. Look out for the adjustment, adaptation and the willingness to let go of perfect. There is collaboration and consensus in times when it’s needed ... and it’s happening swiftly.

If we can change like this, how then might change ... change?

How will change be led in the future? Now we’ve been stretched, will we be more willing to change ... or less? Do you lead change: How might change ... change?

We're doing what we thought we couldn't do

“We’re doing what we thought we couldn’t do” - said a frontline worker in an agency I was speaking with last week.

 When new - and different - ways of doing things are forced on us, we have to find ways to make it work. We are responding and solving, getting around obstacles and finding our way through and over things.

Our ingenuity and adaptability is high. Yes, we are doing what we thought we couldn’t do. In some instances, we are now doing what people were trying to have us do years ago. We are doing what people had proposed, requested, asked for and suggested ... many times in the past.

It’s happening in finance, in retail, in medical and health care, in education and training, in human resources, with boards and governance and in industries and sectors all over the world. We are doing many things we thought we could not do.

Let this encourage you to keep finding the things we are currently saying can’t be done... that we know can be. 

Map the steps

When you’re doing some new things with a team or project, it’s worth mapping out the steps so people get a sense of what’s going to happen.

This isn’t a table or list or spreadsheet - although they may hold some useful data about what needs to be done or supporting information that helps with decision making.

Sensemaking when things are unclear, unknown, uncertain or just new for people, requires us to do more than just write a few words, send a few emails or type a few messages.

All those words! Our brains are full already.

Just as a Google map shows us where we are and where we want to get to, we can use a map like that too. Include a few points like:

Here....

The path or steps to ...

There.

Add a few notes about what’s planned as you guide the team from one place... getting to that other place.

If you’ve got more of your team working remotely at the moment, don’t just rely on all the words or talking heads.

Show them a map they can keep referring back to ... later ... when they need to, when the words get lost and the talking heads are offline.