Leading Corporate Transformation

To lead organisations through significant change and transformation, you need broader and deeper thinking, and use more than emotion alone - so said Hans-Ulrich Maerki, former Chairman and General Manager of IBM in Europe.

He gave a presentation last week on how to lead transformative change.

He also referred to the book of Louise V Gerstner Jnr, former IBM Chairman and CEO : 'Who says elephants can't dance' which details how the fortunes of IBM were turned around. 

Above all he asked 'how closely are we living up to the values' of the organisation. 
 
My visualisation of his 20 minute presentation is this week's sip of information distilled from a presentation. 

Cough up that complexity furball

Go on ! *cough cough* Get it up... and out !

That furball of complexity that's lodged in your team's throat is disengaging, dull and not getting through to people across the business. 

But when you've got so much detailed information to get across to so many people - and you need to do it quickly, or you've lost them - it's no wonder we try for pages and pages and packs and packs and more and more... 

*cough*

I worked with a team recently, actually, four teams. They wondered how to present their four complex projects of work from the past months (and for some, years) of effort. 

How do you do that without losing some of the essence, the detail and depth that sits behind their key points?

These four visual storyboards did the trick!

*cough*

I created them on an ipad (using the app Brushes and my finger as a stylus). I have no artistic training by the way. It's about the thinking, not the drawing. The images were able to be printed out and laminated and 'spoken to' by the leaders of the projects. They could just as easily be projected on a screen.

Engaging, made-by-a-human, told-by-a-human and a sweet-as change from the hardcore digital stuff the leadership team had been pounded with up until now.

Now these visuals will go on a story tour around the business' offices and sites to share the message and the vision and so much more. 

• Sort through your thinking and your story.
• What does this audience really need to know?
• How can you deliver that in an engaging way? 
• And a final tip: you don't need a big-bucks agency to help you get closer to being a real human. 

 *cough*

Memo to guest speakers: organise your thinking

Yes, three cheers for a call to conference presenters to have a go at engaging the audience (participants!) and delivering their thinking without the use of PowerPoint.

On Twitter today, I happily retweeted @brown_note and @neil_killick when this was put out there, with a reference to agile conferences:

RT @neil_killick I call on #agile conferences to ban PowerPoint and equivalent. Let's see presenters really present and lead discussion.

Here's the next challenge then - given the Agile Australia conference is set for June, the sold out Scrum conference is next week, and the UX and LAST conferences are also bearing down in August, every speaker has the time to organise their thinking. 

Start now speakers! Get your thinking sorted out now! 

I believe visual agility skills are what's needed - visual skills where you can swiftly and clearly:

1. capture your thinking
2. convey information, and
3. collaborate with others

... using visuals.

What happens is that PowerPoint gets used to capture thinking. And then it's the tool that's used to convey information. (Not as good at collaboration is it?)

A great communicator, leader and conference speaker/presenter can use all three: 

1. Capture your own thinking about what your presentation and key message is;
2. Convey information during the presentation; and
3. Collaborate - get input from others in the session, engage and lead discussion. 

It's not for artistic types or creative folks; it's for normal people and thinking people whose job it is to think, communicate and work well with others. 

I'll be watching next week at the Scrum conference; and I'll be capturing using visuals on my ipad.

I so hope a session I've proposed for the Agile Australia conference gets up; no surprise it's on visual agility - I want to help Agile folks get more visual so they can help people in their teams - and right across the businesses they work with and in - to "get" what they're on about quickly, clearly, and in an engaging and captivating way.

The sooner you're understood, the sooner we can all get on with it. 

Reflect, Tune, Adjust - that's Agile

Several colleagues in my network are releasing manifestos - a declaration of their intentions or views or the philosophies behind their thinking and their business. 

Some of them are lists of statements, others are beautifully designed slides or photo images perfect for Pinterest!

My favourite manifesto is the Agile Manifesto and for those who work in the project or software development world, this may be well known to you. But for those who aren't living in project-land, Agile still has so much to offer.

Here's why...

• Reflect, tune and adjust
• Build projects around motivated individuals
• Changing requirements are welcome
• Early and continuous delivery...

These are the hallmarks of an innovative team, a capable leader and a collaborative group of folks who are open to what's going on. No matter what field you're in or what you're working on, whether it's your own business ideas, a new project or piece of work or a whole new career, adopting just some of the agile principles from the manifesto can give you a new take on some of your old, tired practices. 

The key points of the manifesto are visualised here. 

Look, think, let it marinate... how might you bring some of this agility to your current ways of working, thinking, collaborating and creating?

Stop starting. Start finishing.

I'm interested: how do you control and monitor what you're doing? What you're working on? What's next on the list?

In the office of one of my transport industry clients last week, I noticed again how all of their work areas have ... not coffee machines, but ... whiteboards. Offices have them, every other working area has them, and pod and desk areas have group whiteboards. 

But these are different to most I've seen before. Every whiteboard is structured, labelled with columns and full of information about 'what's going on'. Many of the boards have permanent lines, permanent marker headings with erasable or movable content on Post-it notes or cards. 

This business is proud of the visualisation they use. It helps them monitor what's on, what's coming and what's done and it is certainly a key reason why their performance is on the rise!

While visualisation might be an obvious must-do for a business in production, logistics or project management, it can also be a lesser-known but still powerful tool for small business, entrepreneurs and businesses going through change.

I'm loving Kanban : the visual process management approach that has its origins in Japan's just-in-time production methods. There are variations and applications of Kanban, so keep it simple for your team or business - or for the family!

The 'three bin' system of categorising work-in-progress (WIP) and workflow is a way to stop adding more things to the 'to do' list and start completing things. 

Try these three headings to start:

• To Do
• In Progress
• Done

And limit the numbers of tasks or work-in-progress to two or three items. The 'Stop starting. Start finishing' mantra of Lean and Kanban methods means you can't keep adding to the To Do list; you need to get some of the In Progress stuff done!

This truly helps you and the team visualise activity, performance and outcomes, and it answers the 'what's going on' question exceptionally well. Talk people through the board. Have a stand-up meeting at the board. Point to the board. Refer to the information on the board. 

A grand outcome I can 'see' is that collaboration, communication and buy-in is boosted, throughout what can be unsettling times of transformation and change.

This e-news : Done.