Driving Change: Does Your Company Learn Like a Network?

Does this sound like your organization?

Let me tell you a story: Jim's department has a new...

program/product/project/marketing slick/[insert workload here] 

....idea that they believe will drive tremendous value. They've met internally, researched the ROI, and presented to other groups in the organization. Everything seemed to be going great. Six months later, Jim's department has a new...

program/product/project/marketing slick/[insert workload here] 

....idea that they believe will drive tremendous value. They've met internally, researched the ROI, and presented to other groups in the organization. Everything seemed to be going great...WAIT! Didn't we already have that idea?

Too often good ideas seem to fizzle, only to resurface later with the team realizing no real progress was ever made. The truth is, ideas are cheap. The real challenge is adoption and too many organizations fall short in creating lasting change.

Why does this happen?

Change is hard! Not only are we creatures of habit, our memories are finite and often fleeting.

Let's think about the way your brain works. You are hit by thousands of sensory inputs at any given second. We've evolved to filter out distractions. To survive, our brain ignores information it decides isn't valuable. As a result, we forget, we dismiss, and we throw out a bunch completely. Not because those things are bad, but because we'd explode if we tried to continually process all of it.

Organizationally, we work the same way. Even when we identify something that seems valuable at one moment, more pressing needs arise, causing ideas outside our normal work streams to be shelved or forgotten. We tend to manage pain, not heal it.

How can we fix it?

It doesn't have to be this way. Let's consider some ways we can stop this cycle of spin, rinse, and repeat.

#1 Change the way you meet

Too often, meetings feel like a waste of time. Follow these steps to ensure you use meeting time wisely:

• Have a vision, not just an agenda—inspiration lasts. When we feel the story, we're more likely to remember and jump onboard.
• Use a shared digital notebook—I'm a fan of OneNote because meeting details can be captured, collaborated on, and shared with everyone to make sure we have one version of the truth.
• Set clear expectations on deadlines—don't just make assignments, set a deadline and follow up.

#2 Leverage the Network

Don't work in a silo, your company is full of resources to help an idea take root. Apps designed to help with transparency and collaboration already exist and your organization probably already has them. My team shares our ideas in a private company forum (Yammer) where other groups and teams can help us move ideas forward. Better yet, Yammer captures those ideas in a way that makes them easy to find in the future. It builds a knowledge base the whole organization can use. Don't use email to communicate your message; it will get lost and die.

#3 Find Champions

Who is the most passionate about your idea or plan? Identify them and empower them. Praise them publically for their devotion to the idea. You need
them to own the idea and run with it. The more champions you have, the more likely your idea will succeed.

#4 Develop a Roadmap

Once you've laid the essential pieces in place to launch an idea, map it out on paper. That might be a Gantt chart or a timeline. Did you know Microsoft Office has tons of templates for project tracking? It's really easy to start from a design someone else has already thought up. 

It's important to develop a roadmap with the right tools. For example, avoid creating a PowerPoint deck filled with poorly formatted tables with way too much information. The final product shouldn't be something scribbled on a whiteboard or a legal pad either.

When you need inspiration

If you've already had some awesome ideas that fizzled, or you need help finding new ones, let me offer some helpful technologies.

As I've already mentioned, Yammer is a great way to capture inspiration. Another really powerful piece of technology is a tool called Office Graph. What if your file explorer and your inbox learned what you cared about and started suggesting content for you to review? I'd love it if my machine could remove distractions and find new resources that it knows I want.

That's what Clutter and Delve (two new Office 365 features) do for you. Clutter identifies junk and hides it. Delve sees who you work with and what you work on, and finds the relevant stuff when you need it. If your company subscribes to Office 365, you should consider enabling these features. 

You can do it

Change is hard; lasting adoption is even harder. Don't give up if the change you want to implement doesn't take hold right away. These things take time. Good luck out there!

About the Author: Todd Kirk is an end-user advocate and trainer from BrainStorm, Inc. We want to change the way the world works.

Previous Posts: 

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