Tip of the Spear Ventures

Venture Capital | Advisory

change

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I recently participated in a roundtable discussion on the topic of change leadership, and subsequently was interviewed about the Javelin Institute’s new program, “The BEST Leader in 30 Days!” (This program brings you 30 daily activities that’s recognized through research validation to equip you to be the BEST Leader possible… Not a Good Leader, or even a Better Leader… the BEST Leader!) If you’re interested in the program, you can email me at info@javelininstitute.org for more information. Here’s Part I of the interview, slightly edited for clarity and brevity:

INTERVIEWER: Sam, you’ve not only led change as a leader yourself, but also helped other leaders with change. Tell us a little bit about how in general you think about change leadership, and how you apply that in the businesses you work in/with?

SAM PALAZZOLO: Change leadership can be a complicated component of business success. Do it right, and the change leadership landscape will have plenty claiming stake in the successful outcome. Do change leadership wrong, and you’ll be looked at as sole proprietor responsible for the failure. I see many leaders who enter into situations of change without really having the skills or coaching to know exactly how to successfully change. The biggest component of change leadership to me is rooted in the leader. Specifically, does the leader have the perspective required to gather themselves from an emotional intelligence perspective. It’s very much an EQ moment versus an IQ one!

In my 2018 book, titled “Leading at the Tip of the Spear: The Leader” I examined how you can better lead others by leading yourself. As a matter of fact, my research concludes that if you can’t lead yourself, the likelihood of you successfully leading others ranges from slim to none. One of the insights that allows for successful change leadership is to have insight into where you want to go (Vision) and what change will be required in order to arrive at that destination. It’s easy for leaders to become impatient when leading change because while they can not only see where they want to go, but how they want to get there, they forget to share and lead others at a pace at which they can understand and withstand. In other words, those you’re leading need to not only understand/comprehend where they are going, but perhaps more importantly, what their role will be in getting there across a possible specific time interval.

INTERVIEWER: So, with change leadership in mind, how do you coach people?

SAM PALAZZOLO: At its simplest levels, to have success in change leadership, it’s important for leaders to know where they are, where they are going, and how it is that they are going to get there. Knowing these three aspects allows leaders to architect a plan for change. This architectural blue print will allow leaders to create a plan for change. This blue print is important because it provides stakeholders with a clear understanding of what is being built (Where they are going and how they will get there).

Having specialized in change leadership for the past two-decades, I know that change involves a series of phases that both leader and stakeholders go through. There will be successes, equanimity, and failures along the way. As a student of the J-Curve methodology, I learned that initial failure is typical and with proper corrections success can/will be achieved. Allowing leaders to see this realistic change leadership landscape prior to experiencing change provides the proper perspective. The proper corrections typically, but not always, come from communication gathered from direct-frontline associates affected by the change. Listening to their feedback provides leaders with context from which they can assess situations clearly for proper corrections. With this in mind, and it’s part of the “BEST Leader in 30 Days!” methodology, is conducting a daily reflection of your change leadership efforts/energies. Specifically, there are three questions that you’d want to ask yourself:

  1. What did I do today to further the (change leadership) initiative?
  2. What did I not do today to further the (change leadership) initiative?
  3. What will I do tomorrow to further the (change leadership) initiative?

INTERVIEWER: What are some of the mistakes you see leadership making in their attempts to lead? Specifically, what are the most common mistakes when leading change?

SAM PALAZZOLO: I’ve seen just about every type of mistake be made when it comes to change leadership. Typically, the mistakes cluster around the basic business building blocks of people, processes, technology, and/or financials. All too often leaders will fail to get involved those they expect to go through the change (so that they have input into what will happen on the way towards where the leader desires to go).

I’ve also seen leaders fail in change leadership when they put a “spin” on change. One leader, who’ll remain nameless, used to replace the word change with innovation. His reasoning for doing so was because he had read a study that showed people dislike change. While the study might be correct, changing the namesake doesn’t increase the odds of success. Remember, a duck is still a duck!

At a gym I worked-out in they had a huge sign on the wall that read:

“Until the pain associated with staying the same is greater than the pain associated with change, you will not do anything different.”

Think about that for a moment… If we associate pain with change and pleasure with staying the same, then you’ve got to be in a bad spot to want to change! Afterall, staying the same should be painless. But once staying the same is more painful, you’ll desire relief/change.

INTERVIEWER: You’ve had an impressive career to date (I don’t think you’re done yet by a longshot either!) You’ve worked with a Fortune 1 organization and now you’re working as a venture capitalist, consultant and philanthropist. Are there any differences between leading change at large vs. small organizations and for profit vs. nonprofit ones?

SAM PALAZZOLO: Thank you for the complement… I hope my career continues to grow/change in directions I can’t visualize at the current time. With that said, and to answer your question – Yes, there are differences. While the problem types are very similar (Think people, processes, technology, and/or financials), the scale is simply larger in big companies. This is the same regardless of entity formation (profit vs. nonprofit).

However, there is one key difference that I see play itself out time and again. That difference is that in smaller organizations the leader can make the difference. Whereas in larger organizations, there is less of a leadership impact, but the need to have good leadership in place across the organization exists. Think about it, if the organization is small and the leader is great, successful change leadership is relatively straightforward. In larger organizations, there are many more leaders to coordinate similar future change leadership vision with, and as such each needs to be able to share that vision precisely/similarly with their teams. Same vision and different share lead to unsuccessful change leadership typically (a disaster!)

https://tipofthespearventures.com/2306-2/

Leadership Challenge – Is It Possible to Emerge From the Darkest Hell Healed and Restored?

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We recently participated in a leadership roundtable discussion.  The focus was on the many leadership challenge moments that leaders face running their organizations.  Whether the leader is in charge of a startup, with its many ups/downs associated with daily (sometimes hourly) survival or the leadership challenge of running an existing organization (sometimes no easy feat regardless of how long they’ve been in business!)  There were many topics considered for discussion:

  • What’s the best way to develop the strategic plan (and how to get that strategic plan implemented)?
  • Best practices when it comes to dealing with moments of change
  • How to ensure that all (both leaders and team members) have the same organizational vision through communication
  • Implementing recruiting strategies for A+ candidates (A version of the Top Grading methodology)
  • Ensuring that the organization continues to be agile/innovative
  • Creating a “High Potential” program for future organizational leaders

As you can tell, the topics were those most pressing to the leaders gathered.  Questions were asked/answered, and an overall tone of satisfaction permeated the meeting room. That tone though shifted abruptly when one of the leaders in attendance asked the following question:

“Here’s a leadership challenge for you… Is it possible to emerge from the darkest hell healed and restored?”

If you’ve read Malcom Gladwell’s recently released book, David & Goliath, then you know the story presented in Chapter 5 – Emil “Jay” Freireich. The story is of Dr. Freireich and his tumultuous search for a cancer cure for cancer. There is also presented in this chapter a theory regarding direct hits, near misses and overall misses (Think the London bombing that occurred during World War 2 . The theory being that those who received direct hits, as morbid as it sounds, don’t really count for “after bombing” feedback.  Those that achieved overall misses still laid in wait/fear for future bombings (a very small minority).  Finally, those that achieved near misses and lived to tell the tale found that they were not only resilient, but encouraged and grew in their resolve to overcome successfully future bombings!

With this knowledge in mind, we shared the story and similar story that those leaders who have experienced truly dark spaces (The ones they don’t tell you about in MBA school) often times have similar resiliency and resolve to overcome! The pressing leadership challenge therefore doesn’t really appear to present itself of much of a challenge at all (albeit those effected might tell a slightly different tale!)

What’s the Point?  So what’s the point? Can it be as simple as “that which does not kill us only makes us stronger!” Based on the research of Malcom Gladwell adn Dr. Freireich, we think that not only is there a high resiliency that would allow one to overcome obstacles but also succeed.

Leadership Challenge: Change Management Success Factors

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We see study after study talking about what are those magical three elements that are going to magically make your leadership challenge of change initiatives successful.  What are those top three things that could be considered Change Management Success Factors? In our minds, they are:

  1. Leaders – Leaders sponsor and champion the change effort. Leaders are behind change management publicly.  Leaders are behind the change initiative in their communications, in their actions and in their behaviors. Leaders are out in front championing the change.
  2. Vision – A clear and compelling vision and case for change, and a strong communication plan in place behind that change management vision. People anymore are not like sheep going off to do their job.  People today are interested in knowing that what they do is in service of the greater good of the company. That means that in any change management initiative, a leader is going to have to stand up and have a clear and compelling case for who are we, what are we about, and why are we doing this.
  3. Engagement – So if you have leaders standing up and saying “This is why we’re doing this… This is what we’re doing… This is how you can be a part of this journey” this will invite people to come and be a part of the change.

That engagement becomes the platform, along with leadership alignment and the clear case for change that really becomes the platform for making change stick at the end of the day. When it’s all said and done, change that sticks and achieves desired results is what you should be after (No magic there, right?)

Are Your Leadership Beliefs Limiting Your Success?

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We had an executive coaching conversation with a client recently.  The leader in the conversation was a highly successful 30-something that grew his Inc 500 organization from scratch, but was now in position to realize that his leadership beliefs were limiting growth.  He realized the following two business aspects were present now that he achieved lift-off for his organization:

  1.  PLATEAU – The organization wasn’t a startup anymore. He had successfully grown from thought/ideation, creation, implementation, launch pad to lift off, but now the organization had achieved a plateau.
  2. POTENTIAL – The organization (or a leader therein) had achieved growth, but he realized that they’d only achieved Point A results (When Point B is where they should be).

We asked several questions to him, with the majority revolving around “How will you push through that plateau and/or achieve full potential?”  That’s why we created Tip of the Spear’s Centered Executive Coaching programs for leaders just like him to solve exactly those challenges.

In our experience as Marshall Goldsmith Stakeholder Centered Coaches we’ve seen leaders behave in dramatically different ways, and several facets of leadership belief modification that have made Centered Executive Coaching so impactful for leaders and their organizations.

It’s a paradox for most leaders… What made them successful might be limiting them from achieving their full future potential. As Marshall Goldsmith said, “What got you here won’t get you there!” At the heart of this is a “core” leadership belief system which accounts for much of their success:

  • I am successful
  • I choose to succeed
  • I will succeed

At risk is something akin to implementing a change initiative… You might get worse before you get better! Most leaders are not willing to risk getting worse, and therefore continue to go to the well they know.

What’s the Point? The next time you’re not pushing through those plateaus, or achieving full potential your beliefs just might be limiting your success. How you modify those beliefs will spell the difference between future success and failure.

If you’d like to learn more about our Centered Executive Coaching programs, and how they can help you/your organization achieve results in less time contact us.