Leadership workshops were a frequent component of change projects I was involved in. These workshops contained some combination of sharing the compelling case for change, knowledge and skills training, and commitment building exercises.

The first change effort I was ever involved with was more than thirty-five years ago, when British Airways changed from being a nationalized industry to being a publicly traded company. Between 1984 and 1987 BA went from having the worst customer service in the industry to the best and being the least profitable airline to the most.

This project had a profound effect on me and my career and I have taken a lot of stick from colleagues over the years for how much I talk about it.  So if you know me and are tired of BA stories, or if this was before you were born or such ancient history you can’t see any relevance, I will understand if you bail out now.

British Airways had several different leadership workshops. This story concerns Managing People First (MPF), a one week residential workshop for the top 2000 people of the 30,000 who worked there. MPF ran Sunday at 4:00 PM to Friday 12:00 noon. Days were long. Participants had personal time at 7:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m., but evening large-group and small-group sessions often ran until 11:00 p.m. and sometimes later.

At MPF there were plenary sessions and small groups sessions. There were also change projects where the small groups chose to work together to plan a particular change of their choosing that would contribute to the overall effort. Each group presented its plan to the Chief Executive Colin Marshall on Friday morning..

We included a creative or fun exercise. On Thursday afternoon, we asked the small groups to spend ninety minutes creating a vision of their view of the new BA and their role in it. We told them to “let their hair down” have some fun because they would be spending that evening preparing their change team presentation for Colin Marshall the next morning. We designed this exercise to relieve tension and to allow participants to have some fun using the teamwork built over the week.

At one of the early sessions a small group composed entirely of aircraft maintenance managers had been difficult all week. These men were fifty to sixty-five-year-olds and had all come up through the ranks from mechanics. Though some had taken Engineering qualifications, none had attended University. During the week they had been cynical and sarcastic, and when we explained this exercise, two actually snorted. Then they disappeared.

The facilitators resigned themselves to the possibility that the team had left the training early and were planning how to explain this to the rest of the class and to Colin Marshall the next day. But when it was time to present visions these gentlemen rushed in and asked to present last. Given their attitude over the week we facilitators were wary, but reluctantly agreed. When the maintenance crew’s turn came it was 5:00 p.m. and dark outside. Someone turned out the lights.

As the facilitators quietly panicked, they heard music. It was an Abba tune;  the words rang out.

“I have a dream, a fantasy. To help me with reality…”

One by one these grizzled guys walked in, each carrying a lit candle. While the music played they got the entire group to join them in the front of the classroom.

“I believe in angels, something good in everything I see.”

They handed out lit candles and soon everyone was humming along.

As the song came to a crescendo, without talking, they somehow led everyone to act together.

“I’ve crossed the stream.” The entire group took a step together over an imaginary stream.

“I have a dream.” The entire class all sang in unison. Still gives me shivers.

Apparently, the old guys had first laughed derisively at the exercise and then someone said, “If not us, then who?” They were missing because they had driven thirty miles to get the tape and boom box from someone’s house, and planned the whole thing in the car on the way there and back. In the end they demonstrated their commitment and brought others along.

The next morning when people were still talking about their emotional presentation, these old guys presented to Colin Marshall, a redesigned aircraft preventative maintenance framework that I understand the airline is still using.

What I learned was:

• Leaders sometimes emerge from the least likely places.
• The greatest “resisters” can convert themselves to be leaders.
• A cynic is a failed idealist who uses sarcasm, irony and mockery to mask intense desire to “believe” in and commit to ideals once again.

And I learned to “trust the process.” If the case for change is compelling and the vision clear and inspiring, people choose to change themselves and contribute.

“I’ve crossed the stream; I have a dream.”

I often heard the phrase “silver bullet” from clients. ”We don’t expect a silver bullet, but…” “Such and such [solution to a problem] isn’t a silver bullet, but we should at least try it.”

I think the term comes from folklore about werewolves, allegedly killed by said silver bullet. Those silver bullets might have been a little difficult to come by for the average villager, but, once found, eliminated the werewolf infestation quicker than Raid gets rid of cockroaches. Monster killers have always carried silver bullets, so whether you were Dean and Sam Winchester of the television series Supernatural, or Abraham or Gabriel Van Helsing (vampire killers of multiple movies), or Clayton Moore in the classic television series The Lone Ranger, Silver Bullets-R-Us.

In business, the silver bullet is a simple but sure-fire solution to a complex and/or chronic problem. Once you use it the problem goes away completely. I heard the term in the following scenarios, all of which should be avoided:

• Jumping to a solution before understanding the root cause
• Managing by the latest fad
• Trying yet another problem-solving methodology when the “going gets tough”

Jumping to Solutions

In process improvement, one indicator of a well-written problem statement is that everyone who hears it wants to help solve the problem. As human beings, though, we frequently describe ourselves as “problem-solvers” when we really are “solution-finders.” And sometimes our solutions go looking for a problem to solve. So all too often we hear a problem, equate the problem with one we have seen before, and propose the solution to that problem as the solution to this one.

Sometimes these silver bullet solutions even work, which reinforces our tendency to jump to the solution before understanding the root cause of the problem. However, when the silver bullet fails we typically suggest a different silver bullet, not realizing that the failure was due to a lack of understanding of the problem. This leads to stops and starts in process improvement, as well as in bigger problem-solving like business strategy. People have a tendency to fix symptoms, but miss the underlying problem. It’s all because we fall in love with our silver bullet.

Managing by Fad

“Here comes the flavor of the month.”

This was how I was often greeted as a consultant in my first foray on the frontline. I was sometimes insulted, but recognize it now as “change program fatigue.” Many companies overuse consultants, and many managers are always looking for the next “shiny new thing.” To be fair, consultants too often have invented new service offerings as the revelation everyone has been missing until now. Recognize these?

All these methodologies have merit. They also all have their own jargon, deployment plan, key performance indicators (KPIs), and critical success factors (CSFs). Sometimes they require reorganizing and giving people new job titles, assessment criteria, evaluation and even certification. They voraciously consume an organization’s resources for a promised ideal gain.

As in investing, if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

While each of these methodologies can improve business performance, the maxim “less is more” is relevant. If a company viewed methodology as a silver bullet and used all of them, say one or two per year, it would likely achieve little except confuse the heck out of its workforce.

Why would any company use a silver bullet? Perhaps it faces an intractable problem like the need for a turnaround, or the CEO just wants to “spice things up a little.” I’ve heard frontline people cynically speculate about a new manager, “He’s new. He just needs a ‘quick fix’ to ‘declare victory’ before moving on to his next job. Just wait it out. This too shall pass.”

Whatever the reason, these mangers are jumping to an easy solution, a silver bullet.

Not Toughing It Out

Most methodologies require disciplined implementation. Discipline and hard work aren’t compatible with a belief in silver bullets.

So what happens is that midway through implementation, just when the first difficulties appear, someone says, “You know, this is just the problem that [Insert different methodology here] is intended to solve. We should try that.”

In other words, “This one is hard. Let’s try a new silver bullet.”

I suspect that looking for silver bullets and achieving consistent results are negatively correlated, like losing weight and trying every new diet that comes along. I’ve discovered the secret to losing weight for me is “Eat-less-move-more-stay-out-of-the-Häagen-Dazs.” That’s not easy for me, of course, but it does address the root cause of the problem.

I think this exploration will cause me to add a couple of lines to that mantra:

There are no Silver Bullets. Stick with it. Persistence is the only thing that pays off.

I’m a bit of a sucker for panhandlers. I have lived my life trying to be helpful and, when I encounter someone who asks for a little help, I too frequently reach into my pockets. My family know this about me and tend to increase our pace around street people.

Some years ago I was walking with my son and daughter along Broadway in the Capital Hill district of Seattle. Capital Hill was a young hip part of town with lots of restaurants and coffee shops, but it also attracted healthy white suburban teenagers who “bummed money” to finance their Saturday entertainment before going home to the ‘rents place to sleep.

As we walked, “Spare iny change?” was mumbled from seemingly every street corner. My kids hustled me along.

We were following a nicely dressed long haired twentyish guy, who perhaps because he was young seemed to attract requests for money.

“Spare iny change?”

The long-hair barely turned, “No man, change comes from within.” He kept walking.

We cracked up. Even now remembering the stunned look on the panhandling teen’s face makes me smile. My son said, “I am definitely stealing that line.”

Leaders are often in the change game, not spare change, but real change with consequences.

We lead towards something or away from something, but often the leader must find a strength within that others will follow.. Sometimes the same people who manage us day to day are the same people who lead us in a new direction, but not always.

Consulting is always about change.

Companies may hire a consultant to change strategy or customer base, innovate new products, improve processes or install systems. Funny then that, when I joined the field, consultants didn’t define themselves as in the change business. They were in strategy, innovation, improvement, or systems, but not change. There was detailed PowerPoint slides explaining the reasons for the [new strategy, system, or *** ], a step-by-step how-to, and the benefits that the [***] would bring, without ever using the ‘C’ word. “Don’t say change; it scares people,” a senior consultant told me.

Some consultants included a slide entitled “Change Management.” This showed training, or new roles and responsibilities, or new metrics. At one point in my career I was given “change management project streams.” I was brought in late in the project and introduced as the “change guy.” This was often said with a sneer by consultants who felt that what I did was “squishy.” One project leader said, “your work has no content in it.”

These days more consultants recognize the fundamental truth that change is about altering behavior – people must do things differently or do different things. And that includes the leaders.

Good leaders quickly figure out that people don’t change without a reason.

The incompetent or insecure leader (or consultant) will say “people resist change because they fear change.” It isn’t true. Look the number of people who move to a different job, city, or country. Look at the people who get married, have children, start businesses, or  try anything that will turn their life upside down.

What do those changes have that the change you are leading doesn’t? Simple, choice. People choose to undertake those changes. Those are their changes; This one is your change.

Still people make jokes about “fear of change.” A colleague told me the story of his resistance to his wife’s entreaties to buy a new house with more bedroom and yard space for his kids. He kept showing reluctance and coming up with reasons that she considered lame.

“I’d have to rebuild my workshop, and I just got my office the way I like it.”

“I think you’re just afraid of change,” she accused.

Consultants are good at breaking tension. “Honey,” he said. “I just sell change; I don’t do change.”

They both laughed. In the end they bought the house.

People do fear loss, loss of status, loss of financial security, loss of familiar routine, loss of certainty. So if the outcome of the change is unknown, they may assume it will mean loss for them and push back.

This is why Niccolò Machiavelli  said at the beginning of the sixteenth century,

“There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things. Because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under the old conditions, and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new.”

Change has no natural constituency in the way that the status quo has. So the job of the leader is to enlist followers.

I used to talk with leaders about how people change by using this diagram:

I, like many consultants, think in models like this, geometric shapes connected by arrows. I learned that  about  26% of the population thinks this way. That means that 74% doesn’t think like this. So I learned to describe it more in paragraph terms.

People come to some insight – e.g. what I am currently doing isn’t working – I’m sitting on my couch eating ice cream and not losing weight.

I see someone else moving more than I do and eating less. Eureka! I think I might try that.

I take action . (I eat less and move more.)

It works. I lose weight.

(Note: Most people realize that even losing weight is more complex than that. There are measurements to take, old habits to break, false starts, relapses,  and recriminations to shake, etc. Still with direction, determination,  and disciplined action one can get results. Some more easily than others.)

Leading people in an organization through a change, the leader:

• First shares insight – acknowledges reality (what’s not working, the compelling case for change, the why).
• Then explains the destination – the vision of the changed company.
• Takes action and leads followers to take action
• Measures and shares results.

This is where the complexity comes in. There are many different kinds of change for companies, changes in target customers, changes in products, changes in processes, and technology. There are mergers and acquisitions, changes in financing (like going public or taking on venture capital) and many more.

Some problems companies can improve their way out of, some require radical innovation. Many require companies to get smaller and stronger before growing again. The devil is in the details; the leader must explain the type and context of the change and bring followers along with them.

Another thing that some leaders forget is that for the organization to change the leader must change. Oops.

Change leaders must get people to follow them away from comfortable habits and processes to a new way of doing things that may or may not be better. It is a tough job.

In my consulting work I was often called in to fix a failed change effort. In most cases the cause of the failure was that the leaders had underestimated the people side of the change and had devoted little energy to changing themselves.

Perhaps the leaders or their people had developed change fatigue and went looking for yet another methodology. Perhaps they hadn’t thought about interim metrics to show when they were off track. My approach was always the same: get back to talking about the objectives of the change and look for ways to achieve interim results.

I never heard anyone say “Spare iny change?” Nor was I ever tempted to say, “No man, change comes from within.” But it does.