Gary Hamel is awesome. I remember doing strategic planning in the 90’s and reading Hamel’s guru stuff. Here he is 20 years later still blowing our minds and giving us new change management insights to play with.
He makes the point that this kind of change management and culture change may not come from on top, but brew up at the grassroots level. I believe for such innovation to be sustained, it comes from both grassroots courage to innovate AND top line courage to stimulate and build on innovations that work out. This is how we change the world – one innovation at a time.
Don’t think you can do it? Bet you can. Make a bubble within which you can act and then break a pattern and see what results. Here’s a sample prescription:
- Get some co-conspirators (e.g., three people on your customer service team).
- Put a boundary around the experiment (e.g., one day a week for 3 months).
- Put a big hairy problem on the table (e.g., inability to satisfy customer type X).
- Get out of the way.
- Be ready for success and failure.
- Turn every failure into a learning that leads to success.
- Repeat.
What patterns can you break this week?
Check out the resources in the InPower Coaching EQ at Work and Soft Skills Research Index.