Leading Through the "Triple-C" - Part 1

 When you spend time working on project and change management, you see patterns develop. Combine that with experience in the trenches leading these projects, and you notice a few things. Last week, I discussed why reading is essential for leadership development and that I was enjoying Bill Pasmore's book Leading Continuous Change. Today, I want to discuss Pasmore and how he aligns with common notions about change management.

The Triple-C

I am a difficult person to shop for during Christmas. It is why I often suggest that people get me books. I enjoy reading and can always learn something new. Leading Continuous Change wound up under my Christmas tree, and I jumped into it with both feet.

Pasmore talks about something stalking the business world, which he calls complex, continuous change, or 'triple-C' for short. The business world is moving faster than ever, and Pasmore says two factors are causing this:

• Technology is influencing every part of the business community.
• Globalization is here to stay, and not changing is a recipe for obsolescence.

Triple-C is everywhere, and to be successful in the global economy, you must be able to manage it. Unfortunately, many businesses have a success rate of 30-40 percent. These figures are great for baseball, but are a death sentence for business. According to Investopedia, the average tenure of a company in the S&P 500 index was 33 years in 1964. Today, that number is between 16 and 21 years old. The lifespan of a business is getting shorter, and I suspect it is because they are struggling with Triple-C.

What we can do –

According to Pasmore, if a business wants to deal with Triple-C effectively, it must do a few things well: prioritize, integrate, respect capacity limits, develop broader and deeper engagement, and create agility. These goals are all worth it, but are challenging to achieve. I am going to go over these goals individually.

Prioritization -

I have mentioned in the past that the ability to prioritize work is a skill that many business leaders struggle to cultivate. If everything is a top priority, three things happen.

• People work on the project they think is easy.
• They work on the project with the most attention from the people shouting the loudest.
• They are paralyzed by fear or apathy because they do not know what matters.

This is why setting priorities is critical to addressing Triple-C.

Integration -

Next comes integration. I liken this to being a park ranger at a national park. To be successful, you must understand the broad layout of the forest and, when necessary, the details of wildlife and visitor patterns. When problems crop up, and they will crop up, you must understand which person to call to mitigate the issue or what alternative you can pursue. I think that integration is the most challenging part of Triple-C and requires experience within the organization and a significant level of emotional intelligence.

Capacity -

Our inability to prioritize or integrate initiatives forces us to exceed our capacity limits. For the past year, I have documented how workers struggle with change fatigue as the organization pushes constant transitions onto them. In The Experience Mindset, Tiffani Bova notes that leaders often impose change rather than inviting employees to participate in the process. Consequently, employees must juggle numerous initiatives, leading them to drop critical tasks. This environment inevitably breeds poor quality and burnout.

I witnessed a plan manager suffer a heart attack because they were also responsible for managing trade show operations. The company realized its mistake and hired someone to manage trader shows after the plant manager came back from medical leave. Triple-C is hard work, so make sure you have the people and time to devote to it.

Engagement -

Change cannot happen from the top down, so business leaders must foster broader, deeper engagement within the organization. Instead of orders coming from the top, change must come from all parts of the organization, from the messy middle to the line employees dealing with customers. Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari call this the rhizome of an organization. People need a reason to change, and if leadership cannot provide one, they will stubbornly resist. It means bringing people on board for changes and getting them involved in the change process. It also means treating suggestions to improve the organization with a level of seriousness not often found in many executive environments.

Agility -

Finally, we have agility. I spend most of my time writing about the topic and take it seriously. Organizations must experiment, test those experiments, and pivot if they are not working. The feedback loops need to be small so that we can adjust to conditions and learn new things. In many respects, it feels like being on a sailing ship. The conditions are constantly changing, and you must adjust your sails when the wind changes.

Bringing it Together –

Triple-C is the hardest thing to lead, especially if you are under pressure to enforce compliance and processes. It is why Pasmore spends the remainder of his book outlining how to develop prioritization, integration, capacity limits, deeper engagement, and agility. I want to share it with you in next week's blog. Change can be overwhelming, but if we learn to accept and manage it effectively, we will continue to navigate the ocean of global business successfully.

Until next time.