Leadership Tipping Points
If you want the same result, keep doing the same thing.
You must do something different, if you expect to find new tipping points.
First:
Lead the way by being the first one to change. Stop expecting others to change and not changing yourself.
Change is easy when someone else is doing the changing.
The mark of successful leadership is openness to personal change. When was the last time you changed the way you thought about yourself, others, or your organization?
Downturns as instigators:
McDonald’s is experiencing an upturn because they had a downturn. They had a downturn because they innovated inside the box too long.
Downturns and disruption give rise to innovation only when you open your mind and adapt. But, the dark-side of persistence is a closed mind.
Allow decline to disrupt your thinking, not congeal it.
Continuity or inflection:
The same people sitting around the same table will produce the same results.
Promote from within if you want more of the same. Hire from the outside if it’s time for transformation. New leaders generate new directions, if you listen to their voices.
Radical innovation is always wrong at the beginning.
Don’t expect the people who oversaw decline to solve it, unless they’re willing to embrace new, uncomfortable ways of thinking.
Five tips for finding personal tipping points:
- Change the people you listen to.
- Adopt new language when you talk to yourself.
- Think of the potential of your current team from a different perspective.
- Add new people to the team.
- Try something new. Go to new places. Nothing changes until you do something different.
Tipping points make leaders matter more.
How might leaders find personal inflection points?
What helps organizations find inflection points?
Yep. Step back from the wagon and look for different possibilities to make some simple improvements in how things work. Change does not have to be some huge leap but can be some small difference. And the differences will add up over time.
People think change is the process of caterpillar to butterfly. Yes, that IS change, but so is moving into the light from the dark. And speaking of light, remember that, “Caterpillars can fly, if they just lighten up.” Keep smiling, too!
Thanks Dan – the concept of tipping points is so powerful … if we are brave enough take the time to reach out to those around us to understand what our true blind spots are and then assess those tipping point behaviours real change can begin … so If I change behaviour X the benefits my company and/or I will receive are … keep answering this like a domino … “tipping” point .. Thanks Dan awesome as always
Finding personal tipping points… number 1 and 2 really spoke to me this morning! Changing the people I listen to and adopt new language when you talk to yourself… great points!
I want to push back on this a little bit… “Promote from within if you want more of the same. Hire from the outside if it’s time for transformation. New leaders generate new directions, if you listen to their voices.”
I work in a very complex public organization, and I find it’s often quite the opposite. Internal promotion (if it’s the right people) often brings a leader who doesn’t have to spend a year learning how the organization works, who doesn’t repeat past mistakes because of a lack of understanding the interdependencies and reasons that things are how they are, and who is committed and passionate about the organization working better with concrete, realistic ideas for how to get it done.
Leaders from outside can make high-performing staff feel like they’re experiencing “Groundhog Day” because the new leader comes in with a lens that says everything is foreign and therefore “wrong” and “broken.” I’ve seen lots of babies thrown out with the bathwater. In large part, that’s because new leaders don’t tend to listen to the voices of the effective existing staff. I suppose with that history, internal promotion is disruptive. 🙂
We are currently in a situation where we have a CEO who came from elsewhere, and the parts of the organization where the most transformational change is happening are places where the right people were promoted internally to navigate and influence internal change.
I’m with ‘rdkaye’ on this one. Same passage caught my attention. But I might have a little different take on things.
I believe organization leadership must have as their priority providing an environment that provides the motivation for everyone to seek to cooperate in ways that optimize each one’s contributions to the organization’s vision. There must be a transparency and an expectation that everyone has value.
In this type of organization, everyone will see the importance of and be dedicated to lifelong effective learning. They will seek to be innovative, to be curious and creative. They will know their voice is valued.
Before everyone points me to the land of wishful thinking and foolish expectations, let me add quickly that such a scenario being described will of course suffer missteps and failures; nothing ever approaches perfection – especially when the risks associated with innovation, creativity, and the associated changes are sought. And of course, there will be the hiccups associated with assembling the leadership team as well as the group of employees. There will most likely be some mutually agreed or forced parting of the ways.
But consistent with ‘rdkaye’, I do not believe promoting from within is any less capable of change or transformation that hiring from outside. That is, if the organization is one where change and transformation (growth) is the expected, the rule…
Agreed, absolutely…after more than 37 years in law enforcement.
Agreed! After more than 40 years in law enforcement, I am convinced that if and when it is really necessary to bring in new outside leadership, it is a symptom of severe organizational dysfunction and an absolute failure to develop leaders within the organization.
How might leaders find personal inflection points?
Be truthful in their assessment of themselves.
What helps organizations find inflection points?
Open discussion with all parties involved top to bottom.
Of course watch what you sow!
I agree you have to step outside that box in order to receive fresh ideals and surround yourself with those who are willing to share and accept new challenges there are a lot of hidden gems that are at our fingertips. Thanks for sharing.