Entrepreneurs often want change–but sometimes certain staff members don’t want to budge. In my Inc. column I discuss four ways to get reluctant employees on board.
Tag: change
Without credibility, you can forget about building a company, improving it, or leading it to greatness. You need credibility to create changer. In my latest Inc. column I discuss four ways in which you can build credibility.
I recently wrote an article for Inc. detailing how leaders can lead their team or company through the four phases that inevitably accompany any major change agenda. Read the entire article here: Change: A Play in 4 Acts
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Occupy Isn’t Enough
You can dream and dream, but unless you focus on what you want to get done and how you want to get it done—it’s not going to happen.
It’s all nice and good that our friends on Occupy Wall Street are above institutional politics. It’s fine that they want to maintain a Don Quixote air and struggle with windmills. It’s great that they have a vision and have hope in a dream.
But nothing burns out more quickly than a vision. A vision unrealized becomes a hallucination.
Occupy Wall Street has been successful in rallying people around an amorphous vision—now the question is, can that vision be translated into tactics, goals, and agendas?
The reality is that the world changes through institutions and organizations. And as much as you want to ignore it institutions are the mechanisms by which we change the direction we move. Intuitions and organizations are effected by pragmatic politics.
In any organizational or institutional setting, weather you’re an entrepreneur, a mid-level manager, a CEO, or a political activist, leadership is about getting beyond being occupied with your vision and dealing with nuts-and-bolts.
If you want to change the school district, if you want a better education for your kids, get involved in school politics.
If you want the pot holes covered in Brooklyn, see your city councilmen.
Politics is the way we impact change through institutions and if there’s a lesson that Occupy Wall Street should learn from the Tea Party—it’s that occupying without leadership gets you nowhere.
The Tea Party has achieved its success not simply because of its ideology, but because it was pragmatically savvy. This pragmatic political savvy is somewhat lost on Occupy Wall Street.
Put it simply, what’s needed is a concrete agenda that’s directed at specific individuals or institutions that can make a difference. This emphasis on leadership as a pragmatic skill seems to be lost in many sectors in our society. It’s as if we believe that vision and aspiration will move things ahead.
Steve Jobs has often been cast as a wondrous visionary. But it wasn’t his vision alone that brought us the ipod, the powerbook, or the ipad. It was his pragmatism. It was his ability to create coalitions, persuade people, manage his projects, and move things ahead.
In corporate settings as with political movements the challenge is to know how to move your agendas ahead. It’s an art that we don’t see exercised in Washington and it’s an art that few of our young entrepreneurs appreciate. It’s an art that we have to bring to the forefront if anything is going to get done.
Until then we’re all just be occupying space.
The new C.E.O of Xerox, Ursula Burns, is a record setter. She is the first African-American woman to become the C.E.O. of a major American corporation. Burns’ accomplishment has earned her generous applause and plenty of praise. However, Burns knows she can’t measure success by the weight of her accolades. In this New York Times article, Burns explores her new role and the challenges she faces when dealing with an overdose of praise
Leaders can learn several important lessons from Burns’ experiences.
First, leaders should always be wary of accolades and recognition—especially early on in one’s tenure. Not that accolades are inherently inappropriate or destructive in nature, but leaders can easily become distracted or even completely derailed if they buy into the hype of their new notoriety. Believing too much in one’s own “success” can truly lead to real failure. Fortunately, the empty praise was disquieting for Burns and she took steps to challenge the existing culture in order to put Xerox on more secure financial footing.
Second, coalitions are crucial for success. Burns did not try to fundamentally alter the “family” culture of Xerox. Rather, she built upon the concept of the existing culture and pushed for more candid and frank feedback—like a “real” family. By building upon the established culture, Burns can build her coalition of support more readily than forcing a new culture upon the organization—saving valuable time and resources.
Burns also shows us that we should never dismiss unique opportunities for growth. Earlier in her career, she could have shunned the offer to become an executive assistant, believing that it would stall her career path. However, taking these roles proved to be an ideal platform for Burns to learn from and provide pointed feedback to the leadership at Xerox. These experiences set the stage for Burns to establish influence and credibility, which ultimately prepared her job as C.E.O..
Burns can teach leaders the following:
- Don’t believe the hype
- In order to lead change, your coalition must be strong—build on common ground
- Don’t shy away from opportunities to influence others , grow, and gain credibility
Ursula Burns wants to do more the change the culture at Xerox. By staying grounded, maintaining her coalition, and preserving her credibility she will be well equipped to move her agenda forward and tackle challenges.
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Nathan Sheranian is a first year MILR, emphasizing in human resources and organizations, at Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations.
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