Royal Changes

Like 1.9 million other people, I watched the royal wedding between Prince Harry and Meghan Markle last May. And what a wedding it was with the beautiful dress and the adorable flower girls and page boys—especially the twin sons of the bride’s friend who so loved being in the spotlight as they carried her train up that very long aisle and taking their responsibilities quite seriously!  All the pomp and ceremony you'd expect, but with some exceptions.

I, like a lot of people, saw this event as more significant than the average wedding--even an average royal wedding. A normal wedding impacts the families and especially the couple who are joining their lives—but this wedding seemed to have broader implications for more people.

Think about all that was different about that particular wedding.  The bride is an American actress with an African American mother and Caucasian father. An African American Episcopal Bishop preached a sermon about love, a gospel choir sang Stand by Me, and a 19-year-old black cellist played. It was enough to shake the foundations of the century’s old chapel in which all this took place!  Queen Elizabeth’s head must have spinning, especially when the Bishop was preaching in a style that appeared to make her and many others in the Royal Family a bit uncomfortable. I imagined her saying or thinking “We've never done it this way!”  Change does not come easy in a world where traditions run deep!

Change is a topic that didn't escape The Manager’s Answer Book. Managers need to understand that everyone approaches change differently. Some fight and resist it no matter what. Some stay quiet, taking a wait and see attitude sometimes hoping that it will go away. Some—the change champions—embrace change for what it is—an opportunity for growth and progress.  Managers have to help employees understand their response toward change and how the change will affect them. They must be on the lookout for conflicts to ensure that the changes positively drive the results the organization is seeking.

Never would I ever have thought I’d write a blog to compliment Queen Elizabeth on her ability to accept change but here it is!  I hope you can take a lesson from this royal experience—even if you stayed away from all the wedding news and slept in that Saturday morning.

Barbara Mitchell

Don't Be Trapped in the Past

“But, we’ve always done it this way!” How many times have you heard these words spoken over your business career? I think they are deadly and can stop growth and innovation cold!

If you’ve been reading these blogs for a while, you know that Cornelia and I frequently attend the ballet at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC.  One of the best parts of the ballet season is that we get to experience productions from a wide variety of ballet companies—everything from the amazing New York City Ballet  to less traditional groups like one we saw recently—the Complexions Contemporary Ballet.

This is a group of very talented artists who danced that night to music by the legendary, David Bowie.  They describe their style as “a singular approach to reinventing dance through a groundbreaking mix of methods, styles, and cultures.”  Their idea is that dance should be about removing boundaries, not reinforcing them.  They’ve created a dance company that provides a place where” those who are passionate about dance can celebrate its past while simultaneously building its future.”

This company has been around for 23 years and their creators say they’ve “born witness to a world that is becoming more fluid, more changeable, and more culturally interconnected than ever before.”

Listening to Bowie’s music while watching these talented dancers—especially when they danced to his memorable song, “Changes” reminded me of the dangerous trap so many people fall into by wanting everything to stay the same. 

So, how does your organization keep from falling into the “We’ve always done it this way” mode? What can you learn from this artistic team of choreographers and dancers who see that the world is more “changeable and culturally interconnected than ever before”?

Change is never easy and we’ve seen during our business careers that the most important piece of making changes (which is really just doing things differently) in organizations is the communications process and it’s the piece of the process that gets missed most often.

If you’re going to change a process or policy or strategy, your employees need to know—before you start—why the change is necessary.  Then, during the change process, they need to hear from you and other leaders, how it’s going so you need to not only talk to them—you need to listen as well.  As far as I know, no employee has ever complained that their manager communicates too much so you can’t over do it!

Remember Einstein’s definition of insanity—“Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”?  Is this what happen in your organization or are you open to changing how you do things in order to improve results? If you really want to succeed in our very complex world, be open to doing thing differently, just like the Complexions Contemporary Ballet and share with us what happens! And if this amazing dance company is ever in your city, go—it’s quite an experience!