Secret Musings of a Change Agent - What if?
When I started my blog series - Secret Musings of a Change Agent - with a view to busting some myths and getting under the skin of what makes ordinary people great at making change happen, I wasn’t sure where it would go, how it would be received or how long I’d keep it running for. Six fabulous change agents have now featured in my blog and it’s proved so popular that I’m going to carry on. The feedback I’ve had has been fabulous and people seem really interested in what’s emerging and what that means for how we build change capacity for the future. So, while I line up the next round of people to feature, I’ve decided to pause this week and take stock of what’s coming through so far and what questions that might help us to ponder.
The change agents I’ve featured to date have been from a range of organisations, have operated at different levels of seniority and in very different types of roles and yet, there are some very strong themes emerging. I’ve done some analysis and there are 8 characteristics that prevail which I’ve captured in the graphic below.
Maybe these qualities aren’t so surprising but if we stop and think about how we recruit, develop and retain talented people who know how to make change happen in our organisations are these honestly the things we are most focused on? If we think about the conditions we create, the tone we set, the expectations we set for our leaders of change, are we nurturing these talents and enabling people to thrive? And when we think about development, how are we supporting people to grow their confidence to speak up and speak out? To bring their whole messy selves with their challenging life experiences into the work we do? How do we respond organisationally when someone sticks their neck out and takes a calculated risk in the interest of doing what matters - especially if that thing doesn’t work out?
Cat Duncan-Rees
“Everything is connected and it all comes back to what matters to people in the community”
To state the obvious if we want something different, we need to do something different. All too often in the work I do, I come across talented people who don’t feel able to disagree with senior leaders because they are worried they’ll be “shouted at”, “told off” or that their lack of perceived deference will be career limiting. How on earth will we innovate if we don’t feel able to disagree. The best ideas come from diverse minds. I’m also increasingly struck by the lack of self-confidence that I see in really talented people who don’t see their own strengths and don’t have the confidence to give different a go. And how many of us have felt the need to be “fine” when we are experiencing personal crises for fear of being perceived as unprofessional?
What if we started to turn some of this on its head? What would we need to do differently? If we think about recruitment, what if we focus less on the tasks and more on understanding what matters to our candidates, how they’ve managed adversity, how willing they are to be “different” and how they build and invest in relationships? And is the usual round of assessment centre and interview really the best way to get under the skin of some of these qualities?
How do we create environments where more senior leaders are more explicit about welcoming diverse opinions, in encouraging healthy debate and invest time in building the psychological safety where people feel able to bring their best most authentic selves.
What if we celebrated failure more? It’s what tech companies have been doing for a long time because they recognise that with every failure, comes important learning that increases the likelihood of future success.
How do we skill people up to ask the why questions? To challenge with compassion? To articulate what different could be?
And what if, when a colleague is experiencing a personal crisis, our default position is to put our collective arm around them and support them through to the other side not just because we’re decent human beings but because we recognise that in coming through it, they’ll develop resilience and courage that will enable them to become even better agents of change.
Shefali Kapoor
“You have to listen, you have to hear the people around you”
The other striking thing that the secret musings have brought out is that everyone I’ve talked to so far have talked with passion about the people who have had the most influence on how they do what they do. For most it’s been a combination of a family member and some really powerful role models who they’ve encountered professionally - people who stand out because they bring different and because they nurture, enable and empower. So if we really want great change agents for the future - and by that, I mean people who share the qualities that are emerging as most important - how do we shine a light on the incredible change agents that we have all around us so that they become the role models for our change agents of the future.
Carol Kavanagh
“Fear is false evidence appearing real”
I’m excited by what’s emerging from my blog series. It’s raising some tough questions and challenges for how we do things in our organisations, not least how we recruit, develop and retain people who really know how to make change happen. I hope you’ll join me on my onward journey as I talk to more “ordinary people who are great at making change happen” so that we can learn together and challenge ourselves to do different for more of the time.
