Managing By Values

Ken Blanchard's another nice quick read! Ken starts as an idea to make organizations take the Fortune 500 journey. He also nicely weaves a CEO's story, whole narrating the Managing By Values (MBV) process. Let us glance at some excerpts from his writing.

Three acts of life are 1.Acheive 2.Connect 3. Integrate

Acheive is a natural act for a human being, it is all about being-by-doing

Connect is about relationships, or being-by-being-with. Sometimes people ignore relationships, but when there is a crisis what matters is the relationships i.e. people. 

Integrate is being-by-becoming, means bringing first two acts together and also redefining your purpose and values, putting them in to action and making a difference to people around you.

Asking questions, like am I chasing my dream? or somebody else's?, am I doing what I have come to do? am I happy? to answer you need not look farther than where you are right now.

Fortune 500 companies will have to base the values and build four pillars on top of it, C= customers, E= employees, O= owners and S= significant others. you must build a sprit of shared responsibility and mutual trust among these key stakeholders to become a Fortune 500 company. So, when I look to join a company, I go around look for what values that company is preaching. Ken nicely ends the first chapter saying " Most important thing in one's life is to decide what is most important".

His one liners are thought provoking such as "Organizations do not make managing by values work, people do"

He details a process called MBV - 

Phase 1- is to clarify the purpose, vision, mission and values.

Phase 2- is to communicate the above effectively to make every body understand.

Phase 3- is to align a company's daily practices with the said goals and values.

We also here loudly in change processes, in my earlier blogs I talked about creating a shared need and recognizing key stake holders.

In defining process ken advises the bottoms up approach to create values those to be adopted, this works well and brings a sense of belongingness. So in a company that truly manages by its values, there is only one boss, its values. 

Communicating values to entire organization is not easy, because one must not only declare its core values, they must define operating principles, definitions. Leadership must walk the talk and show in every act of their life and  reflect in every talk these values, then only employees believe and align them selves to core values. Alignment process is important that every conflict must be resolved through assessing the gaps in beahviours vis vis with the values. Genuine success does not come from proclaiming the values, but from consistently putting them unto daily action. When aligned around shared values and united in a common mission, ordinary people accomplish extraordinary results.

Ken advises to make environment safe to make communication easy and effective. Reflecting back on the journey at every stage and assessing employee, customer, stake holder and significant others feedbacks and putting them in to action, makes the journey a fruitful and enjoyable. As we always say either any change journey or imbibing values is a long drawn process, not just turning overnight. To take MBV journey, one must change personaly first and then embark on a organizational journey. 

A Good read, helps you really improve what you do in your professional as well personnel lives.

INFLUENCERS

• Motivates others to change
• Replaces the bad behaviours with new
• Makes things happen

A powerful book from  authors of crucial conversations.


Whether you are a CEO, Parent, Friend, Social worker you encounter situations where we feel need to make a difference, we probably wish we had a power of influence to bring the change.
Normally, people relay on verbal persuasion, but  "Feel and Change" is more powerful tool to influence, for example a personnel experience and a powerful story told through a vicarious experience makes a significant difference.
Influencer first needs to connect with people and build trust in order to build his momentum for influence. Please refer my earlier blogs on "TRUST",  Communication, Creating winning teams etc.

Once you are able to connect or establish a strong communication channel with the person or people, then you must follow the below process. You need both motivation and ability in a person to change.These can be influenced at three dimensions - Personnel, Social, Structural. We need to first find the vital behaviours and search for the root of the problem. If you can influence the behaviours, they will yield the desired results.


Let us take a case of making sure slum dwellers stays in govt constructed houses for them and not rent them.  The vital behaviour one can observe here as "Renting an apartment instead staying". There could be multiple reasons for this behaviour. 1. To supplement Income, 2. Every body in their Slum Society giving for rent-just follow others 3. This must be far from their work place. Please understand the slum dwellers are generally daily wage workers, mobile vendors, house hold maids etc.




The above reasons fall in the categories mentioned respectively.  There could be multiple solutions to influence these behaviours
Let us explore some thoughts
1.We need to supplement their income - Who stays in the house gets additional benefit of monthly a sum, need not be equivalent to the rents they get. as allowance.
2.Can we identify "leaders" with in community and communicate to them focusing on the benefits of staying in their houses rather going back to slums.
ensure those leaders stay first to create peer pressure.
3.Can we create some small shopping units nearby for each of them to set up their own vending huts.
4.Make sure there is some community events every week to increase social pressure- make living here better - a concept.
5.Are there any structural changes needed like schools, children parks etc to attract the younger generation.

Well if you see we can go wild and try several methods, you also might have observed that these fall in one of the three segments listed.
If one of these things do not work, then you must use the make the change as inevitable or You can identify many vital behaviours in all the three segments and implement all the solutions.

Some famous influencer quotes 
"So Ideas can change the world-but only when coupled with influence-the ability to change hearts, minds and behaviour"

"Influencing human behaviour is one of the most difficult changes faced by leaders"

"If you are truly motivated to make productive changes in your life, don't put down your efforts until you reach the goal, whether dealing with recalcitrant teen, doggedly resistant co-workers, or a personal frustration that 'no one ever wants to hear my view'"

Despite all adds one must be in driver's seat to influence the change, it does not matter one needs to be popular or famous like Bill Gates or Azim Premji.
In this book you find many "insignificant" people making significant improvements in people lives ranging from nutritious food shortages to changing criminal behaviours.
No Matter who you are, or what you do, you will never learn a more valuable or important set of principles and skills. One you tap into the power of influence, you can reach out and help others work smarter, grow faster, live, look, and feel better, even save lives.

The Sky is the only limit for an INFLUENCER.