Most people assume that being right should be enough to be followed and respected as leaders. However, anyone attempting to lead any type of organization (family, business, sports, etc.) knows by experience that this is not so. Usually, the blame is placed on external factors, like the lack of the right team or circumstances. After several failing experiences, frustration and cynicism creep in about the possibility of successfully implementing any improvement initiative. What is the use of being right if nobody listens to us? What is the point of being wise and powerful if the rest of the world thinks we are mad? This book summarizes twenty years of practical experience searching for the most powerful complements to go beyond "Being right" in order to significantly improve our performance as leaders and change agents. It explains how, after developing a good solution, leaders could also be able to sell their ideas to their own people and create the truly collaborative working environments in which continuous improvement can set roots and flourish.
Being Right is not Enough!
How to take your improvement initiatives to the next levelBy Gabriel Lopez Limon Fernando Lopez SansalvadorAuthorHouse
Copyright © 2010 Gabriel Lopez Limon with Fernando Lopez Sansalvador
All right reserved.ISBN: 978-1-4490-4458-9 Contents
Foreword.........................................................................................................xiAcknowledgments..................................................................................................xiiiIntroduction.....................................................................................................xvChapter I. Bang your head as needed..............................................................................11.1 The head banging evolutionary process........................................................................31.2 The unhappy ending...........................................................................................8Chapter II. Change requires a sense of urgency...................................................................112.1 You are right, they are wrong................................................................................142.2 You are wrong, they are right................................................................................162.3 You are wrong, they are wrong................................................................................182.4 You are right, they are right................................................................................202.5 Do you want to change something? Let's run!..................................................................21Chapter III. What does "being right" mean?.......................................................................233.1 The laws of relativity apply to what is right................................................................243.2 The three dimensional reality................................................................................263.3 The reality model............................................................................................273.4 The need to agree on agreeing................................................................................293.5 Being right does not mean a complete solution................................................................303.6 Being right then is, if anything, only the first step of a long journey......................................32Chapter IV. The dilemma behind every problem.....................................................................354.1 Do not give away fake pearls of wisdom.......................................................................364.2 Think about what is being gained by tolerating the problem...................................................374.3 The qualifications of a good solution........................................................................394.4 A solution is not a solution unless it fits in reality.......................................................414.5 Setting up the vision is not a matter of democracy...........................................................434.6 To be or not to be, that cannot be the question any longer...................................................44Chapter V. The Need to Sell Change...............................................................................495.1 It is all about matching needs with solutions................................................................525.2 Basic rules for selling change...............................................................................535.3 Make sure you are really adding value........................................................................57Chapter VI. Collaborative work, the key ingredient...............................................................616.1 Being many is as important as being right....................................................................636.2 Is teamwork a reality or just a clich?......................................................................656.3 Move at the speed of the slowest resource....................................................................686.4 When you have a team, you can be right even when you are wrong...............................................696.5 When the leader becomes the constraint.......................................................................71Chapter VII. Collaborative Selling of Change.....................................................................757.1 Step#1: Create a collaborative environment for the sale......................................................767.2 Step#2: Identify the key people to whom you must sell the change.............................................797.3 Step#3: Create a sense of urgency............................................................................807.4 Step#4: Demonstrate the existence of the problem.............................................................817.5 Step#5: Demonstrate the specific consequences of the problem on your client..................................827.6 Step#6: Demonstrate the possibility of solving the problem...................................................837.7 Step#7: Work with your internal client on tailoring the solution to her or his reality.......................867.8 Step#8: Work with your internal client on a plan to solve all possible obstacles.............................887.9 Step#9: Work with your internal client to create a team capable of implementing the plan.....................917.10 WARNING! Do not jump any step!..............................................................................92Chapter VIII. Change models, the complement to execution.........................................................958.1 Creating a Change Model......................................................................................978.2 The most basic structure for a Change Model..................................................................998.3 The establishment of rules...................................................................................1018.4 Developing a working discipline..............................................................................1048.5 Follow up and control........................................................................................1058.6 Do not be afraid to re-start if necessary....................................................................108Chapter IX. Change, the only constant............................................................................1119.1 The dilemma behind change....................................................................................1139.2 Keep your basic assumptions in check.........................................................................1169.3 By now you might be wrong....................................................................................118Bibliography.....................................................................................................121
Chapter One
Bang your head as needed "The left hemisphere is in charge of established knowledge and the right hemisphere is in charge of truly novel situations. That means that basically all of human life consists of cycles of learning characterized by encountering a new situation and then mastering it. So, that means that as you encounter a new situation, the right hemisphere kicks in first and then gradually there's a transition to the left hemisphere" - Prof. Elkhonon Goldberg New York University
Why is it so important for all us to be right? Why is the assumption that "being right is enough" so widely accepted? Why is it that most of us believes that having a good solution and a plan to reach it should be enough to get people excited and moving towards a better future?
Once we had come to the realization that BEING RIGHT IS NOT ENOUGH!, these questions haunted us for a long time. We had to go beyond that knowledge to be able to apply this new idea in reality.
We needed to find answers that could be used in practical, everyday activities. Having lived for a great deal of our lives fighting in the trenches of the operations' floor, we were conscious of the need for simple, powerful answers, that could be used in our day to day challenges as change agents.
Be aware that when we use the expression "day-to-day-challenges", we are by no means referring only to our professional work. As individuals, we also faced the education of our teenage kids, the complications that came with the aging of our parents, the effects in our marriage due to constant traveling, etc. Change was happening all around us, and we needed these answers to better deal with it.
We had a great advantage. Since there was so much change going on around us, we could put into practice almost immediately every concept that was presented to us. We did not do so in a totally scientific manner, but we tried every new concept separately, and we did observe and discuss in detail the resulting effects.
As we researched, studied, interviewed experts, and tested in practice every new idea, two things became very clear; first, we realized that the need to be right, and the assumption that being right is enough, are so strongly wired into our mind, not as a result of isolated, short lived happenings in our lives, but as a consequence of a life long process that starts when we are born, and gets reinforced everyday through our day to day, most basic, activities and experiences.
Secondly, we came to understand that if the need to be right, and the assumption that being right is enough, are so widely accepted, it had to be because both are the result of a very generic process that allows many people from different backgrounds to share the same beliefs regardless of their particular experiences and ways of life.
Thus, we concluded that there had to be a generic life process that could help us understand how the need to be right evolves in most of us to such a degree that it becomes one of our main drivers, and then how the assumption that being right is enough came to be so widely accepted.
Having reached this conclusion, the pieces of the puzzle started to fall into place, until we got a complete enough picture of what we have called: "The head-banging evolutionary process".
The name has its own story: When we started lecturing and coaching about change, one of our great motivators was the belief that we could save people from having to learn the same lessons in exactly the same manner we had come to learn them; by banging our head against problems time and again. We thought we would be doing people a favor by saving them from the pain of having to bang their heads as hard and as many times as we had.
Experience has shown us that we all need certain amount of head banging before we can grasp the real meaning of things. We realize now, that if we save one person from banging his head in one way, he or she will bang it in a different way. We have come to accept the fact that head banging is part of the natural process of learning about life.
Therefore, this account of the head banging evolutionary process has not as a primary objective to save you from banging your head in order to learn the lessons that are shared throughout this book. Its main purpose is to describe to you, in the most basic of ways, the life long process that generates and reaffirms our need to be right, as well as our belief that being right is enough.
Also, translating this process to implementing improvement initiatives can provide you with a way to identify the particular head banging processes that are involved in promoting and guiding change. We hope that by providing you with a map and a description of the different head banging stages involved in moving forward change initiatives, you can identify if your headaches are taking you in the right direction, or if you are simply banging your head randomly, looking very busy, but achieving very little.
1.1 The head banging evolutionary process.
As children, we have no conscience of right or wrong. We move, play and laugh for no other reason than because we feel like it. We do not stop to think about right or wrong, or about consequences, we simply act. In this frame of mind, we perform the most daring acts while living the richest learning period of our lives. It is in this stage of discovery that we develop our first concept of right and wrong: right, either produces pleasure or stops pain, while wrong generates pain or discomfort. We begin our process of learning right and wrong by banging our head against things.
Many specialists have told us that it is during the very first years of our lives that we develop our core values. Our parents, either consciously or unconsciously, become our strongest reference because our main goal at that age is to receive their love and approval.
This triggers a further refinement in our perception of right and wrong: "right", you get approved and loved; "wrong", you do not get approved or loved.
This is a very crucial moment in our lives. If we get too much attention and love, we might become spoiled, while too little approval and love can make us uncaring and resented for the rest of our lives. Finding the right balance is a very delicate matter and requires great attention from the parents.
Thus it is, that during childhood, we assume that being right is a prerogative of being an adult, and as a consequence, we look forward to becoming older. We observe and learn from our elders, we follow their example and attempt to copy their personalities because we want to be like them. We can hardly wait to be "grown ups". Boys use their father's shaving kits; girls try on their mother's shoes, and we all look forward to attending an adult conversation.
As we try to gain the love and approval from our elders, the concept of authority begins to appear more often in our lives. Now it is not only our parents telling us what to do and how to behave, but suddenly, there is also this immense array of people giving us orders and poking their noses into our lives all the time: Grand Parents, Older Brothers, Teachers, Coaches, Priests, Uncles, Police officers, Old Ladies, etc. We become more and more constrained and we can no longer move, play or laugh without somebody telling us that we are doing something wrong.
Getting loved or approved becomes more difficult and confusing every day, especially because all these people ask for different things, and they do not seem to give the same value to the same things. Getting an A in school can be totally right for our mother, while it can be non-interesting to our father. On the other hand, running into a fight can be a great thing to share with our father, while our mother would immediately scorns us for doing so.
Fortunately for us, youth endows us with an almost infinite amount of energy, which we tend to focus at gaining our freedom, challenging everything that has been imposed on us. Since by now we have some fifteen years of learning experience in life, we consider ourselves knowledgeable enough to play the game of right and wrong. After some years of following the instructions provided by those "who are right", we begin our process of independence by creating our own world, defining our own rules and openly challenging anyone who thinks differently. We assume that with passion and hard work, we can show the world how right we are. We also assume, that our righteousness will shield us from any harm that comes our way. Armed with this conviction, we start the fight for our independence banging our heads as hard and as frequently as we will not do in any other stage of our lives.
Then, a totally unexpected thing happens: The more we defend what we know to be right and the more we want to behave as our role models, the more opposition and lack of approval we get. All of the sudden, everyone and everything is totally against us. It is a very confusing time in our lives. People are telling us what to do all the time, but they always behave in a different manner.
When we dare to ask for explanations, either we are sent to the other side of the galaxy accompanied by our mother, or we are given a long and convoluted speech that usually includes a short segment about how somebody (you know, a friend of a friend ...) messed up his life doing what we want to do, and then a very long segment full of quotations, about how we should become the living image of virtue because they do not want us to make the same mistakes they or somebody else (the friend of a friend) has done.
Communication becomes totally distorted, what they say is utterly incomprehensible to us, and they always interpret what we say in the worst possible manner. We cannot stand the sight of them, and they feel exactly the same about us, except that they cannot help their need to meddle in our lives. We bang everybody's heads, and everybody bangs ours. It is an all-open head banging war.
All this head banging takes us to the realization that being right is not as simple as we thought. We discover that being right has far more shades than just white or black. We also discover that even though people are always giving advice about the need to do the right thing, they find it very difficult to apply that very same advice to themselves. Benjamin Franklin provides us with a terrific insight into this matter in his book "The Art of Virtue" (*1):
"As the happiness or real good of men consists in right action, and right action cannot be produced without right opinion, it behooves us, above all things in this world, to take care that our own opinions of things be according to the nature of things. The foundation of all virtue and happiness is thinking rightly" "It was about this time (1728) that I conceived the bold and arduous project of arriving at moral perfection. I wished to live without committing any fault at any time; I would conquer all that either natural inclination, custom, or company might lead me into. As I knew, or thought I knew, what was right or wrong, I did not see why I might not always do the one and avoid the other. But I soon found I had undertaken a task of more difficulty than I had imagined. While my care was employed in guarding against one fault, I was often surprised by another; habit took the advantage of inattention; inclination was sometimes too strong for reason. I concluded, at length, that the mere speculative conviction that it was in our best interest to be completely virtuous, was not sufficient to prevent our slipping; and that the contrary habits must be broken, and good ones acquired and established, before we can have any dependence on a steady, uniform rectitude of conduct"
Being right then, is most definitely not as straightforward as becoming older. And what is worse is that in due time, we also discover that being right is a matter of perception. It seems that although we want to believe in universal truths, in day to day life, when we are not discussing life or death issues, but rather simple things like what movie we should watch this evening, we are faced with the realization that other people have different ideas that totally challenge our perception of what is right. Some more head banging is needed in order to learn that the laws of relativity also apply to being right.
Having reached adulthood, and finding that this does not at all imply that we are always right, (as we thought when we were young), we come to the conclusion that being right is not a matter of age, but a matter of power. We discover the self-feeding cycle: being right gives people power, and power allows people to be and do what they consider to be right. Since we humans are fascinated by power, we obviously develop a strong desire to be powerful in order to be always right.
Thus, being right becomes about winning, about showing others that we are right and they are wrong. Some people even care more about winning than about actually being right, because, why bother being right if all you need is to show others that they are wrong?
Following this rationale we start a new process in search of power. We must beat everything and everyone to gain the holly grail of righteousness: POWER. No amount of head banging will deter us from reaching this goal.
All of us will eventually make it to some kind of position with power. We will become mothers, supervisors, leaders, etc. Without us really noticing, a miraculous transformation will take place. Little by little, the power inherent to our positions will take over our minds until one day, perhaps even to our own surprise, we begin to use the most powerful argument of all times: "because I am your mother (or boss, or whatever)!" Which means, that all attempts to rationalize with us are a waste of time, and that our next argument in line will be the brute use of our power in whatever form we might have at hand, the ammunition varying from worn out shoes to nuclear weapons of mass destruction.
We all know the story of the emperor that ended up naked in front of all his subjects because nobody dared telling him that his new clothes were non-existent. This happens with such regularity in everyday life, that one has to wonder whether we really get the message of the tale. As visitors in many organizations, we have watched many times as leaders run "naked" around their organizations, giving orders here and there, always getting affirmative responses from their people, just to see how, as soon as the boss gets back into her or his office, everyone goes back to what they think is more important.
We can confidentially tell you that, at our own times, we were also seduced by the sweet delusion of rightfulness provided by hierarchical power. Who dares telling the boss that he or she is utterly wrong? How many times are you willing to defend an argument against the opinion of the person in charge of your promotions and quality of work? After some time of nobody challenging our arguments, and many people telling us how clever we are, we actually begin to believe that we might, after all, be right all of the time. Once we get used to this status of infallibility, we begin acting as if everything we think and say is really unique and clever. We totally forget that there is no better mix for failure than arrogance and an "I-know-everything" attitude. How is it that most leaders get to discover that they are not infallible? By banging their heads against unforeseen problems in almost every aspect of their lives.
1.2 The unhappy ending
It is through this life long evolutionary process that we get so enthralled into the "being right" game. We place the "I am right" argument in such a high pedestal that being right in itself becomes our ultimate goal.
As most experienced leaders will tell you, reaching positions of power is by no means the final solution. There is plenty of head banging still to come as we develop our abilities to promote and guide change efforts.
For some people, this represents the search for more power. They assume that more and more power will eventually allow them to be right all of the time. Or maybe, the solution is another kind of power; instead of hierarchical power, some people are looking for "beauty" power. Or perhaps, media power, army power, religious power or whatever other form of power you might think of. It really does not matter, the point is to get it and make use of it. (Continues...)
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