I spoke yesterday  morning to the Defense Leadership Summit.  They purchased an advance shipment of 300 copies of my book to hand out to participants.  Books will be available to the public on May 17.  As part of my materials, I distributed Getting Change Right Syllabus.

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Your drivers are your change leadership team, champions, and ambassadors.  Each of these has a different role, pushing the agenda forward. I detail who they are and how they work together in Chapter 3 of Getting Change Right.

You must effectively master the art of turning every supporter into a change agent who owns the way forward.  This requires new management and leadership competencies, built around knowing how to involve and spark enthusiasm in the right people appropriately and effectively. These are not the standard competencies taught in most programs, but those specifically geared to getting change right.

The master tool for cutting through this mess is the full-scale engagement of your Most Valuable Players (MVPs). These people are the powerful influencers who make widespread, sustained change a reality. Chapter 3 of Getting Change Right is dedicated to identifying and activating these players. In fact, the book is a manual for running a change initiative.

You absolutely can get your MVPs working together on multiple fronts to see change through. That’s what Getting Change Right is all about. I detail how. I chunk the primary activities into achievable tasks. For each there are templates, frameworks, and step-by-step instructions drawn from on-the-ground experience in real-life change.

There are five chief barriers to good communication in most organIzations today. Here they are and what to do about each:

1. Your stakeholders have other priorities. This is the norm, to be expected. Of course, they have other things on their mind besides your interests.

SOLUTION: Call a special meeting to address their concerns. Bring in the people who matter most: their boss, critical partners, peers of influence, thought leaders in their field, customers, and members.

2. Your stakeholders do not see the value of listening to what you have to say.

SOLUTION: Bring them in to evaluate a critical decision you are facing. Make a thorough presentation that lays out the context, the options, and the dilemmas. Ask them to think both independently and together about the best way forward. Highlight win-wins as they appear. Take action based on their advice, and give them credit for their guidance.

3. The people you are trying to reach are distracted by constant stimulus from other sources, or they believe what you are doing is not worth their time and attention.

SOLUTION: Do something countercultural to catch attention. Take on the concerns and issues of those who show resistance and make them your cause célèbre, attracting public attention and support. This is an effective way to reverse hostility and join forces with those who would oppose you.

4. There is so much happening in the work environment that it is difficult to stand out.

SOLUTION: Stage a concentrated series of highly visible activities. In a very short period of time, appear to be everywhere at once. Contact your constituents during this campaign and ask them to help with the design, planning, presentation, or execution of your project. Give careful consideration to their contributions, incorporating what you can.

5. The people you must reach have someone else programming their time who is not a supporter.

SOLUTION: Go directly to the source of competing demands to win support. For example, call a meeting of all managers who supervise the people you want to engage and demonstrate the effectiveness of their subordinates. Connect their common self-interest to the objectives of your initiative.

In my book, Getting Change Right, Chapter 1, Creating Rapid, Widespread Engagement, deals in detail with the most powerful way to reach people, making contact by successfully penetrating the ongoing onslaught of information and competing demands from others.

• Low communication importance is the result of believing one operates independently and does not rely on effective interaction with others in order to carryout duties well.

• Medium communication importance is found among people who know they must interact well with others, but do not see their skill at interaction as a core competence.

• High communication importance results from an awareness of the value that is generated through interaction, and the belief that one’s personal skill in this area can make or break effective performance.  Among those who have very high communication importance, there is recognition that highly skilled communication is a direct enabler of excellence in performance.

Organizational communication, by necessity, works with people in all three areas. That is simply the result of variety among communication styles as it appears in any population.

People who lead change tend to fall in the last group, valuing communication highly.  Even if the capacity does not come naturally, change leaders recognize the necessity of developing their communication skill to achieve success.

To maximize impact, you have to know how to communicate effectively with people in all three categories. Here are some tips:

1. When interacting with people who hold communication in low esteem, focus primarily on the benefits they stand to gain. Do not expect reciprocation, at least not verbally. They are apt to see themselves as disconnected, independent, detached from the rest of the system. This is not a flawed view, though it presents challenges. It is simply their perception.  Do not treat them as if they are broken. Instead, help them to recognize the value that comes from participation in the change program as it relates to their condition.
2. Most people fall in the medium value range. Their communication skills come as a result of their need to collaborate and build consensus with their colleagues around critical issues. Their skillset gets the job done. You can expect full engagement with them, but they are not likely to be able to play hard and fast at innovation.

   They are capable of generating new ideas and can be a valuable source of input. But, their capacity to interact is limited when compared to those who have high value for communication. Providing them with structured interaction can yield high-performance results. In essence, you are giving them the tools they need to get to the next level of contribution.

3. Those who have high regard for communication will come to you ready to play and play hard.  They are like musicians who are classically trained and enjoy jazz. They have their basics in solid working order and know how to improvise on a theme, and work with others to achieve synergy.  Take advantage of their expertise and invite them to participate in strategy design as well as tactical innovation.

For a more thorough treatment of how to generate engagement and buy-in, read my book, Getting Change Right. It’s all about the people side of change, including the best ways to communicate. It is filled with templates, instructions, and guides for creating the kind of engagement that leads to widespread buy-in and support.

Each conversation generates more conversations, exciting others with possibilities, enrolling them in the cause, lighting the way to contribute, and inspiring action.

If you want your idea to spread, you need to become expert in three areas:

1. Leading conversations that engage. These are interactions that weave people into your work, making them collaborators, co-creators of a shared future.
2. Generating cascades of activity. Set off chain reactions of meetings and conversations that are carried from those who experience you firsthand out into their social networks.
3. Conducting strategic engagement. Here you are like the conductor of an orchestra, only you are coordinating events instead of music. You adjust the timing, create emphasis, highlight virtuosos, provide critical.

To become a master of effective communication, you need to understand a little about communication styles, and how to break through the barriers to communication.

For more information on the best model of effective communication, refer to Getting Change Right, Chapter 1, Creating Rapid, Widespread Engagement.

The syllabus I use is a skeleton for action learning; i.e., it is delivered in parallel with a program that the organization’s leaders carry out, engaging their staff and stakeholders. This kind of learning puts the action where it is most useful. The student-leaders get real life experience and the course becomes more than a source of knowledge. It turns into a learning laboratory, supporting day-to-day operations.

Below is a high-level view of the syllabus, based on my book. You can download a copy of the syllabus here.

1. Creating Rapid, Widespread Engagement

• Five ways to penetrate information overload
• Five Techniques for Creating a Shared Stake in Success
• Eight Conversations that Create the Future

2. Communicating so People Get It and Spread It

• Five Questions that Trigger Professional Excitement
• Interacting with Audiences of Different Sizes
• Six Goals for Interactions with Others

3. Energizing Your Most Valuable Players

• Fourteen Categories of Most Valuable Players (MVPs)
• How to Activate and Equip MVPs for Success
• Five Energizers for MVPs

4. Understanding the Territory of Change

• Eight StoryListening Skills
• Five Gems to Gather through StoryListening
• Six Steps to Creating a Reconnaissance Report

5. Accelerating Change through Performance Communities

• Three Dimensions of Successful Performance Communities
• Three Ways to Balance Vertical and Horizontal Learning
• Ten Ways to Build Performance Communities

6. Generating Dramatic Surges in Progress

• Ten Guidelines for Creating Touchstone Events
• Five Ways to Support Participants following a Touchstone Event
• Eight Guidelines for Using Storytelling to Accelerate Growth

7. Breaking through Logjams

• Four Requirements for a Successful Breakthrough
• Six-Step Protocol for a Successful Breakthrough Session

8. WorkLifeSuccess in the Midst of Change

• Four Ways to Defeat Stress
• Seven Questions to Unearth Assumptions

Over the next four months I have scheduled six kinds of events:

1. Keynote speeches
2. Senior Staff development sessions
3. Board development sessions
4. Creating a surge for a specific initiative
5. A fundraiser
6. Project implementation oversight

Each of these has the potential to generate progress for a change program. I have adapted the material to individual clients’ needs so the event propels their efforts.

“There is nothing wrong with change, if it is in the right direction.”

So said Winston Churchill as he helped guide the Allies through the mire of World War II. Has there been another period since when we found ourselves in greater need of political and business leaders who can heed these words?

Our country’s leaders stare down a dismantled financial system and continue to step over the ruins of once-great institutions like Lehman Brothers and General Motors, now bankrupt. To act according to Churchill’s adage and “get change right,” a new generation of leaders must step forward and possess not only an understanding of the areas where change is necessary, but a concept of what form that change must assume.

In my career, I’ve witnessed firsthand different ways that leaders (myself included) attempted to steer their organizations and people through difficult changes. Whether it was the introduction of an innovative new product line or an attempted alteration of entrenched corporate culture, the challenge came not in pinpointing the areas for improvement, but in understanding precisely how to enact lasting solutions to achieve the best end result.

Sometimes we got it right, and sometimes we didn’t. In Getting Change Right, Seth Kahan has developed a series of principles and insights for today’s leaders as they navigate difficult changes in their organizations.

At a time when our country’s leaders need guidance on enacting change—from a long-overdue cull of rewarding short-term practices on Wall Street to a dismantling of the partisan stalemate on Capitol Hill—Seth has emerged with a beacon for today’s leaders and their teams. For everyone from CEOs to mom-and-pop operators, change will come, and Kahan’s insights can help them prepare for its arrival.

As a former CEO, I find a great deal of value in Seth’s approach. By pairing precise step-by-step guidelines with firsthand accounts and academic insights, he has created a no-nonsense reference for first-time leaders and veteran managers alike. What I found most helpful is the book’s accuracy around dealing with the variable personalities you’ll find in a given company. In every lesson, Seth takes into consideration the human elements—the egos, the intricacies of teamwork, and the true spurs for personal motivation—that make or break any corporate undertaking, let alone monumental change.

Calling on expertise and insight honed by years of top-tier management consulting and thought leadership, Seth writes with warm savvy and a rare technical expertise that informs leaders on how they can strategically and logistically enact change the first time around.

Leaders who desire to enact effective, lasting change must be prepared for long-term dedication to their company, and Seth demonstrates how leaders can do so with their values, and leadership teams, intact. I’ve explored authentic leadership values throughout my career and devoted my teaching career to helping future leaders at Harvard Business School develop a concept of “true north,” an internal compass of our beliefs, values, and principles that guide us through life. From his thoughts on “Energizing Your Most Valuable Players” to “Breaking Through Logjams,” Seth’s writing conveys the words and insight of a man who has seen authentic leadership in action.

Seth not only calls on his own vast academic and professional leadership experience, but enlists the firsthand perspectives and anecdotes of other leadership authorities as well. He has amassed a comprehensive guide on change leadership in accordance with one of his own major precepts: enlisting the insights of others to create rapid, widespread engagement. Seth Kahan is a writer who puts his money where his mouth is.

Want to know how to improve your organization’s flexibility and responsiveness? Refer to the six pieces of advice Seth gives on that very subject, which are applicable across any organization or team. Want to know how to find and inspire talented team members? Turn to Chapter Three for a step-by-step guide on how leaders can challenge and motivate top performers to a desired end.

In my career, I’ve discovered that crises offer the prime opportunity for leaders to enact the change they want to see. It is imperative that leaders today recognize the need for institutional change while remaining undaunted by its inevitability. The sailing may not always be smooth, but it will be forward motion. The best leaders know that is sometimes the best they can hope for. And that’s what Seth aptly teaches us all in Getting Change Right. In the final chapter, Seth explores what he calls WorkLifeSuccess, a concept that speaks to the necessity of balance across work life and home life to achieve success in both.

I would not have been nearly as successful or content across my career without my support network of family and friends or the work-life balance I eventually achieved. Values-driven, perspective-enriched leadership does not occur automatically; I believe it is possible only once a leader establishes the sort of balance Seth advocates. Authentic leaders who are capable of getting change right the first time establish equilibrium between the important facets of their work and home lives, as Seth makes clear in his conclusion.

This, I believe, is the crux of Getting Change Right. When striving to enact needed changes in a responsible and decisive way, get the passion, get the know-how, and work diligently to find the right balance for your company and its stakeholders. Thanks, Seth, for a refreshing lesson in change leadership—and good luck to all of you on your changes ahead.