I use them everywhere; when I am training new people, starting new projects, or subconsciously in my day to day life.

Proper Preparation and Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance

I use this so much it’s the first thing I think of when working on a new project.

But why is this so important?

Time spent in preparation and planning is never time wasted.

Too often when we start something new, the excitement and the adrenaline means that we rush into things. We want to make progress, and we want to do it now. The issue is, by running straight into things, we may make mistakes that were completely avoidable if we had have thought first.

There are a whole bunch of adages and sayings regarding this, so many you would think it obvious - The old bull and the young bull, Measure twice cut, smooth is fast and fast is smooth, once to name a few.

All of these essentially try to convey that taking the time to make a plan or moving in a considerate manner is never a bad idea.

Professionally there will always be pressure to deliver results, and more than ever there is pressure for these results to almost be immediate. However, by taking the time to plan and strategise you will be able to handle unexpected events better than if you didn’t plan.

Right, planning done. Never need to do that again.

A mistake I see people often make is that they only plan at the beginning of a project; because that’s when you make a plan, right? No, you should plan regularly because when we can only ever plan with the information in front of us at the time.

During the execution of the plan, we (hopefully) uncover new information; and this information is always valuable. This new information should be studied regularly to identify what we do next, and when we make those decisions we are changing and evolving our plan.

There is a phrase that I use, that I bastardised from another one that I didn’t!

If I knew then what I know now, I would still have done what I did, because I didn’t know it then and I’m not a psychic.

Tough learnings or things which poke holes in your plan aren’t a bad thing, humans learn more through failure than success; however is there a way to minimise the chance of your planning blowing up in your face? Yes.

Everyone’s experiences are different and that makes them valuable

In a previous post on TMBA we spoke about Change Management, and in particular Change Detractors. Quite often when doing something new, people avoid those who are against the change, when in reality they are incredibly valuable. They can help identify areas you need to focus on, and if they are brought into the change management can help identify routes to success.

In the same way, bringing in people who are sceptical to a plan - or those who have different viewpoints - are going to improve the quality of your plan. You will still encounter things you didn’t know, but you will be able to understand the landscape in front of you better.

If you can see potential issues ahead, you can implement crisis planning. If you see resistance, you can plan for a change management strategy. All the inputs in the planning stage allow you to be prepared for what you might face.

However, you can’t plan forever.

A bad plan well executed, is better than a good plan never done.

It is easy when planning to obsess over making sure you are covered for every possible eventuality. Too often plans go into too much detail, when in reality the focus shouldn’t be on “how to fix issues” but rather (at least in my opinion) “how do we give ourselves the time to fix the issues”

If you try to plan for everything, what can happen is you end up planning for so long that by the time you go to act, parts of your plan are no longer valid; so you need to go back and fix them. Which means that you never actually do anything, just plan.

Now for some, this is brilliant. Can’t fail if you never try! Right?

Whilst that is true, it isn’t a great outlook to have.

My advice is to take at most one week to construct your plan, then get to delivery

How to plan

There are multiple ways, and there is no one perfect way to do so, but let me talk you through how I go about planning for any project. I get a document/sheet of paper/whiteboard whatever, and start writing down answers to these questions.

1. What do we want to do? Hopefully obvious why this is here :D

2. What value are we wanting to deliver? Focus on the reason why you are doing something

3. What does success look like? You can’t determine when a plan is successful or not if you don’t know what success looks like

4. When do we want to start? Gives you a timeline for finishing planning, and is also key in terms of resource allocation and feeding into other plans

5. When do we want to finish? Same as above

6. What problems could we encounter? Looking ahead to see if there are any parts of your plan that need adapted

7. How can we handle these problems? Starts you thinking about mitigation strategies and whether you have the resources you need

8. When do we review this plan? Gives points at which you can reassess the plan

Whilst it is not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, what this allows is the ability to not only think about what you are wanting to do, but get feedback from other people on what you are wanting to do.

The whole point of this article is to get you thinking about how you can plan, and there may be a better way for you to plan. The key thing is that a plan is not a script, it is a strategy; and good strategies are always fluid and flexible.

The essence of a good plan is flexibility

Whenever I talk about planning, the risk is that people slavishly stick to the plan even when it’s going wrong. Which is the wrong way to look at things.

There is a quote that was ridiculed at the time, but is remarkably useful.

“Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns—the ones we don't know we don't know.”

Dick Cheney

Whilst not directly applicable to planning, because it talks about events that have already happened, we can look at it from the other side. We can’t plan for everything, and if our plan is too rigid it will fail when we encounter something we couldn’t have expected.

So what do we do? We review our plan and we try as much as possible to put strategies in place to allow our plan to adapt.

Planning is not an excuse to not act.

As technicians, we may think that planning is something that project managers are responsible for. However, even in deliver and action planning can be remarkably valuable.

This value isn’t just in resourcing, but also for protecting your team or advocating for more time or resource. Showing the logic and approach to delivering something is almost a universal language in business, it doesn’t need to be technical and can be a critical communication tool.

The key takeaways I want you to have from this article are: Planning is valuable even under immense time pressure, planning is a tool to help you deliver (even under immense pressure), planning is a tool to help - never an excuse to not act.

As with many topics I cover on TMBA, there will be many different ways to plan; and it’s on you to find the one that works best for you.

In my experience though, planning is a not so secret weapon that we fail to use because it’s seen as not delivering anything - even though it helps you to deliver more effectively.

Grand, Thanks for your time.

The concerns I had, and the concerns that many I mentor bring up included:

• What if I get roasted by commenters?

• What if something I posted comes back to haunt me later?

• What if no-one sees it and I wasted my time?

Honestly, the concerns make sense; but that’s if you think about building a personal brand like you think about building a social media profile. Whereas it is actually both more and less than that at the same time.

In this post we will dive into why a personal brand is important and why you should start building one now, if you haven’t done so already. We will do so by addressing three key points that we believe are important when building your personal brand.

1. Showing who you are

2. Displaying your accomplishments and skills

3. Building a repertoire

Showing who you are

Think about your presence online. You will likely have several personal social media profiles - which you may have set to private - and most likely a LinkedIn account; if you have been active in the job market, quite likely your CV is on so many job portals and job boards you have lost count.

Typically your professional profile, and the CVs you have sent, are outdated. So if someone wants to find out about you, they see outdated information. A personal brand involves creating posts, and content such as this Substack so people can learn more about you; and typically how you approach things, what you think of things, and what you are capable of professionally.

It’s not just about content creation though, whatever form that may take, its about increasing your organic awareness. Recruiters, Talent Managers, and potential clients will meet thousands of people in their lifetime; you want to stand out in their mind, and a personal brand helps you to do that.

It’s important to bear in mind however that building your personal brand has to be personal to you. You are not trying to be an influencer, although that may happen as a by product; you are trying to show who you are as a person to as wide an audience as possible. As such, speak with your tone not somebody else’s of ChatGPTs; use the platforms you feel comfortable with; and make sure that what you are showing is important and something you have knowledge about.

Think of it like an extension of your CV. You don’t lie on that, so don’t lie with your personal brand.

This brings us onto the next point quite nicely, but before we do one thing that comes up quite a lot it “I don’t feel qualified to speak on this”. An understandable point. This imposter syndrome feeling is common, and I had it for the longest time. However, if you speak about what you know even if it is coding scripts and interesting tutorials then in time your confidence and experience will grow; and as that grows so will your personal brand.

Displaying your accomplishments and skills

Every personal brand is somewhat bragadocious and self serving; it is cringe inducing. I was speaking with a business partner of mine, and both of us hate watching our speaking engagements back. Eventually you learn to live with the cringe.

Again if you think of your personal brand as an extension of your CV, it is how you can display your skills and expertise. What can people come to you to get help with? It may not directly lead to jobs, opportunities, or sales; but what it does it helps you increase your memorability.

If everyone has a personal brand, then maybe that argument falls down a bit; but, if we think of it as the next stage on the journey then it becomes stronger. People see your CV or LinkedIn profile, they want to find out more… but you don’t have any additional content; even if everyone has a personal brand then this allows people to continue learning more about you increasing the chance of success, jobs, opportunities, and sales down the line.

Your personal brand will be a living and breathing thing; it will change, as it should, but think of it as another way of letting people learn how you can help their businesses.

Building a repertoire

Personal brands evolve and change. The first time I tried to do this was in 2013; barely out of my Undergraduate studying for my Ph.D. I talked about Statistics and things I found interesting, then in 2017 I launched a personal website, and now in 2024 Substack. Each of them at the time served a purpose.

More importantly though, each of them encapsulates a topic or a discussion point, and is something that I can send people towards if it is relevant. I have that repertoire of content that may be useful to someone. Like all brands, your personal brand will grow and gain traction, but only if there is something to gain traction on.

Oh, but what if…?

Eventually, you will be comfortable with your personal brand; but for most people, especially technical people who are used to hiding behind a screen, it will be so unbelievably uncomfortable you will want to quit.

There are a thousand reasons not to start a personal brand, but an equal number of reasons to do so.

Here’s the reason that got me. I was fed up seeing people say things I disagreed with online, and non technical people who were comfortable with their personal brand dominate the technical space. So I thought fuck it; either I can be quiet and annoyed, or do something to change it. If it fails, no one will see it, no harm no foul; if it succeeds, then I have added a perspective I thought was missing to a valuable conversation.

You should think of your personal brand as a logical extension to your CV. Many I mentor struggle to put all they have done into a two page max length document. If that sounds like you, then a personal brand is a great way of getting around that.

Speak with passion, speak with honesty, and eventually people will pay attention.

I'll leave you with this. Posting on the internet feels like the scariest thing, purely because everyone in the world may see your content. Two things.

1. Chances are very few people will see it, and in the main people aren’t arseholes; if they disagree you may learn something

2. If you do make it big; people will dislike you, it’s going to happen. Don’t feed the trolls, and engage with those who want to engage. You will most likely have more positive engagements than negative ones.

With that I encourage you to start your personal brand! What have you got to lose‽

Before you go, why not help my personal brand by subscribing to The Technician’s MBA, it’s free and helps me a ton, also consider sharing this to spread the word.

Grand. Thanks for your time.

TL;DR Details:

• Words: 411

• Approx. Reading Time: <5 minutes

Link to Post:

Overcoming Innovation Inertia

As part of the introduction to The Cycles of Discovery and Innovation we discussed “Innovation Inertia”; which is the problem that businesses will continue doing what they do until something makes them change.

TSir Isaac Newton’s First Law of Motion highlights the problem pretty succinctly:

Or to paraphrase it: An object at rest stays at rest until an external force is applied.

This is the case with businesses; people within a business will continue doing what they do (Standard Operating Practice) unless they are incentivised or made to do otherwise – This is the state of Innovation Inertia.

The sources of innovation move businesses out of Innovation Inertia and onto the Cycles of Discovery and Innovation; the two main sources of innovation are Externally or Internally driven and examples of them are:

Externally Driven

• Responding to situations: Innovation in order to respond effectively to a situation.

• Forced by the market: Innovation driven by market forces to either remain compliant or competitive in the market.

Internally Driven

• Efficiency Improvements: Innovation to increase efficiency and effectiveness.

• New employees bringing new ideas: Innovation as a result of new ways of thinking or points of view coming into the business.

• Existing employees wanting to grow: Innovation as a result of allowing and encouraging your employees to grow and develop.

As we know from Newton’s First Law, without an external force businesses will continue on the same path; and the sources of innovation are this external force.

Getting started is just the first step, innovation is a disruptive process that is a source of change; this can introduce fear and uncertainty into the business and you need to manage this for innovation to be successful in a business. Some may be concerned about it negatively affecting their ability to do their jobs, their team, or their responsibilities.

As a business leader or a driver of innovation, part of ensuring the smooth adoption of new methodologies, technology, or strategies is handling this change effectively; this can be effectively done with Change Management techniques which we are going to discuss, if we have not done already, in a future post and series of TL;DRs.

GTFYT

If you liked this please consider subscribing, and you can find the link to the main post, where you can find more information about this topic, below.

For the past 6 weeks or so I have had to rely on TL;DRs for content, just because of workload and my creative focus having to go into these projects. I have TL;DRs ready to go, I just forgot to finish, link, and schedule it.

Not to sound too LinkedInfluencer about this with a “Here’s what it taught me”, but for those who sweat mistakes happening; you really shouldn’t and here’s why.

Mistakes often happen when you are doing something you are unfamiliar with and trying to grow. Mistakes and Accidents are a part of the learning process.

Mistakes happen, get over yourself.

If you think that you are special and you will never make a mistake, get over yourself. If you think it is the worst mistake ever to have happened ever –even if you’re the person from Crowdstrike who pushed buggy code to production – it may feel like the biggest mistake in the world ever, but someone will have messed up more; and someone will mess up worse in the future.

It may feel mortifying and embarrassing, but in this age of social media unless you are an influencer or you have done something monumentally terrible, nobody cares; everyone is too focused on their own life to care about a mistake in yours. Chances are your mistake doesn’t fall into that.

If you’re afraid of mistakes, you won’t take risks, and you won’t grow.

There’s a saying in my family, which tells you we don’t work in EMS or anything directly dealing with people, “Nobody’s going to die”. Chances are, although it might feel like the biggest thing in the world, it’s not. Yes, it’s important to you, which makes it important; but chances are if it goes wrong, nobody is going to die. You might be embarrassed, but we learn, we adapt, we grow.

The point is simple; if you go through life afraid of making mistakes or failing, you won’t do something. Silly example, I have baked with my Mum for as long as I can remember; she is scared of making bread. Loves cinnamon rolls, would love to try making them; scared of killing the yeast, so doesn’t do it. Now I said “nobody is going to die”, and not to get the Yeast Lives Matter crowd on me, but its still true. If you kill the yeast, ah well make another batch and don’t replicate what you did next time.

Learn from mistakes, and move on.

When I mentor people, occasionally they ask; “How do you know this?”, and I have a simple answer.

I’ve been doing this longer, which means I’ve fucked up more than you have. The thing is I have learned from it, and know the ways in which I can reduce the risk of fucking up again.

Life, business, everything is a series of learning opportunities. The key thing is that you learn from them. If you don’t learn from them, or keep repeating the same mistakes then that’s where we encounter problems; but making mistakes is part of life, those who claim otherwise or shout because they expect perfection are arseholes.

If you penalise mistakes, stop it.

If you are the person who screams, shouts, and penalises mistakes; do me a favour, STOP IT! You are the problem, you are the reason your team is slow, you are a bad manager/leader/mentor. Mistakes suck, yeah. Mistakes take time to resolve, yeah. Mistakes are because you are trying new things, if mistakes get repeated, OK that’s an issue; but still you fix the problem that the person isn’t learning from their mistakes.

Linkin Park was right.

In the end, it doesn’t even matter. Make mistakes, but learn from them.

• If you are in an environment that punishes first time mistakes, leave that environment.

• If you are the person who punishes first time mistakes, I want to shake you and tell you how much a c*nt you are; stop it.

• If you keep making the same mistakes over and over; stop, pause, learn, adapt – don’t keep touching the stove thinking it’s not going to be hot!

So yeah, I missed a post yesterday. It was annoying, as it broke my perfection streak in my own head… If you are expecting perfection from me and this substack; OK, sorry, not going to happen. Life happens, stuff happens, I will always do my best to post every Wednesday, and since April I have missed once so it’s not a frequent thing; but if I don’t then I apologise in advance, something came up.

This Substack is important to me, and I want it to grow and succeed and thrive. Other things are important too though, and sometimes they need to take priority.

Grand. Thanks for your time.

TL;DR Details:

• Words: 678

• Approx. Reading Time: 3-5 minutes

Link to Post:

Harnessing Entrepreneurial Rage

Sometimes the most powerful source of motivation and inspiration for a business idea - both for start-ups and within larger businesses - can come from the feeling of being fed up and deciding: Enough is enough!

The problem with this Entrepreneurial Rage is whilst it is a powerful source of business fuel, left uncontrolled it can burn too hot and too wild; causing your business to suffer and the idea not to succeed. Here is how you can harness that rage to fuel your growth

1. Write the problem down

   On a sheet of paper, whiteboard, or any such solution, write the problem you are facing. Do it with the emotion and frustration that you feel towards the problem in front of you.

2. Write why it is an issue

   Now, underneath this, write why this is a problem. Through doing this you start breaking down the issues, which especially for large scale problems, help you to identify paths and solutions.

3. Write the benefits of solving this problem

   Right now, you have a rant – we want to turn this rant into an opportunity, which we can do by identifying benefits from solving this problem.

4. Sleep on it

   There are very few problems that require us to take immediate actions. We always have more time than we think. take that time. You captured the key points whilst the passion was at its hottest, now it is time to think like a business leader and form a plan, or shelve the idea for another day.

5. Read the statements and make a plan

   Now, think like the leader you are, or you want to be, and make a plan that can be actioned. At this stage it doesn’t need to be the most detailed business plan in the world, but it needs to be enough that you can start showing to people and getting second opinions.

6. Talk it through with key people

   Every viable, solvable, and deliverable problem should benefit more than you. Now it is critical to talk this problem through with key people who can help you identify things you may have missed, or whether this is a viable course of action to take. Speak with passion, not anger, and look for a range of viewpoints (both positive and negative); don’t blindly ignore or blindly follow what other people say. Seek alternative/additional points of view to make a better decision.

7. Start taking action 🙂

   With a sense check and a plan in place it is time to start taking action. Prioritise only the key features for now, so you can test your solution early. This may accrue “tech debt” however you want to make sure that you are actually providing the value that you expected.

8. Review, refine, repeat 😀

   The last step is to make sure your plan remains valid, you provide the value you are looking for, and you are making progress. If you aren’t, or you have learned things along the way that require a different approach, never be afraid to make alterations. In the worst case, you might realise that this doesn’t provide the value or solution you thought; in those cases never be afraid to reassess and stop if necessary.

You must not let the rage blind your better business judgement, use the rage like fuel to fire, but you must be able to control it otherwise that rage can lead to avoidable mistakes. Actions taken in anger are never going to be well thought through, or as good, as calm decisions made with reason and judgement. Use these steps to guide this process.

Sometimes you will be able to make things better, sometimes you won’t; however, the key thing is never to be so blinded by your frustration that you can’t see if something isn’t working. Success and failure are both end states for this journey; with failure often more likely that success. It doesn’t mean you never will succeed, or than you haven’t made changes for the better; but you will have learned from doing, and you almost certainly have achieved more than by doing nothing.

GTFYT

If you liked this please consider subscribing, and you can find the link to the main post, where you can find more information about this topic, below.

TL;DR Details:

• Words: 513

• Approx. Reading Time: 3-5 minutes

Link to Post:

The Signs and Impact of Burnout

Two statements that I think are forgotten by some businesses:

1. Burnout is avoidable.

2. Rest and recuperation are critical to continued levels of high performance.

That concept is nowhere near revolutionary. We see this with professional athletes: they train hard, perform to their maximum, then they recover. They know that recovery is as important to top performance as hard work. We need to stop fetishising “hustling” in business, and pretending that “exhaustion” is the measure of a job well done.

So what is burnout? Burnout is defined by the World Health Organisation as [1]:

Burnout as defined by the World Health Organisation (WHO)

Burnout is a syndrome conceptualised as resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed. It is characterised by three dimensions:

• feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion;

• increased mental distance from one’s job, or feelings of negativism or cynicism related to one's job; and

• reduced professional efficacy.

Burnout refers specifically to phenomena in the occupational context and should not be applied to describe experiences in other areas of life.

Mental Health UK [2] state that the signs of Burnout are:

The signs of burnout - Mental Health UK

• Feeling tired or drained most of the time

• Feeling helpless, trapped and/or defeated

• Feeling detached/alone in the world

• Having a cynical/negative outlook

• Self-doubt

• Procrastinating and taking longer to get things done

• Feeling overwhelmed

When we experience burnout it can often be the start of greater problems, burnout is an escalating situation rather than the end of the matter.

The main issue that I have with the term “burnout” is it makes it seem like such a passive thing; a candle “burns out”, a fire “burns out”, and that’s the end of it. No more issues, the problem has gone away. Right? Wrong.

When you or members of your team burn out, it is pervasive. It’s not a singular explosion – one bang then it’s done – it’s like setting landmines. A single misstep can lead to both an explosion and shrapnel, and the shrapnel can be even more devastating.

So what happens if we leave burnout untreated, and learn to live with the new normal? Short version, it slowly erodes away at who we are and replaces us with someone we probably wouldn’t like if we met.

As an individual we need to be on the look out for the signs of burnout in ourselves, identify when we are starting down the path through the stages, and most importantly ask for help. Whether that help comes from family, friends, or people within the business; we should never be afraid to ask for help.

As a business or team leader you have a duty of care towards your team and their wellbeing – much like a coach has towards their athletes – you need to make sure that you are both minimising the risks of burnout and when your team experience burnout take appropriate actions to help them.

The main article has more details on the signs and stages of burnout as well ways to manage and minimise the risks for yourself and your teams.

GTFYT

If you liked this please consider subscribing, and you can find the link to the main post, where you can find more information about this topic, below.

TL;DR Details:

• Words: 320

• Approx. Reading Time: <3 minutes

Link to Post:

Managing Change Detractors

We are going to use the definitions outlined in a previous TL;DR and from the main article in this TL;DR; so if there are any unfamiliar terms you can check these to find them.

There is one consistent part of any “Change Journey”, there will be “Change Detractors”; so how can you manage them?

The early “Change Actions” in your “Change Journey” should look to placate or assuage any doubts of the “Change Detractors”. They are also a valuable voice in the construction of the “Change Strategy” as they may see points that “Change Leaders”, “Change Champions”, and “Change Advocates” might be blind to in their enthusiasm for this change. At the end of the day as President Lyndon B. Johnson said about a known critic J. Edgar Hoover:

One way to handle “Change Detractors”, or at least prepare to do so, is to analyse each of your “Change Actions”, and your “Change Strategy” as a whole, looking critically for areas where people might be unhappy or raise points of “conflict”. You should then prepare counter arguments to these in advance so you are prepared to work through a solution with all the groups.

This is a good way of handling dissent in business, as if the “Change Detractors” are not willing to engage to help make the problem better or work together to find solutions, then it is clear that they have no interest in being productive members of the business.

It is important to remember “Change Detractors” can be right, and you need to adapt the “Change Strategy” and maybe even the “Change Goal” to reflect this situation. It is a poor leader who remains wedded to a plan in the face of contradictory evidence.

GTFYT

If you liked this please consider subscribing, and you can find the link to the main post, where you can find more information about this topic, below.

TL;DR Details:

• Words: 705

• Approx. Reading Time: 3-5 minutes

Link to Post:

The Rules of Change

We are going to use the definitions outlined in a previous TL;DR and from the main article in this TL;DR; so if there are any unfamiliar terms you can check these to find them.

Here are some fundamental rules that I have learned and use as guiding principles regarding change and how to enact change.

The rules of change:

1. Businesses/People typically don’t like change; they will tolerate it if they believe it will be worth it in the end and they see progress to towards that goal.

2. If businesses/people experience minor setbacks or don’t see continual progress, they will question the value of the change.

3. If businesses/people do choose to change, lasting change happens slowly.

4. If businesses/people are forced to change, they will try to change back.

5. In times of stress, businesses/people will try to return to tried and tested methods or approaches assuming correlation implies causation.

These may seem fatalistic, but the more you think about them, the more you realise their accuracy. Take changing your current diet and exercise regime to lose weight:

• You probably won’t like dieting or increasing exercise, but you’ll keep doing it if you see weight loss or changes in your body.

• Then, one week your weight loss stagnates, or your the same exercise feels harder one week; you start to question if it’s even worth it.

• If you try extreme diets or exercise plans that are not sustainable you will likely revert to your previous diet, but if you gradually change your diet and exercise regime you are more likely to maintain this lifestyle.

• If you are forced to do it, you will try and sneak the things you enjoy and as soon as you are no longer forced to do it you probably won’t keep it up.

• Finally, when you are stressed or something happens it is likely that you will revert to old habits and return to dieting when things normalise again.

How do I know this? Because I have experienced it myself, and I have seen others experience the same things. I could give you examples for smoking, drinking, cleaning, the list goes on; and the same is true for businesses.

This is why I mentioned earlier about breaking “Change Journeys” into smaller and more manageable steps. If you make your change journey a marathon with only one deliverable - reaching the “Change Goal” - you will experience “Change Fatigue”; breaking it down makes it easier to mitigate and manage.

In a future post we outline the example of changes in hybrid working brought about by the COVID-19 lockdowns and the impact of the 2023/24 economic downturn which follows this exact pattern.

Rules for enacting change

1. Be Compassionate: We need to realise that change is scary for some; people fear what they don’t understand, and fight what they fear - as an agent of change you are the embodiment of the change that they will fight.

2. Be Responsive: We need to be willing to change our plan to reflect the current circumstances and ensure we reach the goal we want to achieve.

3. Be Adaptable: We need to be prepared for resistance to the change we are wanting to enact, be sympathetic to their concerns, and adapt as necessary.

4. Be Prepared: We need to consider as many of the consequences that may arise from, and during, the change as possible and plan accordingly.

You can remember these rules for enacting change, because if you don’t your delivery of the change strategy will be CRAP (yes, this was intentional).

Now you might think that these rules are a load of crap, but I used to think that about all of change management before I realised its importance. The same holds true for these rules; the more you experience change in businesses, the more you will realise their value.

Out of all of them I would say the first is the most important. I said it in the subtitle for this post; the term “Change Management” will strike fear into the hearts of many. I think this is because they conflate change management with one particular type of change - the one that involves layoff and restructuring, when that is only one type of change that exists.

GTFYT

If you liked this please consider subscribing, and you can find the link to the main post, where you can find more information about this topic, below.

TL;DR Details:

• Words: 739

• Approx. Reading Time: 4-5 minutes

Link to Post:

Navigating Change Journeys

We are going to use the definitions outlined in a previous TL;DR and from the main article in this TL;DR; so if there are any unfamiliar terms you can check these to find them.

How do you start a “Change Journey”? Well first we need to address an uncomfortable fact.

No matter the type of change or its typical impact, at key points throughout any “Change Journey” (such as the start, or responding to crisis) you may have to make some uncomfortable decisions regarding who you want to come, or remain with you, on this “Change Journey”.

This is best explained by a story my father told me about a “Change Journey” he was a “Change Agent” for and it has stuck in my head ever since he first told it to me. The “Change Leader” said to the business:

In just 5 sentences the “Change Leader” told them they were going on a journey; told them why they were going on this journey; highlighted there may be personnel changes, both voluntary and involuntary; and made it clear for those who come on the journey they were expected to contribute and help the journey reach its goals.

Not every “Change Journey” will require personnel changes from the offset, but some will. This is an unfortunate side of “Change Management” and probably why people are afraid when they hear the term.

However, these situations are best handled openly and honestly to minimise the negative impacts on morale.

If you don’t have to make any of these decisions, how you start a “Change Journey” is to:

1. Look at your “Change Strategy”

2. Pick a viable “Change Action”

3. Brief the people involved in the “Change Action”

4. Start the “Change Action”

Whilst the 6Ps are true - Proper Preparation and Planning Prevents Poor Performance - we can sometimes get stuck in an endless planning loop. Yes, it is important to plan and strategise, but there comes a point where the only way in which you can refine your plan further is to start delivering it.

Will it go to plan? Almost certainly not. However, through the combination of “Change Management”, your project delivery skills, your team management skills, and the support of the business groups around you; you are prepared to handle the situations the business may encounter during this “Change Journey”.

When you are delivering a “Change Strategy”, it is vitally important that you review it after every completed “Change Action”. Like any journey you might be forced to make detours along the way, and that’s fine; however you can do more damage than good if you ignore this and just plough on in the face of currently insurmountable obstacles.

Here is a flowchart that illustrates how I approach the delivery of a “Change Strategy”:

You can see during the delivery of each “Change Action” that there are breakpoints; these breakpoints are triggered by periodic review, encountering “crisis”, or if we have finished the change action. At each of these breakpoints we review the “Change Action”, either resuming or making amendments as necessary. Then, once we complete the “Change Action”, we review our “Change Strategy” making amendments as necessary too. Then we pick the next “Change Action” and continue until we reach our “Change Goal”.

This delivery of a “Change Strategy” is wholly separate from the delivery of a “Change Action” as each change action might need a different method of delivery based upon the teams involved. This process looks to ensure that the “Change Journey” continues making progress.

GTFYT

If you liked this please consider subscribing, and you can find the link to the main post, where you can find more information about this topic, below.

Whilst we can learn from others experiences, mistakes, and successes to let them guide our own development and growth; we should never blindly mimic them in the hopes of replicating their successes. Other people are who they are based upon their experiences and how they shaped them; you should always allow yours to shape you.

This post talks about how you can understand and develop your own leadership style.

Imitation is the highest form of flattery.

All it takes is 10 minutes on Instagram or LinkedIn to see the army of Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, or Joe Rogan clones. Steve Jobs was Steve Jobs, Elon Musk is Elon Musk. You can’t copy someone else’s style and expect to replicate their success; whilst you may find momentary success what happens when the next “great” leader comes into public consciousness - will you change and mimic them?

Let’s look at the music industry, you have bands and cover bands; it is very unlikely that the cover band will have more success than the original band - they may be successful, but they won’t sell out arenas like the original did.

Another example is “own-brand” products in supermarkets. Quite often the quality isn’t as high, and the taste isn’t as good; that’s not to say that personal preferences won’t impact sales. However, a supermarket will never sell another own brand product; through imitation you limit your opportunities.

The point is this, whilst you may find limited success, you are very unlikely to exceed the success of the original; by imitating someone else you set a cap on your own potential success.

Losing, and finding, yourself - building your own leadership style.

I believe that by only ever trying to replicate someone else’s personality, leadership style, or business model; you lose yourself and become a parody of the original. What’s worse is when you find yourself in a new situation, and your way of leadership is built on someone else, you may find yourself lost because you don’t know WWED - What would Elon do?

This isn’t to say you can’t have success through “copying” someone; however when we look at case studies of successful businesses and people who do this, they offer something that the other doesn’t or change something that they think needs changed.

I think the key aspect behind all these great leaders is that their style comes from their experiences, and you can do the same; allow your experiences to shape who you are as a leader.

• Speak in your own voice - don’t try and use other’s words, use your own.

• If you experience a “bad” leader - see what they do and avoid it.

• If you experience a great “leader” - look at what makes them great and find your own way of replicating it.

• If you don’t like the way in which something is done - do it differently, learn from what worked and what didn’t and keep adapting.

• If you read something interesting - integrate it into your way of working and see how it does. Learn and adapt accordingly.

Defining a leadership style

A “leadership style” may seem like an ephemeral or intangible thing, but it really isn’t. You can define a leadership style, by stating what you do and don’t do in certain situations; and how that changes when you are doing it or being a part of it. The latter may seem to be in conflict with a “leadership” style, but by knowing what you don’t want to happen when you are in the situation, it can help us identify how we can lead others.

This exercise is done across 6 key areas that we often find ourselves in when navigating the waters of business: Knowledge, Conflict, Discussion, Delivery, Communication, Planning. I state situations in each of these that I frequently encounter, but they aren’t ironclad and can be changed to fit what you think works best; as this post is all about - take what works for you and adapt to what will work best moving forward.

For example here is my leadership style definition - I typically do this exercise in a table with the “do” and “don’t” as columns but as Substack doesn’t allow for that we will have to deal with the slightly more unwieldy formatting:

Example of a Leadership Style Definition

Knowledge

• When teaching I…

  • Do:

    • Guide others to the solution

    • Adapt my approach to the learner

  • Don’t:

    • Initially explicitly tell them the solution

    • Withhold the information if they are struggling to understand

• When learning I…

  • Do:

    • Read and understand the limitations

  • Don’t:

    • Want the answer given to me

    • Copy blindly

Conflict

• When challenged I…

  • Do:

    • Want to understand the reason and cause for the disagreement

    • Ask questions to better understand the suggested approach

  • Don’t:

    • Blindly defend my position

• When challenging others I…

  • Do:

    • Challenge with respect.

    • Ask questions about the current approach to find areas where it can be improved

    • Highlight areas of improvement, and why another approach may be valuable.

    • Set a time limit to persuade someone, and proceed as normal if I have failed to do so.

  • Don’t:

    • Attack the individual or personalise the criticism

    • Refuse to proceed unless this is done.

Discussion

• When questioned I…

  • Do:

    • Give one of three answers: I know and here is the answer, I can’t tell you and here is why, I don’t know and I will come back to you when I do with one of the other answers.

  • Don’t:

    • Outright reject the question or ignore it

• When questioning others I…

  • Do:

    • Outline why this information is valuable to me

    • Push for information if it is needed for me to do my job

  • Don’t:

    • Ask questions I know the person doesn’t have answers to

    • Accept boilerplate or “PR” answers

Delivery

• When leading teams I…

  • Do:

    • Set clear objectives and goals that define what success looks like

    • Allow the freedom for discussion and approaches

    • Set clear timelines and landmarks

    • Provide context as to why we are doing the task

    • Create a channel for updates and communication of progress

  • Don’t:

    • Micromanage the delivery of tasks

    • Set unnecessary meetings

• When part of a team I…

  • Do:

    • Ask for clear objectives and goals that define success

    • Ask for timelines that need to be met

    • Ask for context around the project

  • Don’t:

    • Accept micromanagement of tasks

Communication

• When updating others I…

  • Do:

    • Provide the information they need to know

    • Provide context as to why it is important

    • Adapt my update to the audience to facilitate understanding

    • Understand why they are looking for the update and provide what they need to do their job.

  • Don’t:

    • Go into unnecessary detail

    • Reject follow up questions

• When receiving updates I…

  • Do:

    • Outline why I need the update

    • Ask the questions I need to do what I need to do.

  • Don’t:

    • Derail the update into another type of meeting

Planning

• When planning a strategy I…

  • Do:

    • Outline why it is important

    • Set definitions of success and timelines

    • Set parameters and limitations for the current strategy

    • Talk and plan with relevant or impacted teams

    • Assess the “finalised” strategy to see whether it provides the initial target value

  • Don’t:

    • Fully define the strategy in isolation

• When being updated on, or being part of planning, the next strategy I…

  • Do:

    • Require definitions of success and timelines

    • Ask questions that are relevant to my team

    • Think about dependencies that arise

    • Challenge with respect to understand any potential issues

  • Don’t:

    • Proceed without understanding what success looks like

This exercise is incredibly useful when helping you identify your own leadership style, and when helping others develop theirs too. As I said when introducing this, adapt the statements as needed to suit what works best for you; these are the statements that I find useful.

I have found it to be a great tool for introspection and reflection; which will enable your personal growth and development.

Own your leadership style

Through building your own leadership style, you give yourself the tools to succeed. Most importantly, you learn how to adapt to new situations in front of you. For example, how businesses dealt with COVID and the accompanying lockdowns; great leaders used their experience and skills to adapt offerings to address the current circumstances we all found ourselves in - but I believe that’s only possible if you have your own way of leading.

You may never be as successful as your business idols, but through your own leadership style you give yourself the greatest chance of the highest levels of success; use others as inspiration, and be who you want to be. The greatest potential that this approach has is that you can then be the inspiration for someone else; which I think is one the biggest indications of great leaders.

If you made it all the way to here, and you haven’t already, please consider subscribing. It means a lot, and helps us grow!

Grand. Thanks for your time.

The very use of these automatically assumes knowledge, that whilst it may be commonly known to you and your team, may be unfamiliar to those around you. Now, whilst I would hope that people have the confidence and security to say “Hey, sorry I’m not familiar with that acronym; would you mind explaining it?”, that is unlikely to happen as quite often people are uncomfortable admitting they don’t know something especially when they think that they should.

In this post, we are going to talk about TLAs/MLAs, where they come from, the issue with them, and how you can make it easier for people who may not be familiar with them to understand what they mean.

We aren’t even going to touch on the worst offenders which aren’t even acronyms but are just laughably bad such as this one [1]:

Love them or hate them, TLAs/MLAs are part of business, so how can you use them effectively?

The genesis of an “acronym”

For those unfamiliar, an acronym is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) as [2]:

A group of initial letters used as an abbreviation for a name or expression, each letter or part being pronounced separately; an initialism (such as ATM, TLS)

Acronyms, in the strictest definition, allow time savings through the abbreviation of words; and when commonly understood become as understandable as the full term itself, so much so that the expansion can become redundant. For example, ATM means a cash machine, even though it is shortened from “Automated Teller Machine”; I am barely old enough to remember going to a bank teller, but for many the origin of the word will make no sense even though we know what an ATM is. In such cases the acronym becomes synonymous and supersedes its own origin, other examples being: Personal Identification Number (PIN), and the one that we use in the very title of this Substack, Masters of Business Administration (MBA).

This can happen quickly, for example let’s take the acronym GPT; this has become part of common language very quickly, although I would wager than many don’t know what it stands for. To be completely honest I had to look it up, but even though it means “Generative Pre-trained Transformer”, its usage supersedes its definition; the acronym itself has taken on a life of its own.

A good acronym can actually be a business asset, it can quickly become part of the collective intelligence and define a landscape. With this power, it is no wonder that people try to make complicated or “dry” phrases acronyms to help in adoption.

Creating good acronyms is harder than you think

Acronyms are powerful tools to solidify knowledge; in a post on this Substack we use the multi letter acronym “CRAP” as a tool to help people remember “the fundamental rules of change”. I forced this acronym.

How? The four letters stand for: Compassionate, Responsive, Adaptable, Prepared; however the first version used Flexible rather than Responsive and to make the point clearer and more memorable I changed it. I was looking for an acronym, and I was able to get one by changing a single word whilst maintaining the meaning and point I wanted to communicate.

In this case I think it works, however in the pursuit of a good acronym people can do some questionable things.

You may be asking why I put acronym in quotations marks at the top of the previous section? Whilst this definition may be what is commonly understood, language evolves and confusingly this isn’t always the case anymore. Two common variations are taking letters in the word or syllables to construct the “acronym”.

One of the first acronyms you may have been exposed to is a way to remember the order of operations in mathematical equations - PEMDAS.

PEMDAS: Parentheses, Exponents, Multiplication, Division, Addition, Subtraction

There is another acronym for this - which is the one that I was initially taught - BODMAS:

BODMAS: Brackets, pOwers, Division, Multiplication, Addition, Subtraction

Notice, to fit the acronym we don’t take the “P” from powers instead we take the “O”; this isn’t the first letter! Talk about taking the p…

If you were trying to decipher BODMAS, you wouldn’t intuitively think to take the second letter. This can lead to more confusion because if we aren’t taking the first letter anymore, there are infinite ways in which we can construct this “acronym”; how could someone unfamiliar even start to understand it?

To add more confusion into the mix there are syllabic acronyms, which are actually abbreviations rather than true acronyms. For example, “Hazmat”; this is an syllabic acronym formed from the first syllables of the words “Hazardous Materials”.

We haven’t even discussed that some acronyms can use acronyms in their acronym, or the rarely spotted recursive acronyms (GNU - GNU’s not Unix!) like an acronym inception… this can get messy quick.

The key when creating acronyms is not to think of the acronym first and force the letters to work around it. Acronyms when used correctly should help people remember knowledge, it is grossly inefficient if the time you saved by using an acronym is lost by the other people trying to figure out what the hell it means.

I am going to create an exaggerated example of how some people create acronyms, I wish this were just a joke but it can happen.

When creating acronyms remember to aim for GREATNESS:

Good Acronyms make it easy for people to remember long phrases easily

Whilst this is my poor attempt at satire, this is sadly not unrealistic, sometimes people want an acronym so badly, they forget the purpose is to make communication easier.

The inaccessibility of TLAs

Unfortunately, if we assume acronyms are created or adopted to help facilitate understanding; they can often be the very thing they looked to avoid. Acronyms to those unfamiliar with them can be exclusionary, which makes them jargon. To make matters worse, there are a finite number of combinations, and only a handful of them are “good” or useable; seriously who is going to use FCK or DIK as their acronym?

Which brings us to an issue, what if your previous business used the same acronym for a different meaning? You may end up doing something completely wrong because of this misunderstanding.

Another problem is that acronyms often try to replicate words or make them easy to say, in the language of origin. Let’s take the acronym we used at the start of this article ATM. Whilst this might have transcended english and become common use, in Germany ATMs are Geldautomats - literally gold automators. Will a german speaker understand ATM, probably; but we can’t assume that all acronyms span languages.

For a business tool that is meant to make communication easier, there certainly are a lot of issues with them. So should we stop using them? Maybe, but that’s unrealistic; instead we should get better in the ways we use them

Used correctly, acronyms are powerful tools.

As tempting as it is, I am not going to create an acronym to help you remember how to use acronyms more effectively; I have used my one attempt at satire up already in this post. Instead I am going to give you three key points to remember:

1. Never Assume Knowledge

   You might have noticed throughout this post I have used the following structure - Multi Letter Acronym (MLA). In every new document when you introduce a MLA you should use the full expansion and provide the MLA like I have shown. Then you can use the MLA throughout the document as there is a reference within for easy understanding. Some exceptions may apply, but you should do this in every new presentation, e-mail thread, and any form of digital or physical communication. It may seem awkward at first to define commonly used MLAs, but you never know who a document, or recording, is going to be sent to; and if your goal is to communicate effectively, then this will always accomplish that.

2. Seek Clarification

   When someone uses an MLA that you aren’t familiar with, politely ask for clarification and what it means. Understandably, you may be nervous that this will make the person think you don’t know enough; but the key is to highlight that you just want to confirm that we are on the same page moving forward. Also by asking for this clarification you start to create or strengthen a culture where you won’t feel self conscious making these requests moving forward. Through this and by phrasing the question in this manner, it highlights that you want to minimise the chance of any avoidable mistakes; because I guarantee if a mistake happens because you didn’t get this clarification, the person isn’t going to ignore it and absolve you of any blame or responsibility.

3. Keep a list

   This one is straightfoward, whether it is a Notion page, a Google Doc, or however you choose to do it make a list that can be shared within the business. This way you make it easy for people who may not have the confidence to ask for clarification publicly, or any new starters within the business, to find the information they need to do their jobs effectively.

Remember that the seconds saved by using acronyms in writing or speaking could actually equal minutes lost if the person doesn’t understand; and it’s not their fault, it’s yours for not teaching them.

I believe that by doing these three things, you can be the change you wish to see. Through using acronyms effectively, and showing that asking for clarification is not a bad thing to do, you can make the use of acronyms what they were intended to be - ways to communicate more effectively.

If you made it all the way to here, and you haven’t already, please consider subscribing. It means a lot, and helps us grow!

Grand. Thanks for your time.

Did you miss that post? Well you can make sure to not miss a post again by subscribing, if you aren’t already, by using the box below

*Small note I use EDI over DEI because if equity is increased then theoretically the other two should be increased too. Making equity the first point highlights this fact.

The increasing importance of EDI policies

It is easy to suggest that the increase in EDI policies has been due in no small part to the lockdowns of 2020 and 2021, and this is fundamentally a good thing for businesses. It is recognised that these policies can help increase employee satisfaction and reduce attrition rates.

As the workforce ages, and Younger Millennials/Gen Z groups occupy the hallways of power, we will see inclusive policies play a more important role. However, they aren’t there yet; and EDI policies have become heavily politicised in some circles [1].

Whilst some may view these as the “right” thing to do, businesses don’t/won’t want to always do what is “right”; especially when politics enters the fray.

How to encourage adoption of EDI policies

Unfortunately EDI policies have become ideological issues, and purely engaging on an ideological basis leaves no room for negotiation or flex.

So how do we get around the “woke” problem surrounding EDI policies?

One powerful change management technique is to reframe the benefits depending upon your audience. This approach works in many circumstances, but can be of particular benefit in cases such as these.

So, in the case of EDI policies, highlight the unintended benefits that arise from the policy; use the law of unintended consequences to your benefit.

This won’t get around ideological entrenchment, however by putting forward a more rounded business case it makes it easier to frame this as a sensible business decision, rather than solely the “right” thing to do as “right” is a subjective point. Through using this approach is makes it easier to win over merely sceptical people, whilst giving people with ideological stakeholders something to use as a shield when challenged.

The unintended benefits of EDI policies

The law of unintended consequences has three aspects to it [2]:

1. Unintended benefit: A positive unexpected benefit

2. Unintended drawback: An unexpected detriment occurring in addition to the desired effect.

3. Perverse result: When an intended solution makes a problem worse.

We dive into the law of unintended consequences and how we can use it to drive change in businesses in another post which you can read here.

For now let’s go through several business policies/practices and highlight: why this policy might have been adopted in the first place from an EDI point of view; and what unintended benefits they may have for your business.

• Remote Working: To increase representation in the workforce.

  • Why does it help from an EDI perspective?

    Remote working helps increase representation in the workforce by enabling those with family commitments to more easily fulfil those commitments whilst maintaining a job.

  • Unintended Benefits:

    • Reduced Business Overheads

      By having a predominantly remote/hybrid workforce the company can reduce the amount of money that it spends on office space and associated expenses. Also dependent upon the location of potential hires they may not be demanding as high a salary as their transport costs have been reduced.

    • Increased Talent Pool

      Through a hybrid/remote policy we can gain access to talent that might not have previously been able to commute to the office location.

    • Improved Work/Life Balance

      As a result of a hybrid/remote policy we are increasing the employees work/life balance as they are not losing time to commuting. This will also lead to more effectiveness in mornings as they may well be better rested depending upon the length of time of their commute.

• Anonymous Hiring

  • Why does it help from an EDI perspective?

    Anonymous hiring helps increase the EDI of the interview process by ensuring that cultural cues, or biases from previous employment, does not affect the hiring process. Theoretically this creates a shortlist of candidates who are qualified based upon their skills rather than any cultural or societal benefits or biases.

  • Unintended Benefits:

    • Improve Business Effectiveness

      Through a more diverse workforce the business is in a better position to respond to queries that may not be readily or best answered by the current workforce.

    • Increased Potential Audience

      Having a diverse workforce may open the business up to opportunities about which we were previously unaware due to societal norms or an extended network not present in our current workforce.

• Flexible Hours with 10-3 Meeting Hours

  • Why does it help from an EDI perspective?

    By having flexible hours with a set of core hours, this makes it easier for employees with familial commitments to remain in the workforce. The 10-3 core meeting hours means that they will not be excluded from key business decisions as a result of their familial commitments. When meeting outside 10-3 these should be extraordinary circumstances with enough notice for alternative arrangements to be made for those who need it and therefore not excluded from the meeting.

  • Unintended Benefits:

    • Improve Business Effectiveness through Reduced Meetings

      By reducing the number of hours in a week where you can have scheduled meetings to 16 hours (when you include 1 hour for lunch in the period) you are ensuring up to 60% of the week is delivery focused.

    • Improve Meeting Efficiency

      With reduced meeting hours available, this means that there is an impetus on organisers to ensure the meetings are well run as time is of the essence. This may involve sending agendas and materials ahead of time for people to review, meaning the meeting is incentivised to more productive due to time constraints.

    • Improve Communication Effectiveness

      Any communication outside of these hours will most likely be either written through e-mail or tools like Slack or Teams; meaning there are notes by default for people to refer to. This will result in improved communication effectiveness as there is an expectation that outside the core meeting hours that they will be productive time rather than meetings.

• Multicultural Holiday Celebration

  • Why does it help from an EDI perspective?

    Through celebrating multicultural holidays you encourage a sense of community and connectedness with all employees. Additionally you show employees that you value who they are as a person, not just as an employee by giving them specified holiday time for their celebrations. This holiday time is given to all employees in lieu of traditional “festive closures”

  • Unintended Benefits:

    • Improve Business Effectiveness

      By giving employees additional “celebratory” holiday, in addition to their standard holiday allowance, it means with a diverse workforce there is no down time during festive or religious celebratory periods; thereby increasing business efficiency.

These are just some examples of how you can reframe EDI policies as wider benefits to businesses to promote adoption.

EDI policies are going to play an ever increasing role in businesses as the workforce evolves, and I would wager that there are more unintended benefits than we know as EDI adoption is still in its relative infancy.

Cultural Change is Hard

Changing culture or policies is a difficult process. You will undoubtedly face opposition from some people, however it is important not to demonise your opposition. Instead look at alternative ways of framing the discussion and benefits that support the entire business rather than just focusing on the benefits for a subset of the business.

I can guarantee one thing: if you get into an ideological mud slinging contest you will damage your cause, as you inevitably reinforce the other sides point of view by confirming all their assumptions and fears. What’s worse is neutral bystanders to the debate will have negative views on both sides of the argument potentially setting your side back even more. Unfair? Yes, but its like playing chess with a pigeon:

Even if you can’t sway an ideologue, which is nearly impossible in the first place, by remaining calm, keeping your composure, and displaying a reasoned logic you will be more likely to sway undecided minds than any other means - remember ideological arguments only work on fellow ideologues.

One point to be aware of is that whilst we have used the law of unintended consequences to highlight unintended benefits; you must be ready for opponents to change to highlight the other two aspects in order to counter your point of view. You don’t have to state these from the outset but, as we discussed in the main post about this topic, you should spend time thinking of all aspects and be prepared with counter arguments to these points.

If you enjoyed this article or found it interesting please consider subscribing, its free and helps me out. You will also be kept up to date when the next post of “The Technician’s MBA” goes live.

Grand. Thanks for your time.

TL;DR Details:

• Words: 813

• Approx. Reading Time: 3-5 minutes

Link to Post:

The Types of Change

We are going to use the definitions outlined in a previous TL;DR and from the main article in this TL;DR; so if there are any unfamiliar terms you can check these to find them.

Here we encounter another difficulty; there is no unified or agreed upon definitions of the type of change, or at least one that I have been able to find.

Harvard Business School outlines two types of change: Adaptive and Transformational [3] however these terms are not exclusively used or universally adopted. Indeed using Adaptive and Technical with a different definition for Adaptive [4].

This is a pattern in change management nomenclature that annoyingly repeats itself; so we will define our own change terms with straightforward meanings.

The way in which we have created our types of change is to create as flexible a system as possible to reflect the: scope, impact/speed, and business functions affected by the change.

1. The scope of the change.

   Minor: This class of change will typically impact a small section of the business.

   Moderate: This type of change will typically impact multiple parts of the business.

   Major: This type of change will most likely impact all parts of the business.

2. The impact and speed of the change.

   Gradual: This type of change is characterised by minor and ongoing modifications implemented incrementally over time. A very slow and low impact process which sees, business functions gradually change.

   Evolutionary: This type of change is characterised by significant yet gradual changes to existing processes and infrastructures implemented as the business continues to develop. Whilst the speed of this type of change may be slow, it can be quick, and often has a significant impact on the businesses way of operating.

   Revolutionary: This type of change involves a fundamental and often radical transformation affecting the way in which a business operates; typically adding new capabilities to businesses or redefining ways of working. The speed of this change is usually rapid as businesses try to capitalise on the identified opportunity and is likely to be disruptive.

   Reactive: This type of change occurs in response to external forces or unforeseen events. It is always unplanned, requires quick and decisive action from the business, and is highly disruptive.

3. The parts of the business that are affected by the change

   Cultural: The transformation in the values and behaviours or a business. This type of change targets the essence of the company aiming to realign the culture of the business to new objectives or values.

   Technological: The transformation of a business’ technology solutions to improve the business’ operating practices. This type of change targets both internally developed technological solutions and external providers of solutions.

   Operational: The transformation of a business’ standard business practices such as workflows or processes to improve operational efficiency and effectiveness.

   Strategic: The transformation of a business’ overarching strategy, goals, or objectives. This type of change is intended to effect the direction of a business to unlock new opportunities.

   Structural: The transformation of a business’ operational structure; often through the creation, removal, or alteration, of business functions or practices.

The definitions for each have been crafted so they enable the easy formulation of definitions for the subsequent combinations, and make the objective of the change clear.

These definitions can be applied to both “Change Journeys” or “Change Strategies”. This is especially useful in the case of multiple “Change Strategies” in a “Change Journey” where we can highlight the type of change each “Change Strategy” is looking to enact.

For example we can define a “Change Strategy” where a business is wanting to capitalise on the opportunities provided by Large Language Models inside a wider “Change Journey” as follows:

• Change Goal:

  • Make the business the best in the industry for advanced AI & Technology solutions.

• Change Journey:

  • Improve the business’ technological credentials, abilities, and utilisation.

  • Change Type: Major Evolutionary Operational Change

    This change journey will impact all aspects of the business as we look to evolve the business’ way of operating to ensure that we are able to show to clients that we are at the cutting edge of the industry. This will result in every utilised process being improved with relevant technological solutions as the business develops.

  • Change Strategy

    • Build an LLM development function in the business

    • Change Type: Minor Revolutionary Structural Change

      This change strategy reframes the data team as the AI & Data team, changing their scope to not only provide data services to the business; but also be the business’ pioneers in the AI space which will require a minor restructuring of the team.

    • Change Actions

      • Rename the data team to Data & AI Team

      • Head of Data => Head of AI & Data

      • Hire 5 LLM focused engineers/scientists

As a general rule of thumb: the more severe, or the greater the impact of, the type of change, it will take longer and be more difficult to accomplish.

GTFYT

If you liked this please consider subscribing, and you can find the link to the main post, where you can find more information about this topic, below.

The rules of change:

1. Businesses/People typically don’t like change; they will tolerate it if they believe it will be worth it in the end and they see progress to towards that goal.

2. If businesses/people experience minor setbacks or don’t see continual progress, they will question the value of the change.

3. If businesses/people do choose to change, lasting change happens slowly.

4. If businesses/people are forced to change, they will try to change back.

5. In times of stress businesses/people will try to return to tried and tested methods or approaches assuming correlation implies causation.

Don’t believe me? Take a look at hybrid working. In the space of a week nearly every business went fully remote due to the COVID-19 lockdowns; some probably even tried to argue that they were essential businesses to remain open. Now several years after the last lockdown lifted, businesses are trying to pass 3-4 days a week in the office as “hybrid” working and some are mandating full returns to the office.

Their claims; that it is more efficient, improves collaboration, fosters community, etc. However these claims ring false in the ears of the younger generations in the workforce that grew up with digital communication and can thrive using it.

The world has changed since 2020; and as much as some may want to return to the ways of old - it won’t happen - but they were forced to change, and they are trying to change back because the world entered an economic downturn, and the last time they were in one of those they got out of it with people being in the office.

I’m not wanting to go into the debate about remote vs. in-person working; what I want to highlight is the law of unintended consequences.

As a result of businesses adopting both hybrid working and flexible hours, it has made it easier for employees with young families or other responsibilities to remain in the workforce; the majority of whom are women as well as other groups that may have been under represented, or previously couldn’t be present, in the “traditional” model of working [1].

This was an unintended benefit of the remote working forced upon businesses, and one that many are happy that they found. Fundamentally hybrid working made roles more inclusive.

This is a prime example of the law of unintended consequences. We will actually explore this further in a future post about the unintended benefits of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI*) business practices and how to use the law of unintended consequences to promote EDI policies. If you want to be updated when this post goes live, if it isn’t already, you can do so by subscribing.

*Small note I use EDI over DEI because if equity is increased then theoretically the other two should be increased too. Making equity the first point highlights this fact.

What is “The Law of Unintended Consequences”

Its used a lot, and quoted a lot in different situations and circumstance, but I like this definition from Rob Norton [2].

From my experience this applies to businesses too because at their core businesses are microcosms of society and pseudo-governmental in nature.

The law of unintended consequences has three aspects to it [3]:

1. Unintended benefit: A positive unexpected benefit

2. Unintended drawback: An unexpected detriment occurring in addition to the desired effect.

3. Perverse result: When an intended solution makes a problem worse.

When we think about it, the law of unintended consequences also has an analogue in Sir Isaac Newton’s First and Third Laws of Motion.

This is where “Change Management” comes into play; Businesses won’t change unless something makes, or helps, them to change. At the most simple level Change Management is the process of helping bring about, and manage, that change. Why manage? Well because we know from the law of unintended consequences and Newton’s Third Law of Motion (paraphrasing as: every action has an equal and opposite reaction) we are going to experience resistance to change and we might get more than we bargained for when planning the change journey.

Part of the section above originally appeared in our post “What is Change Management?” which you can find here if you haven’t read it already.

How can “The Law of Unintended Consequences” help us navigate a change journey?

First let us remind ourselves of our rules for enacting change, so we can prepare for any change journey with the law of unintended consequences.

Rules for enacting change

1. Be Compassionate: We need to realise that change is scary for some; people fear what they don’t understand, and fight what they fear - as an agent of change you are the embodiment of the change that they will fight.

2. Be Responsive: We need to be willing to change our plan to reflect the current circumstances and ensure we reach the goal we want to achieve.

3. Be Adaptable: We need to be prepared for resistance to the change we are wanting to enact, be sympathetic to their concerns, and adapt as necessary.

4. Be Prepared: We need to consider as many of the consequences that may arise from, and during, the change as possible and plan accordingly.

You can remember these rules for enacting change, because if you don’t your delivery of the change strategy will be CRAP (yes, this was intentional).

Essentially we need to prepare, listen, as well as being flexible and compassionate; let’s show how the Law of Unintended Consequences can help us with this.

For any “Change Action” we are wanting to take we should make the following notes:

Change Action

• Intended Benefit: What do we aim to achieve through this action?

• Unintended Benefits: What might we also achieve that was unintended?

• Unintended Drawbacks: What detrimental effects might happen?

  • What can we do to mitigate these risks?

• Chance of Perversion: Might this action have the opposite effect?

  • What can we do to mitigate this risk?

We recommend creating a “Change Action Matrix” which looks like this to help frame your thinking, and can also be easily shared, run as an interactive session, or sketched on a piece of paper.

We should do this as soon as we think of a change action we wish to take. This is because we might list some unintended drawbacks and mitigation strategies that make us rethink our intended change action. Additionally by doing so you start thinking about the other side of your actions, and prepare yourself for any questions that might come from people who are resistant to the change.

For example, a business might make this Change Action Matrix among the change advocates for going fully remote as a business in order to save money.

As a result of doing this before any further discussions they realise that actually it is a false economy and actually could be more detrimental than positive; choosing instead to investigate downsizing office space rather than having no office at all.

At which point they should redo this Change Action Matrix for the hybrid working scenario and list potential drawbacks as preparation for a session with both advocates and detractors where they do this exercise as a group; for which they are prepared for some points of conflict in advance and have already thought through counter arguments through their mitigation strategies.

As we discussed in the main post “What is Change Management?” it is useful to bring in advocates and detractors of change into this conversation especially around the “unintended drawbacks” and “perverse result” so you can understand risks and aversions to the change action and plan accordingly. Additionally by bringing in detractors gives them an opportunity to highlight issues in a public setting with supporters, so they can’t claim midway through the journey that they weren’t consulted.

Let’s do one more example but for a company wanting to invest in deploying their own Large Language Model using LLaMA and AWS instead of using OpenAI.

In this example you would have thought through the potential negatives, or unintended drawbacks, of the decision ready for any questions that may be posed. By doing this you are prepared, and will look more professional as a technology leader, because you have thought through the decision from both a technical and business decision.

Balancing Technology & Business

It’s important to remember that as you increase seniority, the business is looking for you to balance the technological needs and the business needs; this is a hard adjustment to make, but using frameworks like this can help you clarify your thinking and be prepared even if you may feel uncomfortable in this situation at first.

I would argue that all technology leaders are agents of change, that’s because one of the primary sources of change within businesses is technology. Look at Large Language Models and their rapid adoption in 2023. Great technology leaders will not only have balanced the cost of action vs. inaction and made sure that businesses implemented this safely, but they would have looked to ensure that the business was aligned on its use prior to any wide scale investment in the technology. The last thing you want to do is spend thousands on a piece of technology that gathers digital dust because no one uses it for a reason you could have mitigated through this way of thinking.

This is one way of looking at this

This is one way in which you can think about planning a change journey, and we may present more in time. I like this method when you’re starting learning how to plan change journeys as it encapsulates the main pain points and prepares you fairly well. However, read around and find which works best for you.

Which ever method or framework you choose, over time this way of thinking will become second nature; and you aren’t alone there will be advocates of change, and stakeholders, who you can talk through these ideas with and prepare ahead of any presentation of change actions to a wider audience and any potential detractors.

Change is scary, even when you are the one changing.

If you enjoyed this article or found it interesting please consider subscribing, its free and helps me out. You will also be kept up to date when the next post of “The Technician’s MBA” goes live.

Grand. Thanks for your time.

TL;DR Details:

• Words: 862

• Approx. Reading Time: 3-5 minutes

Link to Post:

Change Management Core Definitions

I have not been able to find a unified Change Management dictionary or glossary of terminology. Also different sites have different definitions for some of the terms; which makes it even more confusing.

Paradoxically, to try and make this less of a problem here are the definitions that I use when thinking about and discussing Change Management.

We will give the definitions here, and you can find more detail and context around these definitions in the main article.

Change Management: A term encompassing all methods and approaches to: plan, deliver, and support businesses and their employees during a process that alters the way their business operates.

Change Journey: The process of undergoing change, and the delivery of strategies that enact change.

Direction of Travel: The current path that a business is on, and informs their standard operating procedures or day-to-day decision making

Change Strategy: A plan that helps reach the “Change Goal”; typically focused on delivering one type of change and comprised of one or more “Change Actions”.

Change Goal: The goal of a “Change Strategy”, which is what we want to accomplish by embarking on this “Change Journey”.

Change Action: A decision that is made during the “Change Journey” which will move the business towards its “Change Goal”.

Think of it this way: Once you identify a “Change Goal”, you embark on a “Change Journey”, which you navigate with your “Change Strategies” which are a combination of one or more “Change Actions”.

All fancy business ways of saying: identify your goal, make a plan to reach that goal, break that plan into steps, execute those steps. There’s a bit more to it than this, but we will get into that in the next section.

We come to another point of disagreement which is around the “States of Change”, where some models view this as the state for the overall “Change Journey” I prefer to look at this at the “Change Action” Level. So I define the “States of Change” like this:

States of Change: As you go through a “Change Journey” each “Change Action”, and “Change Strategies”, will go through three states of change:

1. Planned: Yet to be started

2. Active: Currently being delivered

3. Completed or Terminated: Delivery completed or abandoned in light of learnings.

This definition celebrates when a “Change Action” or “Change Strategy” is completed, as well as gives the option to reflect an item is no longer needed due to our learnings on the “Change Journey”. This is important because as we will see shortly with our definition of the types of change; businesses can have multiple active “Change Strategies” on a “Change Journey”.

When it comes to delivering our “Change Strategy” there are multiple ways of doing so with each of the powerhouses in the field having their own “Change Frameworks” and everyone having their preferences.

Change Framework: A model through which we can guide a business towards their “Change Goal” through a “Change Strategy”.

There are a lot of “Change Frameworks” out there and it is personal choice which you use; but the consistant parts are the key people on a “Change Journey”.

Change Agent: A “Change Agent”, or agent of change, is an individual who is jointly responsible for helping the business navigate their transformational journey alongside the change and business leaders

Change Leader: A “Change Leader”, or leader of change, is the individual who is responsible for overseeing the delivery of the “Change Journey”. This individual can either be a part of the business or a third party.

Change Champion: A member of the business who is fully behind the “Change Goal”. “Change Champions” are key to delivery of a “Change Strategy” as they will help in the delivery of “Change Actions” by helping reduce levels of “Change Resistance” and “Change Fatigue”

Change Advocate: A member of the business who supports, and has a positive outlook on, the “Change Goal”. “Change Advocates” will help support initiatives, and be vocal proponents of change within the business, helping reduce levels of “Change Resistance” and “Change Fatigue”.

Change Detractor: A member of the business who is against the “Change Goal” and is either sceptical of its benefits, or outright opposed to its implementation.

We have mentioned some terms in the previous definitions and descriptions which we will now define, some of which sound much more dramatic than they are.

Change Resistance: An opposition to change in the business either through passive or direct means.

Change Fatigue: Disengagement or lack of enthusiasm in the change process due to a large amount of change happening in a short period. Can be a source of “Change Resistance”.

Crisis: An unexpected event that requires attention before continuing the “Change Journey” or implementation of a “Change Strategy”.

Conflict: A disagreement between parties involved in the “Change Journey”.

Change Inertia: Lack of willingness or ability to start the “Change Journey” or the tendency to advocate for the continued use of current operating practices.

We have given a lot of these without any context, and you can find more context in the main article; however these are the core definitions for Change Management which we will use in future TL;DRs.

GTFYT

If you liked this please consider subscribing, and you can find the link to the main post, where you can find more information about this topic, below.

Don’t worry about memorising all of this, or being an expert on the first read; this is a page you should bookmark and come back to for reference. Especially in future posts where we refer back to this.

We will be splitting this post into several TL;DRs, but I want this information in one place, so you can use it as a reference moving forward.

To make sure you don’t miss those posts, why not consider subscribing?

When I interview for roles, or come on board as a consultant, especially when businesses are embarking on a technological change journey, I ask: “Is everyone on board with this new direction?”, “Are there any sceptical parties about this direction you want to head?”, or similar such questions.

I do so because I haven’t in the past, and it made my life exceptionally difficult. Change is scary for many people; people fear what they don’t understand, and fight what they fear. Typically, I am viewed as the embodiment of that change, and so they fight me; or at least they try to if I don’t do my job correctly. That job is to be an agent of change to help the business reach their goals and objectives.

With this post we will give you an outline of the core change management terminology, and the way in which I like to think about it. This is not comprehensive by any means, but it is a good starting point.

There is no “correct” way of delivering change, however the confidence you are able to project whilst doing so it a critical factor in its success. So, read this, read other articles, find the way that works for you. That’s what I did, and today I am going to take you through what I found that has worked for me when delivering change in businesses.

What do we mean by “Change Management”?

It is important to state at this point that I have not been able to find a universal glossary of “Change Management” terminology. Different methods and approaches view it in different ways. Which can make it very difficult to start learning about.

I am going to introduce you to the way in which I have been able to understand it and implement it successfully; which is to break it down into smaller more manageable and comprehensible steps. Change in business takes time, and breaking it down into smaller steps make it easier to accomplish for a variety of reasons.

N.B. The structure of this post moving forward

The majority of these start definitions with the word “Change” to distinguish them from their standard business counterparts; fair warning you will read “Change” so much that it may begin to lose all meaning.

We will also encompass each term introduced in this post in quotation marks and italicise them i.e. “Change Management”; this is so you, the reader, can easily identify new terms introduced - they do not need this all the time when using them, and outside of this post we may not choose to do so. This means when you see a term formatted like this; there is a definition for it somewhere in this post.

For each new term introduced we will provide a definition at the next break in the narrative, meaning if you want to view the definition in context you can look at the surrounding paragraphs to help solidify your understanding.

Let’s start with a definition everyone can agree on: “Change Management”

Change Management: A term encompassing all methods and approaches to: plan, deliver, and support businesses and their employees during a process that alters the way their business operates.

The goal of “Change Management” is to navigate businesses through their “Change Journey” to maximise positive morale, whilst minimising negative morale, amongst employees.

Change Journey: The process of undergoing change, and the delivery of strategies that enact change.

This “Change Journey” can be a change in process, personnel, structure, or anything that alters the current course of the business’ “direction of travel” through the delivery of at least one “Change Strategy”.

Direction of Travel: The current path that a business is on, and informs their standard operating procedures or day-to-day decision making

Change Strategy: A plan that helps reach the “Change Goal”; typically focused on delivering one type of change and comprised of one or more “Change Actions”.

Change Goal: The goal of a “Change Strategy”, which is what we want to accomplish by embarking on this “Change Journey”.

Change Action: A decision that is made during the “Change Journey” which will move the business towards its “Change Goal”.

Think of it this way: Once you identify a “Change Goal”, you embark on a “Change Journey”, which you navigate with your “Change Strategies” which are a combination of one or more “Change Actions”.

All fancy business ways of saying: identify your goal, make a plan to reach that goal, break that plan into steps, execute those steps. There’s a bit more to it than this, but we will get into that in the next section.

We come to another point of disagreement which is around the “States of Change”, where some models view this as the state for the overall “Change Journey” I prefer to look at this at the “Change Action” Level. Some models call the “States of Change”: Current, Transition, and Future [1]; however I think that is confusing because once you reach future it becomes current and it never ends. So I define the “States of Change” like this:

States of Change: As you go through a “Change Journey” each “Change Action”, and “Change Strategies”, will go through three states of change:

1. Planned: Yet to be started

2. Active: Currently being delivered

3. Completed or Terminated: Delivery completed or abandoned in light of learnings.

This definition celebrates when a “Change Action” or “Change Strategy” is completed, as well as gives the option to reflect an item is no longer needed due to our learnings on the “Change Journey”. This is important because as we will see shortly with our definition of the types of change; businesses can have multiple active “Change Strategies” on a “Change Journey”.

How do we deliver a “Change Strategy”?

So how do we deliver our “Change Strategy”? Well, there are multiple ways of doing so with each of the powerhouses in the field having their own “Change Frameworks” and everyone having their preferences.

Change Framework: A model through which we can guide a business towards their “Change Goal” through a “Change Strategy”.

There are a lot of “Change Frameworks” out there but we will summarise some of the key aspects that you need to know to improve your skills as an agent of change.

Change Agent: A “Change Agent”, or agent of change, is an individual who is jointly responsible for helping the business navigate their transformational journey alongside the change and business leaders

As technological leaders we will be change agents at one point or another in our career, as one of primary sources for both types of change can stem from technology. As you progress in your career you may well end up as the “Change Leader” for a “Change Strategy”.

Change Leader: A “Change Leader”, or leader of change, is the individual who is responsible for overseeing the delivery of the “Change Journey”. This individual can either be a part of the business or a third party.

One of the key responsibilities of a “Change Leader” is to identify the business landscape. If we go back to those questions I ask when joining a business, those are key questions in doing so. To identify the landscape you want to find out:

10 Key Questions for Change Leaders at the start of a Change Journey

1. Where is the business currently?

2. Where does the business want to go i.e. what is the business’ “Change Goal”?

3. What is the type of change this “Change Goal” wants to achieve?

4. What are the benefits of achieving the “Change Goal”?

5. What are the current obstacles preventing the business from doing currently realising its “Change Goal”?

6. How long could this “Change Journey” take to complete?

7. What technological, operational, cultural, or financial restrictions do we have on the “Change Journey”?

8. Who is enthusiastic about this change?

9. Who will support this change?

10. Who is going to try and prevent this change?

The answers to these questions inform the creation of the “Change Strategy”, and we will talk about the types of change shortly, however before we do the last three questions will help you identify the groups of key people in your “Change Journey“

Change Champion: A member of the business who is fully behind the “Change Goal”. “Change Champions” are key to delivery of a “Change Strategy” as they will help in the delivery of “Change Actions” by helping reduce levels of “Change Resistance” and “Change Fatigue”

Change Advocate: A member of the business who supports, and has a positive outlook on, the “Change Goal”. “Change Advocates” will help support initiatives, and be vocal proponents of change within the business, helping reduce levels of “Change Resistance” and “Change Fatigue”.

Change Detractor: A member of the business who is against the “Change Goal” and is either sceptical of its benefits, or outright opposed to its implementation.

It might be tempting to try and exclude the “Change Detractors” from the process entirely, however this is a bad idea. This group will be:

• The primary source of “Change Inertia” when starting the “Change Journey”

• The group with the highest levels of “Change Resistance”

• The fastest group to experience “Change Fatigue”

• One of the largest sources of “conflict” throughout the “Change Journey”

• Problematic during times of “crisis”, and may try and use this to generate “Change Resistance” amongst employees and potentially damage morale.

We have mentioned some terms in the previous definitions and descriptions which we will now define, some of which sound much more dramatic than they are.

Change Resistance: An opposition to change in the business either through passive or direct means.

Change Fatigue: Disengagement or lack of enthusiasm in the change process due to a large amount of change happening in a short period. Can be a source of “Change Resistance”.

Crisis: An unexpected event that requires attention before continuing the “Change Journey” or implementation of a “Change Strategy”.

Conflict: A disagreement between parties involved in the “Change Journey”.

Change Inertia: Lack of willingness or ability to start the “Change Journey” or the tendency to advocate for the continued use of current operating practices.

Now let’s talk about how to manage “Change Detractors” with the key terms now defined.

The early “Change Actions” in your “Change Journey” should look to placate or assuage any doubts of the “Change Detractors”. They are also a valuable voice in the construction of the “Change Strategy” as they may see points that “Change Leaders”, “Change Champions”, and “Change Advocates” might be blind to in their enthusiasm for this change. At the end of the day as President Lyndon B. Johnson said about a known critic J. Edgar Hoover:

One way to handle “Change Detractors”, or at least prepare to do so, is to analyse each of your “Change Actions”, and your “Change Strategy” as a whole, looking critically for areas where people might be unhappy or raise points of “conflict”. You should then prepare counter arguments to these in advance so you are prepared to work through a solution with all the groups.

This is a good way of handling dissent in business, as if the “Change Detractors” are not willing to engage to help make the problem better or work together to find solutions, then it is clear that they have no interest in being productive members of the business.

It is important to remember “Change Detractors” can be right, and you need to adapt the “Change Strategy” and maybe even the “Change Goal” to reflect this situation. It is a poor leader who remains wedded to a plan in the face of contradictory evidence.

To this point, when you are delivering a “Change Strategy”, it is vitally important that you review it after every completed “Change Action”. Like any journey you might be forced to make detours along the way, and that’s fine; however you can do more damage than good if you ignore this and just plough on in the face of currently insurmountable obstacles.

Here is a flowchart that illustrates how I approach the delivery of a “Change Strategy”:

You can see during the delivery of each “Change Action” that there are breakpoints; these breakpoints are triggered by periodic review, encountering “crisis”, or if we have finished the change action. At each of these breakpoints we review the “Change Action”, either resuming or making amendments as necessary. Then, once we complete the “Change Action”, we review our “Change Strategy” making amendments as necessary too. Then we pick the next “Change Action” and continue until we reach our “Change Goal”.

This delivery of a “Change Strategy” is wholly separate from the delivery of a “Change Action” as each change action might need a different method of delivery based upon the teams involved. This process looks to ensure that the “Change Journey” continues making progress.

Fundamental Rules of Change

Before we dive into the the different types of change, here are some fundamental rules that I have learned and use as guiding principles regarding change and how to enact change.

The rules of change:

1. Businesses/People typically don’t like change; they will tolerate it if they believe it will be worth it in the end and they see progress to towards that goal.

2. If businesses/people experience minor setbacks or don’t see continual progress, they will question the value of the change.

3. If businesses/people do choose to change, lasting change happens slowly.

4. If businesses/people are forced to change, they will try to change back.

5. In times of stress, businesses/people will try to return to tried and tested methods or approaches assuming correlation implies causation.

These may seem fatalistic, but the more you think about them, the more you realise their accuracy. Take changing your current diet and exercise regime to lose weight:

• You probably won’t like dieting or increasing exercise, but you’ll keep doing it if you see weight loss or changes in your body.

• Then, one week your weight loss stagnates, or your the same exercise feels harder one week; you start to question if it’s even worth it.

• If you try extreme diets or exercise plans that are not sustainable you will likely revert to your previous diet, but if you gradually change your diet and exercise regime you are more likely to maintain this lifestyle.

• If you are forced to do it, you will try and sneak the things you enjoy and as soon as you are no longer forced to do it you probably won’t keep it up.

• Finally, when you are stressed or something happens it is likely that you will revert to old habits and return to dieting when things normalise again.

How do I know this? Because I have experienced it myself, and I have seen others experience the same things. I could give you examples for smoking, drinking, cleaning, the list goes on; and the same is true for businesses.

This is why I mentioned earlier about breaking “Change Journeys” into smaller and more manageable steps. If you make your change journey a marathon with only one deliverable - reaching the “Change Goal” - you will experience “Change Fatigue”; breaking it down makes it easier to mitigate and manage.

In a future post we outline the example of changes in hybrid working brought about by the COVID-19 lockdowns and the impact of the 2023/24 economic downturn which follows this exact pattern.

Rules for enacting change

1. Be Compassionate: We need to realise that change is scary for some; people fear what they don’t understand, and fight what they fear - as an agent of change you are the embodiment of the change that they will fight.

2. Be Responsive: We need to be willing to change our plan to reflect the current circumstances and ensure we reach the goal we want to achieve.

3. Be Adaptable: We need to be prepared for resistance to the change we are wanting to enact, be sympathetic to their concerns, and adapt as necessary.

4. Be Prepared: We need to consider as many of the consequences that may arise from, and during, the change as possible and plan accordingly.

You can remember these rules for enacting change, because if you don’t your delivery of the change strategy will be CRAP (yes, this was intentional).

Now you might think that these rules are a load of crap, but I used to think that about all of change management before I realised its importance. The same holds true for these rules; the more you experience change in businesses, the more you will realise their value.

Out of all of them I would say the first is the most important. I said it in the subtitle for this post; the term “Change Management” will strike fear into the hearts of many. I think this is because they conflate change management with one particular type of change - the one that involves layoff and restructuring, when that is only one type of change that exists.

What are the types of change?

Here we encounter another difficulty; there is no unified or agreed upon definitions of the type of change, or at least one that I have been able to find.

Harvard Business School outlines two types of change: Adaptive and Transformational [3] however these terms are not exclusively used or universally adopted. Indeed using Adaptive and Technical with a different definition for Adaptive [4].

This is a pattern in change management nomenclature that annoyingly repeats itself; so we will define our own change terms with straightforward meanings.

The way in which we have created our types of change is to create as flexible a system as possible to reflect the: scope, impact/speed, and business functions affected by the change.

1. The scope of the change.

   Minor: This class of change will typically impact a small section of the business.

   Moderate: This type of change will typically impact multiple parts of the business.

   Major: This type of change will most likely impact all parts of the business.

2. The impact and speed of the change.

   Gradual: This type of change is characterised by minor and ongoing modifications implemented incrementally over time. A very slow and low impact process which sees, business functions gradually change.

   Evolutionary: This type of change is characterised by significant yet gradual changes to existing processes and infrastructures implemented as the business continues to develop. Whilst the speed of this type of change may be slow, it can be quick, and often has a significant impact on the businesses way of operating.

   Revolutionary: This type of change involves a fundamental and often radical transformation affecting the way in which a business operates; typically adding new capabilities to businesses or redefining ways of working. The speed of this change is usually rapid as businesses try to capitalise on the identified opportunity and is likely to be disruptive.

   Reactive: This type of change occurs in response to external forces or unforeseen events. It is always unplanned, requires quick and decisive action from the business, and is highly disruptive.

3. The parts of the business that are affected by the change

   Cultural: The transformation in the values and behaviours or a business. This type of change targets the essence of the company aiming to realign the culture of the business to new objectives or values.

   Technological: The transformation of a business’ technology solutions to improve the business’ operating practices. This type of change targets both internally developed technological solutions and external providers of solutions.

   Operational: The transformation of a business’ standard business practices such as workflows or processes to improve operational efficiency and effectiveness.

   Strategic: The transformation of a business’ overarching strategy, goals, or objectives. This type of change is intended to effect the direction of a business to unlock new opportunities.

   Structural: The transformation of a business’ operational structure; often through the creation, removal, or alteration, of business functions or practices.

The definitions for each have been crafted so they enable the easy formulation of definitions for the subsequent combinations, and make the objective of the change clear.

These definitions can be applied to both “Change Journeys” or “Change Strategies”. This is especially useful in the case of multiple “Change Strategies” in a “Change Journey” where we can highlight the type of change each “Change Strategy” is looking to enact.

For example we can define a “Change Strategy” where a business is wanting to capitalise on the opportunities provided by Large Language Models inside a wider “Change Journey” as follows:

• Change Goal:

  • Make the business the best in the industry for advanced AI & Technology solutions.

• Change Journey:

  • Improve the business’ technological credentials, abilities, and utilisation.

  • Change Type: Major Evolutionary Operational Change

    This change journey will impact all aspects of the business as we look to evolve the business’ way of operating to ensure that we are able to show to clients that we are at the cutting edge of the industry. This will result in every utilised process being improved with relevant technological solutions as the business develops.

  • Change Strategy

    • Build an LLM development function in the business

    • Change Type: Minor Revolutionary Structural Change

      This change strategy reframes the data team as the AI & Data team, changing their scope to not only provide data services to the business; but also be the business’ pioneers in the AI space which will require a minor restructuring of the team.

    • Change Actions

      • Rename the data team to Data & AI Team

      • Head of Data => Head of AI & Data

      • Hire 5 LLM focused engineers/scientists

As a general rule of thumb: the more severe, or the greater the impact of, the type of change, it will take longer and be more difficult to accomplish.

Starting a “Change Journey”

So with all that how do you start a “Change Journey”. Well first we need to address an uncomfortable fact.

No matter the type of change or its typical impact, at key points throughout any “Change Journey” (such as the start, or responding to crisis) you may have to make some uncomfortable decisions regarding who you want to come, or remain with you, on this “Change Journey”.

This is best explained by a story my father told me about a “Change Journey” he was a “Change Agent” for and it has stuck in my head ever since he first told it to me. The “Change Leader” said to the business:

In just 5 sentences the “Change Leader” told them they were going on a journey; told them why they were going on this journey; highlighted there may be personnel changes, both voluntary and involuntary; and made it clear for those who come on the journey they were expected to contribute and help the journey reach its goals.

Not every “Change Journey” will require personnel changes from the offset, but some will. This is an unfortunate side of “Change Management” and probably why people are afraid when they hear the term.

However, these situations are best handled openly and honestly to minimise the negative impacts on morale.

If you don’t have to make any of these decisions, how you start a “Change Journey” is to:

1. Look at your “Change Strategy”

2. Pick a viable “Change Action”

3. Brief the people involved in the “Change Action”

4. Start the “Change Action”

Whilst the 6Ps are true - Proper Preparation and Planning Prevents Poor Performance - we can sometimes get stuck in an endless planning loop. Yes, it is important to plan and strategise, but there comes a point where the only way in which you can refine your plan further is to start delivering it.

Will it go to plan? Almost certainly not. However, through the combination of “Change Management”, your project delivery skills, your team management skills, and the support of the business groups around you; you are prepared to handle the situations the business may encounter during this “Change Journey”.

That was a lot of information…

That was a long post, however one of the frustrations I found when I was learning change management - no more formatting, it’s the end of the post - was that I couldn’t find a singular post that covered the main points. The upside though is that now we have a post we can refer back to everytime we mention change-related topics!

If you made it all this way and you haven’t already you really should subscribe to “The Technician’s MBA” as that was a marathon post. Consider this your “I made it through the change management post” medal 🥇.

Grand. Thanks for your time.

There are many ways in which “entrepreneurs” come up with ideas, some will some from seeing an opening that you can fill; some may come from a life or work experiences where you identify improvements that can be made; and some may come from being so fed up about the situation in front of you that you decide, enough is enough, I am going to do something about this.

The last point is what I call “The Entrepreneurial Rage”; which, when harnessed properly, can be an exceptionally powerful tool.

What is “Entrepreneurial Rage”?

To expand on the definition a bit further, entrepreneurial rage is best encapsulated by the frustration that you may experience from a situation or a process being so bad it gets you angry or annoyed. This may start as a small annoyance; but once you notice the problem, you start to see it more frequently and the frustration builds each time. After a while, you reach a breaking point and decide: ENOUGH! Either I am going to keep complaining or I am going to do something to try and make the situation better. The entrepreneurial flame is ignited from the anger towards the situation: also known as “Entrepreneurial Rage”.

This can be a powerful method of identifying opportunity, because unlike the other sources of entrepreneurial inspiration, you are motivated to do something because you are most likely affected by the problem; or at the very least truly passionate about it since it annoyed you enough to make you want to act.

Case and point: The Technician’s MBA. This substack you are reading was conceptualised from my own entrepreneurial rage; I was frustrated that there was not anything I could use as a technically minded person to learn key business concepts. So, I decided to stop complaining and do something.

Enough is Enough

Like I said earlier, I believe that entrepreneurship is not solely confined to the realm of start ups and it can happen inside of larger businesses too; in either case whilst “rage” has been the catalyst, you have to now harness the flame to deliver value and not get blinded by the passion.

Especially in larger businesses, technically minded people who can see a better solution can be frustrated by situations and want to act. However, we have to act in a way that doesn’t cause other people to shy away or disengage; we might be passionate about the problem, that doesn’t mean everyone else will be too.

In a future post we will discuss the general topic of “Change Management” which is fundamentally how we can manage the delivery and deployment of new ideas into businesses. To make sure you don’t miss that post, if it isn’t live already, why not subscribe? It would help us grow and I would greatly appreciate it.

Harnessing the rage as fuel for action

So how do we harness the passion to ensure that we can deliver a solution that alleviates the frustration? Here are some key steps that I use that help turn the rage into action; and allow the frustration to be processed so at the end you can make a determination about the next action with a level head. I’ll give examples relating to how I came up with “The Technician’s MBA”

1. Write the problem down 🤬

On a sheet of paper, whiteboard, or any such solution, write the problem you are facing. Do it with the emotion and frustration that you feel towards the problem in front of you.

I am fed up with the lack of available resources to help people learn key business concepts without having to pay exorbitant amounts.

From my own experience, and I have several notes like this, it can also help to get the problem off your mind. Writing the problem down can be a cathartic exercise, especially if you feel like you are going to build a plan to rectify it.

2. Write why it is an issue 😡

Now, underneath this, write why this is a problem.

I am fed up with the lack of available resources to help people, especially technicians, learn key business concepts without having to pay exorbitant amounts.

This is a problem because:

• We complain that technical people don’t understand business, but don’t train them.

• Businesses don’t listen to technical people because they don’t speak the language they understand to drive action.

• We cause issues throughout the technical hierarchy, because the team get frustrated because they can’t do things that they want/need and the leaders aren’t equipped to handle this.

Through doing this you start breaking down the issues, which especially for large scale problems, help you to identify paths and solutions. It’s like the old joke “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time”

3. Write the benefits of solving this problem 😤

Right now, you have a rant; which is fine! Now we want to turn this rant into an opportunity, which we can do by identifying benefits from solving this problem.

4. Sleep on it 😴

There are very few problems that require us to take immediate actions. We always have more time than we think. So with our problem and benefit statements written, we should take time and allow ourselves the ability to come back to the problem with a clearer head.

Sometimes, in the cold light of day, we may realise that the benefits aren’t actually what we think they are and: we don’t have a solution or we have more benefits than we thought. You captured the key points whilst the passion was at its hottest, now it is time to think like a business leader and form a plan, or shelve the idea for another day when the situation is better to drive the change you want to see.

5. Read the statements and make a plan 🙁

Now, think like the leader you are, or you want to be, and make a plan that can be actioned. At this stage it doesn’t need to be the most detailed business plan in the world, but it needs to be enough that you can start showing to people and getting second opinions.

6. Talk it through with key people 😑

Every viable, solvable, and deliverable problem should benefit more than you. Moreover up until now, most likely, you have been going through this individually; now it is critical to talk this problem through with key people who can help you identify things you may have missed, or whether this is a viable course of action to take.

Importantly, you should always speak with passion, but by now you should not be speaking with anger; if you approach people angrily they will be unlikely to want to help or engage.

Not everyone will agree with you, and nor do you want them to; you should look to talk to people who may be sceptical to refine your plan or help you decide whether this is viable. Only talking to those you think will agree with you is a bad strategy when making key decisions.

It is key that you neither blindly ignore or blindly follow what other people say; you seek alternative/additional points of view to make a better decision. Sometimes that may be to take no action, or to start putting your plan in motion.

7. Start taking action 🙂

With a sense check and a plan in place it is time to start taking action. Prioritise only the key features for now, so you can test your solution early. This may accrue “tech debt” however you want to make sure that you are actually providing the value that you expected.

We have a post about this called “The Cycles of Discovery and Innovation” that have some key points that are worth looking at during this stage.

https://thetechniciansmba.substack.com/p/the-cycles-of-discovery-and-innovation

8. Review, refine, repeat 😀

The last step is to make sure your plan remains valid, you provide the value you are looking for, and you are making progress. If you aren’t, or you have learned things along the way that require a different approach, never be afraid to make alterations. In the worst case, you might realise that this doesn’t provide the value or solution you thought; in those cases never be afraid to reassess and stop if necessary.

You must not let the rage blind your better business judgement, use the rage like fuel to fire, but you must be able to control it otherwise that rage can lead to avoidable mistakes. This is why I placed the emojis next to each section heading to show that as you make progress you are turning that initial rage into fuel to support your ambitions; and through action you can feel more positive about the situation you find yourself in.

The key thing is, actions taken in anger are never going to be well thought through, or as good, as calm decisions made with reason and judgement. This process is good at managing this transition, because throughout this journey you need to make sure that you are making progress and not being blind to the fact that it might not be working.

Never die trying

Sometimes you will be able to make things better, sometimes you won’t; however, the key thing is never to be so blinded by your frustration that you can’t see if something isn’t working.

If you succeed, fantastic! You have realised the benefits you set out, and maybe even more by the law of unintended consequences - a post all about this is coming out soon!

If you don’t succeed, or don’t achieve everything you wanted; that’s sometimes how it goes. It doesn’t mean you never will, or than you haven’t made changes for the better; but you will have learned from doing, and you almost certainly have achieved more than by doing nothing.

At the very least, you have addressed something that is frustrating you, probably developed skills along the way, and at the very least helped release some frustration that may have been clouding your judgement; a lot of people regret not doing something, but fewer people regret trying to do something.

If you made it all the way to here, and you haven’t already, please consider subscribing. It means a lot, and helps us grow!

Grand. Thanks for your time.

TL;DR Details:

• Words: 308

• Approx. Reading Time: 2-3 minutes

Link to Post:

The Cycles of Discovery & Innovation

Time is finite. Every action you take in a business will likely come at the expense of another; focusing on delivering leaves little time for innovation, and focusing on innovation can affect your ability to deliver.

The Cycles of Discovery and Innovation highlight the importance of Standard Operating Practice (SOP), and the trade-offs required when advancing your businesses capabilities by making it both the centre and the starting point for the cycles discovery and innovation.

The cycles highlight the unpopular, and often ignored fact, that by going on journeys of discovery or innovation, you are moving away from SOP which will have an impact on your delivery ability; time and resource are finite in businesses, there’s no avoiding this fact.

Moreover, we use the name “Cycles of Discovery and Innovation” to highlight the order in which businesses should do these activities; discovery then innovation to maximise potential benefits, while minimising potential risks. The cycles also give key states and actions that should form a part of every business process to minimise risks and maximise potential. The last thing you want to do is sink time, effort, and resources into a project that won’t be adopted by the business for a reason you could have identified during the discovery process.

At the end of the day, discovery and innovation are critical activities for businesses if they want to stay at the forefront of their field or remain competitive; what made you great, won’t always keep you great.

With the “Cycles of Discovery and Innovation” we enable businesses to think about the impact of these activities on the business’ standard operating practice, whilst highlighting the order of operations is important to maximise benefits while minimise risk.

You can read more about the stages in the Cycles of Discover and Innovation in the main article.

GTFYT

If you liked this please consider subscribing, and you can find the link to the main post, where you can find more information about this topic, below.

We will highlight this section in the text when we get to it so if you want, you can skip to the next section.

These topics cover drug abuse, depression, and abusive behaviour. If you are affected by any of these topics discussed in the article please seek relevant professional help.

If you live in the UK you can call the Samaritans 24 hours a day on 116 123 or text SHOUT to 85258 or visit https://www.samaritans.org

Last week was Mental Health Awareness week, and you may be thinking to yourself: “Simon, you should have posted this last week!”, and you may be right; but I didn’t want this post to be drowned out in the sea of posts around mental health last week, and it wasn’t ready.

I know from both personal experience, managing teams, and mentoring people that this is too important a topic to rush out for a content calendar.

With that, let’s start with a confession and story.

The Confession

Throughout my career I have run teams to the ragged edge in pursuit of a deliverable that was asked of me, and that I agreed was necessary to reach the business’ goals. Why? Because sometimes you need to, in order to get the job done – but I didn’t do it without highlighting the risks.

“OK – the team and I will get it done. It will be hard but we will do it, however this cannot become the expected pace, as it will burn the team out. Also, fair warning, the quality may not be as good due to the volume and time frame you’ve set out, so we’ll need the sales and client teams to step up for some editing and commentary.”

With the risks made clear and support from the business, we banded together and got it done. We celebrated this marathon effort, though the quality was nowhere near our usual standards. We knew that, but the business was happy.

The story

The next week, we were asked why something was scoped at four days when it only took two days the previous week. I highlighted that we were back to normal working, and not pushing the team to abnormal capabilities. The same people that had previously supported us were upset. When I said “OK, we can do it – if we do the same again”, the reaction was less than positive. Understandably, the rest of the business couldn’t now support us like before as they had their own tasks to do; yet they were confused why my team was unable to do it alone. It wasn’t recognised that the previous two day turnaround was an all business effort.

I spent time in meetings pushing back and setting expectations. The best support to my position was during this time the team did a quick turnaround piece of work, and they weren’t happy with the quality; I highlighted that this was the inevitable by-product of the short turnaround. However, there were insinuations that the team weren’t working “hard enough” because “they showed they could do it" – “not without increased” support I countered.

The next time I met with one of my deputies I found out between our catch ups they were working 12–14 hours a day to try and reach the deadlines for deliverables; to say I was angry is an understatement. They looked and sounded exhausted, so I sent them home (well… I asked them to sign off as they were working from home). My manager understood and supported the decision, but it was not well received by everyone in the business.

So, why did I push back so hard? Rest is as important as hard work. If your team aren’t rested, they won’t do good work and will inevitably burn out. When that happens, the effects are pervasive and impact more than just the individual.

The moral of the story

Every good story needs a moral, and so the moral today is this:

I have made it a quote, because I stand by it – you can quote me on it, and I will defend it until the day I take my last breath.

Paradoxically, I do admit that sometimes short term increased workloads need to happen that wouldn’t be sustainable over a longer period – but that’s why I say “become the norm rather than the exception”. You shouldn’t be afraid to push your team hard and expect high standards, but you need to acknowledge that rest and recuperation are critical to continued levels of high performance.

That concept is nowhere near revolutionary. We see this with professional athletes: they train hard, perform to their maximum, then they recover. They know that recovery is as important to top performance as hard work. We need to stop fetishising “hustling” in business, and pretending that “exhaustion” is the measure of a job well done.

From personal experience, both as a technical practitioner – someone who gets stuff done – and a senior manager, the quality of work after 40 hours a week (over-working) declines massively. You might think that you get more done, but the quality can be so poor that you likely have to re-do it, completely negating the reason for over-working.

What if we ignore this moral?

You, or your team will, at some point, experience “Burnout” [1]:

Burnout as defined by the World Health Organisation (WHO)

Burnout is a syndrome conceptualised as resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed. It is characterised by three dimensions:

• feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion;

• increased mental distance from one’s job, or feelings of negativism or cynicism related to one's job; and

• reduced professional efficacy.

Burnout refers specifically to phenomena in the occupational context and should not be applied to describe experiences in other areas of life.

Whilst the WHO make it clear that it is an occupational phenomenon rather than a medical condition, experiencing burnout can exacerbate, or cause, medical conditions. I think the key thing that this definition highlights is that burnout is caused by work, not personal situations. Sometimes it can be hard to separate the two, and at others it is easily separated; you just have to be honest with yourself to help identify the root cause.

The main issue that I have with the term “burnout” is it makes it seem like such a passive thing; a candle “burns out”, a fire “burns out”, and that’s the end of it. No more issues, the problem has gone away. Right? Wrong.

When you or members of your team burn out, it is pervasive. It’s not a singular explosion – one bang then it’s done – it’s like setting landmines. A single misstep can lead to both an explosion and shrapnel, and the shrapnel can be even more devastating.

What are the signs and stages of burnout?

Let’s start with the signs of burnout, as stated by Mental Health UK [2]:

The signs of burnout - Mental Health UK

• Feeling tired or drained most of the time

• Feeling helpless, trapped and/or defeated

• Feeling detached/alone in the world

• Having a cynical/negative outlook

• Self-doubt

• Procrastinating and taking longer to get things done

• Feeling overwhelmed

I found this model on Forbes that was developed by psychologist Herbert Freudenberger and his colleagues, which I think is a pretty good description.

Stages of Burnout - Paraphrased from Herbert Freudenberger et.al.

1. Excessive ambition: Enthusiasm can be a benefit and a detriment. You feel like you aren’t good enough and you should be doing more, better, and faster.

2. Working harder: If I work harder, then I will do better. As part of this, you take on more work which means you can’t do everything in working hours. This leads to things like 12 hour days, answering emails on weekends, and it is only compounded when you are praised for “going above and beyond”. You feel good for being acknowledged and so starts the addiction to work and praise – disconnecting from work feels difficult, and you feel guilty when you don’t work harder.

3. Neglecting your needs: At this stage, you start to prioritise the needs of others and work ahead of your own. This neglect of your own needs means you don’t prioritise your wellbeing which can present as: weight gain, insomnia, decreased focus, poor diet, etc.

4. Displacing problems: Through focusing on work excessively, you ignore the world and the problems around you. From time to time you may realise something is not right, but solving it is too much with everything you have going on at work. This reinforces the cycle and puts even more pressure on work, as you then need to get work done to allow you to sort the other problems you have.

5. Revision of values: There will come a time when you realise this isn’t the person you wanted to be; but instead of re-aligning, you adjust your values to be what they need so you can focus on work. You overlook the needs of friends and family, hobbies are a luxury you can no longer afford, and self care is selfish. You define your value based upon your work.

6. Denial of new problems: You have changed and others should embrace the new you and your outlook on life. This can lead to butting heads with colleagues because they are lazy, or clients because they are demanding, or family because they are needy. You become intolerant, lacking empathy, and cynical. Work is to blame for your issues, not that you have realigned your values and changed as a person.

7. Withdrawal: I don’t have time for friends or relationships, work is too important right now; once I reach the right level I can refocus. So you pull back from your relationships, your world revolves around work and you escape through guilty pleasures

8. Impact on Others: Your family start to worry about you, you aren’t the person you were before and you’re impatient and irritable. You lose focus on what’s important and start doing things that impact others because you lose focus, i.e. not picking up your children from school, or missing meetings because you’re too “focused”

9. Depersonalisation: You don’t know who you are anymore. You feel detached from your life and you are merely occupying an empty vessel that once was your body. Going through life like a zombie, whereas before you were enthusiastic to work, now you do it because you need to.

10. Inner Emptiness: What once gave you value, doesn’t anymore. You start to feel worthless. You lose your drive and fantasise about quitting and leaving it all behind. To cope with this you may turn to bad habits like unhealthy eating, alcohol, or drugs in order to numb yourself.

11. Depression: You become emotionally and mentally exhausted; Life and Work feel pointless.

12. Full Burnout Syndrome: You reach your breaking point. Your body may collapse or you may suffer a mental breakdown. Medical attention is necessary, and many professionals need to take extended leave in order to heal

It’s important to note that with these stages, they aren’t always linear, you can skip stages, or go through ones faster than others; but these are useful to help you reflect and identify where do you see yourself in, and why?

What are the impacts of burnout?

Content Warning: In this section I discuss the risks of burnout and its potential repercussions, in order to highlight that this is a serious issue that requires action by businesses and should not be ignored.

These topics cover drug abuse, depression, and abusive behaviour. If you are affected by any of these topics discussed in the article please seek relevant professional help.

If you live in the UK you can call the Samaritans 24 hours a day on 116 123 or text SHOUT to 85258 or visit https://www.samaritans.org

If you are affected by any of these topics, you can skip to the next section, the heading is “So how do we minimise the risks of burnout?” if you want to search for it directly.

When we experience burnout it can often be the start of greater problems; and as we see from the definitions for the stages of burnout in the previous section, an escalating situation rather than the end of the matter.

So what happens if we leave burnout untreated, and learn to live with the new normal? Short version, it slowly erodes away at who we are and replaces us with someone we probably wouldn’t like if we met.

Western Governors University have a good, and I think comprehensive, list of effects of burnout [3].

The Effects of Burnout - As stated by WGU

• Physical health issues

  • Excessive stress

  • Fatigue

  • Increased likelihood for heart disease

  • Increased likelihood for high blood pressure

  • Increased likelihood for type 2 diabetes

  • Increased likelihood for respiratory issues

  • Increased likelihood for death before age 45

• Mental health issues

  • Depression

  • Anger

  • Irritability

  • Anxiety

  • Increased likelihood for mental health needs like medication or hospitalisation

• Personal consequences

  • Alcohol or substance abuse

  • Isolation from friends and family

  • Irresponsibility with finances

  • Anger towards family members

  • Inability to fulfil responsibilities

• Professional consequences

  • Job dissatisfaction

  • Withdrawing from colleagues and friends

  • Inability to do job well

  • Drain on company resources

This list highlights that burnout can lead to severe health issues, increased sources of stress outside of work, detrimental effects on your relationships, dependence on coping mechanisms, as well as impacts on your professional capabilities.

From my personal experience this list resonates with times that I have been burned out; not all of them, but I know from speaking with my partner that I was vaping more; I was going to the pub after work more frequently in order to “de-stress”; I was more grumpy, my temperament was more irritable; and I was constantly tired. In hindsight, it was obvious; but at the time I normalised this because it gradually happened.

What I also recognise in this list are times where I have noticed these traits among colleagues that I think are burned out; because their behaviour shifts.

There was a colleague of mine who I was friends with, and over time I think the stress of their job got to them. There would be times where they would scream at people. “What is this sh*t?!”, “This is your f*cking problem, fix it!”, “Why am I having to do your f*cking job?”.

The person I knew for years wasn’t a bully, but their behaviour became such. I regret that I only confronted it directly with the person was when it was aimed towards me, as I think it was a sense of relief when I wasn’t the one getting screamed at.

Upon reflection, I should have tried speaking to them about burnout, or trying to get someone else to; but in actuality I was concerned it would be handled badly and I would put myself in their crosshairs. In a strange way I hope this wasn’t who my friend had become, and that they were experiencing burnout; but left unchecked behaviours can become ingrained and what becomes the exception becomes the rule.

Burnout is not something to normalise or take lightly, it shouldn’t be part of the job, and as team/business leaders we should look to minimise the risks of burnout in our teams.

So how do we minimise the risks of burnout?

There is no one list to rule them all, because the sources of burnout can be different. What I do to minimise the risks for myself and my team is:

• Ensure projects and deliverables are scoped and briefed correctly.

• Never resource over 35 hours a week for an individual.

• Ensure deadlines are not “Just in Time” to allow for unforeseen circumstances.

• Advocate for your team and their wellbeing throughout the decision making process.

• Ask if there is anything else they would like to talk about during “one to one” meetings; making sure they know it can be anything.

• Build a culture that normalises “I don’t know” and “I need help”; so they know, and they are’t afraid, that asking for help won’t negatively impact their career.

As an individual we need to be on the look out for the signs of burnout in ourselves, identify when we are starting down the path through the stages, and most importantly ask for help. Whether that help comes from family, friends, or people within the business; we should never be afraid to ask for help.

Which brings us nicely to the most important thing businesses can do in order to minimise the risks of burnout; build a culture where people believe that admitting the need for help will not detriment their careers.

You can put up all the posters and you can have all the initiatives, but if the culture is such that people don’t believe that it is anonymous, or asking for help won’t negatively affect their career goals; they won’t use it or ask for help until its too late and they have to take time off.

Don’t mistake “people aren’t using this service” for “we don’t have a stress or burnout problem”; it could be that they are too busy to even think about it, or they are afraid to do so.

It is more important that as managers and leaders we need to be empathetic and look for these signs within our team; or in ourselves. Ask questions, be open, be honest, and be someone that they trust. You don’t need to be, and in my opinion shouldn’t try to be, their friend. You should however try to be someone they trust and respect so they can come to you with issues; and they know that you will handle their issues and the solution in a professional, discrete, and effective manner.

Let’s learn from athletes

Your brain is very like your muscles, when you work hard; rest is as, if not more, important. If you don’t allow time forrest, you will injure yourself. Athletes know this, and I think as business leaders we should learn from them.

Keep your team and yourself in peak performance by:

• Recognising the need to rest and recover after stressful periods

• Normalising a culture of openness and honesty that prioritises mental health;

• Putting as much effort into understanding how they are feeling about their work as we do to understanding what they are currently working on.

When athletes have a muscular twinge they tell their coach because they know that if they work through it without proper assessment, that they might injure themselves; and one session missed, to properly assess the extent of the problem, is preferable to an entire season lost due to injury.

You aren’t your team's therapist; but as a business or team leader I believe that you have a duty of care towards your team and their wellbeing – much like a coach has towards their athletes.

It’s hard work, you won’t always get it right, and more likely than not burnout will happen; but you should always try your best, learn from when it happens, and get better.

No one said being a good manager is easy.

Make sure you are subscribed to get notified so you don’t miss these or other posts when posts go live every Wednesday!

Grand. Thanks for your time.

TL;DR Details:

• Words: 723

• Approx. Reading Time: 3-5 minutes

Link to Posts:

We introduced the Business Trinity Compass across two posts; separated by another topic to aid in the introduction of a key point by providing context. In this TL;DR we will outline the main points of the Business Trinity Compass and provide a clear definition which can be augmented with the following posts.

The Business Trinity Compass

The Business Trinity Compass is a way of visualising the Business Trinity Theory, which enables us to break down every role, project, and objective in a business into the core components:

• Operations: Tasks focused on delivery or the completion of work

• Education: Tasks focused on personal learning or teaching others

• Strategy: Tasks focused on planning or preparation

The Business Trinity Compass is a ternary plot; you can find a “how to read guide” for a ternary plot in the initial post or by visiting this link. Essentially follow the grid lines to the axis where the tick mark direction matches the direction of the line.

Potential Uses

Some ways in which we can use the Business Trinity Compass (and The Business Trinity Theory) are as a:

• Career Management Tool: Looking where you are, where you want to go, and the tasks that you need experience with on the way

• Time Management Tool: The breakdown of the core components gives you a good indication about the proportion of time that should be spent as an individual or across the team.

• Project Planning Tool: When scoping you can use The Business Trinity theory to estimate the amount of time you need, and when compared to the resource available you can understand its feasibility and any required actions.

Levels

The three levels of the Business Trinity Compass are:

1. Areas: Classifications of Responsibilities (Leadership, Growth, Innovation, Discovery) and Objectives (i.e. Be a Leader, Drive Growth, Deliver Innovation, Enable Discovery.

2. Zones: Classifications of the types of activities that will lead to us delivering our business objectives.

3. Points: Representations of a role, project, or objective on the compass, where the location is the core component breakdown.

Areas

The areas of the compass provide a way into start thinking about the activities and the associated component breakdowns; which we can get more understanding about by looking at the zones in the area.

The areas only cover the central zones, as the focused zones are singular extensions of their neighbouring areas; or to look at it another way, the areas are how we deliver the additional value associated with the focused zone

Zones

The zones of the compass are classifications of activities that help us to realise goals. There are two types of zones: Focused and Central

• Focused: Prioritising one component at the expense of the others; these three zones are single minded in the pursuit of one of the core components, and are at the peaks of the compass.

• Central: A more balanced breakdown of the core components, these four zones highlight more nuanced business activities and are often where business leaders spend most of their time.

The zones on the Business Trinity Compass highlight the inherent flexibility in the core component breakdowns for these roles, projects, and objectives. The zones also help us to understand, by their neighbours, what other business actions we may need to consider in order to achieve our goals.

Points

The points on the compass illustrate the breakdown of a role, project, or objective; i.e. Junior Data Scientist, or Standard Operating Practice.

Two points might not have the same activities associated with them i.e. Operations for a CXO are different than Operations for a Junior Developer; however, these points help give an understanding about the proportion of activities associated with the core components that are necessary within the role, project, or objective.

Benefits

The Business Trinity Compass is a framework that can be used to help break down larger goals into more manageable pieces; getting us to think about roles, projects, and objectives that will help us realise our goals.

Like all business frameworks we have presented suggestions of use and are not limitations; they may be used in additional ways to help you identify a plan to deliver value for businesses, or grow your career.

GTFYT

If you liked this please consider subscribing, and you can find the links to the main posts, where you can find more information about this topic, below.