Change Anything: Lead People Where They Want To Go and Where You Need Them To Be ft. Joe Woodruff
Some of you know me and you came anyway. This is great. Paul Bear Bryant is the legendary coach of the University of Alabama. He was known for being tough and gruff. Prior to coaching at Alabama, he was at Texas A and M.
Joe Woodruff:And in one particular game, Texas A and M was leading Arkansas seven to six. All they had to do was run out the clock. Coach Bryant said to his quarterback, I want you to take the snap. I want you to run to the sideline. I want you to slide down in bounds, run out the clock.
Joe Woodruff:Quarterback got behind the center, took the snap, began to run towards the sidelines, saw his receiver in the end zone waving because he was open. You can imagine Coach Bryant's surprise when his quarterback threw the ball. You can imagine the horror the quarterback felt when that pass was intercepted, and the defensive back was running for a certain victory. Quarterback took off in pursuit, somehow caught the guy, tackled him shy of the goal line, preserving the win for Texas A and M. Afterwards, coaches shake hands, Arkansas coach says, Bear, my guy is the fastest defender in all of the conference.
Joe Woodruff:How did your quarterback catch him? Bill O'Brien said, I'll tell you. Your man was running for a touchdown. My man was running for his life. You ever feel like you're running for your life?
Joe Woodruff:Demands are up, resources are down, expectations are great, employees are grinding it out. I get it. I've been tasked before with doing more with less, with begging for budget, with dealing for dollars, with being cost controlled instead of business aligned. You and I know IT has to stop running for its life. But how do you change anything when some seemingly want to change nothing?
Joe Woodruff:How do you lead with a why not mindset, when people will tell you why not? Over the years, I have been leading people and teams into change, into the heart and art of change. And if we embrace both the heart and the art, we will have greater confidence in our vision, we'll be more effective in getting buy in, and we will avoid the traps that cause a technology revolution and movement to lose momentum. The heart of worship is found in two deeply held beliefs. One, people love change.
Joe Woodruff:You've heard it said that people hate change, but it isn't true. This morning, we loved it when the red light turned to green. I was once single and got married. I loved the change. We were married and had a child.
Joe Woodruff:We loved that change so much, we had two more. We love when we get a promotion. We love when we get a pay increase. We love when people cancel plans at the last minute because now we can do absolutely nothing while in our pajamas. People love change.
Joe Woodruff:People resist change that makes no sense or is towards no purpose. But people love change that is fulfilling. Two, change isn't hard, change is work. We don't mind working hard. We think twice about hard work.
Joe Woodruff:The heart of change, changes the way we see change. As Wayne Dyer said, change the way you look at things, and the things you look at change. The art of change is leading people through a process of three intentional commitments: to rally, to craft, and to drive change. Research was conducted where the participants were asked to move a cartoon mouse from one end of a maze to another, just lines on paper. One of the mazes had the mouse and a looming, hungry hawk hunting the mouse.
Joe Woodruff:The other maze had cheese at the end of the maze. So, one maze, hawk, no cheese. The other maze, cheese, no hawk. And the question was, which maze will participants complete faster? The one with the hawk, or the one with the cheese?
Joe Woodruff:And the winner is cheese. The participants completed more mazes more quickly when propelled to a desire rather than running away from an uncomfortable state. When we move towards a desire, our focus is on one singular outcome. When we're trying to run away from a threat, we don't care where we end up, as long as it's away from the threat. You know people live in two particular states, a preferred state and a current state.
Joe Woodruff:The preferred state represents desire. Hey, I smell cheese! And the current state is, Wow, I'm hungry. As soon as that desire is recognized, it creates a space from what is desired to where a person is now. That space is the place of change.
Joe Woodruff:We lead change by satisfying desire. We rally people to a preferred state. And the key to rallying people is clarity on the outcome, so that our people say, this is where we want to be. Crafting change is how we get from where we are to where we want to be. The key is collaboration.
Joe Woodruff:We can do this. We can represents the right players. Do this represents the realistic plan. Effective collaboration is always about the right players working the realistic plan. Years ago, I was in London, England, and my favorite tourist spot was the Winston Churchill War Museum.
Joe Woodruff:Fascinated, and I was surprised. Walk down steps, through concrete narrow halls, below street surfaces, seemingly taking in a stagnant air that lingered from Churchill's days. The complex was surprisingly simple and basically essential. There was no era of superiority, no era of entitlement. Men and women worked day and night in makeshift quarters so they could win the greatest battle their country had ever faced.
Joe Woodruff:And of their commitment, Churchill said this, It is not enough to say that you are doing your best. You must succeed at doing what is necessary. Crafting change in collaboration is determining the necessary that we must succeed at. Then we drive the change. And driving change is all about communication.
Joe Woodruff:Initiatives get stuck, sidetracked, stalled. And usually when that happens, we blame it on poor communication. Oh, what we have here is a problem to communicate. But we don't have a communication problem. We have a training problem in healthy communication.
Joe Woodruff:So we tell people to try to communicate better, where we need to train people to communicate better. Training beats trying. If we embrace the heart and the art of change, we open the door for clarity, collaboration and communication to move people from where they are to where they want to be. In the movie, The King's Speech, which is based on real life, the future king of England is nicknamed Birdie, and we see him addressing a crowd at Wembley Stadium. The problem is, Birdie suffers from developmental stuttering, and his speech is hampered by significant stammering.
Joe Woodruff:The whole event is a great embarrassment to him. After, his wife recommends that he seek a speech therapist named Lionel. He does, and they begin treatment. Eventually, Bernie becomes King George VI. And soon after, he must address the British Empire by radio because of their declaration of war on Germany.
Joe Woodruff:The people need to hear the voice of their king. The king, still haunted by memories of Wembley Stadium, must not fail his people, and must not appear as a weak leader. So he enlists Birdie to help him get through the speech. However, his advisors confront him, upset that he had never sought their counsel about his treatment, and inform him that Birdie has no credentials as a speech therapist. Feeling pressure from all sides, the King confronts Birdie about his credentials.
Joe Woodruff:You have a voice. Your voice is not ignorable, forgettable, or regrettable. Your voice is the rally cry to the discouraged, the disappointed, the disheartened, and the disenchanted and disenfranchised. You lead out of a servant heart, and you must lead out of unique mind and mindset, because you are called to craft and you are driven to drive. I stand before leaders.
Joe Woodruff:The system will suck you dry. Critics will drag you down. But you will rise above, elevating the system and silencing the stuttering of the stagnant. Your vision, values and valor are the only credentials you need. People will follow you.
Joe Woodruff:Show them how to get from where they are to where they want to be and you will change anything. Thank you.
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