- Here's another place where I've seen
transitions go off the runners.
New program announced and rolled out.
People are intrigued, maybe even a little excited.
Then they notice that their leaders are not participating.
We'll here's the deal.
Even in the most egalitarian workplaces,
people look to natural leaders and copy their behaviors.
Seeing leadership fully embrace collaboration
and practice what they preach
is one of the best ways to boost adoption.
I've seen both good and bad examples of this.
One of the most disappointing transitions
I was ever a part of
was rolling out a collaborative suite to a global company.
Now I'll admit the tool wasn't fantastic,
but it did provide some needed functionality.
Although the leadership team talked positively about it
in all-hands meetings,
many of them disparaged it in private conversations.
And very few of them actually used it.
So how do you think their teams reacted?
Hey, the boss doesn't like it and he won't participate.
If I use it, he won't see my messages
and it might annoy him, so I won't use it either.
Leadership effectively torpedoed the initiative
that they themselves instituted.
Not only did we not get the results we wanted,
we also lost credibility and trust.
Different time, different tool, and different leader:
different results.
This time we were rolling out a tool
that a new leader had already used
in their previous job,
so they immediately adopted it when we made it available.
They not only started using it,
they started insisting that their direct reports
and their peers use it as the way to communicate
in the organization.
This was seriously one of the quickest
and deepest adoptions I have ever seen.
So what's the takeaway?
If you're a leader, formal or informal,
you need to be modeling the behavior
you want your team or your network to follow.
You start talking trash, you're sending a message,
and one you probably should think twice about.
If you can't support a change that you're demanding,
it shouldn't be happening.
Likewise, for those of you responsible
for enacting the transition,
you need to make sure that you have leadership buy-in
for this change.
Use leaders in your communications,
find the people who are natural influencers,
and get them on your side.
If you don't have leadership support going in
and an agreement with them
that they will be visible in their adoption,
you'll need to have a bit of a difficult conversation
with them about how and why the transition
is not going to be as fast or as deep as it could be.