You’re a senior leader with a track record of great results.  You’re smart, hardworking, and your leaders brought you in to fix longstanding problems.

 

So you’ve stepped into this role where you’ve got a team with a long history, and you have a mandate for change.

 

This mandate is reinforced on two levels:

 

First – senior management has told you that we have to overcome technical debt, speed up development, replace tools that are holding back the business and solve new business problems to deliver far better financial results or compliance.

 

Secondarily, in technology, years pass like decades.  Tools, processes and practices which were state of the art five years ago now feel like it was fifty years ago.  With cloud technology, generative AI, and changes in systems security, if you don’t keep up, you’re going to be in big trouble.

 

The world has changed around you, and those decisions which were probably good ones when they were made, no longer match the reality f the world around you.

 

Worse, the team is entrenched in thinking and behaviors that seem to block you at every turn.

 

This should be simple to fix – but you’re frustrated that people won’t buy in and they continue to repeat the same patterns.

 

Instead of new ways of working, new tools, and big business impact, you find yourself with the same old problems, slow change (if any) and your own team seems to be working against their success.

 

• How can it be that they “don’t get it” – or “won’t get it”?
• Why do we keep repeating the same kinds of things that brought us here?
• Don’t they see that things won’t ever change if they won’t?

Insanity is repeating the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.  And your team keeps doing the same things.

This is not a technology problem – it’s a culture problem.

 

We’ve heard this expression – and we know that the way we treat each other can feed or starve our efforts when working with a team or a company.

 

And we have a good idea of the kind of culture we WANT to create, but all too often  we see people standing in the way and not doing the things we want them to do.

 

Even if we add the best technical tools and the smartest, most accomplished people to an organization with a culture that doesn’t work, nothing will work.

 

That’s why culture eats strategy – culture overwhelms your best laid plans.

We had high hopes, but in reality things just aren’t getting done.  At least not nearly as well as we dreamed.

 

Processes are not changing, and the people we work with are more and more entrenched into their old ways with no interest in considering anything new.

 

We craft and communicate a new vision and then  work really hard to make a difference.

We have some success, but not nearly the kind of transformational change we thought ew might make.

 

It’s not a failure, but it’s not super impressive, either.

The people in position now found a set of things that they did that led to some kind of success, and it’s human nature to repeat patterns that worked.

 

When we are working to change how an organization operates. We need to understand more about people, and less about process and tools.

 

When it comes to organizations and people, we create and sustain a culture by the stories we tell.  I read somewhere that

“Culture is the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves, and then we forget they were stories.”

 

The people who frustrate you have two massive weapons to block change.

1. One is their beliefs – what they do works, or at least they believe it does and
2. The other is the stories they share.  Those stories, true or not true, represent the ways that they reassure themselves that they are right and your ideas are just wrong and should be ignored or blocked.

It’s just too simple to say “Forget all that old stuff.  Now we are going to do it this new way.” –  That won’t work.

 

What will work?

 

It begins with communicating sincere value and appreciation of the journey that brought the team to their past successes and led to your joining their organization.  They have to believe that you understand their stories, history and journey.

 

Once they believe that you “get it,” only then can you paint a picture of success that helps them transition to the new stories.

 

For example, your new vision needs to begin with finding common ground with the existing team, and then getting buy in on the measurements that you’ll use going forward.

 

I have some practical examples from my experience as a leader in the “Team Culture and Self Awareness” episode of my podcast.

In my work with technical teams, I’ve been engaged by leaders to help craft a new culture and support them in the transition, too.

 

One way to do that is through a team building workshop focused on team culture, trust and shared values.  This provides a foundation for overcoming the blockers that you’re routinely hitting.

 

Another way to work together is through executive coaching.  Together we can work on specific strategies that you can use to tackle the “people stuff” that is slowing down the kinds of changes that can bring big impact.

 

Set up a Call with me to talk about your team.

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