Back to work, things are going to have to change (The ultimate ‘headspace’ challenge)

In his brilliant book, “Thank You for Being Late”, Thomas L. Freidman sets out how physical technology is changing at an exponential rate whereas social technology, how we humans adapt, is relatively flat.

There is a widening gap between how the world around us is changing and our ability to respond to it.

Do you feel like you are constantly having to work harder and faster to keep up?

Hitting the brakes would be disastrous

He goes on to say that the only way we can get ahead and regain some sense of control is to accelerate how we adapt and evolve to the change that is happening around us – whether that be technologies multiplying since the iPhone was introduced in 2007 or, more recently, Brexit and now coronavirus.

It takes massive courage to accelerate out of trouble.

I know, as I’ve had a few speed wobbles on my bike while bombing down a hill.

When you hit a speed wobble, it’s terrifying, and one’s instinct is to hit the brakes.

But to do that is to court disaster.

Instead, you have to pedal faster.

It’s the same when you’re towing a caravan and you go into a snake, where car and caravan want to move in opposite directions.

Your instinct is to brake, but you have to accelerate to pull through straight.

In the same way, we have to accelerate how we adapt and evolve to make headway in times of great change.

People resist change just when the need is greatest

But there is a problem.

Aaron Dignan, in his book “Brave New Work”, explains that an organisation’s capacity to adapt and evolve to meet new challenges is inversely proportional to its employees’ degree of psychological safety.

In simple terms, change makes people feel uncertain, and accelerated change makes them feel frightened. So, people resist change just when the need is greatest.

To accelerate how your organisation adapts and evolves you want your people to take the initiative, and risk new approaches.

They need to come up with innovative ideas, break with protocol, occasionally act outside the chain of command, speak their mind, and solve their own problems rather than constantly bringing them to you.

They need to take responsibility and demonstrate ownership.

But if they are afraid, if they are psychologically unsafe, they are going to keep their heads down and rigidly follow your orders.

They will resist, whether actively or passively.

Relaxed muscles go faster for longer

I was on my indoor bike, my turbo trainer, the other day and really got this.

Chad, my electronic cycling coach, has been encouraging me to relax all my muscles in order to go faster.

This is totally counterintuitive for me.

For the fifty years I have been cycling, my big efforts at prolonged speed have been characterized by tightening up, growling and straining.

But now all the data on the screen in front of me – speed, heart rate, cadence (leg speed) and watts (power through the pedals) – is showing that the more I relax the faster I go, and for longer.

Somehow, we have to get our people to relax into the change and go with it instead of resisting it.

Somehow, we have to increase psychological safety as we accelerate how we change.

This takes massive courage on the part of the leaders and their followers

How to accelerate when you are already flat out? Sorry, no answers here.

The leadership teams I am coaching face massive issues.

I’m challenging them to work out how they can accelerate how they adapt and evolve, and how they can increase the psychological safety of their employees.

The temptation is to apply the brakes, to somehow slow things down.

It won’t work.

This right here is the leadership challenge, here and now: to accelerate how we adapt and evolve, while increasing psychological safety.

This leadership challenge warrants collective headspace.

There is no simple answer, although both books above offer deeper explanations and ways forward.

Meanwhile, I am working with those who are actively grappling with and rising to this challenge.

From experience I am confident they will prevail and their collective achievement will be remarkable.