Interview: Seth Kahan

Seth Kahan

Seth Kahan is a change specialist, helping create the uptake and support for significant transformation. He has worked with executives and senior leaders on high-impact change at World Bank, Peace Corps, Shell, NASA, and 20+ organizations in the public and private sectors. His latest book is Getting Change Right: Creating Rapid, Widespread Change. His website is VisionaryLeadership.com.

Morris: Before discussing your books, a few general questions. Long ago, Thomas Edison observed, “Vision without execution is hallucination.” One man’s opinion, your emphasis on leaders being visionaries seems to ignore or at least subordinate the importance of leaders also being results-driven.

Kahan: I like to break visionary leadership down word-by-word. Visionary means there is a future state you are working toward that makes a positive difference to your beneficiaries and the world at large. Leadership implies that you not only take personal accountability for bringing that vision into existence, but you put in the hard work and execution required. If you’re not results driven, I don’t see how you can consider yourself a leader.

Morris: Much has been written in recent years about “followership.” I especially admire Barbara Kellerman’s Followership: How Followers Are Creating Change and Changing Leaders, Michael Useem’s Leading Up: How to Lead Your Boss So You Both Win, and The Art of Followership: How Great Followers Create Great Leaders and Organizations co-edited by Ronald E. Riggio, Ira Chaleff, and Jean Lipman-Blumen. Here’s my question: Can followers also be “visionary” in the same sense that all great leaders are?

Kahan: Yes. Anyone can be considered visionary who is operating with a powerful sense of a better future, an image of what is possible, a powerful desire to realize a new and vastly improved world. But, not everyone takes the reins to make it happen. Many choose wisely to support another who has stepped into the driver’s seat.  They are, as you call them, visionary followers.

Morris: Here’s a follow-up question. If recent Gallup research is correct, that less than 30% of the U.S. workers are positively and productively engaged, how specifically can a visionary leader increase that percentage?

Kahan: This is what my book, Getting Change Right, is all about.  I have a long history of success in what is called the “soft stuff” – the people part of change. There is a dearth of competency when it comes to getting people involved, contributing, participating, and engaged. The old mind-set is, “That is not the leader’s problem. The leader sets the strategy and hires people to execute. It’s up to the subordinates to generate their own motivation.   They are, after all, professionals – which means they are paid. Therefore, they have all the inspiration they need to get with the program.”

But, that’s not how real, lasting, widespread change happens fast. Putting it on subordinates to quickly implement and relay new ideas is a cop out. Excellent leaders get to know their constituents, what turns them on, and use their self-interest to create powerful transformation that spreads because people want it to.

My book provides over 200 tactics, frameworks, step-by-step instructions, guidelines, and templates on how to carry this out. The book was written as a guide, a manual for putting these techniques to work, based on my experience as a practitioner.

Here’s a high-level summary of what specifically can be done to increase the percentage of people who are productively engaged:

1. Learn how to craft messages that are compelling and enticing to your constituents. Become a specialist at speaking in ways that excite them, arouse their enthusiasm, and create desire.

2. Know the people you depend on for success: front line staff, managers, partners, content specialists, thought leaders, practical visionaries, even detractors. I call them your Most Valuable Players (MVPs).

3.  Get to know the worlds of your MVPs – where are they stuck, what do they need and want, where do things go well for them, what  concerns do they have. Make sure you focus on both technical expertise and politics – savvy leaders acknowledge that  professionals grapple with increasing their professional competencies and do it an environment of power plays. Become adept at listening – take ownership for understanding how your MVPs see the world and operate.

4 Build communities that deliver business returns. Become proficient at helping people organize around their own interests, in ways that provide them with payoffs while simultaneously moving your organization forward.

5. Bring people together when it counts the most: when strategy is on the line and coordinated behavior is at a premium. Learn how to create events that inspire your professionals.

6. Treat logjams, obstacles, stalls, and unforeseen downturns as the opportunities they are. When circumstances turn against you it is a huge message from the system, piling issues and concerns together in ways that frustrate your works. This is the time to address these issues all at once and move forward on all fronts simultaneously. Seen this way, a logjam or obstacle is a time of great opportunity.

Morris: What to do when two leaders in the same organizations have mutually exclusive visions?

Kahan: This happens all the time. Mutual exclusivity is the hallmark of a third higher way that transcends the current situation. A great book that goes into detail about how leaders use this type of seemingly impossible situation to their advantage is The Opposable Mind, by Roger Martin, dean of the Rotman School of Management.  Martin discovered that great leaders from all domains (business, art, politics, social activism, etc) use this technique to achieve what others fail to see. I recommend the book unreservedly.

Morris: What to do if two leaders in the same organization have the same vision but disagree almost completely about how to make that vision a reality?

Kahan: This, too, happens all the time. If the end result is truly the same, you have to find a way to allow both to pursue their separate paths. Achievement is not about how, it is about the goal. If you are limiting others who have the same objective as you, it’s time for some reflection.

Morris: What prompted you to write Building Beehives: A Handbook for Creating Communities that Generate Returns? For whom was it written?

Kahan: In the mid 90s I was part of a small team that achieved extraordinary success at the World Bank. We took an unfunded idea and without any budget in two short years turned it into a $60 million program that spanned the globe with tens of thousands of participants. One of our primary tools were thematic groups, which were a special form of community that generated returns for the organization. This is  what I call a beehive in my handbook. We spawned over 120 of these thematic groups at the World Bank.

Today, over a decade later, after our initiative has fallen out of favor multiple times, through numerous budget swings, and even multiple presidents, over half of our communities are still in existence, doing the work we initiated in the 90s. I have come to see these type of communities as the basic building blocks for massive, impressive change. The book was written to provide change agents with a quick overview of how to build beehives that will do this kind of work for them.

Seth Kahan’s techniques for creating a shared stake in organizational success

In Getting Change Right published by Jossey-Bass (2010), Seth Kahan explains how leaders transform organizations from the inside out. For example, creating a shared stake in the organization’s success:

“Success at leading change – dramatic, sustained improvement – is largely determined by a leader’s capacity to not only enroll others but engage them in a mutually supported vision of the future. Engagement means getting their whole-hearted support and participation, their involvement and best actions. When this happens, change is held in place by myriad hands, heads, and hearts.

“Achieving a shared stake is critical because obstacles are part of life, and you need all the help you can get to realize success. You want resources to flow to you – people, money, and time to be dedicated by any and all who see a shared road to success. When this happens, synergies will take place you do not mandate or coordinate. You may not even be aware of them because ideas have successfully spread, and other people in other places are taking action.”

So, what specifically does Kahan recommend?

1. Practice exceeding others’ expectations. “Every morning ask yourself how you can ‘wow’ somebody who is critical to your success.”

2. Engage others in conversation to discover their answers to questions such as “What are your pressing issues?” and “What needs do you have that aren’t being met?”

3. Hold meetings with groups of allied players to identify [or reaffirm] mutual goals. “Follow up with regular progress reports showing the results of your efforts and the challenges you encounter.”

4. Create a visible representation of your key players’ interpretations of success. “Post it where others can see it easily. Do not require that different or conflicting views to be reconciled.”

5. Ask senior stakeholders to describe in detail the future state they are working toward. “Go through the details with them and listen carefully, obtaining questions such as “What does the future state look like? Describe it in detail. What will be different? What new capacity will emerge?”

“Write up what you learn in a one-page summary and present it back to each senior member you interview, or otherwise visibly demonstrate what he or she communicated to you. Verify with them that you have captured their point of view [and concerns]. If necessary, refine it with their input until they are satisfied.”

* * *

Seth Kahan works with visionary leaders, helping them achieve to success. He has worked with the president of the World Bank, the director of the Peace Corps, senior managers at Shell Exploration and Production Company, Prudential Retirement Savings, and dozens of associations. He is the author of Building Beehives: A Handbook for Creating Communities that Generate Returns and, more recently, the aforementioned Getting Change Right: How Leaders Transform Organizations from the Inside Out, published by Jossey-Bass (2010). He is also the author of Fast Company magazine’s blog, Leading Change.

You are urged to check out the wealth of free resources at numerous publications available for free on his website, http://www.visionaryleadership.com/.

Seth Kahan’s techniques for accelerating buy-in

1. Create a team of change agents. “Teach your most avid supporters, your evangelists, how to listen [strategically and intently] and have productive conversations with everyone they meet.”

2. Replicate your team. “Teach your evangelists how to teach others to have these same productive conversations.”

3. Adapt and integrate your ideas with multiple contexts. Rather than persist with elevator conversations that are useless because they have no context, master “connecting your ideas to different contexts by raising them in different [more appropriate] circumstances.”

4. Distribute easy-to-understand teaching tools. “Provide anyone who wants to advocate on your behalf with the materials [e.g. support documentation] they need to explain your ideas and their benefits.”

5. Leverage strategic reflection. “Create time to review what is working [i.e. ‘hot spots’], what is not, and how you can change your behavior to increase the speed of change.”

6. Build a web of thinking partners. “Find people who understand what you are trying to do and have the professional experience and expertise [as well as leverage] to help you develop your activities.”

7. Become an expert in efficient and effective communication. “Use media tools [e.g. e-mails, blog posts, Twitter] that disseminate relevant news immediately to all parties.”

8. Choose a network over a hub-and-spoke relationship model. “Make it easy for your supporters to reach each other without going through you.” Provide all the contact information they need.

9. Delegate everything – or as much as possible. “If you have a budget, pretend you don’t. Move activities and responsibility out to the periphery so it can spread.”

10. Follow enthusiasm and commitment. “Go where the energy and excitement are.” Become actively engaged “where the action is” and become identified with it.

11. Provide as much face time as possible. “Whenever possible, share air as well as space.”

12. Create time in your day to talk [informally] with others. “Remember that dialogue is the basic building block of change.” Relationships are built one conversation at a time.

13. Dedicate space for conversation. “If all you have are conference rooms [or even one conference room], make sure that everyone knows that [space] is always available for casual conversations and casual meetings.”

Seth Kahan works with visionary leaders, helping them achieve to success. He has worked with the president of the World Bank, the director of the Peace Corps, senior managers at Shell Exploration and Production Company, Prudential Retirement Savings, and dozens of associations. He is the author of Building Beehives: A Handbook for Creating Communities that Generate Returns and, more recently, the aforementioned Getting Change Right: How Leaders Transform Organizations from the Inside Out, published by Jossey-Bass (2010). He is also the author of Fast Company‘s blog, Leading Change.

You are urged to check out the wealth of free resources at numerous publications available for free on his website, http://www.visionaryleadership.com/.

Seth Kahan on five consequences of successful engagement

“If you want your ideas to spread, you need to become expert in these areas: leading conversations that engage, generating cascades

Seth Kahan

of activity, and conducting strategic engagement.” He explains how to do all three in Chapter 2 of Getting Change Right: How Leaders Transform Organizations from the Inside Out . He also identifies five consequences of successful engagement:

1. Your message goes fast and far, creating traction, involvement, and buy-in.

2. You generate good will. People spend less time in a reactive mode, judging your efforts, and more time pitching in, telling you what they think and helping to create solutions.

3. People perceive that you understand their needs, perspectives, and potential. They see genuine evidence of their success in yours, and you do the same. It is a reciprocal arrangement.

4. You weave the results of your change effort into a social fabric, connecting it to the events and unpredictable circumstances of everyday life. In this way, it becomes practical and integrated, gaining traction and growth as events unfold.

5. You achieve sustainability. The myriad brains, hearts, and hands that support your program operationalize new ways of working and create a web of support that is difficult to undo.

Seth Kahan works with visionary leaders, helping them achieve to success. He has worked with the president of the World Bank, the director of the Peace Corps, senior managers at Shell Exploration and Production Company, Prudential Retirement Savings, and dozens of associations. He is the author of Building Beehives: A Handbook for Creating Communities that Generate Returns and, more recently, the aforementioned Getting Change Right, published by Jossey-Bass (2010). He is also the author of Fast Company‘s blog, Leading Change.

You are urged to check out the wealth of free resources at numerous publications available for free on his website, http://www.visionaryleadership.com/.

Seth Kahan on social construction “in a nutshell”

Seth Kahan

I agree with Seth Kahan that social construction “is a way of looking at how people build a common understanding and negotiate their way into the future.” Throughout human history, trust and mutual respect have enabled groups to achieve and then sustain solidarity. In religion, they become “communities of faith.” In general society, Seth Godin characterizes them as “tribes.”

In Getting Change Right: How Leaders Transform Organizations from the Inside Out, Kahan explains with both rigor and eloquence how leaders can achieve success with change initiatives based on five core principles and, in process, will transform an organization “from the inside out.”

Here are the five core principles:

1. The ways we come to understand the world and ourselves are created in relationships.

2. We do not all interpret the world in the same way.

3. Our shared interpretations of the world survive only if they are useful to us as individuals.

4. Our understandings influence the ways we behave and possibilities for the future.

5. Reflection on our assumptions – what we take for granted – is vital to improving performance.

Kahan adds, “Social construction is a way of thinking about how people develop their beliefs and understanding of the world. It provides critical insights as to how people from differing backgrounds navigate their way forward together.”

Seth Kahan works with visionary leaders, helping them achieve to success. He has worked with the president of the World Bank, the director of the Peace Corps, senior managers at Shell Exploration and Production Company, Prudential Retirement Savings, and dozens of associations. He is the author of Building Beehives: A Handbook for Creating Communities that Generate Returns and, more recently, the aforementioned Getting Change Right, published by Jossey-Bass (2010). He is also the author of Fast Company magazine’s blog, Leading Change.

You are urged to check out the wealth of free resources and numerous publications available for free on his website, http://www.visionaryleadership.com/.

Seth Kahan’s seven lessons on “getting change right”

Seth Kahan participated in two distinctly different change initiatives at the World Bank, both called “Knowledge Management.” The first one never took off. The second one changed the organization, and the world, in two short years. In his latest book, Getting Change Right, Kahan explains with both rigor and eloquence the seven lessons he learned from those change initiatives, lessons that can help leaders to transform their own organization “from the inside out.” Here they are:

1. Communicate so that people get it and spread it. “The “it” is not a precooked, hard-boiled message. Instead, it is a conversation that spread, a dialogue that arouses passion and creates its own network.” The results-driven, high-impact team Kahan worked with at the World Bank learned how to “spark cascades of conversations.”

2. Energize your most valuable players. “People are at the heart of change. We always took the time to engage them. We went after people [at all levels and in all areas] and gave them exciting ways to be part of the action.”

3. Understand the territory of change. “Every organization has a different culture and different ways of figuring out how to go forward. [My teammates and I] systematically listened to others to create a map of change territory.”

Note: Most of the most formidable barriers to change initiatives are the result of what James O’Toole (in Leading Change) so aptly characterizes as “the ideology of comfort and the tyranny of custom.”

4. Accelerate change through communities that perform. “We called our communities thematic groups. They were essentially groups of people who shared passion for a particular topic and put their passion into practice.These groups advanced our cause, creating systematic pull.”

Note: It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of these groups. Their members are what Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba would characteractize as “evangelists.”

5. Generate dramatic surges in progress. “Special face-to-face events accelerated our program. We created gatherings that brought players together in high-vakue,, high leverage experiences designed to push things forward in leaps and bounds.”

6. Break through logjams. “Obstacles, hurdles, and challenges are all part of a change initiatuve. We had a SWAT team mentality: we expected trouble” and were fully prepared to respond to it effectively, in a timely manner.

7. WorkLifeSuccess to sustain high performance in the midst of change. “Because success in work is integrally connected to success in all aspects of life, I use the term WorkLifeSuccess. By this, I mean doing what it takes to achieve and sustain overall excellence.”

How to do all this? Read and then re-read the book. In it, Kahan provides just about all you need to know about what to do, how to do it, and why.

Seth Kahan helps visionary leaders to achieve success. He has worked with the president of the World Bank, the director of the Peace Corps, senior managers at Shell Exploration and Production Company, Prudential Retirement Savings, and dozens of associations. He is the author of Building Beehives: A Handbook for Creating Communities that Generate Returns and, more recently, the aforementioned Getting Change Right, published by Jossey-Bass (2010). He is also the author of Fast Company‘s blog, Leading Change.

You are urged to check out the wealth of free resources at numerous publications available for free on his website, http://www.visionaryleadership.com/.