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Battling Resistance and Getting “Buy-In” with Kotter and Whitehead

Posted on by admin

What change or innovation did not begin with the planted seed of a great idea?  Is YOU believing in your good idea enough?  Is enthusiastically presenting it to a group knowing it will make a crucial difference going to keep it from getting shot down?  John Kotter and Lorne Whitehead have delivered in their book “buy*in: saving your good idea from getting shot down” (Harvard Business Review Press, 2010) a defensive-driving, counterintuitive approach to protect those good ideas from unfair attach strategies that naysayers, nitpickers, and handwringers deploy with great success time and time again.

What we really want and may not be so effective at is to gain support by respectfully engaging your adversaries, standing your ground, and saving the day! Sound intriguing?  I forewarn you they are not tactics for the fainthearted.  The authors encourage you to “invite in the Lions”.  You may even become traumatized by the plain talk that leads you to relive some of your greatest failures.  But as with any Kotter book, your thinking will be turned upside down in a fresh and amusing way, and you will be forced to learn before you know what hit you.  How does the world’s foremost authority on Leadership and Change get inside our head’s like that?  And this time it’s not with Penguins (see Our Iceberg Is Melting), but a fairly docile Citizens Advisory Committee at the Centerville Library, wanting to put in new computers, and one fantastic idea. Read more ›

Posted in Book Review, Change management, Leadership, Lorne Whitehead, Resistance, transformation

Plus Delta Celebrates Summer with FREE Positive ChangeSM Strategy Sessions in Malibu!

Posted on by Jeremy Lurey

malibuoffice

Are you about to embark on a major organizational initiative? Do you have some tough decisions to make about your team or broader business as you reflect at mid-year? Are you just plain stuck and in need of some out-of-the-box brainstorming to develop some new and innovative ideas?

At Plus Delta Consulting, we are celebrating summer at our administrative offices in Malibu, California, and for a limited time we invite you to participate in a FREE Positive ChangeSM Strategy Session with our team of talented consultants. During this highly engaging and interactive ½-day session, we will facilitate any executive team or intact work group through a series of exercises Read more ›

Posted in Beach, Brainstorming, Breakthrough, Change management, Innovation, Malibu, Strategy, Summer

A Summer of Service: Giving Back to Pay It Forward

Posted on by admin

This July, for the 18th year in a row, I will spend at least a week of my summer vacation with a bunch of teenagers. In recent years, traveling on a service project with my church youth group has come into competition for my time with a high-adventure scouting trip, usually forcing me to choose one over the other each summer. This year, I will spend a week in the Appalachian region of Kentucky with a dozen church youth and a few adults helping to repair homes for those who cannot afford to handle the work or the cost themselves.

payitforward

That’s one week of my summer, but in fact the past two months have been a flurry of scout meetings, merit badge sessions, leadership training, staged disaster scenarios, confirmation classes, fundraising and trip preparation, not to mention the occasional competition of who can make the most pretzels and popcorn stick to their teammates’ peanut butter-covered faces. ‘An hour a week’, Boy Scouts of America says in asking adults to volunteer. And by the time you’ve swallowed that, they’ve got you hooked. Read more ›

Posted in Appalachia, Boy Scouts of America, Community Service, Volunteering, Youth Development

The Myth of Multi-Tasking: Learning to Reprioritize and Just Say “No”

Posted on by Jeremy Lurey

Remember when you were young and it was a challenge to pat your head and rub your belly at the same time?  Remember how after some practice you’d be able to clumsily perform this feat for a minute or two?  This was likely your first attempt at multi-tasking.

Fast-forward 30 years, and you are probably still trying to do two things (or if you’re anything like me, then it’s more like three or four things) at once.  Respond to e-mail while you participate in a conference call?  No problem!  Text message while you’re doing your homework?  Sure thing!  Right?

Wrong!  While it may seem like you’re successfully multi-tasking, in reality you’re likely stumbling clumsily through both tasks that you’re attempting, doing neither of them very well.  Humans are not multi-taskers.  This is particularly evident when you try to complete two similar tasks at the same time – they are both competing to use the same part of your brain – slowing you down as a result.  Studies show that putting yourself in this type of situation can knock a whopping ten points off of your IQ – comparable to losing an entire night’s sleep.  In fact, studies show that when you’re frequently Read more ›

Posted in productivity, self development, Self-Awareness Tagged with: , , , ,

Ron McMillan Shares How To ‘Change Anything’ at ACMP Global Conference in Orlando, Florida

Posted on by Jeremy Lurey

A couple weeks ago, several of Plus Delta’s team members attended the inaugural Association of Change Management Professionals (ACMP) Global Conference in Orlando, Florida.  When I arrived at the conference, I expected to hear internal change agents from some leading companies tell us about their great successes managing change in their organizations.  I even expected a bunch of external  consultants to tell us about their proven models for managing change.  What I didn’t expect was for someone to tell us how we can “change anything” by learning how to systemically influence others.

“The most important capacity you possess is the ability to influence behavior – that of yourself or others.”

Read more ›

Posted in Change management, Influence, organizational change, Personal Success, Ron McMillan

Best Practice Lessons Learned from ACMP Global Conference, Orlando

Posted on by Jeremy Lurey

ACMP Glogal Conference

Plus Delta Team Unites in Orlando to Learn from the Experts!
Earlier this month, several of Plus Delta’s core team members flew to Orlando to attend the inaugural Association of Change Management Professionals Global Conference. As we continue to refine our own Positive ChangeSM toolkit and develop enhanced learning programs for our clients, colleagues, and alliance partners, it was an incredible opportunity to learn from some of the experts in the field of organizational change. With keynotes from John Kotter and Daryl Conner and general conference sessions from some of the world’s most prominent organizations, it was a once-in-a-lifetime event we were proud to sponsor!

Read more ›

Posted in Change management, Community, Leadership, Management Practice

Daryl Conner Delivers Call to Action to Change Management Practitioners at Inaugural ACMP Global Conference

Posted on by Jeremy Lurey

Due to some last-minute client meetings in Los Angeles, I unfortunately missed the opening event and John Kotter’s keynote presentation at the inaugural Association of Change Management Professionals (ACMP) Global Conference in Orlando, Florida last week. I did however make it in time to hear Daryl Conner’s keynote presentation on Day Two. And what a great way to kickoff this first-ever international event of more than 700 change management practitioners!

In his address, Conner started by offering three gifts to his audience. I’m not sure any of us truly saw them as gifts initially. It really just seemed like three questions from a guy (supposedly an expert in the field!) who apparently didn’t want to give us the answers on this Tuesday morning. By the end of the session though, I wondered if Christmas had come early to Orlando as Conner had provoked some powerful thinking in me about the application of my work as an organizational change expert.

changethatmatters Read more ›

Posted in Change management, Community, Daryl Conner, Leadership, organizational change

Plus Delta Welcomes Pamela Hartman to Our Growing Team!

Posted on by Jeremy Lurey

Plus Delta Consulting is thrilled to announce the addition of Pamela Hartman to our firm as Director, Client Solutions. Throughout her 20-year career, Pamela has managed large-scale transformational change efforts around the world with people, teams, and organizations from small non-profits, various government agencies, and Fortune 500 companies. She has consulted across a wide variety of industries and brings her passion and thought leadership in the area of global sustainability to the firm. Prior to joining Plus Delta, Pamela served as a Senior Manager in the Business Transformation practices for North Highland and Capgemini Consulting. She received her BA and MS degrees from the University of Oregon, Eugene, and she holds certificates in PROSCI Change Management, Lean Manufacturing, Engagement Management, Facilitation, Instructional Design, Human Resources, and Intercultural Communications.

Pam Hartman
Read more ›

Posted in Change management Tagged with: , , ,

Stopping to Smell the Roses: An Important Life Lesson Learned from Two of the Best Dogs in the World

Posted on by Jeremy Lurey

Have you ever seen the movie Armageddon? Remember that one scene towards the end when the asteroid is about to cross the critical threshold for hitting Earth, and the astronauts (aka poorly-trained oil drillers with Air Force chaperones) haven’t yet successfully blown up the asteroid nor have they launched their space shuttle to safety? That’s when Colonel Sharp declares, “We’ve got no time!” Well, I’ve lived much of my life until recently with that mantra “no time”. Thanks to my two dogs Marley and Bailey though, I was reminded of an important life lesson recently, and I dare say I will never forget it again.

Marley Bailey on Zuma Beach

Anybody who has been reading Plus Delta’s blog since the beginning has met our two favorite office dogs Marley and Bailey. Both are Australian Sheppards, and both are amazingly smart, loyal, and loving dogs.

Read more ›

Posted in Abundance, Balance, Dog, Self-Awareness, Time Managment Tagged with: , , , ,

Taking a Break to Recharge: An Organizational Imperative for a Sustainable Future

Posted on by Jeremy Lurey

Summer has quickly come and gone again, so it must be time to dig in and get back to work, right?  Wrong! In today’s fast-paced, ever-changing business environment, business leaders must continually make “getting away” an organizational imperative to ensure the long-term viability of their organizations. Taking time away from work is the only sure-fire way to get the rest we need as humans to recharge our engines and maintain high levels of functioning and enhanced performance longer-term. So why do many of us continue charging hard day in and day out as if the world may come to an end if we don’t?

plusdelta_recharge

Many might say it’s just a sign of the times and ask, “Is it really appropriate to take a break at this point in time?” Unemployment has soared to astronomical heights in recent past, and many (Americans at least) are still struggling just to hang on to their jobs to avoid bank foreclosures on their homes. Some economists report that the economy is showing signs of recovery, but it’s going to be quite some time before Read more ›

Posted in Employee Benefits, Leadership, Management Practice, organizational culture, productivity Tagged with: , , , ,

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