Organizational Champion Webcast – Ep. 08 – The Change Maker

 

 Organizational Champion Webcast - Ep. 08 - The Change Maker [42:46m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

In today’s episode, we discuss our next stop on the Champion’s ECChO model, the Change-Maker. It also brings us to an interesting chicken & egg dilemma that every leader faces.  That and much more in today’s episode of The Organizational Champion Webcast.

Show Notes:

In The News:
CNN and Career Builder’s Top Ten cities for College Graduates.

Why is Change So Important to Companies?

Three Characteristics or Outcomes of the Connected Leader:

• Action-Oriented
• Resilient
• Agile

Discussion about Change Maker:

What are the steps I can take this week to transform my company/team into a Change-making Team?

1. Connect Culture to Mission
2. Open Enterprise Collaboration
3. Find the Right Measures/Measure the Right Things
   - Focus on Outcomes Rather than Outputs
4. Push Decision Making Down
5. Establish Accountability
6. Get Executive Involvement

Links:

www.championseccho.com
www.twitter.com/ThompsonOC

Tags: agile, agility, amazon, book, champion, change, help, Hill, Leadership, leading, maker, McGraw, organizational, Podcast, webcast

Definitions of Definitions

A few months ago, through much research, the definition for an organizational champion was created. Organizational champions are enlightened change makers who are sensationally tuned to altruistic values and relentlessly driven by possibilities.

Over the past several months, the definition has been tested, reviewed, and debated. Fortunately, the definition seems to stick and excitement continues to build as this new, fresh term is unleashed to move us beyond leadership.

However, I understand that many of the words used in the definition might need to be described further to ensure alignment and understanding. So below is a brief description of the relevant words or terms.

1. Enlightened – An enlightened person is self-aware and self-realized. They have strong convictions and values that serve to guide their life decisions and experiences.

2. Change maker – A change maker is a systems (non-linear) thinker who is able to envision change, enroll others in change, communicate across boundaries, and manage complex tasks and milestones.

3. Sensationally tuned – A sensationally tuned person is inspirational and emotionally energized. They rarely suppress their emotions, but rather, they manage their emotions to inspire others toward an idea or cause.

4. Altruistic values – A person who lives by altruistic values lives to do good, not harm. They keep selfish ambition in check for the sake of the win-win scenario and mutual benefit.

5. Driven by possibilities – A person driven by possibilities has a strong sense of wonder and curiosity of the potential. These people use this curiosity to define, refine, reshape, and transform cultures, products, or processes.

Hopefully this adds additional clarity to the definition of an Organizational Champion. I welcome your thoughts and comments.

Onward!

Tags: champion, change, enlighten, enlightened, Leadership, maker, organizational

OC Attributes Survey Findings

Thank you all for participating in the recent online survey regarding the attributes of an organizational champion. So far, we’ve captured the data from 57 responders. While we will continue to capture additional responses, this post is an update on findings from these initial responses.

Participants were asked to rank the importance of each of the attributes shown in the chart below regarding leadership today. The specific question was:

Based on organizational needs and demands in the 21st century, please rate the necessity of the following attributes of an organizational leader in order to have the most impact on organizational success on a scale from 1 to 10, with 1 being “Completely Unnecessary” and 10 being “Completely Necessary”.

The attributes and their ratings of importance are below (Click on image to enlarge.):

Not surprising, trustworthiness captures the number one spot for the most important attribute followed closely by vision. The next three attributes emphasize the importance of communicating to and enabling a complex and decentralized group of work teams toward change across many organizations and enterprises of which one has no or limited authority over.

Ok. Agree. The next question is how? Communication skills will fail if motives aren’t trusted. Therefore, motives must be pure and good. But motives will fail if you have an inability to communicate. Communication is a behavior (non-verbal) and skill (verbal). In order to be trustworthy, behaviors, skills, and motives must be trusted and understood in order to effectively move people, an organization, and a group of organizations.

Effectively maneuvering people and organizations through change seems to be at the top of the priority list as it relates to effectively leading in the 21st century.

Trusted behaviors and skills seem to fit many leadership principles. The next level of valued attributes for a leader in the 21st century according to survey responses are drive, inspiration, and authenticity. Today, inspiration can’t be manufactured as followers are smarter and leadership is constantly being tested and evaluated. It must be authentic from within. And because trustworthiness is so important, one’s authenticity must be good. There are few things more destructive than a driven and inspiring leader with a completely self-serving or evil agenda.

Therefore, the current data seems to align with the definition for an organizational champion. Organizational champions are enlightened change-makers who are sensationally tuned to altruistic values and relentlessly driven by possibilities.

(Click on image to enlarge.)

Tags: 21st, attributes, business, century, champions, change, characteristics, competencies, drive, enlightened, leader, Leadership, maker, organizational, trust, vision