Much of the work your on-the-ground practitioners do is teaching, listening, and finding ways to match goals to strategy at team, project, or individual levels. We spend a lot of time moving from group to group trying to gauge readiness and understand how (and if) what we’re offering fits. After what feels like thousands of coaching hours, matching tools to goals isn’t all that tough anymore. I’ve created matrices, how-to documents and strategy maps to try and speed that part of the process. It’s worked pretty well. You cannot go wrong with a good clear visualization. The part you cannot map however is the rate at which your people will embrace the information you’re delivering in a meaningful way. What you’re asking them to do is change their ideas about how to get work done. You’re asking them to un-learn a muscle memory. To open up a little bit, put down the idea that your Enterprise solution is Facebook, purely social, or a waste of time can be a big effort. It’s 101 for most of us. It’s advanced theory for more than you can imagine. Consider the luck you’d have presenting the dangers of smoking to a room full of life-long smokers. Sure, they know it's not working, but it's a habit. Worse yet, they think it's working just fine thanks. Yeah, it’s like that. I’ve been lucky to have sat in very close proximity to an industry recognized learning and development department as part of my maturation in the Enterprise world. Whether the training was focused on leadership development, conflict resolution or Excel, I’ve always come away with something I could actually apply to my professional or personal life. I’ve paid close attention to their openness and their ability to evolve approach over the years. I’ve nicked a few ideas and folded them into my coaching tactics. The very first lesson I picked up has taken me the furthest. It’s simple, but proves to be challenging for a great number of folks who’ve been steeped in densely siloed enterprises for any period of time. It goes something like this. If you want to connect with someone in a way that helps you deliver a meaningful message you must be an accessible, accountable human. What does that mean? Think about the best classes or workshops you’ve attended. The ones where you we’re stoked to get started on something immediately after. What was the facilitator doing that created that energy? For me it’s that they were simply willing to exchange energy with me. They were open enough to tap into what I needed, and agile enough to respond so quickly that I never saw it happen. I've never experienced that kind of energy in an environment where competition rules, where it's clear that someone is 'running this meeting', or when the culture of the room demands that everyone present their knowledge through acronyms and titles. How can you emulate this years-honed talent of openness to speed your time to adoption? In my observation you as the facilitator need to walk into the discussion expecting to learn something. You aren’t there to pitch, to show off your fancy slide deck, or to spew a bunch of jargon that only the E20-Echosphere can comprehend. You’ve also got to balance that openness with the ability to quickly ID and curb any notion that you’re there to support status quo, or movement back to a dysfunctional system because it’s comfort or familiarity.

So you can’t be the slick social media guru/huckster, the hard-nosed Drill Sergeant, or the corporate concierge. You get to be a perfectly balanced combination of the three as you teach. You absolutely will not be popular with everyone, and you will likely have a number of failures along the way.  You'll be a supportive, informed, open and fallible human being. Speak plainly. Listen more than you talk. Be the change you’re looking for. (Thanks Mr. G.) If you are building your E20 plan and considering how you’ll write that this magical practitioner rec let me offer a few considerations. First, the general primer. At the E20 conf in San Francisco Andrew McAfee made some insightful (if not a little depressing) observations about the type of person it takes to do the work we’re wrapped up in. (http://www.e2conf.com/e2tv/ - nav to Internal Evangelist of the Year Award video – login required). In addition to McAfee’s general wrap up, here’s my crack at sources and traits to look for. Well, beyond “nut job” that is... Sources

:

• Teachers/Trainers/Facilitators
• Skilled Change Managers
• Tech Support – Technical coaches
• Facilitators/Moderators
• HR Reps/Counselors
• Marketing and Communications (who may have already embraced, and succeed with, social media)

Traits:

• The know-it-all: That gal or guy who knows everyone/everything about the organization
• The stealth-geek or Not-a-total-coder: Technical enough to understand and participate in the tools offered (that’s not to say that all coders aren’t suitable, just avoid those who cannot balance their tech and people skills)
• Affable, easy going, gregarious even: Charisma never hurts when you are asking someone to do something they might not be comfortable with right off the bat. Someone who can instill (and earn) trust quickly.
• Strong communicator: Someone who can talk with equal comfort and affability from the shipping dept to the board room. Respect: Someone who gets the complexity of culture, and knows to never talk down to “junior” staff, or say something stupid to the CEO.
• Conflict Resolver: Someone who’s not afraid to be beat up a little if it means getting to the goal and can help smooth feathers fast.
• Human... had I mentioned that?

When it's just you and a resistor in a room, all the charts and lingo aren't there to support you. You've got to make humanity a component of your identified plan, and you've got to do it in a way that honors your corporate culture. It's a tough one, but its' doable. It's also incredibly rewarding when the change starts to show. Thanks for reading. Let me know what you think.

 

Image Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/elpablo/41268639/