All of which means writers and speakers have some nerve to suggest that they have the answer. We need to recognize that there are huge blocks not only to what we do to make small and large change but also to how we think fundamentally about change. If we do, then at least we can appreciate that maybe it's going to take a somewhat different perspective to get it done. And in that spirit, let me share with you Dr. Fleming's Five Principles for Jumpstarting Change.

Principle #1 -- Play the 80/20 game

80/20 -- does that ring any bells?

Well, thanks to Vilfredo Pareto, an obscure Italian economist, we all enjoy an insight that gives light to the dynamics of the workplace, health, and heck the whole of human nature in many ways! Pareto reported that 80% of the property in Italy was owned by just 20% of the populace.

• 20% of the people do 80% of the work
  
• 80% of the charitable donations are made by 20% of the donors

I'm even sure that you've experienced it yourself. Do you agree that this sounds like you?

• 80% of your time is spent doing 20% of the items on your to-do list?

What are we to do with this, if we were to actually do something significant with this knowledge? Well, I'd say ask yourself these questions:

• What is the 20% of your skill set that has the greatest promise for moving the needle -- and what are some novel ways of applying those skills to greatest effect?
  
• How do you recruit the 20% of the people who make 80% of the things happen at your company and bring them together to make change happen?
  
• How do you identify -- and initiate -- the 20% of the change projects that will produce 80% of the change benefits?  For I'd argue that working 100% on everything is passive and dumb—why? For it has no inner logic to sustainable impact. A baseball sitting in the grass doing nothing has more potency than all the overachievers in the ballpark combined.

Are you curious? So what do I mean? Check this out:

A recent op ed article in the NY TIMES a couple weeks ago had a wonderful article on the 100th anniversary of Einstein's E=MC2 equation that notably changed the way we think about the energy of the world. Because of Einstein, we now know that that baseball sitting on the field in the grass, even without hitting it, has the energy potential of powering a car to go 65 mph for 5000 years! Wow, how do we all intelligently harness that same power in our lives when we are standing still? That is the question…not what are we going to do to seemingly look like we are changing? Like Einstein's equation, there are simply “laws” of “what is” to the real art and science of change. And that is where change starts—knowing this!

And so, ask these questions without craving any cheap answer and you'll be a long way toward making serious change happen.



Principle #2 -- Change Perspective, Not Behavior

There's a fellow named Alan Kay, who has brought more good things to life than anyone this side of GE. He's responsible for the concept of the personal computer, the graphical user interface, and a host of other technology innovations. He's a bright guy, Alan Kay, and he once said, “Perspective is worth 80 points of IQ.”

You want to work smarter and more productively? Think differently about how you approach the way you work. For instance, as any parent of young children can tell you, it is easier to change behavior by changing the environment than it is to simply tell people to change when they're staying in the very same environment that hosted all the behaviors you want to get rid of.

How do you change perspective? Try finding a new metaphor or framing device that stimulates reality to look a different way. The prevalence of Successories motivational posters in the modern office is testament to the power of metaphor. However, I've seen that 8-person rowing shell tell me about teamwork one time too many!  It's time corporations looked beyond the goal of “feeling good” and went to the transforming place of “being real”



Principle #3 -- Get active

This may sound like I'm stating the obvious, but you have to make this kind of change happen. You can't just suggest it. You can't merely write a white paper on it. You can't commission a feasibility study. And you can't just leave it to the boys and girls in the corner offices.

It's like the VW slogan: “On the road of life, there are drivers and there are passengers. Drivers wanted.” Once you identify those 20% of the people who have the greatest impact, you've got the drivers you need: people who will grab the bull by the horns and won't let go. And the same goes with each of us, that part of our heart, brain, wherever that holds the 20% of gold that unlocks all of life's potential for maximum effectiveness, typically, forgiveness, truth, wisdom, etc., hang out here

Now, there are many people or companies that are sailing along at a pretty good clip doing things the way they've always done them. It's hard work making change happen on purpose. And it costs money. So they figure they can get by. They ask, “What's the that can happen?” but they only ask it rhetorically. And don't we ask those types of questions rhetorically ourselves?

But there's damn good reason you have to be active about making change -- if you don't, change is going to happen to you. And then you're playing a reactive, defensive game. I believe the good people of New Orleans can testify to the ill effects of depending on a reactive response rather than active readiness.

You can say that New Orleans was a special case. You can think that there isn't a business corollary to being 10 feet below sea level. And you might be right. But in light of Katrina, let me ask you this: do you want to wait to find out if you're wrong?



Principle #4 -- Make massive change

Now, I bet all of you immediately thought massive in terms of BEHAVIOR?  You know like change your job, trade your wife, and move out of town, all at once. Well, it could mean that but what I am talking about is the massive overhaul mentally that is required to really live with impact. That is, whatever you call your 20% that will give you the 80% result, don't hold back

You're thinking if I start small, I can control it. I can run a pilot study. I can establish benchmarks and performance metrics to roll out to the rest of the company. But in reality, what you'll experience is all the psychic pain of attempting behavioral and cultural change without a whole lot to show for it. And even if you do get a department or a division to change the way it works, the change might not be broad-based enough to show much of an ROI for your effort. You know, more of a Return on Illusion, then a Return on Investment

What's more, if you have one, highly visible initiative that the target audience can focus on, it's easier for the diehards to set up walls of resistance. It's sort of like the British armies in the Revolutionary War -- they wore bright red uniforms; they marched in formal ranks in the open so they were an easy target for the rebels skulking about in the trees. And don't we all have those rebels in the trees within us that shoot our heart's voice and true intentions?

Bite-size change isn't as effective neither in the short term -- nor as sustainable in the long-term -- as change that involves multiple factors. And there's even evidence now from the field of genetics to support this notion. In this year's July issue of Trends in Genetics scientists from the University of Chicago reported on a study that involved 6000 genes being bombarded, in varying degrees, by mutations.

The U-C scientists discovered that it wasn't the classic Darwinian theory of selective benefit that determined which mutations stuck, it was quantity -- the more mutations that reached the genetic material all at once, the more that would manage to sneak through the genes' defenses and leave an imprint.

So, if you're going to do it, you want to do it big. Change everything -- especially all the inner workings within and how they relate to all the departments, systems, relationships around us. And when you make new hires, hire people that -- from a corporate culture standpoint -- are already where you want to go. They will act as additional change agents for your initiative. You'll have fewer people to drag along to the new corporate “you” and more people to do the heavy lifting.

Principle #5 -- Sustain a healthy disrespect for the norm

Almost by definition, a norm tends to be static rather than dynamic -- and where's the promise in same-old/same-old? A healthy disrespect for the norm is like the burr under a rodeo bronco's saddle -- it keeps you from getting comfortable with the status quo. Where's the problem? The status quo is always helping you become comfortable and even more comfortable. Human life and its response to next-level living is like sand in a fishbowl filled with water. When sand is dropped in, it will fall and settle. This is where most of life naturally goes. Personal and executive coaching is like a stick plopped in there to stir the sand around. For brief moments, we, like the sand, rise to coachable levels where reality is stirred up and we think differently. But soon enough, without that force, we will settle to that lower level again and, unfortunately, like it.

• For one thing, it provides differentiation in the marketplace -- when we live in an everything-regresses-to-commodity world, you need to find ways to continually keep differentiating yourself -- and product-development cycles tend to work against that. But a culture of departing from the norm is a good way of making news and staying visible.

• A healthy disrespect for the norm enhances your comfort with change -- you never find many people rushing to the head of the let's-make-a-change line. But you do want to make sure that your people aren't all running in the opposite direction. Change may never be automatic. But if you're not wedded to the norm, at least it won't be traumatic.
  
• A healthy disrespect for the norm makes it easier to laugh at ourself -- easier to admit our mistakes, easier to take risks. We want people to know “things are going to be different around here”? Buy them all a poster from Despair.com to hang in their office. You know that teamwork Successories poster with the 8-person rowing shell that we used to see everywhere this side of our dentist's office. Despair.com has the same visual, but their heading is “Get to Work -- You aren't being paid to believe in the power of your dreams.”

• Finally, a healthy disrespect for the norm can be disruptive -- and there are advantages to shaking things up. Disruption scrambles the odds. Disruption leaves your competition feeling helpless. Years and years ago, the science-fiction writer, Isaac Asimov, wrote a short story about a great intergalactic war that had been going on for decades. In fact, the two sides knew each other so well that neither could make any progress. So here are these two great starship forces, stuck up there in space, waiting vainly for the other to make some move that their computers had already calculated the response for. And one lowly gunnery officer, on one ship, cracks under the pressure of the wait and starts firing away at random -- and his side wins the war in a rout. Their opponent's computers couldn't figure out the random, nOnlinear actions. Too disruptive.