Involve Everyone

Margaret Wheatley, author of Leadership and the New Science, observes that “…great things are possible when we increase participation. I always want more people, from more diverse functions and places, to be there….I learn a great deal from other people. I expect them to see things differently from me, to surprise me.”^[*]

For a new idea to be successful across an organization, everyone should have an opportunity to support the innovation and make his own unique contribution.

You are a Dedicated Champion(129) working to introduce patterns into your organization. There are others in the community who might get involved with a little encouragement.

Even when you ask for help, there’s a tendency to take on too much. Others, especially those who don’t see the value in the new idea, may think of it as “your show.”

You’re the person dedicated to spending time on introducing the new idea. You want to do as much as you can to help your organization improve but you don’t want the organization to be too dependent on you. Moreover, the corporate picture of the new idea may tend to converge around your own. As a result, there’s less definitional discussion because you are setting the stage and the pace.

If you take on too much, you can become the single point of failure. Because people will tend to see the new idea as being about you, your personality and history can color their view. People who might contribute to a discussion of how best to make the innovation work will instead defer to you, seeing themselves as students learning “the right way.”

A small group interested in a new idea can become a clique isolated from the needs of the organization. Those who aren’t part of the effort may become defensive and withdrawn, afraid of not being able to keep up with the change. Wide involvement is essential for the development of a good implementation strategy. Some things might be less stressful if everyone was alike, but the long-term plan would not be robust enough to stand the test of time.

You can never predict who will be the real enthusiasts for the new technique. In organizations, as with prairies, you can’t get far with pristine and hermetically sealed experiments. This is one reason for reaching out to a broad cross-section of support. In addition to contributing skills and strengths, a diverse group of people will bring awareness of the limitations and organizational constraints that any successful change effort must transcend.

Leading change is not a one-person job. Increasing the number of people involved means that the innovation belongs to the entire organization instead of just one person or a small group. Because of the extensive participation, it becomes everyone’s product. Shared experiences can keep others interested. When you share the opportunity to lead, you discover that the extent to which people “own” a project is the extent to which they invest their time and energy to make it succeed.

Ownership is important. It is a term that describes not only literal owners, but more importantly, the emotional investment of employees in their work. It describes personal connections to the organization; the powerful emotions of belonging that inspire people to contribute. A tried and true maxim of organizational behavior is that “people support what they create.”

Therefore:

Make it known that everyone is welcome to be part of the change effort. Involve people from as many different groups as possible: management, administrative and technical support, marketing, and training.

Do the best you can to involve a variety of people from the start. If the innovation is viewed early on as a clique, it may never be able to lose that image. Even when you’re not sure how it will work out, even when you’re not sure where things are going, involving everyone creates a stronger community.

Give everyone ownership of some part of the change effort. For example, encourage the Innovators(170) to help test the new idea and the Early Adopters(138) to be responsible for some leadership roles. Find Connectors(119) and get a Guru on Your Side(158) to help spread the word. Don’t restrict involvement because of any preconceived ideas. Even skeptics can contribute by becoming a Champion Skeptic(116).

Try to bring together a diverse group of people from different parts of the organization. Seek out a variety of roles and ideas. Invite people who could hold untapped wisdom—not the same voices, but new and different ones. Alistair Cockburn’s pattern Holistic Diversity advises creating a team with multiple specialties, and Neil Harrison’s pattern Diverse Groups recommends including different kinds of members in determining requirements. Give everyone the freedom to express an individual perspective on the new idea.

Create forums and processes that allow a variety of people to have their voices heard about the new idea. Make sure it is not a passive system in which individuals merely say what’s on their mind. Rather, create active discussions where people offer suggestions for any problems they raise.

Put the “spotlight on others.” Convince individuals to take on public leadership tasks by running an event or doing a Hometown Story(164). Help each individual become an effective leader. People have different abilities and interests. Some are not comfortable writing, while others don’t like public speaking. Sometimes you can just use Ask for Help(104) to hear what they would like to do.

If you’re appointing someone as a leader, you have to be ready to follow. Prepare yourself mentally to cede ownership of the new idea to someone else.

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This pattern builds a community of people committed to the new idea, ready to take on leadership roles in the change effort. Increasing the number of people involved in the process results in a movement that belongs to the entire organization rather than something produced by one person or a small group. Your attempt to involve everyone ensures that as many individuals as possible will see themselves as active participants in the change process. People who have this perception will view the success of the innovation as their responsibility. This means that they have accepted the change in some small measure, and you have that much less resistance to overcome. Those who become leaders of the change effort will soon become experts in others’ eyes, and they will probably do so as your close partners. Your effectiveness will be multiplied because you have people to talk with and fall back upon. They’ll tell you which ideas worked out well and which didn’t work out so well. They’ll tell you which contacts were helpful and which weren’t. They’ll keep talking to you. And you’ll keep learning from them. It’s a loop.

But every time you involve another group, you run the risk of getting so many points of view that it becomes overwhelming. Acknowledge the differences with Fear Less(151), but put your focus on the common ground. This will allow you to move forward rather than using your energy on the countless issues that cannot be immediately resolved. Everyone doesn’t need to agree on everything before you can start taking action.

Tim has been actively trying to convert others to be leaders of the change effort for the innovation. For example, he was asked to give a keynote talk on the innovation at a software testing conference. Instead of accepting, he said, “You should ask Elisabeth. She’s up and coming, working with the innovation, and a good speaker.” That’s what happened. Similarly, Tim nudged someone else to be the host of the conference. Neither started out that enthusiastic about the innovation, but they gained enthusiasm at the workshops, and Tim thinks they will get more caught up in it as they play a more public role. Tim has also noticed that encouraging others to become involved makes the innovation seem less like one of his weird ideas, which, he thinks, was initially the impression of some.

Karen is the Executive Director of RiverLink, a nonprofit organization spearheading the economic and environmental revitalization of the French Broad River. She was asked to identify the one thing that had the most positive influence on the successful progress RiverLink has made over 15 years. Without hesitation, she described the ability to pull together people with a variety of interests including lawyers, accountants, engineers, architects, bike-riders, kayakers, and other athletes. Community outreach was often accomplished through personal visits and more public forums such as focus groups, public hearings, and even a 24-hour brainstorming session. Karen noted that this allowed each person to come away feeling that he or she owned a part of the project.