Blog Post 10/12/2009

Is your change management leadership more like automobile drivers or motorcycle riders?

I’m not trying to ascertain whether or not they live life on the edge, have a bad-boy image or anything like that; I’m more interested in your leaderships focus and flexibility.

Physics and Change Leadership

I have been an automobile and motorcycle enthusiast my whole life. I really like machines and tinkering with them and particularly machines that will propel me somewhere. For this reason I’ve had plenty of opportunities to push cars and cycles to their limits, and to my own limits. Here though we don’t need to focus on pushing those limits. In fact I want to focus on the most important, most risky and most frequent examples.

The daily drive in traffic, on your most familiar streets.

If you are familiar with driving a car (or taking public transportation) for going about your daily routine you know that there isn’t much required of you. You have to make it to the bus stop on time, or you have to make sure that your car is properly warmed up before you head out.

During those colder months many automobile drivers won’t even fully clean off their windows because they are so confident that they don’t need that level of clarity to safely navigate between their familiar destinations.

A motorcyclist however must be a constant master of risk mitigation and change management. A short list of variables that change daily, no matter how familiar a motorcyclists path, are:

• Weather – Heat, Cold, Sun Glare, Rain, Sleet, Snow, Ice and Wind. Every one of these weather elements effect how the rider reacts, the information they are receiving from their nervous system. It also effects how the machine acts and reacts – motorcycle components are much more exposed than automobile parts and this plays a role in what your bike is able (or unable) to do at any given time.
• Road Conditions – Potholes, Oil, Debris. Many obstacles on the roadway could damage a car but rarely in such a way that it is disastrous to the operator – this is not the case for motorcyclists.
• Driver Awareness – Eating, Cell Phones, Stereo Adjustment, GPS. Look around for a moment at what drivers are up to during their commute and you’ll get a good feel for why motorcyclists can never let their guard down.

All of these factors play a part on a daily basis. When turning a motorcycle you have to physically adjust your body position, appropriately use your brakes and speed to maintain proper tire traction or else you’ll end up on the slab. In a car you worry about braking and speed but, for everyday driving, you are making that happen with the shifting of a single foot.

Day to Day Change Leadership

Is your organization’s leadership comfortable with waiting for those surprise moments where they may or may not have time to disengage their auto-pilot and react to change? Is your leadership treating the organization more like an automobile that doesn’t need much attention? When this approach is taken where is your leadership’s focus on a day-to-day basis?

What if your leadership worked day-to-day like a motorcyclist? Focused, balanced and being aware of the daily changes that are occurring around them; looking for opportunity in those changes? What if they paid attention to the organization like a motorcyclist has to pay attention to their bike; knowing that any under-performing group changes the dynamics of the whole organization?

Driving a motorcycle is like flying. All your senses are alive. — Hugh Laurie