Da Vinci was a Change Agent, Are You?

Leonardo da Vinci was a change agent. You probably know it already, it's worth repeating. At the time of birth, you are endowed with the same potential he had. Today, we need more than genius to make things happen though.

We need collaboration and co-creation at the highest levels. In the conceptual age, there is a lot of brain power at all levels in organizations, cities, and countries. Are we open to collaborating across such expanses? There were two readings that led me to make the connection between change and Da Vinci - they seem unrelated, but are they?

Let's take a look.

The editorial page of the January/February 2009 issue of Foreign Policy magazine is titled "our change, his (Obama) challenge". That gave me pause. I think a more apt title would have been - our challenge is change. If indeed the country voted for change, it would behoove everyone to align behind it. And that will be a challenge. We know the reality is much more complex. Individual interests, balance of power, and global relations will need careful navigating.

Everyone is looking for the magic wand in business - we probably got used to the nice returns. It's important to set a distinction between what we hope for and what we can actually execute. It's important especially to note that distinction when we think and talk about marketing and social media. It's no magic wand. You put an increasingly disciplined and scientific approach like marketing into an environment that facilitates the free form nature of humans and what do you have?

Science and art - rationality and emotion.

One would think economics rational, yet markets are so very emotional. With recent events, we also rediscovered that we're all connected. Yet those connections are welcomed only when we can make that choice on our own - who we interact with, where we buy, what we favor, follow, add, support.

Change is harder to do than it is to talk about

One year ago, Dell announced it was going to form a super agency choosing WPP as the holding company responsible to help create such venture. We talked about it here as a potential answer to the woes of client-agency relations. Casey Jones, Dell's VP of marketing, told PRWeek in 2007,

"I've been striving for integration for twenty years, and I've decided to give it up. Because integration means you're trying to glue things together that are not organically part of the same thing. We're looking for an agency relationship where PR, media, Web site analytics, creative, planning are all fixed on one objective - shareholder value for Dell."

Is dis-integration an option? Perfect-world scenarios meet real world challenges.

There is only way way I know of to face that - working through it. I'm not picking on Dell/WPP. They had a very ambitious and aggressive goal and no doubt many feathers got ruffled in the process. The change was too visible, too public to succeed. On the other hand, Dell's social media strategy is right on the money. It has grown from individual efforts and gestures. One conversation at a time.

Chapter two is how does social media revolutionize the business infrastructure?

I discussed how Dell was using social media to regain its mojo in September of 2007. From that post:

It’s 2004 you are Dell computers and you’re king of the world. But to be frank, you were also a bit boring. A year ago, Dells had the reputation as the cheap, utilitarian PC that you buy when price is everything. Dell was the ultimate commodity brand – serviceable, cost-effective, and a little dull. Along comes HP. In the course of a couple of years, HP using superior retail channels muscled past Dell to capture the number one position in the consumer PC marketplace.

So how does Dell react?

With a change in leadership – Michael Dell taking the reins of the company again and he is talking about taking a long term view of the business he helped launch. One response was to begin selling Dell through traditional retail channels. Another was to start listening to what customers are really saying about their products.

That’s when Dell turned to social media.

My conversation with Dell began after the publication of the Top Ten Reasons why your customer service fails in early July. Richard Binhammer in the corporate communications group at Dell sent me an email to volunteer his experience in using social media. [read the rest here]

The rest is the sum total of decisions that got Dell to being king of the social media execution. And I, too could be Richard @ Dell. A business needs to want to make that change for it to work. And for business I mean the people in it - at every level, collaborating and co-creating that change. That is a tougher proposition. And don't think that it's easier with services than it is with physical products. Can a company design a business through interactions?

Art and Science

Marketers are still looking for the definitive way to tie their work into business functions like market share and direct sales. The relationships between metrics, measurement and success are still quite undefined. Because now we must also start to ask - what are the right things to be measured? We are indeed all suffering from a glut of unrelated marketing messages - then again, unrelated may not be a bad thing with social media where experience is a-la-carte.

Our challenge is change. Whenever we consider writing anything, the hard part is coming up with the ideas, doing the writing is easy. Making things happen is quite the opposite - coming up with the ideas of what we don't like or want to change is fairly easy. It's the execution part that gives us pause. Yet the writing is on the wall.

In an interconnected world, it may turn out that getting change done is more art than science. It takes intuition and experience, the ability to broker - actually inspire - and attract relationships, along with superb unrelenting work. The art of conversation may just be the imperfect rescue the perfect world of expertise and science needs at the moment. 

Yes, economists will need to revise the models and methods unquestioned during the boom years. It will force them to produce new tools suited to a new era and reinvigorate their thinking by borrowing more intensively from other disciplines such as psychology and political science, writes Moises Naim, editor in chief of Foreign Policy in the closing article. 

Our marketing strategies and tactics are also bankrupt. We need not just fresh ideas to bail out the profession. We need marketers and communicators to lead the creation of what's next, not simply come up with solutions to patch what is now. We need to borrow from other disciplines and learn to be more like Da Vinci - inventors, scientists, change agents, opinion leaders. 

[Leonardo da Vinci 1515 AD depicted parabolic mirrors in his now famous cryptic diagrams]

© 2006-2009 Valeria Maltoni. All rights reserved.

Comments

[Aronado]

You nailed it right here:

"In an interconnected world, it may turn out that getting change done is more art than science. It takes intuition and experience, the ability to broker actually inspire and attract relationships, along with superb unrelenting work."

Pointing out the obvious, I'd like to quote Zig Ziglar, "When you help enough people get what they want, you'll get what you want"

I think many companies need to take a step back and ask, "do my customers need my product/service to succeed or do I need it to succeed?"

Competition is fierce and barriers to entry are diminishing exponentially. It's pretty simple to figure out who is doing it right. Look at Zappos, they've got pretty much their whole crew on Twitter building the Zappos brand, and doing exactly what you say here, having & sharing "the ability to broker, actually inspire and attract relationships.

I think we need to do some *UNlearning*, and start doing things completely different.

Go and read Guy Kawasaki's: Reality Check, and pay attention to "getting in front of the curve"

STOP, DROP, & CHANGE!

[Warren Whitlock]

One day about 32 years ago, I got thinking about people resisting change.

"Change isn't always better" someone had said.

My reply was "Better is always a change"

That day I resolved to look at every issue where a change was taking place as an opportunity for things to get better, or at the very least, to have a richer life because of it.

Some of the trends and changes I have witness since that day have not been at all what I wanted. Giving up the desire to hold on to what we know for for what might come takes some amount of courage.

Change is inevitable. And with the rate of change in the world today.. you aren't keeping up unless you are pushing for change.

Better is always a change.

[Ric Cortez]

It only takes 1 small step to initiate change. When people are overwhelmed they get stuck. Engagement is a key catalyst, connect with people.

[Account Deleted]

"At every crossroads on the path that leads to the future, tradition has placed 10,000 men to guard the past." - Maurice Maeterlinck

Change never comes easily. But upheave you must, in order to advance. Terrific blog, Valeria. Up there with my favorites of yours to date.

[gregorylent]

you think people are afraid of change? ... wait until you put the need for transformation onto the table ...

straight up, transformation kills you ... or at least the you you think you are ... and to ask people to do it is to ask them to suicide their entire self-concept ...

they will resist mightily ...

so, an agent of transformation has to be completely sneaky, and create situations where either transformation happens by itself from the inside out, or is the only way out ...

sort of like what nature is doing to america as we speak ..

enjoy, gregory lent

[Valeria Maltoni]

@Aronado - "do my customers need my product/service to succeed or do I need it to succeed?" that is the best way I saw that put. We have what we call the curse of knowledge and we think that if we just work harder, longer hours, and do more of it, even if it hasn't worked in the past, this time it will. It won't. It's a whole new ballgame. I have "Reality Check", thank you for suggesting the exact chapter.

@Warren - I had a very similar experience myself. And I agree, some of the change I did not like, but on with it I worked to create a life. I'll remember that "better is always change".

@Ric - connecting with people should be a mandatory course for all MBAs. We might end up with more leaders.

@Je' - great quote, and so true. Thank you for your kind words.

@Gregory - ultimately nobody can change you or transform you, it's a decision and process you need to agree to and do on your own. Sometimes there is also a lot of noise and confusion on the inside, when we crystallize around an ideal or what we consider values. Then we harden around them.

[Sam Decker]

This is a great post. There's such a lack of change leadership and courage in many corporations today. I saw this at Dell as we tried to get people comfortable with change.

This is an oldie but a goodie...
Prosci's Change Management learning center features a report titled 2005 Best Practices in Change Management. As summarized by Be Excellent, here are 5 important findings:

1. The #1 contributor to (business improvement) project success is active, strong and visible sponsorship throughout the project.

2. The top obstacles to successful change are employee resistance at all levels: front-line, middle managers, and senior managers and inadequate senior management sponsorship.

3. Employees want to hear messages about change from two people: the CEO and their immediate supervisor - the message they want to hear from each individual is very different.

4. When asked what they would do differently next time, most teams would dedicate resources to change management.

5. The top reason for employee resistance is a lack of awareness about the change.

I've talked to colleagues looking to get their buisness to embrace a new program, become a metrics organization, become a customer centric organization, or launch a sustaining word of mouth strategy. Focus on the program rather than the people, incentives and communication leads to failure. And that's not what we need out of companies this year!

[peter]

Hi Valeria,

To your initial question, no I am not a change agent:

- I doubt the power of the human will (not to be confused with the human spirit);
- I have no desire to speed things up - change being the human measure of time
- I wouldn't know which way to change (our present - at least in business - is hardly an endorsement of many of the change agents of the past)
- I'm a little exhausted by change agents - with their tendency to impatience and their distrust of the present (some thing take time to bear fruit )

I suspect I don't long for a different a tomorrow - It just happens that way and I seem happy for the present that's delivered.

Of course, I may be delusional and I'll suffer for it (But perhaps I won't notice).

Peter

[Carolyn Ann]

Valeria, I have to hand it to you (metaphorical speaking, of course). You certainly know how to ask the questions! :-)

I hate to be the one pointing this out... da Vinci made all his observations sans assistance! Likewise Einstein, Newton, Darwin, Feynman, and ... I'm not sure there is anyone else (Brahe, perhaps?). Copernicus had assistance; one of whom undermined his entire thesis. Kepler wasn't exactly original, although one can argue he was particularly exacting. (Crick had Watson, etc)

But your point is clear! :-)

Although I would point out that Steve Jobs has been a greater of change than Michael Dell. Mr Dell works within a framework that is, to be honest, somewhat limiting. Steve Jobs saw past the limitations, and created a brand that is synonymous with "cool lifestyle". Michael Dell follows in those footsteps. (No, I'm not a Jobs acolyte; I simply like the way he redefined the barriers he had to deal with. Full disclosure bit: I live in a household with more Macs than Windows machines, too. Besides which, after my last experience with Dell, I won't buy anything from that company.)

As far as Obama is concerned, he has an opportunity to change the dialog of government. We've had nigh on 30 years of conservative rhetoric that is astoundingly close to gilded age soothsaying. Perhaps people are ready for a change? The election results certainly indicate America wants change. But the President is only one player - others have an equal, and often more of a say in what happens.

Maybe that's not the change we seek? Maybe we're simply looking at a sea-change in public attitudes? Perhaps, perhaps, people are no longer asking what their country can do for them. Maybe we have reached the point that John Fitzgerald Kennedy demanded we reach: what can we do, for each other?

Marketing is reaching a crossroads; I'm just not sure it's the one the symptoms are pointing to. If it is, I'll be surprised.

Carolyn Ann

PS Science can meet art, but I'm not sure art can ever be on talking terms with science. Art can exploit science, and somehow I think science objects. Unless you're Richard Feynman!

PPS Name dropping? How crass. My apologies. :-)

[Cab]

Completely agree with the blog, but for the love of God lets all resolve to kill the term "change agent" this year.

[Valeria Maltoni]

@Sam - that is a very good list, thank you. Focusing on the process instead of the people and communications is another famous pet peeve of mine. The mantra should be "it's the people". You are quite correct, we got here thanks to those dynamics and we need to change them to get out of it. Change or die?

@Peter - valuable input, thank you. Yes, change agents are impatient. And I know that people (Cab here said it) do not even like the term. But is change speeding things up or is it slowing them down long enough to notice we could do them differently? I struggle with that. The way for change to work is to notice in the moment, make a different decision, and pursue that. Or maybe I am delusional.

@Carolyn Ann - good, I'm glad you said that. Dell's change is being done outside in, Apple's change is inside out. Which one is harder? Obama indeed has the chance to change the conversation - and by doing that, hopefully (the hope part needs to be there) change the game. Love the name dropping. "what can we do, for each other?" is exactly what marketers should be asking themselves.

@Cab - yes.

[Peter]

I agree with your hypothesis. Then yes, we may both be delusional ( But that doesn't matter if, as you have said, we are kind).

Perhaps the mantra is change what you notice and not what you do . Based on my observations, action tends to follows involuntarily .

But, how to notice ?

As an aside, I was reflecting not only on the impatience of change agents but the sense of disrespect for the present that I get from so many who call them selves change agents - the present is not some sought of failure to be constantly corrected.

[Carolyn Ann]

I was just thinking about my paraphrasing of JFK's famous call-to-arms. And I have to change it!

The obnoxious, predatory and entirely self-serving minions and nobodies of the privatized government contractors could misconstrue my words as supporting their efforts. Nothing could be further from the truth.

I would have been better, although more arrogant, to have left Kennedy's words as he said them: Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country! (I think he said them at his Inauguration.)

My apologies for the confusion.

Carolyn ANn

[Russ Savage]

Valeria,
You write:
"Everyone is looking for the magic wand in business - we probably got used to the nice returns. It's important to set a distinction between what we hope for and what we can actually execute. It's important especially to note that distinction when we think and talk about marketing and social media. It's no magic wand. You put an increasingly disciplined and scientific approach like marketing into an environment that facilitates the free form nature of humans and what do you have?"

"Science and art - rationality and emotion."

and later
"Can a company design a business through interactions?"

then
"In an interconnected world, it may turn out that getting change done is more art than science. It takes intuition and experience, the ability to broker - actually inspire - and attract relationships, along with superb unrelenting work. The art of conversation may just be the imperfect rescue the perfect world of expertise and science needs at the moment."

Meanwhile I read an article by Meredith F. Small, LiveScience's Human Nature Columnist
"That study and the endless, mind-numbing studies of mate choice that followed all claimed that it must be in our genes for men to want young pretty women and women to want older established men because these result make "evolutionary sense." Young women are more fertile than old women and so they would pass on a man's genes, and men with resources can provide for offspring and improve a woman's reproductive success. But all these studies are deeply flawed for the simple reason that they ask people what they want in their mates, not what they actually get. And yet evolution only works on what we do, not on what we desire; from an evolutionary standpoint, it's not our ideal that counts, but who we actually make babies with."

and
"No matter what we might say to researchers, the truth is we all end up mating with people who are interested in us, people we run into, people who happen to look our way. And our 'choices,' more often than not, make no sense at all."

Different topic, and yet...

I agree with you that we need conversations - the imperfect rescue of the world of expertise and science. Conversation as science and art - rationality and emotion. Where we pay attention to what the other chooses - as well as what they say they want.

Part of the art is knowing how to not over-assume the why of the client/customer's choice.

There be complexity in choices. And in interpreting them, after all, our"choices," more often than not, make no sense at all.

best,
Russ

Meredith F. Smalll: http://www.livescience.com/culture/081219-hn-men-women-looks.html

[Valeria Maltoni]

@Peter - part of being able to see what is asking for change is listening. It translates into our own awareness and there are opportunities to listen to others at every turn. In some cases, we need to be come better at knowing what to listen for as the feedback comes in charged with subjective and contextual information that may or may not apply - our choice.

@Carolyn Ann - you introduce an interesting twist: people become who they work for and adapt to the process they have to follow. Which goes to culture, that soft and all important attribute of not just organizations but societies overall.

@Russ - that's a lot of quoting! Yes, the why can be what as most convenient and expedient at the time, especially if the choice is made in a condition where there was no time to consider options (this happens a lot). You inspired me to think about the ideal mate :)