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Chapter Two
Initiative Conversations:
Create a Future

Landing a man on the moon began with an Initiative Conversation. On May 25, 1961, President John F. Kennedy went before a joint session of Congress and made the following proposal:

I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important for the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish. Let it be clear—and this is a judgment which the Members of the Congress must finally make—let it be clear that I am asking the Congress and the country to accept a firm commitment to a new course of action, a course which will last for many years and carry very heavy costs. If we are to go only half way, or reduce our sights in the face of difficulty, in my judgment it would be better not to go at all.

What Kennedy proposed was, at the time, unimaginable. Scientists said they could not commit to a moon landing because the necessary knowledge and technology did not exist, and they were not sure they could invent it to meet Kennedy’s timeline. The Russians had successfully orbited a man, Sr. Lt. Yuri Gagarin, around Earth, but Americans had accomplished only a suborbital flight, made by Alan Shepard. The “space race” had just begun, and America was already behind.

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Eight years later, on July 20, 1969, the world watched in awe as Neil Armstrong took “one small step for man; one giant leap for mankind” away from Apollo 11’s lunar excursion module (LEM) and onto the surface of the moon. With that step, and Apollo 11’s subsequent safe return, America successfully accomplished the goal that Kennedy’s Initiative Conversation had launched eight years earlier.

An Initiative Conversation is a proposal to create a new future, with the intention of making that future a reality. What makes an Initiative Conversation unique is not that it is a way of talking about starting something. It actually does start something. Not all Initiative Conversations end with a victory, as Kennedy’s did. However, all victories do begin with an Initiative Conversation.

Leaders Have Initiative Conversations

Leaders point to a desirable future, and make it seem attractive enough and worthwhile so that we want to join with them in making that idea a reality. Are you in a position to propose a new project, make a change to your job or department, or contribute a suggestion to a committee or project team? If so, then you are in a position to lead by having an Initiative Conversation.

Most people believe that authority, titles, and positions of respect are not necessary in order to demonstrate leadership. Still, most people say they are not in a position to lead, because they do not think of themselves as leaders. Leadership is not restricted to the executive office, or to people at the top of the hierarchy. Leaders work at all levels of organizations, and people at all levels can be leaders.

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A distinguishing characteristic of leaders is that they have Initiative Conversations. They envision a better future than the one we can predict given the way things are now. Leaders are willing to speak up, propose actions and outcomes, and encourage others to envision and participate in making a more desirable future into a reality.

A Future by Design

An Initiative Conversation is an active and intentional approach to the future. When we are passive, we drift through the passage of time and events. A twig, floating on the surface of a pond, carried by currents of water and wind, will be somewhere else in the future. In an hour, a day, or a week it may land on the shore across the pond, remain floating on the water, or sink to the bottom. The twig has no relationship to its future, drifting passively in the pond.

People are not twigs: we can create a future by design. We have desires or intentions, goals or plans, and can have an active relationship to the future. When we are passive, our future will be a product of the drift in our own environments, interactions, and habits. When we become active and intentional about our future, we can deliberately choose to make something happen. For example:

• A board of directors decides to sell off a product line to another company by the end of the year.
• A manager decides to reorganize her business unit to improve customer service before peak season.
• New parents decide to set aside savings for a child’s college education.

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The desire for something better is characteristic of human beings. To make your goals a reality, begin by having Initiative Conversations: announce the future you want to achieve, and invite other people to join you in making it happen.

• The board of directors announces the sell-off as part of its vision for a more streamlined and focused company.
• The manager invites a specialist to help her unit design a more efficient and effective structure for servicing customers.
• The new parents set up a college fund and invite family members to support reaching their savings goal.

Initiative Conversations are proposals that share an idea for an attractive and worthwhile future, and show people the possibility and the value of fulfilling it. An effective Initiative Conversation is more than simply a “good idea” or suggestion. It outlines the vision of reaching a goal or implementing a plan, says by when it can be accomplished, and adds a reason or value for doing it. This gives everyone a big-picture sense of what the future can be, when it is possible, and why it is desirable.

In many cases, the Initiative Conversation goes beyond informing people, and begins to engage them and excite them about being a part of making something happen. When an Initiative Conversation is effective, many people who grasp the vision and the opportunity will join in the process to create the new and desirable future.

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Say What You Want + When and
Why You Want It

Kate, the manager of Human Resources (HR), was dealing with an increasing number of internal complaints from her company’s managers. The managers were impatient with lengthy delays in processing their new hires, promotions, and transfers. Kate was certain these complaints were due to a lack of technology tools and services needed by her staff. She blamed the Technology group for not supporting the HR office, and thus for indirectly not supporting all the managers in the company.

  “I’m only an HR manager, so I don’t have very much authority in this company,” Kate explained. “There is a bias here that favors the operations and technical personnel, and my vote doesn’t always count as much as other managers’ votes. In order to get a high-level manager to do something, I sometimes have to be more aggressive than I like to be. But in this case, I’m willing to do that because I’m tired of taking the blame for the long hiring delays.”

  Mitch, the director of the Information Technology and Systems (ITS) group, was reluctant to meet with Kate. He rightly suspected she would be critical of his department’s services, but he had his own budget and personnel problems to deal with. He put off the appointment for more than a month, but at Kate’s insistence, finally agreed to meet in a neutral conference room.

  Kate started the meeting by putting three pages of statistics on the table that itemized the ITS team’s response times over the past six months. The statistics showed that ITS technicians were taking longer and longer to respond to HR needs, and the number of complaints from HR personnel were rising.

  Mitch began by defending his ITS technician, saying, “I agree, we should be more responsive, but my technicians are seriously understaffed and the backlog of jobs keeps growing. We are doing the best we can. I plan to hire new people in the next few months, and that should help, but I can’t promise anything now.” He went on to show genuine concern and expressed confidence that his department’s performance would improve over time.

  Kate said, “Yes, Mitch, they should do exactly what you say. But I want a solution now. You could implement a training program that would have them work more efficiently. You could focus on their performance and start tracking how many of their appointments actually resolve the technical problem they come to fix. Better yet, your technicians could start using the company’s new Work Order Scheduling system to manage their work more accurately and promptly. Or maybe we should take these statistics to the operations manager and see what her solution is?”

  Mitch picked up on Kate’s reference to the operations manager, but continued his defense. “We don’t have the budget for a training program, and it probably wouldn’t help reduce our backlog anyway. We do track performance, but the technicians do not always agree with the customer about whether the problem is resolved or not, so we don’t trust those numbers. And I think the company’s Work Order Scheduling system is overkill for us, since we already have a good method of scheduling and tracking help requests.”

  “It’s not good enough, Mitch,” Kate told him, stepping into a more assertive tone. “I want something new from you. Our HR group serves every employee in the organization. We work to meet state and federal requirements, satisfy union contracts, and help hire and train personnel to be better at their jobs. The past six months we have had poor technology service that slowed our own processing times, and most of the other managers are impatient with us. I would rather not have to tell them that you are the bottleneck. You and I need to talk about what will have your technicians provide timely support to everyone in the company, including my HR staff.”

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Kate was working hard to have an Initiative Conversation. The main ingredient of an Initiative Conversation is a statement of What you want and When and Why you want it. Kate made it clear she wanted better tech support and her approach to getting the idea across to Mitch used all three elements. She also stated the importance of her office’s work for the company managers and other outside authorities and hinted at the consequences of failure. Kate implied that she might make the problems of ITS into a more public discussion, which could be uncomfortable for Mitch. She did not intend this to be a threat, but only to underscore how important it was to come to a new solution for the problem.

Kate made a proposal for new solutions and a compelling offer to work with Mitch on creating a plan for change. Mitch was going to have to do something new. This was an effective Initiative Conversation because Mitch got the idea, joined the Initiative Conversation, and agreed to work with her on creating a new short-term future.

Make It Positive

Mitch had been avoiding making changes in the ITS department. He was a new manager of the technicians, and he wanted to be successful in that position. He believed that happy employees would perform well, so he took special efforts to listen to their problems, improve their benefits and resources, and allow them to work in the ways they knew best. He avoided asking his people to learn new things or do more work, afraid of risking their disapproval and unhappiness. In particular, he wanted to avoid asking his technicians to switch to the new Work Order Scheduling (WOS) system. He had been complacent about the response time statistics, drifting along on his preference for pleasing, supporting, and not confronting people. Kate’s direct approach made him very uneasy.

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  “I don’t want to force a change on people,” Mitch said to Kate. “My technicians are specialists who solve difficult problems in a network environment with a complex mix of software and hardware needs. The last thing they need is someone telling them to change the way they work at the same time they are supposed to be improving their response time.”

  “But however brilliant they are,” Kate said, “they are not improving their response time.” She pointed to the pages spread out on the conference table. “It’s getting worse. Your technicians are the only people in this organization who are not using the WOS system, which means they are the only ones who have not changed the way they schedule appointments, close out their service orders, and report their results. They know how to install and service the WOS system for other departments, but they are not using it to manage their own work.”

  Mitch made one last objection, saying, “Every week in our staff meetings, the techs tell me about how many failures and glitches they see in supporting that WOS system. If I ask them to use the system themselves, I will look foolish, they will get hopelessly bogged down, and their backlogs will get worse.”

  “The WOS system works,” Kate said. “It’s your techs who need to get on board. You are going to have to help them change, and help them develop their skills to do a better job for their customers. It is time you wanted them to be successful instead of comfortable.”

  “That’s the moment,” Mitch said later, “when I realized I could get the technicians to use the new system, and that they wouldn’t undermine service, get mad at me, or do anything disruptive. They were technicians, after all, and they would want to get it right. Until Kate pointed out that I was trying to avoid something negative—their resistance—I didn’t see that I could try to cause something positive and help my technicians improve their success rate.”

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Most of us know more about what we do not want than about what we do want. People are quick to see what is wrong in any situation, what could or should be done about it, and who could or should fix it. Sometimes we pay more attention to our negative judgments than to our positive wants, and focus more on what we want to avoid than on what we want to accomplish. An Initiative Conversation must include something positive and attractive to invite people’s attention.

Focus on the Goals, Not the Perils

Warren Bennis and Bert Nanus, in their book, Leaders: The Strategies for Taking Charge, refer to our human tendency to focus on the negative as the Wallenda Factor, to demonstrate its potentially catastrophic results. On March 22, 1978, Karl Wallenda, the 73-year-old patriarch of the Flying Wallendas, a world-famous family of aerialists and tightrope walkers, fell 120 feet to his death while walking a tightrope without a safety net. The incident occurred between two high-rise buildings in San Juan, Puerto Rico. After the accident, his widow said that Karl had checked and rechecked the tightrope to make certain everything was secure, something “he had never even thought of doing before.” She explained, “All Karl thought about for three straight months prior was falling. It was the first time he ever thought about that, and it seemed to me that he put all his energies into not falling rather than walking the tightrope.”

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“Focus is the quintessential component of performance in every activity,” said Tim Gallwey, the bestselling author of The Inner Game of Work. He claims we perform better when we focus on something specific and desirable that we want to accomplish, rather than on the dangers we want to avoid. Our attention pulls us toward its object: we will be more successful when we pay attention to what we desire than to what we dread. When we focus on our fears, we risk being pulled in the feared direction, but if we focus on what we want, the goal becomes our partner.

Mitch and Kate agreed that getting the technicians to use the WOS system was only a first step in improving tech support for all managers in the company. But they needed to keep their eye on that goal. They planned to meet once a week for half an hour to review the latest response time statistics and discuss actions to improve response performance. Mitch would take charge of implementing the WOS software in his department, and Kate would provide HR training and support for the technicians as they went through the change. Both agreed not to get caught up in problems, but to stay on course to improving technology and HR support.