It's the Way We Have Always Done It!!!!! - Changing the Cultural Norms

In the past few weeks I have been pondering how to change cultural norms.  I have quite a few clients that reach out and explain that the business they work for is consistently doing the same thing, over and over again, not rendering any different results.  They advise when on projects or initiative they always hear comments like: "this is the way we have always done it!" It appears that no one wants to change that way of thinking, or if you try, there is a TON of resistance.  A lot of these issues revolve around the culture of the organization.  Cultures are really hard easy to build, but really had to change once they are engrained and permeated throughout the organization.

Here are some things to consider as you work toward cultural changes:

1. Timing - it takes some time to change a culture.  It's not something that is changed over night.  Take a moment to understand this reality.  Take a moment to understand that not everyone is going to agree with you that there is even a problem, especially if they are a main contributor to the problem.  Understand it make take 3 times as long, or longer,  to change the culture than it took to build it.  It's going to require patience and perseverance.
2. Identification - identify the concerns causing the issues in the organization.  Also outline what those issues are hindering, the risks, and external and internal experience these issues cause.
3. Recommendations - once you have identified the issues ensure you have some recommendations, or solutions, to bring to the table.  Think about how the culture can be changed in the best interest of everyone, and demonstrate tangible positive results if the culture is changed. 
4. Alliances - understand who the main influencers are in the organization to help in changing the culture.  You will not be able to change the culture on your own.  You will need to clearly articulate, with examples, the areas of concerns and the impact.  In order to be successful you cannot do this on your own.  You need people who will support you, but you need individuals who have the right influence to help execute the change.  This requires you to take time to network and build some strong relationships.  In order to do this you will need to do some observing and researching.
5. Model The Behavior - in order for change to come it must start with YOU.  It's important to model the behavior you wish to see.  If you don't you can come off as a hypocrite and that is not the perception you want.  Regardless of how tough the cultural change may be continue to model the behavior you wish to see.  Actions speak louder than words.

Signing off until next month,

The BA Martial Artist

In Order to Grow You Need to Sow

I had the opportunity this month to provide my insights on some topics for a book a friend of mine is writing.  While I was being interviewed I really started to reflect back on my life and the many different journeys my life has taken me.  As I thought about life, I thought about what has truly helped me to achieve success.  I am very happy with my growth over, specifically, the past 6 years.  If someone would have told me 10 years ago I would be doing what I'm doing today, I probably would have laughed.  It's amazing as you continue to go through the journey of life the things you uncover about yourself.  What I have found is that through all my growth I have had to sow.  What does that mean?  In order to achieve your success you have to invest in the success.  Each investment is a seed sown.  However, you need the wisdom to know where to sow.  You can sow in good or bad ground.  It's your choice to decide which one.

How has this concept worked for me.  I have so many stories, but I will share a couple in this blog to demonstrate.

Speaking
When I started speaking seriously, in 2009 I was so green.  I thought it was just simply creating a presentation, getting up in front of a group of people sharing what you know about a specific topic.  It is definitely FAR from that.  When I did my first few speaking engagements, I realized, after the feedback, I was not engaging and/or capturing the audience as much as I wanted.  I wanted to capture the audience because I was investing money into the speaking investments and I wanted to ensure my investment was worth it.  I knew this was something I wanted to do and be successful at.  I decided to watch individuals I respected, who would always receive great feedback, and consistently invited back to conferences to determine what I should be doing differently.  I also took advantage of opportunities to facilitate and speak at my day job to learn how to effectively engage the audience.  All of these steps allowed me to sow into my dream.  I was sowing of my time, energy and finances to achieve my goal.  What is even more interesting is I really prefer not to speak in public.  When I was younger I used to stutter.  I felt I had a hard time articulating my thoughts to where they made sense.  I also internalized rejection.  I took constructive feedback as rejection, and negative feedback to where I felt I as failure.  In my mind, why would I put myself in a position to go through just that?  To overcome the things that scare you, you have to approach them head on.  What I should have been doing is changing my mindset that feedback truly is a gift.  You can always learn from others and through experiences that may make you uncomfortable.  Though I may not have liked public speaking I do love sharing my knowledge, and gaining knowledge.  Through sowing into my dream I have really grown in the speaking circuit.  This year has been phenomenal.  I'm speaking internationally, I'm a keynote speaker at a BA Conference, I'm speaking at conferences where I've been asked to do multiple breakout sessions, and more. All of those years of sowing are now allowing me to reap a bountiful harvest.  I definitely could not have done it without the support of my family, friends and mentors.  The journey hasn't been easy.  I've had to humble myself, get rid of the ego, accept the fact that I need help from others , commit to my dream and stay disciplined to achieve it.

Helping Others
A few years ago I decided that if I received a bonus from work I would bless 1-2 people to help them achieve what they had a desire to achieve, or just to be a blessing in general.  I have a heart of giving and though I have been hurt by my generosity, it's part of my DNA.  I don't do it to receive anything in return because it's just my heart.  However, every single time I do bless someone I have received 3x or more of the blessing I have sown.  I have found this to be a boomerang effect.  When I give, I receive, which makes me give again.


I truly believe in order to grow you must sow.  There must be an investment and not a mentality of entitlement.  You tend to appreciate things more when you invest in them because you are putting a part of yourself in to it.  So take a moment next month to think about how you can sow into good ground to help someone else.  Do it expecting nothing in return.  Regardless whether who/what you sow in appreciates it or not, continue to sow in others.  My challenge to you this month is to sow to continue to grow.

Trust me, it's worth it!!!!! 😊

Signing Off,
Paula Bell
BA Martial Artist

The Dojo of Collaboration

For the last five years I have traveled this wonderful journey of learning Ryukyu Kempo Martial Arts.  It’s an Okinawan, Japanese style of martial arts with a focus on self protection. It’s not solely about the fighting, but rather conditioning and preparing the mind.  You first learn how to prepare your mind for the training.  Preparation is key.  Preparation in context of Ryukyu Kempo is understanding and embracing the rules of the dojo (training ground), the guiding principles and the tenets will prepare you to study and master the art.  In martial arts I have to depend on my classmates to help sharpen me to learn the art to the precise detail needed to effectively protect myself if that situation should arise.  There is a lot of collaboration that occurs in class in order to sharpen one another.  You see, we recognize we need each other to reach our fullest potential. Though we learn at our own pace we still need each other to be successful.

The same is true in any discipline.  Business analysis is a discipline.  As a business analyst you need to partner and work with others in order to reach that shared common goal during collaboration.  The word collaboration is used A LOT, but the execution of it is where individuals fall short.  Taking the time to prepare yourself to create that collaborative environment is key.  A lot of times there are assumptions made that everyone knows how to collaborate and will play in the sandbox together.  However, that is not always the case.  Some individuals have worked in silos for so long they don’t understand how to get out of that siloed way of thinking, and work with others who bring different perspectives or thoughts.  Some would prefer to just do their own thing independently and not have to work with individuals at all.  The power of collaboration is the diversity of thought and perspectives that come to the table to bring forth powerful business transformations.  Transformations cannot be done in a vacuum, at least not powerful ones.  Understanding the importance of building and maintaining relationships, how to handle conflict, how to come to decisions that everyone can buy in to are all parts of collaboration.  In order to create a collaborative environment you must first model the collaborative behavior.  If you are not modeling the behavior you cannot expect others to.  It’s important to create that environment of collaboration and demonstrate those behaviors.

Regards,

Paula Bell

Effective Elicitation

As of late I have received questions on how to effectively elicit requirements.  I get asked the questions, how do you know the right questions to ask and how to effectively get people to tell you what they want?  I will admit it can be challenging to get subject matter experts (SMEs) to tell you what they want.  Let's first start with some of the reasons why it may be hard to get individuals to tell you what they want:

1. It may be because they actually may not know what exactly they want.
2. It may be because they feel the project is going to take away their job.
3. It may be because they don't understand the purpose and scope of the project, the WHY.
4. It may be because they don't agree with the project and don't buy in to the need.
5. It may be political as some of the individuals may have ulterior motives.
6. It may be because they don't like you. Let's just be honest, if there is no connection to you they may not want to interact with you.

The above are just some of the common reasons I have encountered in my career.  Not only do you have the above, but you are dealing with different personalities, temperaments, communication styles, work styles and more.  The simple fact that you are dealing with people is what makes elicitation and decision complicated.  Here are some tips I have used that have made this process easier for me. It may take some additional time in some parts of the process but it's worth it.

1. Relationship Building - it's extremely important that you build relationships with those you are working with.  Getting to know the individuals you work with helps you to strategize and approach the work.  You take the time to understand what individuals like and don't like. You can determine their pet peeves.  You can uncover their communication styles and how they like to collaborate and work.  A lot of times we jump right into the project and start completing tasks instead of connecting with individuals you will be working with.  At the end of the day everyone on the project team is important and needed.  Every individual person is bringing something to the table.  Identify what this is and connect with them.  You know never the friendships you may make or long time connections you may have.  This step will help you when it comes to decision making as well.  You will start to build alliances and those alliances may be individuals who an help influence decision making.
2. Plan - it's very important to plan.  Take a step back and plan how you will approach the elicitation and decision making work. Take time to determine the type of system you will use to conduct decision making.  In addition, understand the type of techniques you will leverage to conduct the elicitation based on the project team. This links back to building relationships as your approach may change based on the audience you are working with.
3. Set Clear Expectations - frame up every meeting to ensure everyone understands the purpose and the outcome.  Ensure that individuals understand the purpose of the project and where they fit into the project.  Take time to explain the "WHY" as that opens up a lot of doors for people to buy-in and collaborate.
4. Actively Listen  - sometimes it's better to listen than to talk.  Take time to listen to the SMEs concerns and overall to what they are saying.  It's not just always about getting the tasks done and getting your work completed, it's about listening to what those who are the experts have to say as that can help bring so much clarity.  You are the expert in the business analysis space, but the SMEs are the experts in the subject knowledge, or at least should be, so give them their time.
5. Ask for Feedback - during the process ask for feedback. Feedback is a gift and asking for it is extremely important.  Determine a rhythm throughout the process to ensure you are meeting the expectations of those you are working with and the project as a whole.  If things need to be tweaked, then tweak them.   It's better to tweak early on than to find out later that you should have tweaked awhile ago.
6. Be Adaptive and Flexible - I'm sure you have experienced this already, but projects tend to have change. 😀 The change could be in direction, scope, budget, etc...It's important to understand that you may need to change your approach at a drop of a hat.  Be prepared to have to change direction at any point and time.
7. Stay Humble - in all things stay humble.  You bring a skill set to the table, but you need others to help you be successful.  Ensure to stay humble and true to yourself through it all.

Taking time to do these things will help you determine the right questions to ask and approaches to take to get decisions made. You are not just leveraging the technical, but also leveraging interpersonal skills to aide in getting the job done.  As I've said in the past 80% of what we do is interpersonal while 20% is technical.  Go forth and conquer!

Regards,

BA Martial Artist

Don't Let Your Dream(s) Overwhelm You

The last few weeks I have had the opportunity to talk to many people who have big dreams they want to pursue.  The common words I hear is "there is something burning on the inside of me" or "I have a fire stirring up inside of me".  When I hear statements like these in my mind whatever this "fire" is, is something the person is extremely passionate about it and need to bring forth.

It's also great to have that fire stirring, but sometimes that fire feels like it's blazing because the dream is so overwhelming.  The sheer enormity of the dream and what it would take to execute the dream can be extremely scary.  Scary to the point it stops you from pursuing it.  You may ask yourself, "what if I fail?" or even yet, "what if I succeed, am I ready?"  The reason there is a fire inside of you is because that particular dream, or vision, is yours, and yours alone.  Though it may be scary walking in to your destiny you are the only one who can do it.  No one can do what you have inside of you to do.  So though the dream may be overwhelming, and executing on that dream may seem daunting, you can do it.   Whether you know it or not, people are depending on you to birth that dream.  When you bring forth your dream you may be opening doors for others to birth theirs.  So you may ask what do you do with these overwhelming feelings? Here are some steps you can take to keep your passion and dream ignited despite the enormity and bring forth that fire that is burning on the inside of you:

1. Accept It - accept that you, and only you, can bring forth this dream. There is a reason you have this burning inside of you.  Only you can articulate the "why".  Only you can bring it forth because it resonates within you.  Only you can understand it at a level no one else can.  People are depending on you to bring it forth so they can experience your dream.  Own your dream.
2. Acknowledge your concerns - my cousin once said to me that he doesn't like to use the word "fear".  Fear is an emotion where you are expecting something to go wrong.  So if you already expect it to occur you have already extinguished some of the fire you will need to drive it forward.  Instead of going in with fears, think about the parts of the dream that are concerning and how you are going to overcome those concerns.
3. Break It Down - don't go in with the mindset you have to do everything at once to bring forth you dream.  Break the dream down in to manageable parts so that you are showing progress throughout.  When you can show progress that will keep you on the course of execution.  If you get overwhelmed by the enormity and bring forth nothing, you could begin to stop believing in your dream.  Sit down and think about all the tasks that need to get done to bring forth your dream. Then prioritize and create a plan of action.  It may take a couple of years before the full dream comes to fruition, but trust me the end product will be a masterpiece that will impact so many lives.  
4. Don't Give Up - you will FAIL.  It's okay to FAIL.  Failure has such a negative connotation, but every failure gets you closer to your success.  Every successful product out there has had some sort of failure.  These failures teach you new things and makes you stronger.  Don't give up if during the process of execution you fail.  Take time to do root cause on why you failed, pick yourself up and keep going.  Remember, someone out there is waiting for you to bring forth this dream.
5. Commit - with anything you need to commit with perseverance and discipline.  Even when times get hard you have to push through and see it to the end.  What doesn't kill you will make you stronger.  Take every obstacle as a chance to get stronger for the next obstacle that will come your way.  There will always be challenges, but how you react to the challenges is what will make you or break you.
6. Help Others - I have found that while you're working to manifest your dreams if you help others along the way your dream will manifest stronger than ever.  You may ask, "Paula, what on earth are you talking about?  I have to execute on my own dream and now you are telling me to help others.  Won't that take away from the time I should be spending on manifesting my dream?"  You can look at it that way, but I offer a different perspective.  I'm going to tell a personal story.  I have a lot of different dreams I want to accomplish before I perish from this thing called life.  I have a passion to help others reach their goals, whether personally or professionally.  I have a day job and run two businesses outside of that day job.  One of which is my consulting business.  For those who don't know, my consulting business is 4-tiered.  This means I have 4 very distinct components that I do consulting on: event planning, business planning for small businesses, leaderships and career development coaching/mentoring/speaking and finally business analysis coaching/mentoring/speaking/authoring.  As you can imagine, especially in the speaking space I have to prepare content which takes time.  In the event planning space I have to create templates and plans for the different occasions.  I believe you get the picture.  However, though I have this work to do, I'm still giving back to the community in which I live focusing on the youth.  I want our youth to succeed.   Now how does helping youth help me with my dream?  As you recall, I said my passion is to help others reach their goals.  In helping the youth I'm learning exactly how to do that.  You learn a lot by helping others.  Different perspectives are brought forth as you share your gifts and talents with others.  Some of the conversations and volunteering I have done has created some great scenarios for content in presentations that I have leveraged to bring forth a point.  The youth sowed a seed in me and now I'm sowing that same seed in others with the hope, someone will continue to sow and spread the word for a great harvest of knowledge.  So you see, helping others has helped me to bring forth my dream even stronger.  Most successful people will tell you they didn't get their success on their own.  They had others who helped them achieve their ultimate success.  

I want to encourage you today to bring forth that fire that is burning inside of you.  Don't let the sheer size of the dream, or your concerns, stop you from bringing forth what you know you have inside of you.  People need to experience the dream that only you can bring forth, because it lives inside of you.  There are many people who are counting on you and many people who will help you if you just take the step to bring it forth.

No go forth and conquer!  We need your dreams!!!!!!

Regards,

BA Martial Artist

BA & Leadership Martial Arts Revealed in 2017

Many of you know, some may not, that. I have been studying martial arts (Ryukyu Kempo - Okinawa Japanese martial arts) since 2012.  I started as a way to do something with my kids.  My kids and I did it for a couple of years and then they decided to pursue other interests, which I definitely supported.  When they chose to leave though I decided to keep going.  I saw a black belt in my future and I couldn't just stop for fear I would regret not going continuing on to see if I could achieve the black belt.  However, I have learned way more than I expected going throuugh this journey.  You see, martial arts is not just about receiving a belt, or having the ability to fight, but rather it is a state of mind.  The first step in martial arts is preparing your mind.  It's not about how well you fight, how hard you can punch, how hard you can kick, how much of a beating you put on someone.  Martial arts is about discipline, perseverance, integrity, self protection and more.  Much more than just fighting.

So you may ask what on earth does this have to do with business analysis and leadership?  I'm here to say everything.  I have created a framework that shows the parallels between martial arts, business analysis and leadership.  I created this framework because it allowed me to bring two of my passions together to show how martial arts has helped me to take my business analysis and leadership skills to the next step.  The framework is quite simple actually.  It's based on 4 main concepts: The foundation, the techniques, the skills and the transformation.  If you think of this from the standpoint of martial arts let me break this down this way:

1. The Foundation - as stated earlier the foundation of martial arts is the mind.  The dojo is the sacred and respected training area to learn the art.  Before you enter the dojo you bow in to show respect.  When a black belt enters you bow to that black belt to show respect, and when you leave the dojo you bow out.  The rules that should be following to train in the dojo, there are ways you should conduct yourself in the dojo (guiding principles and tenets).  Those guiding principles, tenets, dojo rules is what prepares your mind to train.  It gets your in the right form of mind to learn the techniques and skills needed to become a great martial artist and see transformations based on the techniques and skills.
2. The Techniques - the technique is the way of carrying out an activity.  Once you understand how to conduct yourself in the dojo and guiding principles, you can then start to learn the techniques to carry out the art.  Examples here would be our covers, kicks, stances, pressure points, reading your environment your environment so you ar alert and how to use weapons to name a few.  Perfecting these techniques are critical because in order to demonstrate the skill (which is next) you must learn and understand the techinques.
3. The Skills - the skill is the ability to do something well.  As you are learning the techniques and working to perfect them, you can demonstrate your understanding by showing your skill through 2 person drills, katas or weapons training.  
4. The Transformation - the transformation to show you have the techniques and skills needed is belt advanacement, special responsibilities in the dojo, or even special recognition.  Each belt reflects a certain level of techniques and skills.  Even at a black belt you are still learning and perfecting.  Actually once you reach black belt you start all over again because you have a different level of responsibilities and expectations.

The same is true for business analysis and leadership.  They are both disciplines that have a foundation, techniques, skills and transformations.  The difference is that we tend to short change understanding the foundation, learning the techniques and the skills to have powerful transformations.  It's easier to do it with business analysis and leadership opposed to martial arts.  If you don't take the needed time to learn and perfect these concepts in martial arts the consequences could be injuries or unfortunately death depending on the situation.  So why wouldn't we take the same level of care to learn and perfect a craft that we have a passion around?  The answer is we should.  In everything we do we should take the needed time to perfect the craft.  That is what this framework is about.  Let's take time to perfect our craft of business analysis and leadership and become the high performers we know we are.  Throughout the year the framework will be unveiled.  Stay tuned for more to come....


Signing off,
The BAMartial Artist

Understanding the Unspoken

Imagine that you have prepared for a week for the perfect requirements workshop. You know your agenda is on point and the techniques you are going to use are perfect for the group you will be facilitating. You are confident that this will be a successful workshop.  You also know that all the participants were prepped prior to the meeting on the purpose of the meeting and the changes that will be coming through this project.  The morning of the workshop you walk into the room confident. You start to set up the room ready for the day. Individuals start to arrive for the meeting. You smile and greet them as they walk in. Some greet you back and others do not. You start to wonder why there are some that are being cold and you haven't even started the session yet. You begin to get concerned as now you are beginning to wonder what this session will really be like.

As you begin the session you go through the agenda. You can tell that some are engaged while others are clearly disengaged. You begin to slowly get discouraged as this session might be harder than you expected.

I'm sure everyone has experienced this before. I have found that the unspoken can be just as telling as the spoken.  Truly, actions do speak louder than words.  However, you can still maintain your composure and confidence even in this environment. Here's how.

1. Your response - how you respond to the dynamics in the room can define the environment.  It's important you still maintain control and composure.  Your reaction is more important than anyone else in the room. Facilitate the workshop with confidence, engage those who are engaged and those who are not by asking for their insight, ensure that all voices are being heard in the room even if his takes you of your agenda.
2. Observe - It's really important in all that you do you observe.  In this type of situation though you need to observe quickly. Scan the room and carefully watch the body language. If you see individuals not making eye contact, arms crossed, leaning back in their chair or even checking their emails on their phone, there is probably a reason to be concerned. This may be telling you their mind is elsewhere when you really need it to be in the room.  When a person is engaged their body language may consists of sitting up straight, leaning forward, head nods, taking notes and making eye contact to make a few. If you are getting mixed body language in the meeting you may need to adjust your style quickly. The key to this is doing it quickly. Time is of the essence so it's important to be comfortable that your well laid out plans may need to be adjusted on the fly. So how do you do this you make ask? Great question! Move to number 2. 
3. Adjust your style - You have to be comfortable changing up your agenda at a drop of a hat. If you are too bound to your plan without any flexibility your life as a facilitator is going to be rough. You may need to pause the agenda and do an exercise or ice breaker to lighten up the mood in the room or you may just need to go around the room to hear what is on the individuals mind. The focus here is to adjust you style to the environment to a place where everyone is somewhat comfortable. Everyone may not be totally comfortable, but your goal is to get the disengaged less disengaged and more comfortable. In order to do that you will need to drive it. Maybe tell a person story that relates to the topic you are there to talk about, or go around the room and ask everyone what is the one problem that keeps them up at night, or maybe find out why they feel they are a part of the workshop. You may find out why the disengagement is occurring. Once you lighten the atmosphere you want to seek to understand which is #3 below. 
4. Seek to understand - Based on the questions you asked as you tried to lighten the mood you might have gained some insight on the disengagement, but if you are still getting resistance you may want to have a 1:1 conversation with the individuals who are disengaged after the meeting. Depending on how bad the disengagement is you may want to take a 15-20 minute break and pull the individual aside to have a conversation. You may find they did not want to share their concerns in front if others and having a more private conversation they are willing to open up. You need to continue to focus on the objective at hand without getting off your game during the meeting, but you've got to take time to understand why there are some who are disengaged. 

Once you have an understanding on the dynamics in the room and the concerns then continue to adjust your style.  Adjusting your style doesn't mean you are weak, it means you are taking into consideration everyone in the room who has a vested interest in the project.  It means you are creating an inclusive environment to understand the business needs to ensure an optimal solution is created.  

Remember, you need to ensure you are flexible and adaptable to your environment.  That is what takes you from good to great.

Regards,

The BA Martial Artist