Thinking Inside the Box

I'm sitting here drinking a glass of boxed wine, a 2006 Paso Robles Cabernet, from Black Box Wines. Two weeks ago, I'm not sure I would have admitted that. Why? Well, there are a few reasons. First, part of what I love about wine are the bottles. I can spend hours just exploring the different labels. The bottles are just cool to me, period, so buying wine in a box feels a bit like cheating. Second, there was a stigma that I associated with box wine which is that it's wine's equivalent of the beer keg.....high quantities of bad-tasting alcohol for cheap. OK, I admit it, the thought of drinking wine from a box made me feel like a cheap, cheating wino. There, I said it.

Then, rather suddenly, my perspective changed....

It started one night at a friend's house when I was served a glass of very drinkable Merlot. At the end of the night and a few glasses later, I was shocked to learn it had been served from a box. And, not only did it taste good but the box contained the equivalent of four 750ml bottles of wine at an unheard-of per bottle cost of $6. But here's the kicker......the box had been opened for over 3 weeks! Are you kidding me? I'm used to opened red wine going stale after only 2 days!

So, it was then that I realized I'd been thinking wrong all along. Buying boxed wine isn't for cheap, cheating winos, after all. It's for smart, value-conscious wine lovers who would sometimes rather nurture an opened wine over the period of weeks rather than days!

Having found justification for the occasional boxed wine purchase, I admit it still feels different. After all, CHANGE IS NOT EASY!

In the workplace, a very important leadership role is to help people and teams to initiate, implement & sustain change. Based on what I'm experiencing, workplace change is constant and increasingly complex. For instance, in the last 12 months, the following are examples of changes that have impacted my local organization: 1) Reduced headcount 20%, 2) Reduced product development process phases from 7 to 5, 3) Eliminated an offshore development center, 4) Eliminated an incentive program, 5) Transitioned training duties to a new team, 6) Acquired & integrated 3 complimentary companies, 7) Launched new document management tool, 8) Initiated new metrics reporting, 9) Reported to a new Vice President. And, there were more! The point is, a leader's capacity for enabling effective change is as important as ever.

So, what can leaders do to enable effective change? In my opinion, it comes down to a few key things.

• Involve those who will be impacted in planning the change
• Continuously seek to surface & understand people's concerns
  
• Over-communicate before, during and after the change and in an emotionally intelligent manner
  

Doing the above can build loyalty while increasing the probability for broad acceptance. It can also result in a more thoughtful & viable plan. Most important, though, it acknowledges that leadership is as much about managing the journey as it is about establishing the destination.

However, if you cannot achieve the other two, Over-Communication is an absolute MUST. Absent consistent, authoritative, accurate & honest communication, people will come to their own conclusions and those conclusions will usually be materially inaccurate and will over-emphasize the negative. Ultimately, that will undermine any change initiative.

I'm interested to know, what are the reasons why your change initiatives have succeeded or failed?

Cheers!

"People who are left out of shaping change have a way of reminding us that they are really important" - Robert Lee

(For more on wine in a box, check out The Boxed Wine Spot blog. Maybe you'll find yourself thinking "inside the box", too. )