Keynote Address - Speaker Deck

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MISSION SEEMINGLY IMPOSSIBLE Culture Change in Higher Education IT

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Who is this Joker? • Publisher of “Tales from Redesignland” We never thought it was all that funny, either. redesignland.blogspot.com @tonydunn

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My Past • Former Web Developer • CSU, Chico – Information Resources President Provost CIO Director Manager Me! Graphic Designer

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My Present • “IT Planning and Projects Lead” President Provost CIO Director Me! Woohoo! Movin’ up!

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What is “Culture”? “Culture consists of group norms of behavior and the underlying shared values that help keep those norms in place.”1 1. http://www.forbes.com/sites/johnkotter/2012/09/27/the-key-to-changing-organizational-culture/

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Who Models Culture? • Everyone Boy, this stuff is delicious! If by “delicious” you mean “After a while you don’t even notice the bitter taste”.

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ORGANIZATIONAL DYSFUNCTIONS Or: The things we do to ourselves because we must have been very evil in a past life.

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SILOS On the plus side, the walls we build to separate ourselves muffle the sounds of our screams.

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Types of Silos • Political/Organizational Silos • Functional Silos • Physical Silos • Social Silos • Habitual Silos So many silos, so little time to not communicate.

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OTHER ORGANIZATIONAL DYSFUNCTIONS You didn’t think we were done here, did you?

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We’ve Always Done it This Way You have 3 staff who do nothing but send out monthly bills for ‘website maintenance’ to the departments? Why not just build the cost of site maintenance into the IT budget and use those 3 people for more important things? Habit is the hardest habit to break. Because that’s the way we’ve always done it.

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Not Invented Here You want to have 3 developers spend a year writing a web content management system when there are dozens of great – even free – systems already out there? How can that possibly make sense?? We couldn’t possibly use a system we didn’t develop. No one knows our needs like we do. Coding for organizational dysfunction is a very special skill.

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Special Snowflake Syndrome (SSS) We’ve all decided to adopt standard PMI project management processes. Won’t work for me. My organization is incredibly special. We couldn’t possibly use standards that work for literally every other IT organization on the planet. You’re special - just like everyone else.

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Historically Autonomous Fiefdoms (HAFs) What do you all use to manage your websites? Dreamweaver. OmniUpdate. DotNetNuke. We have a website? Drupal. It’s a miracle they all speak the same language… or do they?

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Change/Risk Avoidance Your risk of success is zero if you never take any risks. Implementing standard project risk management practices will change the way we do projects by giving us better tools for anticipating and managing things that might go wrong. I dunno. Sounds risky.

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Perpetual Naysayers Maybe he really means *he* never works. Maybe a cup of coffee will help me wake up. IT’LL NEVER WORK!! WE TRIED THAT BEFORE AND IT FAILED!! YOU’LL JUST PUT IN A LOT OF WORK AND NOTHING WILL CHANGE!!!

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Plain Old Organizational Politics (POOP) You’re going to get your shiny object over my dead body. That’s my turf and you stay out! Support my shiny object and I’ll turn a blind eye to your worthless ‘Academic Excellence Initiative’. Throw in new iPads for me and my staff and it’s a deal. Done. You scratch my dysfunction and I’ll scratch yours.

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Everything Else • Bad managers • Back stabbing • Passive-aggressiveness • Casting blame • Etc., etc. We’d be here until Christmas if we tried to cover them all.

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HIGHER EDUCATION CHALLENGES Because stupid things you can’t control challenges are what make it worth getting out of bed in the morning.

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Lack of Raises Great job on the redesign! Here’s a huge pile of cash! Wow! I love working here! Just kidding. It’s Monopoly money.

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Lack of Rewards & Recognition Great job on the mobile app! We got you a huge trophy to recognize your effort! Wow! I love… Wait… that’s a pig trophy. It was all we had the budget for.

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Lack of Opportunities for Advancement Great job on the content management system! Here’s your new office! Wait… you sure you’re not kidding? Yeah, it’s only a model.

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“Academic Freedom” You can’t tell me what to do! I have ACADEMIC FREEDOM!! Your site needs to meet Section 508 accessibility requirements for disabled users.

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Mind Numbing Bureaucracy Here are the forms you’ll need to fill out in order to apply for a bathroom use limit exemption. Don’t forget that you’ll need to submit a medical rationale from a licensed urologist. All this just so I can pee more than twice a day??

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MAKING CULTURE CHANGE REAL S**t’s about to get real!

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There is no silver bullet to making culture change real.

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Culture Change in 3 “Simple” Steps 1. Identify the behaviors/cultural elements you want to change 2. Determine how you want to transform those behaviors 3. Do it Adapted from: http://humanresources.about.com/od/organizationalculture/a/culture_change.htm

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Identify a Behavior SharePoint was doomed from the start because it is a worthless piece of crap that the management picked it only because it was a shiny object. Management sucks!

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Transform the Behavior Remember what we learned from SharePoint: We need to do a better job of really defining the need for and value of projects before we commit ourselves to another “solution in search of a problem”. We learned that lesson the hard way, but at least we learned it.

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Do It Yeah… If you could just go ahead and do that, that’d be great.

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Do It Do. Or do not. There is no try.

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Who me?

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Yes, you.

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But… • “Management has to set the direction. I just do what I’m told.” • “That’s what management is paid to do, not me.” • “We tried that before and it failed.” • “I’ll just put in a lot of effort and nothing will change.”

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“If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him… We need not wait to see what others do.” - Gandhi Source: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/When_did_Gandhi_say_Be_the_change_you_want_to_see_in_the_world

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Often misquoted as… “You must be the change you want to see in the world.” Source: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/When_did_Gandhi_say_Be_the_change_you_want_to_see_in_the_world

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But… “Most people won’t change their behaviors until they observe the role models in their organization acting differently, and when they see this new behavior positively recognized and rewarded.” Source: http://www.bridgespan.org/Publications-and-Tools/Leadership-Effectiveness/Lead-and-Manage- Well/Strategies-for-Changing-Organizations-Culture.aspx#.UYqa6koYlA0

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Be a role model.

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But… “People change only when they see their leaders consistently model desired behaviors. Therefore, to change their organization’s or team’s culture, leaders must define, demonstrate, and reinforce their desired culture.” Source: http://smartblogs.com/leadership/2012/11/20/corporate-culture-changes-only-when-people-change/

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Be a leader.

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Can it work? • Peer pressure is a powerful motivator of behavior change1 1 Effects of Peer Models' Food Choices and Eating Behaviors on Preschoolers' Food Preferences Eat your peas. I don’t like peas. Or else.

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HOW? Please tell me it involves cricket bats.

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Build Trust • Fundamentally, culture change is about trust • Organizational culture is ‘safe’ in that it is known and predictable – and at least implicitly agreed upon • Culture change is not safe • Empathy and honesty build trust • May take forever a long time

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Don’t Go It Alone • Find people who agree with the need for change • Agree on some behavior to change • Do it together You go first. Oh no. I trust you. You go first.

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Find Ways to Communicate Eagle One to Red Leader. Can you hear me, Red Leader? No, I can’t hear you, because it’s just a stupid tin can on a piece of string.

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Start with What You are Doing Right Well, at least they’re potty trained. Most of them anyway.

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Focus on What you Have in Common We’re all cartoon-based life forms.