Discovering Our Engines

...and meeting them with the Green Path.

After the five zillionth time I read The Little Engine that Could to my son, it struck me how relevant this story is to the learning process.

As mentors, coaches, and trainers, we have run into all the engines. The Shiny New Engine that knows everything already. The Big Engine that only does it a certain way. The Rusty Old Engine who is tired, grumpy, and completely done with anything new. But we all love the Little Blue Engine. Excited, fresh, willing.

It’s so easy to focus on the Little Blue Engines and label the rest “resistors”. But then we’ve created a change effort that only addresses 1/4 of our audience while creating enemies out of 3/4. Any question why it fails?

Instead, let’s look at where all of these engines land on the proficiency model, and how to help them all progress!

Shiny New Engine

Our Shiny New Engine in the story is very proud of the way he does things. He has his sleeper cars, dining car with waiters, and his passenger cars. Any other request is demeaning and sends him chugging off to the roundhouse.

Sound familiar? The key to unlocking our Shiny New Engines is to celebrate the progress of their path so far. Quite frankly, this is a stage where the ego is the most easily wounded. But how do you transition ego to curiosity?

The classic response to our Shiny New Engines is a pat on the head and explanation that it’s not that simple. Don’t do that.

The key is to celebrate the huge step that they just made. They recently had an epiphany, and have a new chart or story that seems to perfectly encapsulate so much that they know. That’s true and important! Yes, there are holes and flaws and nuance that they don’t see yet. Who cares! Honor the big step they just did!

If they are in Familiarity, ie, the bottom-left corner, then they are only really aware of the concept and need to experience some practical action.

Compliment their understanding of the concept, then provide a recipe that would solve a single problem by using the model they clearly understand. This stokes curiosity.

If they are in Comprehension (the second square), they have a recipe that’s working. But it’s a hammer and all their problems are nails. We want them to start realizing that the same model can be used to address distinct problems, but each needs a different application recipe. FYI, all of this is within a guided experience with a coach!

Start presenting problems that need different approaches but are still solvable with the model. When the “hammer” doesn’t work, you want them to start asking what “tool” would work.

Big Engine

Our Big Engine is a “very important engine indeed and will not pull the likes of you”! And they’re right.

In truth, our Big Engines are fundamentally pulling the most important loads of your business today. Your paltry train of lightweight goods are not worth his time. He’s right in that the skills mastered are right for today and a version of them will be critical for tomorrow.

As a result, this lands him squarely in our red, resistant square for the new skill.

The key to moving him to even start the journey is to subscribe him as the champion of the old way in which he is skilled already. Tell him that you know the new way isn’t right for the organization, because it doesn’t have all the accumulated wisdom of the old ways. Ask him to change the change effort, and give it that wisdom.

I have watched Arlo Belshee take snarling experts and transition them to excited watchdogs in minutes by asking them help to fix the new way. This does mean you have to be legitimately open to their points. And this is the start of a trusting relationship.

Truly, and this cannot be said clearly enough, you will change the content you are going to teach if you actually accept their knowledge. They have knowledge. It can just be hard to set down our own pride in the new way and open real curiosity.

Rusty Old Engine

Our Rusty Old Engine is so done. He is tired and has given up. If we step back, we realize that our Rusty Old Engines were once trailblazers, and probably trailblazers of exactly what you’re trying blaze.

They didn’t get support at one key moment, and derailed.

They have done so much practice in getting here, but didn’t quite get the contextual insights to help them shift up, and have grinding ever since.

So first, we have to address the despondency. Acknowledge that they’ve worked hard, have innovated, and it has stalled out with roadblock after roadblock. Just rest in that frustration. Allow the sadness and grief. Doing this will start getting back onto the tracks.

Once they are ready, you can shift them up in knowledge from Application (recipes) to Analysis (context), which is done exactly the same way you would for anybody ready to upshift as mentioned in my article of how to address each block transition.

The challenge for the Rusty Old Engine is simply acknowledging that the coach he needed was not there when he needed it, and life has been exhausting ever since. Once that is seen and integrated, he will then see that a coach is there now, and re-open for a quick transition.

The Little Blue Engine

We love our Little Blue Engines! They think they can, and they probably will. However, all Little Blue Engines can easily become Rusty Old Engines.

The solution for keeping them on track is coaching their practice. It has to be real world, with real and safe-enough failures. The problem that I discover is that most workshops have a whole audience of Little Blue Engines, and it’s filled with slideware or white lab. Neither of these are real world practice or application. Avoid the Rusty Old Engine threat by be present as a coach over a multi-week engagement.

Ensemble settings and tiny micro behavior shifting are the two exceptions that allow Little Blue Engines to keep chugging quickly rather than over time.

Just like the book, our transformation effort has all four of these engines (and more!). How do we create a set of experiences to meet each engine where they are at? I’ll go deeper in my webinar Use the Green Path to Make Change Stick, where I will show how to use this model to identify the audiences and kinds of shifts you will need to help them improve their skill.

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