By Cath Taylor, Head of Change, Enterprise Customer Onboarding & Mastering, NAB
Can you think of a time when you saw someone wrap up a few home truths in record time? At the last break out session of the day in the Orange Room at Rethink Change earlier in May, Heath Thacker covered some fundamental change and culture insights that have been around in various forms in organisations everywhere. You’ve seen some version of these….
- E=Q+O – The Effectiveness of a change depends on the Quality and the (stakeholder) Ownership of the solution.
- Aggressive communication is toxic to culture.
- And I’d bet that lots of change folk have come across some form of the Accountability Line (at least the ones of a certain vintage).
However, Heath’s Blue Bus was new to me.
Heath and the Blue Bus Revolution team have created a simple and accessible tool to build accountability of culture and business outcomes within employees and teams – “Treat them like owners, they act like owners”. And it’s extended into the personal lives of those who use it, positively impacting family and community relationships, providing a common language when feelings get big.
The Blue Bus is anchored to self-awareness, self-control, growth mindset and resilience. With acceptance and accountability at it’s core, the Blue Bus has made rapid culture transformation and adaptive evolution possible for Heath’s clients. Whilst the language is deceptively simple it is based on the latest in neuroscience and human learning theory.
At a very high level, the different coloured buses represent organisational culture styles:
- Red is Aggressive / Defensive
- Green is Passive / Defensive
- Blue is Constructive
Participants are encouraged to nominate the colour of bus they feel they are on, and which one they would prefer to be driving. Inviting honest self-reflection, allowing distance between a person’s identity and behaviour, and empowering constructive learning.
The Blue Bus was just one of the concepts Heath talked about. Other highlights he touched on included Blind spots and The State of Play outlining Excellence and Can Do above the line, with Mediocrity and Can’t Do below.
Heath’s energy and rapid-fire end of day presentation was engaging and covered a lot of ground. I got goosebumps when he spoke about the mine drivers who were quite partial to driving top of the range machinery. Drivers who, when provided with the cost analysis of dropping to the 2nd best machinery (eg decision ownership), made the call to save the money. And looked after those trucks like they owned them. Because they were involved in the decision to buy them. Ownership of the solution impacting the Effectiveness of the change. Simples.
A thoroughly enjoyable and thought-provoking session, with a great combination of some familiar themes and some new material. Beep Beep.
So, I have to ask, “Which bus are you on today?”
To find out more – check out Heath’s work at the Blue Bus
