Genevieve Taylor's Blog » change management

Formula for Change – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

genevievetaylor — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 18:25:25 +0000

Formula for Change – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

This is a great illustration for change that is applicable across a wide range of situations – whether you want to lose weight, or you want to change an organization. Carrie Hays from the Halle Group first introduced it to me; thanks, Carrie!

Change. The Long & Short of it. (Part 1 of 4)

genevievetaylor — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 00:21:25 +0000

CHANGE. THE LONG & SHORT OF IT. (PART 1 OF 4)

Death of a Good Woman

It has been several weeks since I have last posted. For good reason – summer work travel notwithstanding, my grandmother, Donna Brown, passed away suddenly on July 27. She had been showing her age – 78 – for the last few months, but was such a delight to be around, with hearty laughter, irreverent jokes, great stories, and the best hugs, that we only noticed it vaguely. In retrospect, we had had to help her down steps more and more; she couldn’t walk very far; she fell for the first time several weeks before; she was out of breath quite often. I think the first real sign of her age was her pacemaker, implanted a couple of years ago; and at the end, that artificial heart was all that held her together. Until that too couldn’t quite do the job; she slipped away that Sunday around 9:30 pm, her family singing her Amazing Grace.

Change. Whether it is in your family, in your team, in your organization, the psychological ramifications of change are powerful, subtle, and themselves temper a person, as much as the event itself.

We have all been riding, as the days have gone by, the roller coaster of change. When I first received the phone call that she was in the hospital, I had every belief that she would end up fine. I found out later that my cousin Kenny, who had sent Grandma to the hospital via ambulance earlier that day, also thought she would get better.

Then, that Sunday, after hours in the Intensive Care Unit, and for a variety of health reasons, it became obvious that she wasn’t getting any better, and never would, and the decision was made to put her on comfort care. That conversation was challenging – many of us were grieving, some were facing anxiety, a couple of us were in denial, and angry that the family was not doing more to save her.

The Process of Transition

I have to admit I felt a bit of relief when that particular decision was finally made – I cringed to think that she would end up a vegetable; and I hated the idea of her being in real pain. I found myself unexpectedly glad that it was all happening in the space of 24 hours; and Immediately upon having these thoughts, I experienced immediate and shocking guilt. And then back to sadness as the reality of the situation sank in. This woman, who was such a dear and important part of my life and childhood, was leaving her body.

The Process of Transition

This has been a challenging couple of years in my family – Grandma was the third person in our close circle who had passed on in the last 18 months. As a result, I have gotten more and more accustomed to managing change – I have come to expect the wave of emotions sweeping myself and those around me; I have started to look for the joy in the situation, as there always is; I have been able to help others accept what is happening as well. As the graphic above makes obvious, it is very possible to get “derailed” from the natural process of change, into denial or hostility. Even more common is to get “stuck” in a certain feeling – the nervous feeling of guilt that never quite goes away; the fear or anxiety around the future; the depression. The model described above is a take-off from Dr. Kubler-Ross’ work on grief and transition; she wrote her book On Death and Dying in the 1970s, and her thinking was an enormous contribution to understanding transition and change of all types.

Change in the Organization.

As leaders, it is important to understand the process of transition, and how it applies to the company as a whole. While useful, the process is not nearly as neat as described in the model above; people may experience only pieces of the cycle. They may get stuck, they may move rapidly all the way through. There may be several iterations, as multiple levels of what the change really implies sinks in. They may experience some, not all of the stages.

A leader who is aware of the possible psychological impacts of change will be looking for them. They will meet people “where they are at” – accepting that the likelihood of an impact is high, to be expected, and not in itself too worrying – unless someone gets stuck. By not attempting to change them instantaneously towards acceptance (through tactics like “forcing,” “selling,” etc.) they leave open the opportunity for that person to make the transition themselves, and thus integrate it fully. Strong-armed tactics can actually damage the trust and respect a staff member has for its leader.

To protect herself and the organization must make options clear for those who may not wish to accept the change, and may need to provide resources, psychological or otherwise, as people work through a transition. An organization must keep moving, and can only “wait” so long for its members to catch up. A change may mean a realignment of values; in that process, the change may spur other changes, in terms of who wants to stay, and who doesn’t. A savvy leader heads into that “ready to ride the roller coaster” to the other end.

As Peter Drucker so aptly puts it:

Society, community, family are all conserving institutions. They try to maintain stability, and to prevent, or at least to slow down, change. But the organization of the post-capitalist society of organizations is a destabilizer. Because its function is to put knowledge to work — on tools, processes, and products; on work; on knowledge itself — it must be organized for constant change.

Next entry, we will talk more about how to move from simply managing change to surfing change, cowabunga-style.

Tactics for Leading Change

genevievetaylor — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 16:43:31 +0000

A leader is pondering, what is the best way to approach my staff about sustainability? How do I create a vision that others will share with me, so I am not a lone wolf, howling in a wilderness of cubicles?

Great question!

Part of this question is answered by the qualities that the leader actually possesses. Talking about sustainability or any other change won’t be effective unless the change agent is trusted by the people she is trying to influence.

Influence, by the way, whether you have authority in an organization or not, is the only capital that really works to create long-term, behavioral change. Letting go of any ideas you may have about being able to enforce a change is helpful in this process – after all, as a colleague of mine, John Springer says -

You can lead by Inspiration, or Desperation. Which do you choose?

But back to strategies for change. We will talk more about leadership later.

The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook by Peter Senge et al., (a classic work on systems thinking in organizational development) makes the point that leaders want to create the commitment and focus that a shared vision can bring to an organization. Building a Shared Vision can do just that.

Bryan Smith’s article in The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook discusses 5 starting points for building shared vision. He notes that different organizations should start at different places, given the practical realities of where different companies are. (The following is a direct excerpt from his article, on p.314.)

1. Telling: The “boss” knows what the vision should be, and the organization is going to have to follow it;

2. Selling: The “boss” knows what the vision should be, but needs the organization to “buy in” before proceeding;

3. Testing: The “boss” has an idea about what the vision should be, or several ideas, and wants to know the organization’s reactions, before proceeding;

4. Consuliting: The “boss” is putting together a vision, and wants creative input from the organization before proceeding;

5. Co-creating: The “boss” and “members” of the organization, through a collaborative process, build a shared vision together.

He makes the point that before proceeding, you should objectively assess where your company is, and then make a plan for how to move to the next stage.

Figuring out Where You Should Start – A Case Study

I have a client who is transitioning from one leader to another leader. The old leader had a fairly traditionalist model; he asked people to do what they should do, and expected that they follow through with what he asked them to.

The new leader had a very different idea; while he wasn’t entirely sure how, he knew that he wanted his staff to work as a team; to be self-motivated to improve the company. We started with an executive team teambuilding, and from there, discussed how to help his whole company work differently.

He had a vision of teamwork – but had to go about it differently depending on who in the company he was working with. With his executive team, we had spent three days together building trust and respect, co-creating a vision for the company, agreeing on strategy. We then spent many months working together as a team over time. With them, he used a combination of testing, consulting, and co-creating. The Executive Team wanted strong leadership from him, as they had received in the past, but still usually wanted to consult – a significant change from how it had been in the past. But as the Executive Team itself became stronger, they also became stronger, more creative leaders with their own staff, and likewise more attached to co-creating together as an Executive Team. Now, they negotiate about when they will co-create, when they will consult with the leader, and when the leader will test with them, but reserve the right to make the decision.

But the company leader also wanted to change how the rest of his staff would work together. And the rest of the company was more accustomed to a strong authority figure who governed mostly through telling, as opposed to a leader who was willing to share some of his authority in exchange for increased creativity and commitment on their part. For his staff, this leader spends some time telling, a lot of time selling, and has been making inroads to testing and consulting, with specific individuals or committees, at specific times. Quite a bit of his tactic has been to negotiate the boundaries of collaboration over time, so that both he and the company get what they need to keep the company running. Some initiatives have worked well; some are still a work-in-progress.

So, how does this translate to creating a successful change initiative?

As a change agent, depending on the authority you have, you will have to assess for yourself who is ready for co-creating, and who is not. There are many factors that influence how someone is ready – the level of trust, the expectations and history between the parties, how willing the different parties are to negotiate their needs. It is a risky thing for a leader to allow his authority to be handed over to the decision of the group. In fact, in this case, there was a point when the Executive Team and Company Leader handed its authority over too quickly, without thorougly laying out the boundaries of what they needed to make sure the company stayed on track as a whole. Everyone ended up unsatisfied with the results, and the leaders had to back-track to telling. Fortunately, enough trust and respect had been built up at that point that the loss wasn’t nearly as significant as it would have been the year before.

Both the leader and the group have to be ready for co-creating. Both have to be practiced at asking for what they need, as well as giving in return.

However, there are ways to fast-track to co-creating a vision. Next posting – how do you create a vision? And how can you fast-track it to achieve long-term commitment and focus?