interactive & collaborative communication v002
DESCRIPTION
Presentation I delivered at a Seminar hosted by Knowledge Resources focussing on Internal Communications (18 September 2008) Topic: Change management: creating shared meaning, commitment and sustained effort in organisational change initiatives through interactive and collaborative comunication techniquesTRANSCRIPT
Change management: creating shared meaning,
commitment and sustained effort in
organisational change initiatives through interactive
and collaborative communication techniques
18 September 2008
Agenda…
• Does this Sound Familiar?
• Organisational Change
• The Change Curve
• Case Study
• World Café
• Aspects to Address during Interactive Events
Does this sound familiar?
• Why could the change initiators not transfer the
energy for the change to the organisation?
• Why didn’t people “get” that this change was
ultimately for the good of everyone?
• What could be done to create ownership of the • What could be done to create ownership of the
problems and the solutions among all people
involved?
“Tappers” and “Listeners”…
• Elizabeth Newton (1990) studied a simple game in
which she assigned participants to one of two roles:
“tappers” or “listeners”.
• Tappers have been blessed with the “curse of
knowledge” – once we know something, it is hard to
imagine what it was like not to know it (Heath & imagine what it was like not to know it (Heath &
Heath, 2008).
Organisational Change…
• All too often, organisational change is initiated by
executive and/or senior leadership, with the help of
a few external consultants.
• This small group of people spends a significant
amount of time discussing, debating, arguing, and
analysing the reasons for having to change – creating analysing the reasons for having to change – creating
the tune in their heads.
Denial Sense of accomplishment
AnxietyIncreased productivity
Confidence
Competence
Productivity
Current Reality
The Change Curve…
Transition
Fear
ResistanceImmobilisation
Disruption
Anxiety
Recognition of opportunity
productivity
Productivity
Time
Valley of Despair
Exploration
Commitment
Organisational Change…
• This apparent gap between the leadership group and
the rest of the organisation can create a great deal of
frustration:
– on the one hand because the leaders appear
unsympathetic, and
on the other hand that the employees appear – on the other hand that the employees appear
unwilling, non-supportive and non-committed
Case study…
• A regional office of a South African Information and
Communications Technology (ICT) company
implemented a strategy that is focused on improving
service delivery and support, as well as client and
employee satisfaction.
• Senior management team launched an initiative at • Senior management team launched an initiative at
the various operational sites.
• Longest period of service stability 24 days.
Case study…
• Employees became discouraged due to all the
“resets” and the programme started losing
significance and credibility.
• It also appeared that employees did not support or
understand the guidelines of what constituted an
incident; and that they lacked information on how to incident; and that they lacked information on how to
prevent previous incidents from occurring again.
• Employees interpreted this as “just another
management intervention”.
Case study…
• Management team found themselves in the
unfortunate position of having to continue with the
programme without the necessary support from the
employees.
• Management team agreed to use an interactive and
collaborative conversational process (the World collaborative conversational process (the World
Café) to create shared meaning and buy-in.
World Café Conversations…
• Have been used
successfully with
groups as small as 12
and as large as 1200
peoplepeople
• Participants
encouraged to
contribute in small
groups
World Café Principles…
Clarify the context
Create warm and friendly environment
Make collective knowledge and insight visible
and actionable
Explore questions that
matter
Connect diverse people
and perspectives
Harvest and share collective
discoveries
The Intervention…
• Ninety employees (out of a possible 120) attended
the intervention and spent only two hours exploring
the following three questions which related to
aspects of legitimacy of the programme, motivation,
and ownership:
– How do you feel about the service improvement – How do you feel about the service improvement
programme?
– What will happen if we don't have something like the
service improvement programme on site?
– How can we improve the service improvement
programme to achieve exceptional results?
Mo
vin
g fro
m C
on
versa
tion
to A
ction
…
68
81
60
70
80
90
100
Number of days
Wo
rld
Ca
fé
ev
en
t
0
52
7
2
9
24
16
13
3
15
16
18
10
91
2
25
44
0
10
20
30
40
50
Reset 1
Reset 2
Reset 3
Reset 4
Reset 5
Reset 6
Reset 7
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Reset 9
Reset 10
Reset 11
Reset 12
Reset 13
Reset 14
Reset 15
Reset 16
Reset 17
Reset 18
Reset 19
Reset 20
Current
Number of days
What Participants had to Say…
A perfect opportunity for interaction with
other employees:
“It felt good to participate in something like
this. I often feel that we are just sitting in our
offices, doing our job, but we don't really
communicate with the people around us...
and this created that opportunity... I didn't
feel like an outsider anymore...”
A positive impact on the effectiveness of the
programme:
“I am very sure that if we didn't have this
intervention, we would still have struggled on
like before... there were lots of new ideas that
we worked with after the session and created
a new process. This intervention definitely
created the turning point in our programme
and created lots of energy and creativity in
teams. It also stimulated interaction between
Employees could contribute without fear of
victimisation and add suggestions on how to
improve the current programme:
“In a normal forum, like the official site
communication session we have on a monthly
basis, you are not given an opportunity to air
your views... seeing that we could, caused
others to air their views and speak the truth.”
Opportunities for alignment, resulting in
participants taking ownership of the
programme:
“This was the first time it was really
communicated well. People could see and
understand what it was about – and just this
communication already made a big difference.
It is more fun and not as rigid as it was before
when management initiated it... it now
belongs to all of us.”
teams. It also stimulated interaction between
the people and the various teams”
Importance of involving employees…
• The 21st century global environment (uncertainty and rapid change) versus the more predictable twentieth century.
• Utilise more effective interactive and collaborative communication techniques.
• Various methodologies to consider:• Various methodologies to consider:
– World Café
– Whole Scale Change
– Open Space Technology
– Appreciative Inquiry
– Drum Café
– Future Search, etc.
Importance of involving employees…
The depth and breadth of agreement on the
future is directly related to who is
going to get it done!
Whole System’s
Head & Heart
Connection
Percentage
HI
DVFS>R going to get it done!
--- in other words –
Those who envision the future are the ones
who end up making it happen!
Speed of
TransformationLO HI
Aspects to address during interactive communication events
Direction
• Legitimacy in the eyes of all employees.
• Management should not be clinging too tightly to a
Energy
• “Gut-level” as well as “head level” engagement.
• Opportunities for good ideas to come from
Distributed leadership (employee ownership)
• Employees enabled to own their problems and
be clinging too tightly to a previously designed and implemented solution.
ideas to come from anywhere.
• WIIFM (What’s-in-it-for-me)
own their problems and solutions.
• They should have the information, skills, and resources.
• Should be important for all employees.
Conclusion…
• Rhetoric of employee involvement in the planning and
execution of initiatives, yet organisations often plan and
communicate initiatives top-down, without involving
employees in the process.
• What is needed for effective, sustainable change are sessions
in which people collectively explore each other’s assumptions, in which people collectively explore each other’s assumptions,
seek and expand common ground, shape a desired future and
jointly take ownership of the solutions to the issues at hand.
• Example: Launch of a major programme consisting of a
number of projects to all affected employees…
Questions…
References…
Newton, E. (1990). Overconfidence in the communication of intent: Heard and
unheard melodies. Unpublished Ph.D dissertation, Stanford University.
Heath, C. & Heath, D. (2008). Made to stick. London: Random House Books.
Holman, P., Devane, T., & Cady, S. (Eds.). (2007). The change handbook (2nd
ed.). San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers.
Kubler-Ross, E. (1989). On Death and Dying. London: Tavistock/Routledge.
(Original work published 1969).(Original work published 1969).