© Copyright 2017 Humanly Possible, Inc. 1

Leading Organizational Change

Summary of Key Concept and Actions

Introduction

Ball-toss game: Even good changes can be very disruptive

House of Change (Part 1): Defensiveness and Confusion are signs of success, not of failure—but you must keep moving

Building Organizational Resilience

(with the Marike van LeerLels case—“Alice in Wonderland”)

Importance of building and maintaining a change-ready organizational environment

Importance of establishing and maintaining trust

Actions

Build trust, credibility, and broad knowledge by listening (and hearing)

Begin with a vision for the change process and create the new business vision collaboratively

Model the culture changes you need

Turning Dilemmas to Advantage

Natural tensions vs. problems

Natural tensions must be managed, can’t be solved (If you try to solve them like problems, you get pendulum-swings, the dilemma keeps reoccurring, no ‘solution’ is ever satisfactory, …)

Actions

4-quadrant approach: Accept both (all 3…) visions as valid alternatives (find neutral labels, identify common goals). Don’t choose sides or compromise: Work toward getting the best of both. “Draw the line horizontally, not vertically.”

Tensions must be managed dynamically—a continuous process

With this approach, dilemmas are good: They prompt us to create better strategies and tactics, resistors help make ideas better by pointing out concerns and risks

Apply to all levels in the organization, from individuals (like in the leadership-style exercise), groups, whole-organization, even the change strategy itself (such as Theory E and Theory O).

Winning Hearts and Minds

(with the Twelve Angry Men case)

Disarm defensiveness, reduce pushback: Bring people on board, not just going along.

Actions

Carefully manage the agenda; fight confirmation biases; use the 6 psychological principles of persuasion (from R. Cialdini), and many of the “50 Ways” in the “Yes” book.

Recognize change really is threatening: Communicate, Mitigate, Renegotiate to reduce the threat level—that will help open minds.

And remember, maybe the naysayers have a good point (see Natural Tensions).

Leading Organizational Change 2

Leading People to Face the Future Together

(with the CBG-Blackwell case—“Banking on Change”)

In change, different subgroups in organizations have different perspectives on the change (e.g., opposed—unsure—supportive, uninvolved—highly involved. They can work at cross purposes, or even against one another

Why? It’s not just a matter of personalities, or competition for power and resources; differences come from different goals, beliefs, strengths, and constraints

Understand your organizational culture and subcultures

Actions

Analyze your organizational stakeholders (chart of against—for and uninvolved—highly involved, and the Goals-Beliefs-Resources-Constraints matrix from R. Hogarth)

Use it as a communications tool too

Use the stakeholder analysis to manage differences and rivalries, find commonalities, and indentify potential synergies

“Star” of cultural signals to “read” cultures and to use to move culture in desirable directions (relate to Marike case)

Many more ideas about culture change in the “Coprorate Culture Survival Guide” book

Encouraging Creative Problem Solving

(with the problem-framing exercises; the “mental vacation” new-candy exercise; and the Xerox PARC case)

Creativity is needed in all aspects of change and innovation

People enjoy being creative, everyone is capable of being creative, but it needs to be promoted

Actions

Take time before creating solutions to make sure you have a complete frame, challenge hidden boundaries to problem space, re-frame the problem, and search for new ways to use resources

Structured methods can help increase the number and range of ideas: Effective brainstorming (see research-based suggestions in the handout and binder reading), try a mental vacation (as in the candy exercise); take a Design Thinking mindset—see article in binder)

Apply the “6 Is” checklist for maximally productive creative teamwork, and note the importance of planning for implementation and building it into process (lesson of Xerox PARC)

Seeing and Communicating the Big Picture

(with Shadowing, Enemy & Protector, Triangles, exercises, and the Beer Game demonstration)

Changes are within complex, interconnected system (that is, the organization), so unanticipated, unintended consequences are common

“Systems Thinking” vs. “Asphalt Theory” (looking for the one ass who’s at fault)

Actions

Measures to make change more controllable and learnable: improve communications, reduce delays in information and feedback, have a person or team assigned responsibility for the big-picture, provide system-level incentives, simplify processes

Use systems diagrams and systems archetypes tools to generate hypotheses

Look for Leverage—not Bigger Hammer

More on applying systems thinking to organizations in “The Fifth Discipline” book, including systems archetypes in Chapter 6 and Appendix 2

Leading Organizational Change 3

Helping People Adapt and Improve

(with the Dan Pink video; the Lox Slicer; the feedback studies; and the Feedforward exercise)

Doing new things increased need for learning and for constructive feedback that people will accept and use

Must do throughout change process

Luckily, people are naturally motivated to learn and develop new skills—an important source of intrinsic motivation. People are more intrinsically-motivated than you think.

Actions

Provide incentives and training-mentoring-coaching that reinforce intrinsic motivations (Autonomy, Mastery, Purpose, Progress)

Differences in perspective between feedback-giver and feedback-recipient are inevitable; focus not on why things went wrong but on what to do better in future

Performance management flowchart to guide conversations without unnecessary conflict

Build Feedforward-like methods into your organization: recipients choose topics, future-oriented advice, no judgment, no evaluation, just help.

In conclusion…

House of Change Part 2: Steps to get from one room to the next, armed with tools from LOC.

Change can be painful and difficult, but it can also be exciting and rewarding—especially when you have all these great concepts and tools to work with!

Developing Action Plans

Learning from PARC, be prepared for implementation of new ideas, while maintaining flexibility—expect the unexpected

Note this is a preliminary action plan: Need to get everyone on board