How to Merge Diverse Viewpoints
This post is the fifth in a series about ways to foster synergy during major transformational initiatives, using a four-phase model that includes Interacting, Appreciative Understanding, Integrating, and Implementing.
Phase III: Integrating
Effective communication (Phase I) and valuing others’ perspectives (Phase II) are important elements of developing synergistic outcomes, but they’re not enough. Synergy is the result of communicating, valuing, and merging diverse viewpoints. As with the other two phases, accomplishing this integration is extremely difficult because many organizational cultures don’t teach and reward the skills needed to do so.
There are four basic conditions necessary for the Integrating Phase. more
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Value and Utilize Diversity to Build Synergy
In this series about fostering synergy, I’m sharing a sequence of activities that typically unfolds as synergistic relationships play out. It includes four phases: Interacting, Appreciative Understanding, Integrating, and Implementing.
Phase II: Appreciative Understanding
Although miscommunication can be part of what contributes to 1+1 = 2 and 1+1 < 2 results, in many situations, a lack of communication skills is not the real problem. People involved in the classic interpersonal struggle often communicate very well with each other—so well, in fact, that they know exactly why they disagree with each other. more
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Four Ways Communication Can Build Synergy in Work Teams
In this series, I’m discussing what I’ve learned about fostering synergy during major transformational initiatives.
If people have the willingness to forge their diverse perspectives into a synergistic alliance, the following sequence can be used to describe how they can work together to realize change. The four phases outlined are Interacting, Appreciative Understanding, Integrating, and Implementing.
Phase I: Interacting
A basic condition for synergy is that the key players must effectively interact with each other. If iron and nickel are never brought into contact with each other, the process of making steel is impossible. The same is true for people. For sponsors, agents, and targets; or practitioners and their clients to work synergistically, they must be able to communicate effectively.
People who attempt to work together, but who have little or no opportunity to interact, often generate a cyclically degenerating climate more
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A Process for Building Organizational Synergy
This series is about the impact synergistic working relationships have on the outcomes of organizational change.
Before people can create and maintain synergistic relationships, two things must occur:
- They must be willing to engage this way with others
- They must demonstrate the abilities associated with a four-phase model: Interacting, Appreciative Understanding, Integrating, and Implementing[1]
more
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The Importance of Synergy During Transformational Change
(3) CommentsNo one can whistle a symphony. It takes a whole orchestra to play it. —H.E. Luccock
A synergistic working relationship is a powerful phenomenon to witness in action—people working together to consume the fewest resources possible to get the job done, while achieving a higher quantity and quality output than if they worked independently. Sponsors, agents, and targets who achieve a high level of synergy stand a much greater chance of realizing their goals during major organizational change. Synergy between change practitioners and clients also accelerates the odds of reaching full realization.
The trouble is, many professional change facilitators lack an in-depth understanding of the underlying dynamics of how synergy works. They hope synergy exists within their client populations, and leverage it when it does, but more
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How to Be Direct and Explicit When Reframing Others
(2) CommentsIn this series, I’ve been describing the skills required (there are five of them) to reframe a person’s mindset during a change initiative. In this post, I’ll talk about the final skill.
Reframing Skill #5: The Willingness to Confront
For many change facilitators, this final skill is the most difficult part of the reframing process. Being direct and explicit with other people by challenging their way of looking at the world is risky, both personally and professionally. People can become trapped in their existing perspectives and lose their ability to adapt to important changes. Most people tend to believe only what they see, but see only what they believe exists.
Sometimes, the only way to effect movement from the status quo is to “confront” people more
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www.connerpartners.com
Changing Someone’s Mind—The Basics of Reframing
(3) Comments“The greatest danger in times of turbulence is not the turbulence; it is to act with yesterday’s logic.” — Peter Drucker
An important part of successful change facilitation is the ability to influence others (especially sponsors). Sometimes we only need to explain to them what needs to be done. Much of the time, however, their behaviors and/or mindsets must be carefully reshaped for an initiative to be fully realized.
There is a close interdependency between a person’s mindset and his or her behavior. Each reflects an important component to the change process, yet many practitioners are better prepared to address the behavioral dynamics than the mindset implications. Although successful change facilitators attend to both when attempting to redirect a person’s natural reaction to a situation, this series will focus only on how to encourage new mindsets that support an initiative’s desired outcome. more
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©2011 Conner Partners, Inc.
www.connerpartners.com
7 Ways to Make a Client Self-Sufficient
In my last post, I shared my belief that teaching clients to execute change on their own is an important part of practicing our craft. I referred to the process of transferring deep capability to clients as implanting DNA. This includes methodology and mindset as well as the three elements of addressing problems or opportunities: content, process, and attitude. Here is a checklist practitioners can use to implant DNA in clients. more
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©2011 Conner Partners, Inc.
www.connerpartners.com
How to Work Yourself Out of a Job
“A true voyage of discovery does not consist of seeking new landscapes but rather of seeing with new eyes.” —Marcel Proust
As change professionals, we often say that we want to leave clients free from the need for additional services from us. Unfortunately, our track record doesn’t support that claim. This is less true for pure training interventions; however, consultants (both internal and external) engage in more “doing” than in “transferring capability.”
I realize not all change facilitators share this view, but my personal bias is that teaching clients to execute change on their own is a crucial part of practicing our craft. Some internal practitioners lack the charter to do anything but solve problems. (“Just help us get this project implemented. We’ll worry about learning how to do it ourselves later.”) Some external practitioners operate within a business model that doesn’t include teaching clients how to stand on their own without the consultant’s help. This series, however, is for a third category of practitioners more
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©2011 Conner Partners, Inc.
www.connerpartners.com
Identify and Manage Your Commitments
In my last post, I talked about the tendency for change practitioners to extend past their capacity to meet commitments. The key to preventing the damaging implications of this is the thoughtful allocation of the time available, plus balancing resource expenditure with resource renewal. Think of this as creating a “commitment inventory.”
This is easier said than done. Some people find it helpful to visualize their commitments. more
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www.connerpartners.com
