Providing Help vs. Practicing the Craft
(1) Comment“In this age, which believes that there is a shortcut to everything, the greatest lesson to be learned is that the most difficult way is, in the long run, the easiest.” —Henry Miller
We are professionals in our field—trained to help orchestrate human transitions within organizational settings. The unique work we do is a craft that involves the art and science of assisting leaders as they fulfill the true intent of their change aspirations. The word “craft” originally related to architecture. That seems appropriate, since much of what we do could be characterized as creating blueprints for the realization of change.
In this post, I want to explain why “practicing our craft” is not the same as “providing the help” clients sometimes ask for. In particular, I hope to show that there are circumstances where adhering to the tenets of our craft is more in a client’s interest than actually doing as they ask. more
ChangeThinking.net
©2012 Conner Partners, Inc.
www.connerpartners.com
Understanding, Commitment, and Alignment
(2) Comments“Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of things brought together.”
—Vincent Van Gogh
Helping Leaders See Eye to Eye
As professional change facilitators, we are often asked to provide guidance to leadership teams when they find they don’t have sufficient unified support among themselves for certain key change initiatives. A common request is, “We don’t have the alignment we need. Can you help us?”
Many practitioners try to work directly on the problem just as the client states it—lack of sufficient alignment. Unfortunately, this means they often end up treating symptoms, not the actual, underlying cause of the unproductive circumstances clients find themselves in.
Of course, this isn’t unique to alignment issues. Much of the work in which change practitioners are asked to engage is symptomatic in nature. more
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©2012 Conner Partners, Inc.
www.connerpartners.com
Helping Clients Through the Deep Emotions of Change
In this series, I have been talking about recognizing and responding to the deep emotion of transformational change.
Serving as a professional change facilitator is challenging under any circumstances but this is especially true when attending to people in the midst of deeply emotional, or cathartic, breakthroughs. The intense struggle associated with trying to hold on to the status quo, the anxiety of letting go, and then the difficulties of opening up to new possibilities generates extremely profound emotions that we must be prepared to recognize and respond to properly.
The following items represent aspects of practicing our craft that most of us employ in our work anyway. When dealing with people expressing cathartic-level emotions, however, these components of our work are particularly important. more
ChangeThinking.net
©2012 Conner Partners, Inc.
www.connerpartners.com
Adjusting to the Unfamiliar Is an Emotional Process
In the last post, I hope I made the case that both logic and emotion are employed in successful transformational initiatives. Although a balance between the two is our ultimate aim, there are times when we need to attend more to the client’s emotions than to their rational processing of change, and that is the focus of this series.
When working with clients, it’s important to note that there is a wide range of situations that evoke strong emotions:
- Some surface positive feelings, others negative.
- Some are transient, others sustained.
- Some are easy to interpret; others are complicated with conflicting signals.
- Some are indicative of singular issues; others reflect multiple dynamics.
- Some dissipate once “venting” takes place; others linger and become embedded.
- Some are associated with holding on to the past, others with the ambiguity of the present, while still others are associated with the dangers/opportunities of the future.
I’d like to share with you some observations and learnings around what I consider the most challenging emotion-based work our profession engages in with clients… more
ChangeThinking.net
©2012 Conner Partners, Inc.
www.connerpartners.com
The Emotional Side to Facilitating Change
(1) CommentTo the cognition of the brain must be added the experience of the soul.” —Arnold Bennett
A great deal of emotional investment is necessary to achieve the desired outcome of strategic initiatives, yet most change endeavors lean heavily toward the intellectual components (data reviews, critical activities and milestones, logical presentations, rational decision-making, etc.). Several factors contribute to this, one being that intellectual commitment typically precedes emotional commitment and thus, in some ways, is easier to come by. That is, people may quickly grasp the implications of a change at a rational level but then find that they need more time and effort to make the necessary emotional adjustments.
When emotional accommodation is too far behind the logical acceptance of change, dual—often contradictory—signals are sent by the person facing the transition. This kind of split-level commitment can produce confusion, mixed signals, and ambiguous communication for all involved. People may think that they have accepted a recent approach or policy shift only to find more
ChangeThinking.net
©2012 Conner Partners, Inc.
www.connerpartners.com
Harness the Momentum of Synergy to Realize Change Goals
This is the last post in my series on developing synergistic work teams. I have been describing a four-phase model that includes Interacting, Appreciative Understanding, Integrating, and Implementing.
Phase IV: Implementing
Finally, all the hard work of communicating, and appreciating and merging divergent views begins to pay off. The synergy process I’ve been describing has many benefits: more
ChangeThinking.net
©2012 Conner Partners, Inc.
www.connerpartners.com
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
ChangeThinking.net
©2012 Conner Partners, Inc.
www.connerpartners.com
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
ChangeThinking.net
©2012 Conner Partners, Inc.
www.connerpartners.com
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
ChangeThinking.net
©2011 Conner Partners, Inc.
www.connerpartners.com
Use Ethical Ploys to Change the World
In this series, I’ve been discussing the use of ethical ploys by practitioners to add value where it is needed, but not solicited. I define an ethical ploy as a “noble ruse” that guides someone toward seeing a point of view he or she might not have otherwise been open to.
In this post, I’d like to present two examples of ethical ploys that highlight the concept of enticing people, in an honorable way, to see more than they asked for or expected from a situation. As you will see, the results of either can have benefits far beyond the realization of the change goals. more
ChangeThinking.net
©2011 Conner Partners, Inc.
www.connerpartners.com
