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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Danger? Opportunity? You Decide.
In this series, I’ve been talking about the importance of being able to reframe a person’s mindset during a change initiative to shift how he or she sees and interprets certain things. There are five key reframing skills:
1. Address the “context” as well as the “content” of interpersonal communications.
2. Redefine the other person’s frame of reference (FOR) in a way that sheds positive light on the successful implementation of the change at hand.
3. Reset the person’s priorities.
4. Respond effectively when the other person reacts to the reframing attempt.
5. Confront the person with the real price it takes to achieve success.
I’ll focus on the fourth skill in this post.
Reframing Skill #4: The Ability to Respond Appropriately Based on the Person’s Reaction
The disruptive nature of major change produces a crisis in the sense that the status quo is no longer viable. The Chinese express the concept of crisis with two symbols.
The top symbol represents potential danger, the lower, hidden opportunity. By combining the two, the Chinese position change as a paradox. Observing how people respond to the stress produced by the crisis of change reveals two basic orientations that reflect similar characteristics. more
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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
Guest Interview—Dean Anderson
I recently had the opportunity to spend some time with Dean Anderson, a thought leader in the field of organization transformation. I have known Dean for more than 20 years, and greatly respect his work. His unique understanding of mindset, culture, and process gives him a deep strategic perspective, but he also has a depth and strength of character that very few people in the industry offer.
Dean’s current passion is helping senior executives become more “co-creative,” and less “command and control” so they can lead and build co-creative organizations. He is currently writing a book on co-creating and personal transformation.
Dean and his wife and partner, Linda Ackerman Anderson, are two of the pioneers of change management. They co-founded Being First, a leader development and transformational change consulting firm in Durango, Colorado. Their books, Beyond Change Management and The Change Leader’s Roadmap, are key resources for practitioners.
In our first segment, Dean describes the components of transformational change, and how he helps clients identify the type of change they’re dealing with and, in the case of transformational change, commit to breakthrough results that will achieve something extraordinary. more
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©2011 Conner Partners, Inc.
www.connerpartners.com
How to Make Shift Happen
In this series, we’ve been exploring the evolution of organizational paradigms. In my last post, I talked about the collapse/renewal phase, the place where either shift “happens” or it “hits the fan.” Here, I’ll pick up with an exploration of what is involved when orchestrating a new paradigm. It requires a four-part approach involving leadership, a learning environment, a new culture, and resilience.
Strong Leadership Is Imperative
Existing paradigms are typically not dissolved by consensus nor by insiders. Usually a single, determined individual or small group with the power to sanction dramatic change throughout an organization concludes that more
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The Eight Stages of Building Commitment
(2) CommentsIn the early ’80s, while involved in research to identify patterns of change-related success and failure, I learned that the winners and losers in this arena demonstrated very different levels of resolve. As a result, I developed the following model, which describes how and when people become committed to major new organizational requirements. (Click here to download a printable worksheet of the Commitment Model to help you identify a person’s or group’s level of commitment.) more
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©2011 Conner Partners, Inc.
www.connerpartners.com
Momentum and Critical Mass
In my last post, I talked about redirecting energy during a transformational change from protecting “the way things are” toward addressing the ambiguities and confusion that occur in the shift. In this context, momentum refers to the forward motion of energy through the role sequence (advocate to initiating sponsor to primary sustaining sponsors to local sustaining sponsors to targets) toward realization of the change. Regardless of which roles are involved in the energy transfer at any given time, the presence of strong momentum dramatically increases the chances for realization results. Alternatively, transfers that produce no more than moderate momentum can stall initiatives or compromise installation outcomes.
Energy transfers can result in a strong, moderate, or weak momentum exchange, which means that merely passing energy through the role sequence is not enough. Momentum must reach a certain magnitude within each person in the chain to provide the level of energy needed to ultimately achieve true realization results. When we achieve this degree of energy strength, it means the person on the receiving end of the transfer has become fully committed to the endeavor’s success. more
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©2011 Conner Partners, Inc.
www.connerpartners.com
The Learning Paradox
In this series, I’m encouraging you to review the models (concepts, approaches, and frameworks) that may have slipped into unconscious application over your years of practice. I’m also sharing a few learning-related models that have surfaced from observations in my practice. The model below is one that came to light for me as I watched people learn (or fail to learn) from their disappointments.
Model 2: Corrective Mistakes vs. Failure
In organizational transformation, clients must have lofty ambitions in order to break the gravitational pull of the status quo. However, aggressive aspirations make them risk falling short of their objectives. Many people, and even entire organizational cultures, assume they must choose between succeeding with goals that don’t challenge the current paradigm, or failing at groundbreaking—but nonetheless out-of-reach—intentions.
My experience is that clients who consistently succeed with change embrace an alternative path— more
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©2011 Conner Partners, Inc.
www.connerpartners.com
The Characteristics of Nimble Execution
In a previous post, I defined a nimble organization as one that has a sustained ability to quickly and effectively respond to the demands of change while continually delivering high performance. Gaining and sustaining nimbleness is not easily or casually achieved. To fully leverage its potential requires commitment and tenacity from the very top of an organization. This begins when members of the Board (or equivalent strategic sanctioning body) and senior leadership declare their deeply held belief that nimble execution is a vital strategic advantage. This conviction must then be translated into two levels of intention: more
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©2010 Conner Partners, Inc.
www.connerpartners.com
Manage Intent to Deliver on Promises and Minimize Disappointment
(3) CommentsIf we want to be successful at executing major organizational change, it’s important to understand how to translate aspiration into reality. Aspiration is a vision of what must be—the intended outcome. Reality is the value that accrues from putting it in place and sustaining its impact. “Translation,” as used here, is not a metaphor—a conversion must literally take place that turns concepts and ideas into actions and results.
Moving from intentions to results is neither a hit-or-miss process nor a risk-free slam dunk. Regardless of the discipline, any time there is a transition from one state to another, there is a probability that something will be lost in the process. more
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©2010 Conner Partners, Inc.
www.connerpartners.com
