The Movement Begins
(1) CommentThe Uncertainty Phase—Time to Shift or…
So far in this series, we’ve explored the meaning of the term “paradigm shift,” and we’ve looked at the first two phases of an organizational paradigm evolution. Now it’s time for us to look at how the actual shift happens, to uncover why the existing paradigm begins to decay.
It’s upsetting to realize that a critical issue (current or anticipated problem or opportunity) cannot be adequately addressed by the existing paradigm and its multitude of fixes. Such a crisis is usually precipitated by more
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©2011 Conner Partners, Inc.
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Are You an “Empowered” Change Agent?
(1) CommentEven a nod from a person who is esteemed is of more force than a thousand arguments or studied sentences from others. ~Plutarch
The empowered relationship is one of the more important aspects of orchestrating organizational transitions, but the term “empowerment” continues to be misunderstood and misused. Most professional change facilitators have some understanding of empowerment’s role during implementation, but we have to fully grasp all its implications if we are to help our clients use this tool wisely.
Sponsors who consistently achieve what they set out to accomplish depend on the influence of empowered individuals whose opinions and observations they trust. I’ve personally never seen a significant initiative reach full realization without the sponsors relying heavily on others to help them gain context and perspective. Sometimes they lean on more
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©2011 Conner Partners, Inc.
www.connerpartners.com
Lessons Learned About Building Commitment to Change
After three-and-a-half decades of being a professional change practitioner, I’ve seen my share of successful and unsuccessful attempts to generate enough commitment to reach full realization. If there is one thing I’m sure of it’s that the necessary momentum and critical mass of commitment toward desired outcomes is not easy to come by. Below are some of the more important lessons that have affected my practice.
1. The commitment process unfolds at both intellectual and emotional levels.
Usually, intellectual commitment precedes emotional commitment. Most people can grasp the implications of a change at a cognitive level fairly quickly. However, they often find that they need more time to make the necessary emotional adjustments.
This split-level commitment can produce confusion, mixed signals, and 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.
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The Importance of Commitment in Change
(1) Comment“There’s a difference between interest and commitment. When you’re interested in doing something, you do it only when circumstances permit. When you’re committed to something, you accept no excuses, only results.” ~Author Unknown
There are so many aspects to being a professional change practitioner that it’s easy to lose sight of the fundamentals that comprise our role. It’s OK to add all the bells and whistles we want, but at the same time, we must deliver on the basics. One way to think about the bottom line of our function is that, as change facilitators, 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 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
Putting It All Together—The Mechanics of Capacity Management
Previous postings in this series have highlighted certain aspects of capacity management:
- Attending to the effects of future shock: resistance, results, encroachment, credibility
- The mental, emotional, and physical energy required to make adjustments in expectations
- The difference between capacity and resources
- Operating in The Zone
- Calculating change demand and measuring remaining capacity
In this final posting, we’ll look at the mechanics of the actual capacity management process and explore how it can be used to balance the demands of change with the capacity that remains. more
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©2010 Conner Partners, Inc.
www.connerpartners.com
How Do People Learn to Adapt to Change?
Major change is triggered when people face a significant discrepancy between what they expected and what actually happens during change. People adjust to change, not by learning to like what is taking place, but by forming new expectations that can lead to success under the new conditions. At a personal level, three types of energy are required to make these adjustments in expectations: more
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©2010 Conner Partners, Inc.
www.connerpartners.com
Future Shock: The Scourge of Organizational Change
“Future shock [is] the shattering stress and disorientation that we induce in individuals by subjecting them to too much change in too short a time.” —Alvin Toffler
Toffler nailed it. Forty years ago, in his groundbreaking book of the same name, he coined the term ‘”future shock” to describe the various problems that arise when people deal with more change than they can metabolize. Like fingerprints or cornea signatures, each person has a threshold for dealing with change. Once past that boundary, any more change triggers the “shattering stress and disorientation” of future shock.
Toffler’s prediction of what could happen is an all-too-familiar reality for us today. A quick glance at any TV, Internet, or newspaper summary of current events provides ample evidence that we live in a world inundated with dramatic fluctuations and redefinitions of what we, until recently, thought was stable. The increases in the volume, momentum, and complexity of transitions we contend with surpasses anything we could have imagined only a few years ago. There is no longer any safe haven from ongoing turbulence and uncertainly. Everywhere we look, people are either in future shock or recovering from some degree of it.
Organizations Feel It Too
To keep up with customers and competition, organizations must react to external pressures for change, as well as accommodate their own desire to change. To a growing extent, the combination is overwhelming. In fact, it is precisely because the downside of change has become so prevalent and costly in recent years that our profession has grown as much as it has. more
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©2010 Conner Partners, Inc.
www.connerpartners.com
