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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How to Manage Capacity
There are two aspects to capacity management—its relationship to stability and uncertainty, and the measurement of its variables.
The Zone
Managing capacity involves:
- monitoring the supply of, and demand on, adaptation capacity, and, when necessary,
- making adjustments in order to operate in “The Zone” (a space for pursuing as much change as possible while minimizing the negative effects of future shock).
As I stated in the first post of this series, future shock occurs when the demands of change exceed a person’s or group’s capacity to properly deal with its implications. (This is reflected in their inability to maintain productivity, quality, and safety standards). At first glance, you might assume that future shock is something to avoid at all cost. However, that’s not what I’ve seen from leaders who consistently achieve their change objectives. 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.
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How to Get Unstuck
(1) Comment“You don’t drown by falling in the water; you drown by staying there.” ~Edwin Louis Cole
In my last post, I wrote about what happens when initiatives become “stuck.” Challenges and obstacles to implementation are a regular and expected occurrence in any change initiative. They become problematic, however, when the attending change agent doesn’t have a plan he or she believes in, or even an idea, of how to solve the problem.
There is a framework practitioners can use to determine how to get unstuck, regardless of the nature of the desired outcome, or the implementation approach used (Kotter, Bridges, Anderson, Prosci, Conner, etc.), or the specific actions they call into play. This post provides a way to look at a generic intervention process and how to apply it to any change or execution methodology. more
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©2010 Conner Partners, Inc.
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Are You Stuck?
“Most obstacles are imaginary; the rest are only temporary.” ~Scott Sorrel
We all get stuck sometimes…it’s part of the human experience. We know what we want to achieve and have a plan for doing it, but suddenly we’re faced with a challenge that mystifies us. The situation may involve a problem or opportunity, but the fact is, we don’t know how to resolve it given the present circumstances (or aren’t willing to because of certain implications). In other words, becoming unstuck isn’t about problems/opportunities—it’s about problems/opportunities with no clear way to address them.
There are as many ways to be stuck as there are aspects to our lives. We can become stuck with our spouse or kids, our friends, our careers or boss, our physical well-being, our spiritual development, etc. Anything of significance that we set out to accomplish can, and most likely will, become stuck at one time or another.
Professional change facilitators are not immune to being stuck. From time to time, even the most accomplished practitioners, applying the most capable execution methodologies, are unable to find a viable resolution to a particular more
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©2010 Conner Partners, Inc.
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Patterns Aren’t Created, They Are Revealed
We don’t own patterns, yet we are all responsible for them.
Some of us might be fortunate enough to be the first to observe and document a pattern, but we didn’t invent it, we uncovered it. Adjusting to the unfamiliar has been part of the human experience since the beginning of time. Any change-related pattern we use was in play long before any of us started practicing this craft. And even though some of us have fashioned our own particular way of articulating transition dynamics (nomenclature, principles, guidelines, axioms) the basic patterns can’t be commandeered by any of us.
So, we can’t take credit for conceiving the patterns of change, but because we did discover them, we have a responsibility more
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©2010 Conner Partners, Inc.
www.connerpartners.com
Five Lenses for Viewing Patterns of Change (cont’d)
In my last post, I shared three of the lenses I use to observe the patterns (mindset and behaviors) that I pay attention to:
- The importance placed on matching change challenges with the appropriate commitment
- The importance placed on the intent of the change
- The importance placed on sponsors
Now, I’ll continue with the last two lenses: more
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©2010 Conner Partners, Inc.
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Use Mindset and Behavior Patterns to Your Advantage
(2) Comments
Once you understand that a specific mindset and its associated behaviors can either facilitate or impede success, you have a level of insight that can be truly invaluable to a sponsor who is less familiar with these kinds of change dynamics.
Mindsets are made up of frames of reference (the ways individuals make sense of situations) that lead to the formation of priorities (the relative importance of various options). Shared mindsets within an organization serve as the foundations of culture and ultimately lead to common patterns of behavior.
Successful change requires a specific mindset that is shared among key players as they perform their respective roles. This “success mindset” reflects the more
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Patterns: Order Beneath the Confusion
(1) Comment“What we call chaos is just patterns we haven’t recognized. What we call random is just patterns we can’t decipher. What we can’t understand we call nonsense. What we can’t read we call gibberish.” ~Chuck Palahniuk
How do we make sense out of the often extremely complicated and confusing dynamics that influence the outcomes of our change initiatives? And once we understand what’s going on, how do we help our sponsors (and, of course, agents and targets) grasp what is unfolding and choose the best course of action, given the present circumstances?
We could use simplistic explanations, but those don’t describe the depth of the situation. Too often, we get lost in the convoluted intricacies of the change and offer help that is more baffling than enlightening. Instead, what we must find, more
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©2010 Conner Partners, Inc.
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