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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Making Commitments—Do You Know Your Limits?
“The good fellow to everyone is a good friend to no one.” ~Jewish Proverb
Transformational change generates an exhilarating, fast-paced environment where key people seek, and are often asked to take on, many demanding tasks. The sum of these tasks can sometimes push everyone past their capacity to meet commitments. The result is failure to deliver what was agreed to. This often means realization does not materialize, which is unacceptable for business-imperative initiatives.
This is no less true for us as professional change facilitators than it is for sponsors, targets, or advocates. In fact, given that our role is often to serve at the epicenter of an initiative’s activity, we are particularly vulnerable more
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©2011 Conner Partners, Inc.
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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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Tactics for Building Commitment
In my last post, I described the eight stages of building commitment. Applied properly, I have found them to be helpful in generating the momentum and critical mass needed during various engagements. At each stage, there are potential barriers to success, and for each barrier, there are actions that can be taken to move people to the next stage as well as indicators that can be used to mark progress. 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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