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
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©2012 Conner Partners, Inc.
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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
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©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
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©2011 Conner Partners, Inc.
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What’s Culture Got To Do With It?
(2) Comments“Change is hard because people overestimate the value of what they have—and underestimate the value of what they may gain by giving that up.” ~James Belasco and Ralph Stayer
Flight of the Buffalo (1994)
In a recent series, I reviewed what I have learned about paradigm management and the role it plays in facilitating transformational change. A critical subset of the paradigm model I shared dealt with the interrelationship between “mindsets, behaviors, and systems.”
- Mindsets—conscious and unconscious understandings and expectations around what people hold to be true about themselves, others, and their work
- Behaviors—observable actions
- Systems—the interaction of mindsets and behaviors that have the aim of achieving an organization’s purpose
Expressed or unexpressed mindsets are reflected in particular behaviors. When they are configured and applied in a consistent manner they form systems. There are informal systems (the grapevine) and formal systems (the annual budgeting process).When these three elements of organizational life are focused on, it sheds light on a close cousin to paradigms…culture
Though there are some important distinctions, paradigm and culture are 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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©2011 Conner Partners, Inc.
www.connerpartners.com
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
ChangeThinking.net
©2011 Conner Partners, Inc.
www.connerpartners.com
