Change Management Made Simple!
There seems to be a flurry of interest in change management by our readers - at least those words. In fact, over the years, a majority of our work with clients has been related to managing change initiatives - which is a major responsibility of leadership.
Think about it. Many change initiatives are across organizational boundaries, thus authority is limited for any manager or individual responsible for the initiative. At most, there might be some “dotted line” responsibility to the change agent. Therefore, leadership is required. The change agent must be able to lead without authority. I talk more about this on a separate page called Change Management Made Simple.
Leadership Made Simple >(applied to) Change Management = Change Management Made Simple!
The natural human tendency is to think that being asked to change or do something different is a way of saying we have been doing it wrong. Thereofore, if we jump right into describing the desired change, we create major resistance to that change.
Applying the Framework for Leadership(tm) to Change Management
Using the Framework for Leadership continuously during a change initiative naturally solves this problem - the basic resistance to change. Don’t ask me to do something different until you acknowledge me for what I am already doing well! Steps 1 and 2 of the Framework, “What is already working?” and “What makes that work?” both provide extensive acknowledgement of successes and what the people are doing to create them.
At a conference last week in Scottsdale, I was approached by a consultant who said, “I have already bought twenty of your new books (Leadership Made Simple) and I want to tell you the experience that had me do it. I am working with a construction company, and I was going to be leading a management meeting. Having read the book, I decided to use the first two steps of your Framework and see where it lead me. So, I did that, and it was incredibly energizing for the team. They got so much into the process of recognizing their successes and acknowledging each other for creating them that we ran out of time and had to end the meeting after the second question was addressed. I felt really good about the meeting and had numerous positive comments from the people, but I didn’t expect what happened next. The owner, who was not at the meeting, called me a couple of hours after it and said, ‘I don’t know what you did to my people, but they are transformed!’ That was an amazing experience, and that is when I ordered the additional books.”
The first two steps of the Framework removes resistance to change by acknowledging people in a powerful way for what they are already doing well. This prepares them for the next step, which we will discuss in another posting.
Happy change process!
August 2nd, 2007 at 3:19 am
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