WARNINGS For Facilitators of Change

Based on Change-ABLE Organization 2009

Change is demanding

• Organizational change – from start-up to fast growth shifting focus to reengineering – is demanding

• There are plenty of “instruction manuals” to tell you how to do it, but few that provide warning about the pitfalls

• John Mathers and Bill Daniels book, Change-ABLE Organization, sets out a primer on key practices for healthy, high performance teams

• Following are the warnings associated with any change work

Page 2

This is not a program

• A program will fail in about thirty months• Managers see programs as competitors for resources — their

people’s time• Overtly or covertly it will be killed• Programs are often recognized as cults• Programs get stuck onto the organization’s culture like a Band-

Aid• Becoming Change-ABLE must begin within the organization’s

existing channels of communication — not outside like a program.

#1 Page 3

Don’t start in retreat; you can’t play the game from the sideline

• An offsite — with people you don’t usually work with, doing something unusual like reflection — is a medium that expresses the wrong message

• Offsites suggests that being Change-ABLE is a special event rather than a regular event

• Change-ABLE organizations are about every day activities and utilizing ordinary work practices.

#2 Page 4

Don’t just sell change, sell being Change-ABLE

• Start with the survival agenda: Focus on changes that make the organization better at avoiding threats and actualizing opportunities

• Help the organization recover its ability to adapt and renew itself

• Intervention leads to early, significant results ... often misunderstood as an emergency procedure or fix

• It’s not about making a specific change — it is about making the organization capable of evaluating its need for many kinds of changes and acting upon its evaluation.

#3 Page 5

Don’t sell satisfaction as a result; sell creative tension

• Being Change-ABLE is not universally popular among managers or individual contributors

• This system experiences failure as painful and corrective action as requiring personal change or even termination

• The Change-ABLE organization is a culture that perpetuates its values and norms with rewards and punishment

• Change-ABLE organizations sustain a constant state of self evaluation that produces discontent.

#4 Page 6

Don’t settle for less than the whole system: All Artifacts

• Without linked teams you get a bunch of small, uncoordinated, and relatively weak groups

• Without performance plans there is no way to judge results and the organization lacks creative tension

• Without Breakthrough systems work is poorly managed and information for governance is of poor quality

• Without work reviews and decisive meetings the org operates with diminished intelligence and speed

• Be careful: each artifact yields some immediate and very satisfying results but only together does the system perpetuate itself.

#5 Page 7

Don’t wait for attitudinal change; Ask for behavior

• Avoid leading seminars about being Change-ABLE• In dysfunctional organizations, the underlying attitudes are

supporting ongoing dysfunction ... they may never shift their attitudes without it being required

• To challenge the organization’s assumptions, management — from the top down — must require the behaviors of the Change-ABLE culture

• This must be required right from the beginning ... and throughout the time it takes to settle into the organization norms and value.

#6 Page 8

Don’t go to the party without an invitation

• The invitiation must come from the team leader — someone holding a position within the organization’s current hierarchy

• The leader must know and be committed to the entire scope of the intervention: all five artifacts

• The leader must confront the team with the need for change and the team should be aware of the consequences of going ahead: – Adopting all five of the disciplines– Learning their leader’s job (i.e. learning each other’s jobs) and

actively teaching their job to the other team members– Recognizing that membership is based on mastering these

disciplines – Leading their subordinate teams with the same requirements.

#7 Page 9

Don’t take the trip to the Change-ABLE organization without the cognitive map

• Without knowing where the canoe is going, the paddlers can’t participate usefully in the chatter which will continuously improve the team’s results

• Take every opportunity to share the map — the model of the organization’s development process (the Boats) and the system (the artifacts)

• Find quick ways to present it — in the context of regular meetings — and keep repeating it

• Evaluate the team against the behavioral criteria of the artifacts once a month as part of the team’s Work Review.

#8 Page 10

Don’t be the messenger, Open the channels for messaging

• Change agents often see patterns in the organization’s needs ... and believe they have uncovered a unique understanding which needs to be brought to the organization

• Messengers must ask themselves: – Why can’t this system tell itself what it has told me? – Where is the communication system breaking down?

• If the change agent doesn’t ask the questions, the intervention will lead to:– Building organizational dependency, or– Becoming known as a spy for management or a faction.

#9 Page 11

Don’t expect the organization to remain stupid once its nervous system is working

• It’s easy to become cynical: the system does dumb things and the people may seem especially incompetent, petty, or wasteful

• Building on what works in a dysfunctional organization is harder than telling them what they should do

• Persist in getting the artifacts in place — in healing the organization’s nervous system

• Given the opportunity to influence the organization, nearly everyone will make a positive contribution

• Those that don’t want to play will leave.

#10 Page 12

Don’t give advice that can’t be used in the next 30 minutes

• The timing rule: offer it just before it is useful • In the post-meeting session with the team leader don’t be

tempted to list all the things that need improvement ... rather– Set up another coaching session just before the next

meeting– Before the meeting, coach key behaviors for the leader to

work on– After the meeting, let the leader talk and reinforce their

skills in perceiving and understanding group dynamics and processes.

#11 Page 13

Don’t find what’s wrong; encourage what’s right

• It’s easy to spend all the time in problem solving with clients• A quicker way is to notice how much of what is desirable is

already being done ... and reinforce it• Be constantly on the lookout for this short cut to

organizational improvement.

#12 Page 14

Team building is not the same as building a hierarchy of linked teams

• Most facilitators see themselves as specialists in understanding and correcting dysfunctional group processes — a focus on process and “team building”

• The intervention is much more task-oriented — to assist management meetings in more effectively controlling access to and utilization of the organization’s resources

• Preoccupation with personality issues and group dynamics must shift to dealing with the larger and often more irrational forces of inter-group cooperation or antagonism — building accountability in the existing organizational context.

#13 Page 15

Performance Planning isn’t cyclical but continuous; It’s not dead but alive

• It’s not Management By Objectives (MBO) — which usually ends up as a program

• Remember the purpose of Performance Planning: – To continuously uphold the intentions of the organization– To focus the organization’s resources on these goals– To get people identified with their roles– To keep everyone aligned as the organization’s work

requires changing its goals• Performance Plans are a genuine expression of organization’s

current intentions.

#14 Page 16

Work Reviews are not FYI

• Informational meetings have no intention of offering anything to their audience for evaluation or decisive response

• Work Review in Change-ABLE meetings is the center piece of the organization’s decision making process– No one is invited who is not in a position of formal

authority —accountable in the decision-making process– Anyone who is in attendance is expected to be prepared

and fully competent to influence decisions– Everyone is fully aware of the interdependency of the team

members’ work.

#15 Page 17

Regular Meetings are not held to promote agreement; they are about assuring commitment

• Most people come together to reach agreement — and it rarely happens ... and can take forever!!!

• Change-ABLE teams make a distinction between being in agreement and being committed; committed is– The ability to accurately describe the rationale of the

decision you are implementing– The control of resources to focus on the implementation

• Change-ABLE team members ask for commitment — rather than seek agreement– They expect and require disagreement– They insist on understanding and commitment.

#16 Page 18

Only those who do the work can manage the work

• Management decisions are dependent upon the validity of their information — and the source of most information is the individual contributor

• The quality of information is impacted if individual contributors are not– Clear about performance expectations – Aware of how they are doing in comparison to

expectations– Reporting their condition frequently and reliably to the

management teams• At the base of the organization, individual contributors are the

best managers of their own work.

#17 Page 19

It may take three years to make a change, but not to become Change-ABLE

• Sustained cost effectiveness and/or profitability may take three years to achieve

• With proper leadership, organizations can become Change-ABLE in about six to nine months — mostly through the removal of current logjam problems in the organization

• Organizations already achieving extraordinary results are practicing the disciplines of the five artifacts unconsciously — and reminding them significantly increases success.

#18 Page 20

Don’t try to make change until you’re Change-ABLE

• Competitive pressure is forcing many organizations to look for quick fixes rather than sustained change– Restructuring– Downsizing (often dumb-sizing)– Merger or acquisition– Reengineering

• Change-ABLE organizations do all these actions and thrive on them ... because they start with creative tension.

#19 Page 21

This work is not for everyone

• Getting an organization Change-ABLE is by definition the act of leadership

• Without deep commitment to the organization’s purpose and experience in the organization’s business and industry, becoming Change-ABLE is extremely difficult

• Similarly, the role of professional facilitators or change agent is demanding — requiring the clients respect and trust.

#20 Page 22

Small steps in a dysfunctional culture leave big footprints

• Don’t let anything stop you from beginning the process of making your organization Change-ABLE– Don’t wait for your boss’s permission– Don’t wait until you know more about it– Don’t wait until you can get professional assistance

• Be prepared for the possibility that you will be “discovered” — small steps can leave big footprints

• Working to make and keep the organization Change-ABLE is the essential task of any contemporary manager.

#21 Page 23

3020 Bridgeway, Suite 414, Sausalito CA 94965Tel: 1 (415) 381-4660 Email: info@eVoassociates.com Web:

www.eVoassociates.com

3020 Bridgeway, Suite 414, Sausalito CA 94965Tel: 1 (415) 381-4660 Email: info@eVoassociates.com Web:

www.eVoassociates.com

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