(especially those of you who have helped to guide
organisations/communities through transformations that the participants
agree were highly successful a couple of years into the process)
I am presently working with a private sector corporation which is
presparing itself for a transformative change process. Rather than simply
importing some ready made theory from outside we have been largely
developing it internally. While this has been expensive and messy the
level of ownership and understanding seems to more than offset the
downsides.
The four domains we have been exploring are why change, to what to change
to, how to make change work and the process of managing change.
We are presently asking the question of how we can minimise the risk
involved in potentially overburdening employees with all sorts of
additional work during the process (and so becoming significantly less
productive over the short/medium term). We are focusing on initiating
most of the change through large scale interventions, involving most of
the employees in a series of national and regional conferences with many
employees being involved in more than one conferences.
We currently have three teams in mind to serve this process:
1) A Change Support Team - It seems like a good idea to have a team of
senior level support coaches, including the ceo, a few former line
managers, a project manager and communications person to guide the
process. The role of these people is to hold and share views of the
process of transformation that include whole organisation and its various
functions within the larger environment.
A Change Implementation Team - It also seems to make sense to have a
broader implementation team who are directly involved in the design and
implementation of the various interventions. The role of these people is
to hold and share views of the process of transformation that focus on the
relationship of the parts to the whole, and in particular the
transformation of workplaces in ways that serve the people working in them
as well as the needs of the whole organisation.
A Change Agents Team - Finally we had in mind to have a loose group of
change agents some of whom participate in both the previous teams, who
represent some of the informal leaders in the organisation. The role of
these people is less clear but seems primarily to focus on holding and
sharing views of the process of transformation that focus on the personal
aspects of change and transformation.
What I would like to hear about is whether their are other better models
that we could be using or adding into what we currently see as the way
forward. I would also like to hear any views on what we might need to bear
in mind if we want to be successful with each of the three types of roles
we have identified to date.
I look forward to your ideas!
Mark
-- Mark Feenstra mark@winwin.iconz.co.nz Win Win Group PO Box 99 193 Auckland, New Zealand Ph. 64 9 307 0888 Fax. 64 9 307 0891 YFCAATTWOTW (yours for creative action aligned to the well being of the whole)