Leading Change: Building a Resilient Organization

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Leading Change Building a Resilient
Organization

• Cindy Browne

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Agenda

• Whats going on with change?
• What is resilience?
• Why is it important?
• What is a resilient organization?
• How can I increase my stations resiliency?
• What does this require of me as a leader?

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Change is Changing

• More change
• Faster pace
• More complex

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Our Old Experience with Change
Change events
TIME
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The Reality of Change Today
TIME
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Resilience

• The ability to absorb high levels of change
  without displaying dysfunctional behavior.
• Daryl Conner, Conner Partners

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Resilience

• The ability to bounce back - and, in fact, to
  bounce forward - with speed, grace and
  determination.
• Michael Bell - Gartner Research

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Resilience

• The ability to continuously anticipate and adjust
  to trends.
• The ability to dynamically reinvent business
  models and strategies as circumstances change.
• To change before the case for change becomes
  desperately obvious.
• Gary Hamel - consultant author

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Why is Resilience Important?

• Change is changing
• Assumed virtue no longer guarantees success-we
  need continual renewal
• Working to get better vs. working to get
  different
• People and organizations shutting down endangers
  the status quo!

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Attributes of Resilient Organizations

• View change as an on-going process
• Tolerate ambiguity
• Encourage productive resistance
• Practice Sober-Selling
• Manage their change capacity
• Make resilience a priority

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1. View Change as an On-going Process

• See change as the natural order of things
• Expect change to be a constant
• Regard change as a process not an event

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2. Tolerate Ambiguity

• Ambiguity Not clear or distinct
• Ambiguity is what is uncertain is how we feel
  about it
• Need to be OK with the discomfort of feeling
  uncertain due to the ambiguity inherent in change
• Need to be OK with not being in control

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3. Encourage Productive Resistance

• Resistance is neither good or bad its a natural
  attachment to the status quo
• Constructive resistance can improve the change
• If you try to sidestep or repress resistance, it
  goes underground
• Better to give it a legitimate way to surface and
  be resolved

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4. Practice Sober-Selling

• We tend to oversell the positive aspects of
  change and undersell the negative
• This creates a gap between expectations and what
  actually happens
• The gap creates surprise, a sense of things being
  out of control and discomfort
• Sell the benefits, but dont ignore the cost.

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5. Manage Change Capacity

• Think of it as your stations change budget
• Be aware of all the changes going on and their
  impact on your staff
• Dont introduce major change when the station is
  at capacity

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6. Make Resilience a Priority

• View it as a strategic necessity, right up there
  with efficiency and effectiveness
• Devote time and resources to building this
  capacity

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Increase Your Stations Resilience

• Demystify change
• Consistent approach to change
• Influence cultural values, beliefs and assumptions

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1. Demystify Change

• We talk a lot about changing, but very little
  about change
• Dont treat it like a black box - we may not be
  able to control change, but we can understand it
  better
• Develop a base-line understanding of change
  dynamics
• Does your staff understand how change works?

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2. Consistent Approach to Change

• We have a process.weve done this before..were
  not out of control
• Think through the steps of change planning to up
  your odds of success
• Develop an acceptable way for resistance to be
  expressed and resolved
• Do you have a change planning process?

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3. Influence the Culture

• Culture
• Behaviors (Observable) Beliefs Assumptions
  (Hidden)
• The way we do things around here
• A shared viewpoint developed over time

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3. Influence the Culture

• Culture is reflected in
• Oral written communications
• Organizational structure
• What is measured and controlled
• Policies and procedures
• Reward systems
• Stories, legends, rituals, symbols
• Facility design

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3. Influence the Culture

• Culture either evolves on its own or is designed
  to support the organization in achieving its
  mission.
• Which describes your culture?

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3. Influence the Culture

• Know your culture
• Understand which aspects of the culture support
  change and resilience and which dont
• Plan how to support good aspects and replace
  detrimental aspects with new beliefs, behaviors
  and assumptions.

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3. Influence the Culture

• When theres a gap between the culture and the
  objectives of your change, culture always wins.
• Has this happened to you?

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Leading for Resiliency

• Increase your own resilience
• Work on your EQ (Emotional Intelligence)
• Shift from reactive (change victim) to proactive
  (change leader) stance
• Cultivate organizational resiliency as a
  strategic priority

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Resilience Assessment

• What kinds of resilience assets do you see in
  your station?
• What resilience deficits concern you and why?
• R Magnitude x Frequency of Change
• Time Expense Emotional Energy

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Resilience Quotient

• R Magnitude x Frequency of Change
• Time Expense Emotional Energy
• The goal is to keep R high, decreasing the
  denominator even as the numerator increases

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Resources

• Managing at the Speed of Change, Daryl Conner
• The Quest for Resilience, Gary Hamel and Liisa
  Välikangas (HBR 9/03)
• Leading Change, John Kotter
• Leading in a Culture of Change, Michael Fullan

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Leading Change Building a Resilient
Organization

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