CHANGE; IT’S YOUR CHOICE
P&S Council Retreat
August 2, 2002
Sharon K. Drake Ph.D.
HRS/Educational Consultant
2115 Douglas Ave.
Ames, IA 50010
(515)232-0077
"All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave
behind is part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter into
another."
Anatole France
The "Wonders" of Change:
Four issues surround change:
1.
Change causes people to feel incompetent, needy and powerless.
2.
Change creates confusion and unpredictability throughout an
organization. It alters the clarity and stability of role relationships.
3.
Change generates conflict and creates winners and losers.
4.
Change creates loss of meaning and purpose.
Givens of change:
1. You must understand something thoroughly before you try to change it.
2. You cannot change just one element of a system.
3. People resist anything they perceive is punishment.
4. People are reluctant to endure discomfort even for the sake of possible gains.
5. Change always generates stress.
6. Participation in setting goals and devising strategies reduces resistance to
change.
7. Behavioral change comes in small steps.
“ It is not the strongest of species that survives, not the most intelligent,
but rather the one most responsive to change.” Charles Darwin
There is one thing in change that is predictable, that is your personal response
to it. We try to understand or make sense out of the changes that happen in our
lives. We will probably never completely understand the purpose of all the
change events that happen, so the smartest strategy is to learn our own
response and use that response as a catalyst to something different.
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Change; Its Your Choice
Dilemmas:
No longer time to adapt
No time to think
No time to exhale
No time to plan
Just time to react
Competition is tense
Schedules are tight
Resources are limited
Old methods don’t work
“The significant problems we face cannot be solved by the same
level of thinking that created them. Albert Einstein
Level of Thinking One: What does change look like?
___ To Alter
___ To Modify
___ To Transform
___ To Vary
___ To Refashion
___ Ambiguous/Complex
___ Persistent/Real
___ Revolutionary
___ A Crossroads
___ Expecting something new
Level of Thinking Two: Change is a Choice
Fear or courage?
Anxiety or anticipation?
Resistance or resilience?
Scary, painful, often unplanned, unanticipated, imposed, radical, beyond our control.
Change is about definition and redefinition, adaptation, assessment and planning
Level of Thinking Three: Change is a Journey - Finding Your Way
Collapse paradigms---Invite new approaches---Break rules----Be flexible---Ask why---Ask why not
Level of Thinking Four: Living with Change - THINK-THINK - THINK
*Renewal *Innovation *Resilience *Progress * Solutions
Change is about the present, the future, people possibilities!
It’s Your Choice
Stages of transition:
1. Destabilizing and losing focus
2. Minimizing the impact
3. Questioning self-worth
4. Letting go of the past
5. Testing the new situation
6. Searching for meaning
7. Integrating the experience
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The Management Principles of Change
1. Keep performance results the primary objective of behavior and skill change.
2. Continually increase the number of individuals taking responsibility for their own
change.
3. Ensure each person always knows why his/her performance and change mattes to
the purpose and results of the whole organization.
4. Put people in a position to learn by doing and provide them the information and
support needed just in to perform.
5. Embrace improvisation as the best path to both performance and change.
6. Use team performance to drive change whenever demanded.
7. Concentrate organization designs on the work people do, not the decision-making
authority they have.
8. Create and focus energy and meaningful language because they are the scarcest
resources during periods of change.
9. Stimulate and sustain behavior-driven change by harmonizing initiatives throughout
the organization.
10. Practice leadership based on the courage to live the change you wish to bring about.
Source: Douglas K. Smith, Taking Charge of Change, 1998.
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