Some Favorite Quotes

The Personal Dynamics of Change

Helping Organizations Manage and Implement Change

Have you heard this one? "How many Organization Development Consultants does it take to change a light bulb?" The answer of course, is that it depends whether the light bulb want to change!

Developing readiness and commitment for change is one of the criteria for effective change, and one of the skills that organization development consultants must have. In this section, I want to provide a snapshot of my experience in assisting organizations in implementation organizational change, and in "change management" in general.

Change without leadership can be disruptive and demoralizing to any group of individuals. The Gavares Group is in the business of helping organizations manage change. Through consulting, workshops, training, and one-on-one coaching, I assist managers, teams and employees at all levels to effectively manage the changes they experience in their organizations. I provide organizations with the understanding and appropriate leadership tools to manage changes that are occurring or should be occurring, and in understanding the typical reactions people have to change, techniques to increase the resilience of employees during change, and proven approaches for establishing a partnership between management and employees at all levels during change.

The Gavares Group is a full-service organization effectiveness firm that assists organizations at the individual, team, intergroup and organization-wide levels. The types of areas that we provide assistance to include strategic planning, organization climate and morale improvement efforts, team building, partnering workshops, leadership development, operations analysis and management audits, training and development, diversity issues, and employee involvement and empowerment projects. We have a broad understanding of change efforts, and expertise in a variety of methods for implementing them.

Implementation of change efforts in organizations perhaps requires the greatest level of skills for OD practitioners. One of my primary areas of experience and skill is in assisting organizations in implementing changes and in working with the organization through the transition to make the culture and operational changes "stuck." There is little value in an effective assessment of the situation and in identifying solutions for improving the organization, and Change Management, if the changes do not occur.

Research on Change

The following model illustrates some of the key principles about managing change.

First, change is about moving from a current state to a desired future state. Secondly, this often occurs by "unfreezing the organization, either through establishing a shared vision, or creating dissatisfaction with the status quo. Third, during the midst of change, known as the Transition State, we experience the symptoms described in the model. Sound familiar! Fourth, given the rapid rate of change we are living in, we are constantly in the Transition State. Characteristics of the Transition State often include:

Steps Leading to Organizational Change

The following are some of the key elements than an organization must manage to successfully implement culture change. This model, based on the work of John Kotter, can be used as the basis for workshops and consulting to organizations about implementing the changes the organization is experiencing.

Step Description:

• Establish a sense of urgency. Unfreeze the organization by creating a compelling reason why change is needed.
• Create a guiding coalition. Create a cross-functional cross-level group of people with enough power to lead the change.
• Develop a vision. Create a vision and a plan to guide strategy the change process.
• Communicate the vision. Create and implement communication for change strategy that consistently articulates the new vision and the status of the change effort.
• Empower broad-based. Eliminate barriers to change, and and use action target elements of change to transform the organization. Encourage risk-taking and creative problem-solving.
• Generate short-term wins. Plan for and create short-term wins or improvements. Recognize and reward people who contribute to the wins.
• Consolidate Gains. The guiding coalition uses credibility to produce more change from the short term wins to create more change. Additional people are brought into the change process as change cascades throughout the organization. Attempts are made to reinvigorate the change process.
• Anchor new approaches. Reinforce the changes by highlighting in the culture connections between new behaviors and processes and organizational success. Develop methods to ensure leadership development.

Change Management Training

A powerful intervention for your organization during times of change is training on "Managing Change." Participants leave with new skills and knowledge, and with personal action plans for applying the learnings. Further, it is "walking the talk" about investing in our staff during times of change. The following are the typical learning objectives in my Change Management Workshops.

Why Learn To Manage Change

• The costs are high when organizations fail to make necessary changes. Trust and morale is lowered and productivity can be effected.
• The successful introduction of change is often necessary in order to solve organizational problems.
• The speed and complexity of changes are severely testing the capacity and resilience of supervisors and employees. People are stretched these days!
• These changes often impact patters of work, values, defined relationships, our sense of self-confidence, the status quo, etc., and this tends to cause resistance among employees.
• We need to know how to reduce and overcome resistance in order to have organization effectiveness, in order to implement change, and in order to be responsive to customers and changing demands on the organization

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See an example of an "Implementation Plan"

The Resilience Continuum