Any Change process will throw up resistance within the organization. It is critical that firstly there isn’t a dependency created between Pathways to Performance and the client, and secondly that the full force of measures are bought to bare to support the shift of the organization and its people through the Change Curve.
Moving the office photocopier is unlikely to produce much reaction from staff. Moving the office will.”
When faced with a major change, either in their personal or working lives, studies have shown that individuals tend to follow a predictable pattern of reactions, known as a transition or change curve.
Awareness is half the solution, and so, if individuals are aware that it is ‘normal’ to transition through these stages, they can at least plan for this. Leaders of change need to anticipate and understand what staff are going through, and use appropriate behaviours and management support to help their people through the transition. Change cannot ‘happen’ overnight.
1Denial – a personal will typically avoid the topic, appear unconcerned, refuse to believe it’s happening, show no initiative, focus on details, ask picky questions, and challenge the data or the decision.
2Resistance – a person will typically become angry, aggressive, use sarcasm, feel overwhelmed or depressed, complain ask ‘why me?’, ‘why now?’, avoid accountability, become sad or depressed.
This could also indicate that reality is starting to sink in.
3Exploration – people seek to understand and accept new ways of doing things. they start being creative, consider what they can do and begin to look forward. Energy increases, they learn and discover new possibilities, generate ideas and start to plan for the future.
4 Commitment – people feel that they’re able to see the possibilities, are confident and in control and they’re able to focus on continuous improvement. Typically people seek accountability, work with the change and achieve results.
Personal resistance arises due to the challenge to Identity. Identity is egoically held in what we believe and think we are, and in the reactive level of consciousness, this is mostly to do with our roles. Our roles can be held so strongly that it equates in our sub-conscious as being “who we actually are”. Change therefore challenges our image of ourselves thus resistance arises. That said, individuals are more or less likely to be willing to step outside their comfort zone and embrace change. They move through what we refer to as the change curve more rapidly than others. The strategy of designing specifically for embedding processes is to facilitate the shift through this curve.
Champions or Ambassadors of Change
For culture and other change interventions to be sustainable, the engagement of informal leaders over and above those in senior positions is critical. They are part of the ‘early adopters’ needed in such transformations. Pathways undertakes a design, recruitment and development process to identify those who are appropriate for such roles – which can be formal or informal (in the latter they also have a day job – and its how they show up in that job that lubricates the wheels of transformation).
What we are working with is reality of the bell curve when it comes to the willingness of people to embrace what the Leadership is seeking to achieve. Thus the design of any Champion or Ambassador approach seeks to identify those who are ‘innovators’ and ‘early adopters’ have them influence the rest of the curve.
The development of those who are part of such a Champion/Ambassador intervention, centres on Understanding and leading self through personal mastery, Influencing skills and the role of the informal leader, Feedback and coaching skills, Storytelling and storydoing, Understanding own purpose, passion and values and their application to the organisation’s journey.
Delivery of this development is usually done in either an extended retreat environment or two distinct shorter sessions. Total development time is around 4 days.
Cultural Navigators
Cultural Navigators are dedicated change agents who work with culture within Business Units and Functions, supporting the formal leadership through acting as Internal consultants who deliver value added support to enhance the embedding of the desired organizational change. They will often sit as part of an advisory group that monitors and tracks progress of their part of the organization toward its desired outcomes. And design and create interventions to keep it on track.
Navigators support large system change and transformation where the organization is composed of multiple business lines and functions, each of which will have its own culture in place. Dealing with the reality of an overarching culture AND the relevant sub-culture of the company’s component parts, to ensure there is not only alignment and progress, but that the needs of both are met. This is what the Navigator is concerned with.
Navigators, like Champions / Ambassadors are also drawn from the Innovator and Early Adopters. Their development journey mirrors in many respects that of the Champion/ Ambassador, but is enhanced with practical skills relating to running and interpreting Diagnostics, Developing hypothesis, Engagement and Consulting Skills, Design, Delivery and Measurement approaches.
Such development runs over a period of months, usually consisting of four forums of three days each. It is sequential in nature and includes an action learning component that is their focus between the forums. It also requires the direct sponsorship of the BU/Functional leader. As the Navigator is seen to be an extension of the hand of that leader, this is a critical and non-negotiable component that is needed for effective implementation of this approach.
Facilitators of Transformation
With large complex organizations, the most cost effective way of implementing the shifts in mindsets required for transformation, is to develop an internal cadre of Faciliators of Transformation, who run the workshops that focus on Personal Mastery, Mindset and Capability shifts that are core to success in the change journey.
The Facilitators of Transformation are recruited through a rigorous process that determines their suitability and level of consciousness for undertaking such a role. Pathways to Performance runs this recruitment, as it is different and goes to deeper personal and motivational levels than does usual employee engagement approaches. Successful candidates are then put into a full time program that will cover a number of months (based on the number and complexity of the programs to be delivered).
Facilitator development covers elements that are common to both Champions/Ambassadors and Navigators. However, there is a big focus on work around understanding and raising consciousness (conscious and sub-conscious drivers of behaviour), developing their breadth of facilitation skills, energy management, as well as the understanding of the content and the ability to deliver it effectively.
The training is undertaken usually the minimum of four times four day forums. In between time is dedicated to practicing (bunker sessions with each other where they co-coach and provide feedback) and live runs with ‘guinea pig’ participants. Session plans and other personalized material development is also required.
Facilitators are accredited through examination and practical sessions at a level of capability against the Facilitator of Transformation Competency Model (Pathways to Performance holds this model as the basis of the design and running of facilitator training and accreditation)
The process of practical accreditation is live with real participants.
Following the accreditation process there is a period of time when the new facilitator will co-lead internal sessions with a Pathways to Performance accredited facilitator. The number of sessions will be agreed per individual facilitator depending on their individual demonstrated level of competency.
Facilitators of Transformation – Advanced Program
Pathways to Performance also has the capacity to run advanced development programs with Facilitators. This is usually done when new programs for Personal and Relational development are to be introduced within the client. These programs are shorter by nature as the Facilitator is expected to do a degree of pre-preparation with the provided materials. Observation for accreditation is usually done as part of the training itself.
Shadowing Programs
As part of a whole systems transformation, or individual and team coaching approaches – shadowing is a useful approach for leaders to have continuous feedback real time. In this process Pathways to Performance contracts to attend the organization for a period of time, ideally directly following an intervention to shift mindsets and develop new behaviours. The intention is through observation in real circumstances, feedback and coaching in the moment, that what was learned is applied effectively.
Meeting Facilitation and Delegated Meeting Process Application
As an adjunct to Team Coaching processes, the actual facilitation of Leadership team meetings and/or the observation of the same, for a period of time, supports the embedding of new behaviours and relational dynamics. It also enables the confronting of dysfunctional interactions and provision of real time coaching whilst the teams work on real live business issues.
Appropriateness of meeting content, roles and processes are also attended to through this approach.
The introduction of delegated meeting process is a useful tool not only to allocate different meeting roles amongst the members, and thus take the load off the team leader, but also for development purposes as the delegated roles rotate meeting by meeting, providing the opportunity for all members to become more effective in all elements of holding and participating in meetings.
Pathways to Performance introduces the approach and then observes and provides initial guidance in its use, real time.
