The Disciplines of Managing Change in Human Systems
In recent blog posts we have looked at the stages of planned change, which can also be thought of in terms of critical interventions, and at the levels of organizations in which the skilled practitioner works. We also offered a general process of Organization Development that takes into account these stages and organizational levels. Now we will consider eight crucial disciplines, the mastery of which binds it all together.
Effectiveness with each of the prescribed stages of change across the levels of organization systems requires a degree of critical thinking that is generally beyond that found in the target organization and the general social milieu in which the organization exists.
Each of the eight disciplines directly supports the empowerability of human systems and the people that live and work within them. They also support the use of collaborative strategies and tactics aimed at open communication, consensual decision-making, cooperation, learning, and relationship building which together can make for powerful and productive human systems anywhere. Each is related to and supports the others toward a systemic understanding of critical thinking as applied to making humans systems both productive and satisfying.
These disciplines focus upon:
- Conscious Use of Self
- Systems Orientation
- Sound and Current Data
- Feedback
- Infinite Power
- Learning from Differences
- Empowerment
- Support Systems
We will look at each of them in greater detail in the coming weeks.
The Stages of the Organization Development Process, Part II
This is the second of two posts that look at the stages of the organization development process. The first post discussed Contracting and Re-contracting and Data Gathering; now we will look at the other three stages: Intervention, Evaluation and Disengagement. Bear in mind, however, that the stages are not discrete. They overlap. They are iterative. They often must be orchestrated simultaneously. Each can trigger the need for another.
Intervention
Implicit in the idea of the empowerability of human systems is the assumption that through improving relationships within the system the leaders and members of the system can begin to identify and resolve their own issues and, in the process, create whatever change they wish. This could mean improving the relationships and resolving conflicts between system structures, between groups, and between individuals. At the intrapersonal level, some change action is often needed to help resolve the internal conflicts that bedevil many system executives and managers.
Interventions, then—as a stage in the total change process—are those actions designed to improve relationships within the target system on behalf of opening communication and developing more informed and inclusive decision-making processes. Interventions include, in their various forms, feedback to the system, team-building, strategic planning, training, conflict management, and coaching.
Two important skills needed to design and carry out these interventions include group facilitation and conflict management. Those two skill sets require deep use of our listening and straight-talk capacities. A systems orientation wherein we act from a perspective that keeps in mind impact on the entire system is essential. Of course, the ability to use ourselves flexibly and congruently with any particular situation is fundamental. Use of self and a system orientation are notable as the first two change management disciplines described in the sections below.
Evaluation
As much an ongoing process as a specific stage, the Evaluation stage informs the change agent and the system about the results the change project or specific change actions have had. In essence, evaluation is a feedback-based data-gathering process—feedback which will give the change leaders critical information about how the system has responded to a change action and how they might design the next action to be more effective. This concept is notably different from the use of feedback as a means—generally, ineffective—of getting someone to change. Feedback is more useful as a means of determining the quality of relationship that has or has not been stimulated by a particular change action. Feedback is essentially an evaluation process that can also be used to gather data about what can make a more effective next change action.
Evaluative processes can be as simple as asking someone or a group how well something worked and what might work better next time. More formal group processes can take a form where everyone takes a turn responding to an evaluative question (such as, what did you learn about managing change this weekend?). System-wide evaluations might be done at the end of a change project and at periodic intervals after that to see how much staying power some systemic change might have. It is a good idea to have evaluative feedback processes built into a system’s ongoing routine to monitor the specific and general wellbeing of that system.
Disengagement
Little discussed in the change management literature is the process of completing or ending a change project. A typical disengagement process for the participants in the change project might include a closing evaluation session, statements of learnings gleaned from the project, and celebration of whatever success was achieved.
In addition, the change leaders—task leader(s) and process facilitator(s)—should get together to formally agree that the project is completed or otherwise at an end. Additional and more personal feedback might be shared in this meeting about what worked well, what worked less well, and what might be done differently in a future project. Some celebration would certainly be in order.
Appropriate closure and disengagement allow the system and the people in it to learn from their experience in the project and to let go of what has been completed to move effectively on to whatever is next.
Next we will look at the levels of organizational systems across which the stages are applied.
Critical Interventions : A New Take on The Stages of Planned Change
This cutting edge article has been moved to http://www.chumans.com/human-systems-resources/critical-interventions.html.
Please read it and send me your feedback.
Michael
Anatomy of an Intervention: The Intervention Cycle
Everything we do is an intervention in that everything we do or don’t do has an impact within the system of which we are a part.
Intention
- The overarching intention of an intervention should be to increase the support system for the goal toward critical mass.
- To establish the type of relaxed, person-to-person dialogue that is at the heart of effective collaboration and mutually useful communication within human systems.
- An intervention will generate useful information about the system regardless of its outcome.
Connection
- The intervention should be between the supporters of the goal and the goal
- The intervention should increase the quality of connection among the supporters themselves. The stronger, more open and supportive relationships within the target system, the higher the quality of connection will be. Support toward genuine curiosity, interest, and appreciation while allaying judgment works.
- Shifting conflict and conformity to learning from differences is important.
Intervention
Whatever you do to increase the connectivity toward the change goal.
Impact
The effect of the intervention in terms of movement toward the change goal
Dialogic Feedback
Discussion to determine how well the intervention created the desired impact in contrast to the actual impact so that the next intervention might be more effective if necessary.
Ego Management
- Check to see that the intervention is based on the needs of the system as well as your own issues regarding your sense of identity, self-esteem, or self-importance.
- Support your client to identify their ego needs and how to get them met in ways that support their change goals
- Ego issues tend to be a distraction from the intention of the change goal and to interfere with the building of the relationships needed to reach critical mass.