Presentation I delivered at a Seminar hosted by Knowledge Resources focussing on Internal Communications (18 September 2008) Topic: Change management: creating shared meaning, commitment and sustained effort in organisational change initiatives through interactive and collaborative comunication techniques

1. Change management: creating shared meaning,
commitment and sustained effort in
organisational change initiatives through interactive
and collaborative communication techniques
18 September 2008

2. Agenda…
• Does this Sound Familiar?
• Organisational Change
• The Change Curve
• Case Study
• World Café
• Aspects to Address during Interactive Events

3. Does this sound familiar?
• Why could the change initiators not transfer the
energy for the change to the organisation?
• Why didn’t people “get” that this change was
ultimately for the good of everyone?
• What could be done to create ownership of the
problems and the solutions among all people
involved?

4. “Tappers” and “Listeners”…
• Elizabeth Newton (1990) studied a simple game in
which she assigned participants to one of two roles:
“tappers” or “listeners”.
• Tappers have been blessed with the “curse of
knowledge” – once we know something, it is hard to
imagine what it was like not to know it (Heath &
Heath, 2008).

5. Organisational Change…
• All too often, organisational change is initiated by
executive and/or senior leadership, with the help of
a few external consultants.
• This small group of people spends a significant
amount of time discussing, debating, arguing, and
analysing the reasons for having to change – creating
the tune in their heads.

6. The Change Curve…
Confidence
Current
Reality
Competence
Sense of
Denial
Productivity
accomplishment
Increased
Anxiety
productivity
Fear
Commitment
Resistance Recognition of
opportunity
Immobilisation
Exploration
Valley of
Despair
Disruption
Transition
Time

7. Organisational Change…
• This apparent gap between the leadership group and
the rest of the organisation can create a great deal of
frustration:
– on the one hand because the leaders appear
unsympathetic, and
– on the other hand that the employees appear
unwilling, non-supportive and non-committed

8. Case study…
• A regional office of a South African Information and
Communications Technology (ICT) company
implemented a strategy that is focused on improving
service delivery and support, as well as client and
employee satisfaction.
• Senior management team launched an initiative at
the various operational sites.
• Longest period of service stability 24 days.

9. Case study…
• Employees became discouraged due to all the
“resets” and the programme started losing
significance and credibility.
• It also appeared that employees did not support or
understand the guidelines of what constituted an
incident; and that they lacked information on how to
prevent previous incidents from occurring again.
• Employees interpreted this as “just another
management intervention”.

10. Case study…
• Management team found themselves in the
unfortunate position of having to continue with the
programme without the necessary support from the
employees.
• Management team agreed to use an interactive and
collaborative conversational process (the World
Café) to create shared meaning and buy-in.

11. World Café Conversations…
• Have been used
successfully with
groups as small as 12
and as large as 1200
people
• Participants
encouraged to
contribute in small
groups

12. World Café Principles…
Clarify the
context
Make collective
Create warm
knowledge and
and friendly
insight visible
environment
and actionable
Harvest and Explore
share collective questions that
discoveries matter
Connect
diverse people
and
perspectives

13. The Intervention…
• Ninety employees (out of a possible 120) attended
the intervention and spent only two hours exploring
the following three questions which related to
aspects of legitimacy of the programme, motivation,
and ownership:
– How do you feel about the service improvement
programme?
– What will happen if we don't have something like the
service improvement programme on site?
– How can we improve the service improvement
programme to achieve exceptional results?

14. Number of days
100
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
0
Reset 1
0
Reset 2
5
Reset 3
2
Reset 4
7
Moving from Conversation to Action…
Reset 5
2
Reset 6
9
24
Reset 7
16
Reset 8
Reset 9
1
Reset 10
3
Reset 11
3
15
Reset 12
16
Reset 13
18
Reset 14
10
Reset 15
Reset 16
9
12
Reset 17
World
event
Café
25
Reset 18
44
Reset 19
68
Reset 20
81
Current

15. What Participants had to Say…
A perfect opportunity for interaction with
A positive impact on the effectiveness of the
other employees:
programme:
“It felt good to participate in something like
“I am very sure that if we didn't have this
this. I often feel that we are just sitting in our
intervention, we would still have struggled on
offices, doing our job, but we don't really
like before... there were lots of new ideas that
communicate with the people around us...
we worked with after the session and created
and this created that opportunity... I didn't
a new process. This intervention definitely
feel like an outsider anymore...”
created the turning point in our programme
and created lots of energy and creativity in
teams. It also stimulated interaction between
the people and the various teams”
Opportunities for alignment, resulting in
participants taking ownership of the
programme:
Employees could contribute without fear of
victimisation and add suggestions on how to “This was the first time it was really
improve the current programme: communicated well. People could see and
understand what it was about – and just this
“In a normal forum, like the official site
communication already made a big difference.
communication session we have on a monthly
It is more fun and not as rigid as it was before
basis, you are not given an opportunity to air
when management initiated it... it now
your views... seeing that we could, caused
belongs to all of us.”
others to air their views and speak the truth.”

16. Importance of involving employees…
• The 21st century global environment (uncertainty and
rapid change) versus the more predictable twentieth
century.
• Utilise more effective interactive and collaborative
communication techniques.
• Various methodologies to consider:
– World Café
– Whole Scale Change
– Open Space Technology
– Appreciative Inquiry
– Drum Café
– Future Search, etc.

17. Importance of involving employees…
HI
The depth and breadth
of agreement on the
future is directly
Whole System’s
related to who is
Head & Heart
Connection
going to get it done!
DVFS>R
Percentage
--- in other words –
Those who envision the
future are the ones
who end up making it
Speed of
LO HI happen!
Transformation

18. Aspects to address during interactive communication events
Direction Energy Distributed
leadership (employee
• Legitimacy in the eyes of • “Gut-level” as well as
ownership)
all employees. “head level” engagement.
• Management should not • Opportunities for good
• Employees enabled to
be clinging too tightly to a ideas to come from
own their problems and
previously designed and anywhere.
solutions.
implemented solution. • WIIFM (What’s-in-it-for-
• They should have the
me)
information, skills, and
resources.
• Should be important for
all employees.

19. Conclusion…
• Rhetoric of employee involvement in the planning and
execution of initiatives, yet organisations often plan and
communicate initiatives top-down, without involving
employees in the process.
• What is needed for effective, sustainable change are sessions
in which people collectively explore each other’s assumptions,
seek and expand common ground, shape a desired future and
jointly take ownership of the solutions to the issues at hand.
• Example: Launch of a major programme consisting of a
number of projects to all affected employees…

20. Questions…

21. References…
Newton, E. (1990). Overconfidence in the communication of intent: Heard and
unheard melodies. Unpublished Ph.D dissertation, Stanford University.
Heath, C. & Heath, D. (2008). Made to stick. London: Random House Books.
Holman, P., Devane, T., & Cady, S. (Eds.). (2007). The change handbook (2nd
ed.). San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers.
Kubler-Ross, E. (1989). On Death and Dying. London: Tavistock/Routledge.
(Original work published 1969).