When we being to work on transformation efforts, it is important that we are able to align the attitudes and values that will guide the transformation efforts. If individuals are not sincere , if people are not able to speak from their hearts and they don't mean what they say, then the people of the organisation will not be able to carry forward the change successfully. one of the ways to do this is to work on a three stage ,cycle of learning that was first employed by shell in their transformation efforts
Stage 1: Intellectual Understanding
When they first began their transformation efforts, leaders at Shell began by understanding and studying it. They got consultants , read books on change ,understood change models compared models.
Similarly in change efforts, the first stage should be about making the people and the system to intellectually understand what is happening, how it will happen all from a knowledge lens. This process will be slow , but such "studying will bring in an emotional engagement between the people and the change that is being planned
Stage 2 Emotional Engagement
This is a personal story of Linda Peierce who was an advisor to Shell's leadership during the transformation phase. She says that her own assumption of appearing to be competent and judging herself compared to others. But what this did was that she would not engage in wholesome discussions about the change but rather would be focus on being better than others , however through this transformation she learned to say, 'this will require thinking through'
Thus if sufficient number of people haven't made this transformation about one self, discussions around change will not be possible, or rather would be very Dry
Stage 3 Sustained Action
The intellectual insight and emotional liberation needs to be supplemented with sustained action. This means we need to find a coherence between the business proposition and the new found passion and emotional engagement. This involves viewing the entire business and its objective with a learners lens. That means, being ok with the fact that actions will require constant changing and reform
Bringing all this together
A cycle never stops, if a sustained organisational change needs to be sustained, we don't simply take actions that will fly off, rather the actions need to be integrated with development of new theory and emotional engagement.
In this cycle you return from action to intellectual arena but in a different way. A strong emotional engagement with the problem and the willingness to be vulnerable will allow individuals to experiment and then upon reflection design some implementation of them
Stage 1: Intellectual Understanding
When they first began their transformation efforts, leaders at Shell began by understanding and studying it. They got consultants , read books on change ,understood change models compared models.
Similarly in change efforts, the first stage should be about making the people and the system to intellectually understand what is happening, how it will happen all from a knowledge lens. This process will be slow , but such "studying will bring in an emotional engagement between the people and the change that is being planned
Stage 2 Emotional Engagement
This is a personal story of Linda Peierce who was an advisor to Shell's leadership during the transformation phase. She says that her own assumption of appearing to be competent and judging herself compared to others. But what this did was that she would not engage in wholesome discussions about the change but rather would be focus on being better than others , however through this transformation she learned to say, 'this will require thinking through'
Thus if sufficient number of people haven't made this transformation about one self, discussions around change will not be possible, or rather would be very Dry
Stage 3 Sustained Action
The intellectual insight and emotional liberation needs to be supplemented with sustained action. This means we need to find a coherence between the business proposition and the new found passion and emotional engagement. This involves viewing the entire business and its objective with a learners lens. That means, being ok with the fact that actions will require constant changing and reform
Bringing all this together
A cycle never stops, if a sustained organisational change needs to be sustained, we don't simply take actions that will fly off, rather the actions need to be integrated with development of new theory and emotional engagement.
In this cycle you return from action to intellectual arena but in a different way. A strong emotional engagement with the problem and the willingness to be vulnerable will allow individuals to experiment and then upon reflection design some implementation of them
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