Friday, October 12, 2012

The business of change...

I just Googled 'change management'.  It turned up "about 273,000,000 results" according to Google Chrome.

Then I Googled 'leadership' and got "about 48,500,000.  Out of curiosity, I couldn't resist 'change leadership'... "about 134,000,000 results".

Good grief.

I attended a Marshall Goldsmith coaching masterclass is 2010.  http://www.marshallgoldsmithlibrary.com/

Similarly, Marshall had conducted a 'leadership' Google search and also commented on the number of guides and texts (never mind about the courses, programs and consultancies operating in this field) along with all the self-help publications on the topic.  He compared this with people trying to lose weight - always buying new products, trying new diets and exercise regimes, buying books on how to lose weight.

Tara Diversi http://taradiversi.com/ has also observed the millions made by the weight loss industry and the variable impact it has had on achieving successful weight loss.

Have the change management/change leadership books, resources, consultancies, courses (even entire qualifications) and programs resulted in better change management experiences?  I doubt it somehow.

John Kotter's HBR article, "Leading Change. Why transformational change efforts fail" is now listed as a classic and has been republished a number of times since it first appeared in 1995. It is still used and referred to by consultants and academics - I have earned money using the model myself.

I was recently introduced to Prochaska and DiClimente's "Stages of Change" model (1982), used in addiction counselling.  I don't have a direct link, but this will help http://www.agale.com.au/FiveStagesOfChange.htm

Joe Moore (at the time with Proactive Resolutions) now founding member of Kimber Moore & Associates http://au.linkedin.com/pub/joe-moore/12/150/27 tailored this to a model for managers and 'change agents' to use with individuals and teams to bring about behaviour change within an organisation.  Identifying the right intervention to use at the stage of readiness being critical.

Kevin Bourne (2009) has also looked at the stages of change and developed "The 7 Stages of Transformational Change. Coaching the "Journey" of Changing".  http://www.worklifeexpeditions.com/userfiles/403843/file/Coaching%20Process.pdf

OK, Kotter talked about this in 1995. Prochaska and DiClimente wrote up their model in 1982.  We are now in 2012!

Addiction counselling services largely use stages of change and the accompanying process "motivational interviewing".  An underlying principle is to 'roll with the resistance'.  A colleague and myself working on a major management development program added '...and maintain the momentum' to this, seeing that both working with people's readiness, rolling with rather than confronting their resistance AND keeping on keeping on was likely to bring better results than a big bang initiative.  It was working... we had hard evidence... and then senior management decided (despite the accolades and results) that they wanted to focus on something else and my colleague moved on to another project.

Which adds something else into the mix and now talked about in the change field - 'stickability', 'spreadability' and 'sustainability'.

Let's just remind ourselves of something - again.  A well researched and now evidence based model from 1982; an article widely used and respected from 1995.  And we are still looking for the holy grail of how to 'do change'.

Back to initial comment...

Good grief!

Change is hard.  Achieving behaviour change is not a simple or even complicated problem that can be reduced to task or action lists or replicable processes.  It is complex - a 'wicked problem' and one that seeing organisations as organic systems and webs of connectivity that operate despite the structure chart and formal hierarchies.

The Cynefin Framework is handy here - there's a YouTube guide here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mqNcs8mp74 and Harold Jarche has also referred to this on a number of occasions - here's one of them http://www.jarche.com/2009/12/embracing-complexity-at-work/




My conclusion? I'm not sure I have one - this is a 'wicked problem'.

I do believe that until we address some core issues (maybe the equivalent of exercise, portion control and what is actually consumed) we will remain like those on the quest for permanent weight loss... caught up in an industry that promises it has the easy, quick fix solution, or that someone else can solve the problem for us.

Losing weight and overcoming addiction happens when someone is ready, motivated and supported to do it.  Not when huge amounts of cash are handed over and someone else assumes responsibility.

One thought at a time...


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