What exactly is an effective team?
Is a team productive if they complete the task on time, but had such a toxic experience in doing so that they never want to work together again? I was once part of a team like this. We were four…
Reading For A Change
It's summertime as I write, a time when things slow down from the usual pace we experience for the rest of the year. So I’m enjoying taking time to read some new books and revisit old favorites. I think you…
Holidays ~ Good For Change!
It’s mid-summer in the Northern Hemisphere, which means that here in the Washington, D.C. area, we are experiencing the full combination of heat, humidity, and holidays! The heat and humidity are easy to find; just open the door to…
Learn and Adjust As You Go
You bring the change team together for one of your regular meetings. The change initiative has been underway for six months. You've been following the "rolling six month plan" that you developed together. You have just completed a round of…
SCAMPER your way to innovative solutions
Do you remember how you felt in April 2020? That was the point when we all began to realize that this COIVD-19 pandemic might be around for longer than we had anticipated. And all the plans we had for the…
Watch out for Fatal Assumptions!
Kolmanskop is an abandoned town on the edge of the Namib Desert in southern Africa. Once it was one of the wealthiest, most lively places in that country. Today, it is considered a 'ghost town' and the desert has reclaimed…
Monitor Progress with Key Indicators
We know that not everything in your plan will go according to plan. You will need to be nimble and adaptive, responding to what is actually taking place, rather than what you hoped would be taking place! When you are…
Form a Change Monitoring Group to Stay Informed
Congratulations! You've started implementing your change initiative, following the steps laid out in your plan. Smooth sailing from now on, right? Unfortunately, you are going to face bumps along the way. Some of them will come from within the organization.…
Develop a Stakeholder Assessment
You can learn a lot about stakeholder perceptions when you are mapping the current situation. In fact, you might even interview selected stakeholders during that step. As a structured activity, the stakeholder assessment is an opportunity to have a conversation…
Communicating About Change
There's an inbuilt problem with change processes. Few people know about them before they are launched, often with great fanfare. And that can come as an unpleasant surprise, leading people to doubt the motives of the change leaders and to…