Monday, June 29, 2015

No Sugarcoating Allowed: Four Honest Perspectives on Change Management

This panel consisted of people from Skokie Library at different levels of management (and non-management) discussing the large structural changes and remodel that happened at their library and how their staff dealt with it.  The synthesis was a lot of empathy, a lot of listening, and a lot of just allowing people to feel during the process to create buy-in and trust.  Here are the notes...

Importance of Transparency
  •      If there’s a void, there’s a story – someone will create their own story
  •       Importance of transparency – ego and individual career should be secondary to community need and communication
  •       No ever said “you’re telling me too much truth!” – you can’t over-communicate
  •       Keep what you’re going towards in mind because it will make the journey easier

Transition phases during Change
·      Recognize Endings and losses –
o   have to leave room to examine those feelings and acknowledge them (ex. loss of office space, loss of people or sitting next to others)
o   giving up parts of their positions that they found fulfilling and loved – validating people’s reality is important.  Listen.  It’s a process.  Be patient. 
o   Make it a safe place at an appropriate time for your staff. 
o   Facilitate connections.
·      Wandering in the wilderness
o   Time between what was and what will be
o   Period of high anxiety and low energy.  Low productivity and efficiency
o   Mixed signals – changing of responsibiltiies, confusion on decision making
o   Resignations and retirements – have to learn to work with new people; exacerbate anxiety
o   Reduced sense of competence
o   What’s a manager to do?  Keep listening.  Keep providing information on WHY.  Keep building bridges.  Mantra – It takes a year to go through, transition, accept, and work out this kind of change
·      A new beginning
o   Making the Emotional commitment to the new way


Parting Note:
Being a good leader isn’t about being the loudest voice in the room – quiet leadership, listening, guiding, is just as important as being loud and assertive

3 comments:

  1. Sounds like a worthwhile presentation - thanks for sharing your notes.

    Don

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  2. The question is how do the reviewers and supervisors of the leaders quantify "quiet leadership, listening, guiding"?

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    Replies
    1. How would you quantify any other type of leadership? Number of times you speak isn't necessarily a way to count leadership, or number of interactions. I think it needs to be more qualitative results. How is morale, how does staff feel, how is productivity? This seemed to be the approach Skokie was taking in determining whether they were heading towards the light or wallowing in the darkness.

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