Learning to Lead Change

Learning to Lead Change The simplest definition of leadership says Peter Senge, of learning institution fame, is the readiness to produce modification. Does your organisation need to make up up exchange leadership capability? Theres a big emphasis now on leadership, not just conventional management skills. One reason is a growing recognition that in times of change, when systems are unstable and futures are uncertain, its leaders we need not managers.When you boil it down, leadership itself is largely about leading pack through change. Leaders are the paint drivers of change. They play a critical percentage in preparing people for it, and then leading them through it. No matter what your specific job, managers everywhere now need to be more change-adept. Organisations nowadays expect people to step out of their functional role and handle a formidable array of changes as part of their daily represent often with little preparation for it.In a word, we all need to become change leaders. Whether you introduce the change a better procedure, a service-delivery improvement, redesigning tap, merging bat units, designing a bare-ass product line or introducing a new piece of technology or whether its imposed on you, the ability to manage change and make it happen rapidly and smoothly is one of the keys to organisational vitality, renewal and success. And learning how to lead change is one of the critical skills that underscores successful implementation.To rush the ability to Identify when change is needed and constantly build their own and others capacity to learn, adapt and transform Translate change initiatives into functional visions and strategies staff find comprehensible and want to sign onto Design down-to-earth workplace change and improvement strategies people can work with Communicate understandably about change in ways people can understand Reduce uncertainty and convert anxiety, denial and resistance into constructive change push butt on Build momentum, create commitment, get people into action mode then facilitate them through change Many managers overlook the need to develop change capabilities in themselves or in others. Their assumption often sounds like this Ive been managing this organisation for years so I certainly know how to change it What organisations oftentimes fail to see is that the skills to build change leadership capability are very different to those needed to manage a business in rule operational mode. Everyday management skills, sound as they may be, just dont convert that easily into effective change leadership capabilities. bracing skills are needed but not many see this. Back to topKey practice areas for enabling change Heres a list of key practice areas for enabling change They inter-connect. Changes in one flow through to all the others Learning to Lead Change Put simply leadership is ofttimes about leading people through change. Leaders are key drivers of change and leadership lear ning should focus firmly on the critical role leaders play in preparing, and leading people through change in order to create change leaders those with the capability to communicate clearly about change in ways people can understand, shape a vision they can sign onto, build momentum, create commitment, get people into action and then facilitate them through it.Facilitating Change is a role for both change leaders and teams. It involves being capable of leading team activities, adopting a facilitation role to lead change teams and shifting from mental models of managing, organising or controlling to being facilitators & direction-setters. Leveraging Culture Very little changes unless the culture its possibility in gets addressed the habits, assumptions and shared mental models carried by yourself and others. This involves sensing the current culture, assessing how supportive or not this is for change outcomes you envisage and learning to leverage and work with the culture to get t hese change results.Promoting Change Participation Promote involvement in and responsibility for managing change processes. Our bias for participation is based on notice and experience that if you involve others in jointly determining what and how to change, it is more likely to be successful than imposed change. This involves working out ways to involve people both participation inside your change team or target group and with stakeholders outside it. Building Change Capacity What capacities do we need to build in order to change successfully? This includes individual skills, tools and disciplines you and your change team needs to develop change enabling capacity and the resources needed to support change tangible and in.It also involves building longer term change capability by embedding good practices in the work/learning habits of people squeeze by changes. Systems Redesign When things change, old work systems, processes and procedures need to change too. One reason change f ails is a lack of know-how or refusal to change old work patterns, systems, structures and mental models that get in the way. At whatever level, change leaders constantly look for more innovative, efficient and flexible ways of re-organising work processes and procedures to fit out ever-changing improvement challenges. All change leaders need to learn how to be systems redesigners. Change Leaders need Tools Without tools, guiding ideas remain un-actioned.Leaders need new tools and processes to make a positive contribution to these more flexible and fluid forms of learning if they are to use learning to change and respond more pronto to successive change challenges. Our leadership-learning emphasises being transparent about the tools we use and injecting specific learning tools into the change coaching/action learning process for people to turn up out and experiment with. Monitoring Change This involves developing ways to tell whether real change and improvement has taken place id entifying indicators and processes to evaluate whether our change actions and processes establish made a real difference and get back on-track if changes arent working.