Change Process Design

After doing this task you should have four different designs for your process:

• 6½ Disciplines of your change process
• A logical model of the connections in your change process
• A break down in possible workshops and in-between projects
• A timeline for the whole process

Each of these designs should be a drawing that gives an overview of the process.

6½ disciplines in breakthrough learning

Usually a change process takes time. As a process designer you often are asked to make a one-time event, like a meeting or a retreat. This does not guaranty that the change process becomes a success. In the book 6 Disciplines in Breakthrough Learning by Calhoun Wick et. al. they identify these 6 disciplines that you should include in your design:

• Define the desired outcomes in business terms and in very concrete and visible signs
• Design the whole process from design to follow-up
• Introduce directly applicable ideas and methods
• Provide training and access to help as an integrated part of the process
• Document the outcomes continuously
• Provide feedback and adjustments in the whole process

I recommend you to include elements from the toolboxes of project leadership and process leadership on top of these. They are part of the directly applicable ideas and methods.

An overall logical model of the change process

A process design usually follows an overall logical design. One example could be Theory U as presented in Presence by Peter Senge and others:

This overall model will give you a series of steps you can follow in the design of each of the steps. A process has a Desired Outcome and each step should produce Outcomes that are the foundation for the next step. An overall model usually has a logical model and a timeline. In some case I use Peter Senge’s Five Disciplines in the learning organization as the overall model. In this case I have to organize the disciplines into an overall model and create my own timeline. Your overall model should be chosen according to the purpose of the process.
In general your overall logical model should fit with the unit of change: Community, Organization, Team or Individual. It should also fit with the topic of your change process Theory U applies in all change situations but you could find more specific models like the Team Performance Model by Forrester and Drexler. The overall model will make it easier for you to find ideas on which exercises to choose.

The idea is to have a solid progression throughout the process. You will need this model to make the first draft of the program for the process.

Timeline
Your next job is to make a breakdown of the process into a timeline, which could look like this:

With this timeline you can begin to estimate the length of the change process and the different events and projects you will need in order to make the change process a success.
If you are working in a small organization with a small topic like “better meetings” you will not have to make this drawing but it is always a good idea to have a sketch to focus the conversation with the client.
With these two overall designs in place the next step is to begin to choose and design the exercises. The main reason is that the details that need to be coordinated are found in the design of the exercises because all the connections will show up here.

Inspiration from existing methods for change in organizations

There are hundreds of different methods for change processes in organizations and communities and there are thousands of exercises you can choose from. The most precious criteria for choosing between methods and exercises is the Purpose of the process. To give you a general idea of the kinds of purposes you will be dealing with The Change Handbook identifies these categories of methods.

The main difference between these categories of methods is the purpose:

• Planning methods are designed to create long term transformation in the organization and will normally involve all the aspects of the organization
• Improvement methods are usually designed to create short term changes in some of the aspects of the organization
• Structuring methods are designed to change or transform all or some of the structures of the organization
• Adaptive methods are designed so they can be used for change and transformation in all or some of the aspects of the organization
• Support methods are designed to support the other processes

A process is a negotiation of the interests of people who can promote and oppose the implementation of the results from the process and even the process itself. Most of the methods can handle this diversity of interests and groups of possible participants. The only thing you have to find out is if there are really strong conflicts of interest. There is only a few of the methods that are designed to handle strong conflicts in a constructive way. If you expect potentially strong conflicts of interest or people with strong personal conflicts to participate in the process, you need to look for methods based on mediation. Prosperity Games is a good choice because it was designed to handle strategic planning between competitors.

Have you ever wondered how a large group of migrating birds decide how to go on a long journey together? A change process is very similar to a group of migrating birds leaving on a long journey together. For the birds the purpose of the journey is either to go somewhere to rise the next generation or to go somewhere to eat in times where the food supply is low.

In a group of human beings it is also a journey to a hopefully better place that will get them to start on the journey. When the birds are about to leave they perform something called Black Sun. A very large group of birds perform a very fascinating aerial ballet, where they fly around and almost block the light of the sun. But they leave when enough of them lift from the ground and fly at the same time. Change happens when enough people start doing new things at the same time.

Usually the purpose of a change process is to find a new and attractive direction that is attractive to enough of the participants to start the personal change process. The more attractive the direction is the easier it will be for them to begin the process together.

We resist change when the new direction does not make sense for us, when we do not have access to the necessary resources and when we are forced to go in a particular direction pointed out by people we do not trust. To trust a person is to leave part of your own destiny in this person’s hands. The purpose of a change process is to find the direction, make it attractive, and discover what we need to learn before we start the journey and then begin to practice the skills we need to master the journey and the new place we are going to build after we have made the journey of exploration.

To find the purpose of the journey you need to investigate the challenges the group you are working with is facing now and in the future. Challenges are both to improve the present solutions and to develop new solutions to challenges we haven’t mastered yet.

They do not need to agree completely on the relevance of the challenges. They need an overall agreement on the need for change and that they do not know which way is the best right now.

You job is to invite everyone to describe the challenges of the groups as they see it now. After collecting them you need to sort them into categories and give each category a headline.

With these headline you can write a general invitation to the change process. The invitation should include:

• a short description of the challenges as you can see them right now
• a short description of the trends and discontinuities you are expecting in the near future
• a suggestion of organizing a change process that will find a way to handle these challenges now

If you can collect the challenges in a one-liner or a motto and put that at the top of the invitation you are ready to present the change process to everyone. “The journey of exploration to the most attractive organization in the world – how” is an example. You should work hard to create a one-liner that meets these standards:

• it should formulate what you want in an attractive way
• it should point to the future
• it should be inclusive to everyone who can oppose and promote the change process
• it should reflect the purpose of the organization or community
• it should be as ambitious as possible
• it should keep the final set of solutions and the concrete path to the future open

If the change process is directed at a specific set of challenges or a specific part of the organization you can reduce the one-line to: “The journey to the best human resource development department in the world – how?”

The concrete tasks and topics you will have to address in the change process will show up during the process. If you limit the process to specific tasks and topics you will often experience that it is necessary to include other tasks and topics in the change process, because things are interconnected when you want to create change.

If you change the tasks, the people need to learn new skills, you often have to change the way they do the tasks and your need to reorganize according to the changes. Today many of these changes include changes in your cooperation and contracts with external suppliers.

Your most important tools are connected to imagination, play and construction. Your first challenge is to imagine, what this change process is going to look like. You are designing and planning two things at the same time. The change process and the construction of the change process.

When the change and learning takes place it looks like this. A group of highly concentrated and engaged people in a conversation using all their senses.

What is happening is that people are imagining, playing with and constructing

• who they could be and how they can contribute to the new community they are going to build
• the personal relationships they need to have in order to achieve this future
• the landscape inside and around the community
• who and what in these landscapes can influence the future of the community
• events that could help the new community to prosper or to make it break down
• the preventive actions they can take in order to keep the community safe and on the right trackt to the future they prefer

The participants are on a journey of exploration to their new community bringing all their experience and skills and lots of hopes of success and opes of avoiding too much failure.

You are going to produce the stage and script for the events that make it possible for people to do that together in a group that is much more diverse than they usually see themselves.

As the designer of the change process you need to imagine yourself as a creator of a total theater production, where the audience is creating the content of the play in a series of stages. Each stages unites elements of performative, auditory and visual arts with philosophy, psychology, organizational theory and literature into order to achieve unique results.

So you need to feel comfortable in this creative process, which usually means that you should choose which of the performing arts and which of the theoretical foundations you believe in yourself. If you invite people into the universe of a theater production you will be surprised how skilled they are in creating a fantastic play.

If you use the metaphor of a circus production, you can ask people to build a circus performance like this: Divide the participants into groups, who have to invent and rehearse their act, one group is the clowns, other groups are the wild beasts, the orchestra, the acrobats, the jugglers and so on. You give each group 2 hours to prepare the act and tell them where they can find materials for their performance and where the circus performance is going to take place. They have to coordinate the performance while they rehearse. They have to give the order of the performance to the director of the circus, who is going to do the introductions.

In a change process you create the stages and provide the things people need to build the play. You will need help to create the theater and the sets for the stages in the play. If you provide professional support for the participants they can build the sets for the stages themselves.

In total theather the idea is to create space and time for that make it possible for the participants to be capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason. Total theater aim to explore ideas and points of view and open the doors for alternative models of perception, organization, and understanding. Of course as times, technologies and experiences develop, strategies on how to achive this will have to shift as well.

What you need to bring in your change process toolbox is knowledge on how to do the different logical tasks presented here. You need to have examples of

• Well proven overall methods for change processes in large groups, I suggest you should know Open Space Technology, Appreciative Inquiry Summit, Real Time Strategic Change and Prosperity Games
• Well proven ideas on human change and learning processes for individuals, groups and organizations, Social constructionism is at the centre of the methods for change processes in large groups
• Well proven ideas on performing arts where storytelling is at the heart of all of them
• Well proven exercises, scripts, timelines, invitations, agendas and everything else you need in the design and planning of the change process

You do not need to have experience with all of these but it is much easier to make a change process design if you have been a participant or facilitator yourself. If you need help, you should be able to find people with experience in the many different areas involved in the design process. And you will need many of them to participate in the construction of the exercises and sets and as facilitators or practical assistance in the process.

If you want a more scientific introduction to what you are doing in a change process, you can search for the science of Lego Serious Play. I can be a good source if your client wants to know why you are doing things in this way.

The last time I searched for it, I found it here:

http://www.rasmussen-and-associates.com/downloads/science_of_LSP.pdf

The scope of the process is addressing questions like:

• Who is going to be invited to participate in the process?
• Who is going to be included in the process when it is necessary and how?
• How many resources do we have to design and conduct the process?
• How long time can we use in the different activities we have to include?
• How much support can we draw into the process
• Which physical and virtual spaces can we use in the process?

It can be a good approach to decide on a feasibility study to define the answers to these questions.

A general idea is that people who have to support the implementation of the change should be invited as early as possible in the process. If you cannot invite them in the beginning then you should have a plan on how to include them later and how to adjust the new set of solutions to their suggestions.

If you get strong limitations on either of these questions it is important that you tell the people who gives you the limitations of the possible consequences. The more you miss in the beginning the more you have to correct later on. The more the new set of solutions will demand from important people, the more you need to keep them well informed on these demands.

A change process is a journey of exploration. The principles you need to apply are not the same as you usually work with. Here I have collected some of the most important principles.

The purpose of the journey is to find a new and improved set of well functioning solutions to the challenges you are facing. This means these solutions are interconnected and you need to keep that in mind in the whole process.

So the first principle is to give up your habits and habitual thinking.

The second principle is to give up the habit of discussion and have a dialogue instead.

Collective dialogue works if all the participants

• Give up goal orientation
• Explore different points of view
• Co-create new points of view
• Play, imagine and construct ideas and new practices

Inner dialogues work when you formulate your own points of views clearly, listen for the inspiration in other points of view and shuffle them all and re-formulate your new ideas. This is really hard work, so it takes some time. It is hard work because the brain uses at least 25 percent of the total energy of the body. And usually people need to sleep before they have made sense of all the impressions. Technically the brain rebuilds itself while you sleep.

To achieve dialogue you have to introduce these rules:

• Find the spirit of free play with ideas
• Leave the weapons outside
• Give up goal orientation
• Explore different points of view

The third principle is involvement and transparency

If you invite people to participate in the exploration of possible futures, you will benefit from their experience and knowledge. They will know why new set of solutions are necessary and the probability of gaining their support for the new set of solutions will grow.

If you do not invite them from the beginning you can involve them along the way. In the worst case they will be very surprised when you introduce new solutions without telling them. They often react with confusion, skepticism or  even anger.

They will always ask: Why is this important and which consequences will it have for me?

You need to keep the whole process transparent if you want to have access to their experience and knowledge and to avoid surprises. It is always a good idea to inform as open as possible about the progress.

The fourth principle is to be over prepared and under decided. On the journey of exploration you need to be able to react if something unexpected and important happens on the way. You have to be prepared for the unexpected and you have to decide along the way as you learn what is needed.

The fifth principle is to have the end in mind all the time and take the first things first.

You will benefit a lot from reading Stephen Covey’s book 7 Habits of highly effective people.