Leading Change

When a person is leading change within their organization there are many things to consider. Why would someone even do want you are asking them to do, What are some key behaviors you want them to change, how will you execute your plan, and what do you do when emotions get high? 

Before you can even begin to make a change within your organization, people need to know the WHY behind your actions. If you can get to the heart of the matter and share why you want to make these changes then people are more likely to follow you, especially if they agree with your WHY. Start With Why (Sinek, 2009) is a great book to help you develop your WHY, HOW, and WHAT for yourself or your organization. I explain my WHY in the post Why I Do What I Do for my position as a technology integration specialist. Even when I was a small business owner that was one of the first things I did. I looked internally to determine why am I doing this and I made sure to share my WHY with other people. 

The next step in leading change is to determine what behavior/actions are needed to accomplish this change. You need to think of your desired result and the three vital behaviors that will make the most impact. From there you tap into the Six Sources of Influence in order to maximize the support of your plan. Influencer (Grenny, J., Patterson, K., Maxfield, D., McMillan, R., & Switzler, A., 2013), is a great read on the six sources. My Influencing Change post goes into greater detail on how I used this to plan what I wanted teachers to do when it comes to my innovation plan.

It's not enough to have a plan, you need a plan of attack! The 4 Disciplines of Execution (4DX) (McChesney, Covey, & Huling, 2012) is outstanding for planning how to execute your plan. No, you're not killing your plan but if you have too many goals then your plan may die a slow death in the whirlwind of daily work! 4DX has you pick only one or two wildly important goals to work on at a time and walks you through the whole process of execution. It's even great for personal plans and goals! I explain my outline for my plan of execution in the post Stages, Whirlwinds, and Disciplines Oh My!

While all these changes are happening within your organization, there are times when feelings get hurt or people feel threatened. This is where Crucial Conversations (Patterson, K., Grenny, J., McMillan, R., & Switzler, A., 2012) helps you to recognize when dialogue has stopped and people shut down. Patterson et al. have a whole table to use to help coach you through these difficult conversations that may arise. I know I would have no idea how to defuse these situations without it! I even made myself a book to help me remember the steps I can take when facing crucial conversations and how I can prep for them in my post Crucial Conversations.

These four books are ones that I will have within reach as I progress through the implementation of my innovation plan since they are vital resources for creating change within my organization.

References

Grenny, J., Patterson, K., Maxfield, D., McMillan, R., & Switzler, A. (2013). Influencer: The new science of leading change. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.

McChesney, C., Covey, S., & Huling, J. (2012). The 4 disciplines of execution: Achieving your wildly important goals. New York, NY: Free Press.

Patterson, K., Grenny, J., McMillan, R., & Switzler, A. (2012). Crucial conversations, Tools for talking when stakes are high. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill

Sinek, S. (2009). Start with why. United States: Portfolio.

images from Bitmoji