The Leading Meaningful Change Framework
The Leading Meaningful Change Framework In this chapter you will be introduced to the LMC Framework. I want to begin with a personal story about my background in this field, which led me to derive many of the principles of the framework and to my belief in the value of leading change using the process that I will explain.
As a reminder, the Use-of-Self plays a critical part throughout the entire LMC Framework. As the prior chapter emphasized, it is at the core of and necessary to creating and leading meaningful change. As you review and understand the LMC Framework in this chapter, keep in mind that your Use-of-Self is constantly at play in implementing these principles.
I began my training in a program called Special Care Counselling at Vanier College in Montreal in 1978. It was a fairly new program at that time, designed to educate individuals to work with special needs and vulnerable people. Between this three-year program and my subsequent job as a childcare worker, I learned the fundamentals of systems thinking, group dynamics, program design and evaluation, facilitation, and coaching. In addition to classroom instruction, we were supervised at our client sites, in real time, as we completed three field placements. We also participated in peer learning groups where we reflected on what we were doing in our placements and obtained input and feedback from each other that helped us advance our learning. This was the beginning of a lifelong learning and doing process that I continue to practice 40 years later.
This journey has taught me that to be effective in helping people learn and adapt to change, leaders have to consider the person with whom they are working as part of a larger system. This means developing empathy for them as human beings, walking in their shoes, and considering their day-to-day and the systems they interact with or that influence them in order to co-develop with them an approach and plans that will motivate and empower them to achieve the desired goals and objectives. The individuals and groups of people with whom we work have to be motivated and feel as if they are truly part of the process to develop, implement, and evaluate the plan. The activities, tools, and techniques of change must be customized to meet their needs and enhance their work. It is also important to understand that when you make a change in one part of the system, it can have an impact on other parts that will also need to be considered in order to have sustainable change.
My first deep experience with this precept was in 1996 when I was working full time at the Regional Municipality of Ottawa–Carleton (now known as the City of Ottawa) in the Social Services Department. At that time, I was the supervisor of a team of welfare workers and a member of the district area management team.
In the previous year (1995), a new provincial government had been elected on a conservative platform focused on reducing the size of government, lowering income taxes, and creating more jobs. With this platform, the government launched a significant reform in the delivery of social services, including a reduction in welfare benefits and the number of people on social assistance. As part of the makeover, the Ontario government embarked on a “business transformation project” that was a technological overhaul of the province’s welfare system. A number of fraud-control mechanisms were put in place, including the creation of a single province-wide welfare database, expanded information sharing among government bodies, and an automated eligibility review process.
This was a radical change from the way we worked under the previous government. Prior to 1995, we provided the highest rates for financial assistance for those in need across the country, but we also had the highest number of people receiving assistance as a result of the 1990–91 recession. The philosophy of our social services programs was rooted in supporting unemployed people to be self-sufficient not only in the short term, but for the long term through education, job-search assistance, and training programs until they secured long-term sustainable work. But the new government was less patient and declared that social assistance was meant to be temporary, so any job was a good job.
These top-down changes were sudden and not well received. I remember the day the cuts to social services were announced over the radio. We had no prior knowledge of what they would be. We, the management team, met in the boardroom and listened to the radio announcement while our staff were doing the same at their desks. Our clients received the same information via radio as we did, with no follow-up plan to address their needs or concerns.
Many of us, myself included, were conflicted, as we were not aligned with the values and principles that guided the new policies. This was a philosophical shift for us, one requiring a significant transformation in our culture, not only for those of us who were leaders, but also for our teams, clients, organization, and community. I realized I had to dig in and figure out what our people needed so I could lead and manage through these upcoming changes. As a management team, we had to be thoughtful in our approach to the change, so at that time, it felt like we were building the plane as we were trying to fly it.
As a public servant and supervisor, I was responsible for honoring the democratic process that elected the new government. I had to lead my team to implement these changes, even though they required us to dismantle many of the very programs and services that we had built in prior years and that we believed were having a positive impact on our clients and the community. I knew that I personally had to work on my Use-of-Self to be effective as a leader, given the context of our new world and my own personal uncertainty and resistance to the way the changes were being led and managed.
Over the next days, the management team met with our people to talk about the impacts of the changes. The savings targets were set, but there was no plan for how to achieve them. It was our first experience of leading organizational change in this manner as a municipal government, and for me as a leader of change. Within our department we had the skills to coach our clients through the personal journey of job change, but we were unprepared to do this for ourselves.
For the entire year that followed, we lived with uncertainty, not knowing who was going to have a job and who would be let go, myself included. This situation created a lot of fear, anxiety, confusion, and discontent. People were also concerned and skeptical about the approach to change. Many believed it was driven solely by the financial targets, technology, and templates. We received information only on an as-needed basis, so we did not fully understand the purpose, overall plan, or process. It was a perfect storm of how not to do change.
With the support of my colleagues and as part of my graduate studies (in the Master of Applied Social Science program, now called Applied Human Sciences) at Concordia University while working full time, I designed a survey that went out to all staff across the department to assess what was needed to lead and manage this change. It was the first such survey ever done. Its questions were designed to explore how people were thinking and feeling about the changes and what they needed in terms of skills, knowledge, and abilities to lead, manage, and implement the new directives.
From the survey results, we learned that 76 percent of the respondents did not have previous training in organizational change, so we created a leadership development program for the staff, including all supervisors, managers, directors, senior managers, and the commissioner of social services, to help us learn new ways to work together and develop the skills to lead and manage change in our department.
The experience of developing and delivering this program was life-changing for all of us. Our commissioner played an active role in engaging people at all levels, seeking their input, and leveraging the expertise of the business transformation team who were developing and overseeing the change strategy at the corporate level. He was a great role model, communicator, and advocate for our clients. He addressed issues, squashed rumors, and kept his finger on the pulse of people’s reactions to the changes throughout the process.
We simultaneously developed people at all levels of the organization. We sought to put everyone on the same page and helped them understand the need for change. People rallied together around a common purpose and understood how they could be involved in the process. All training materials were customized so they could be applied to people’s real work—and vice versa, with our real work challenges and examples being used to inform the learnings and adapt the change plan as needed.
Through this experience, I learned that meaningful change cannot be achieved simply by driving a tactical or transactional plan to implement new processes or technologies. It has to have meaning by making sense to the people involved and those impacted by the changes. People want and need to be involved, developed, and empowered. I also learned that the change process needs to be grounded in a shared purpose and supported with a coordinated plan that is integrated and aligned with the strategic priorities of the entire organization to address the business needs. It needs to attend to and, as necessary, shift the organizational culture—all at the same time.
This experience was a catalyst for change in my personal and professional life and propelled me into a career that I never would have previously imagined. It is for these reasons that I began the journey of developing people to lead meaningful change. The lessons I learned then, and from the clients and colleagues with whom I’ve worked over the past three decades, remain relevant today. These experiences led me to develop the following seven guiding principles that can be applied to any change project, regardless of size and complexity. These are the principles of the LMC Framework today:
These principles are critical, with each one building on the next to create a holistic change environment that has meaning for everyone. Let’s take a look at each of them.
The process to develop a change plan is just as important, if not more crucial, than the change plan itself. Creating a shared purpose, vision, principles, and values that people understand and agree with allows them to see themselves as active participants in the change journey rather than as passive followers. A shared purpose captures early involvement and support for the change, reduces tensions and conflict, and leads to better results. A shared vision and surrounding principles and values behind it act like a compass that guides individuals, teams, and the entire organization throughout the change journey.
In his book The Purpose Effect: Building Meaning in Yourself, Your Role, and Your Organization, Dan Pontefract describes the importance of understanding the interconnection between personal, organizational, and role purposes. He states that when all three purposes are aligned and congruent, it delivers a balanced state that he calls the “sweet spot” because it results in a multiplier effect that brings out the best performance in leaders, employees, teams, customers or clients, and, most importantly, society as a whole.10 In other words, when all three purposes are aligned and enacted, everyone wins.
Creating a shared purpose is not an amorphous exercise. There are numerous strategies you can implement to co-develop the purpose, inviting everyone to participate in the process. Your ongoing and conscious Use-of-Self is especially valuable as you use such strategies to
In chapter 6, you will read about the Envisioning Success Exercise, which you can adapt to create your shared purpose, vision, and guiding principles to help you lead meaningful change. In chapter 7, we will explore the strategies that the senior leadership team at the City of Ottawa used to create a shared purpose that was embraced across the corporation.
Organizations today comprise multiple generations working together in their workplace. In our fast-paced environment, organizations need to develop people in real time. They must put in place succession plans, coaching, and mentoring as well as on-the-job training to develop and engage people throughout the process. Learning and development are therefore critical.
In my experiences, I prefer a blended learning approach that uses both formal and informal learning. In both cases, the learning is also customized so that we can “use work, not make work.” In other words, the goal is to provide people with opportunities to ground their learning in their real work as they learn, practice, and apply new concepts and skills in real time. This approach ensures that the learning being done in a formal classroom setting or working sessions, and/or informally through social interactions, can be applied and sustained between sessions and thus have a real impact in their workplace.
Informal learning has become increasingly prevalent in many workplace environments. Human resources professionals and operational leaders believe that employees themselves may be initiating informal learning to a greater extent than previously thought. The Conference Board of Canada’s August 2018 report Informal Learning: A Spotlight on Hidden Learning in the Canadian Workplace cited the Workplace Environmental Index (WEI), which measures 32 rated elements representing both the quality and state of an organization’s work environment and the strength of its learning culture. The study showed informal learning has increased to 62 percent and formal learning decreased to 38 percent among the participants in the survey. More revealing is that 78 percent of the respondents spend up to two hours per week on self-directed learning on the job.11
Employers need to be clear about the role of workers when it comes to their learning and development, versus the role the employer should play. The data suggest that employees are okay with a level of shared responsibility when it comes to their learning. Nevertheless, research shows that senior management support for learning and development is essential. This includes explicitly supporting and approving resources needed for informal learning. Organizations should invest in informal learning activities that are likely to have the greatest payoff, such as coaching and mentoring. In Canada, strong WEI organizations are four times more likely to offer coaching to their employees compared with moderate or weak WEI organizations. Employer-supported conference attendance and mentoring programs are also important. Results indicate that strong WEI organizations were three times more likely to offer both of these learning opportunities to their employees than moderate or weak WEI organizations.
In 2016, the Conference Board produced another report, Employee Engagement: Leveraging the Science to Inspire Great Performance, based on data from a survey of 400 Canadian employees and a ten-year longitudinal database of engagement surveys that established the Conference Board of Canada’s employee engagement model.12 This research showed that while organizations understand the importance of having an engaged workforce, it is not clear what exactly engagement consists of and how it can be used to improve organizational culture and performance. However, the model highlights key workplace characteristics that drive employee engagement. These are grouped into seven distinct factors or drivers that have been proven to be associated with highly engaged employees:
This research, along with my own experiences in developing programs to support people leading change, shows the need for learning and development in real time throughout any change process. People want to make a difference. They are in search of meaning in their work and they want to develop the skills necessary to do it. They want to be involved in the process. Therefore, how we engage and involve others need to be thoughtful and relevant and result in actions that help people develop the mindsets, values, behaviors, and skills they need to be successful.
Change initiatives are often complex, involving multiple stakeholders from inside and outside the organization and at various organizational levels. Given the fast pace, high impact, and complexity of change, it is essential that you build relationships with trust, confidence, and empathy among those you lead, work with, and serve, as well as among those who may be impacted in the change process. In this regard, you need to develop two key levels of outreach.
The first is an effort to create strong interpersonal relationships. Your ability to meaningfully connect and build trust and credibility with another human being is critical. You need to be empathetic—able to walk in the shoes of the people you lead, manage, and serve. This starts with finding ways to fully understand and appreciate their situation and context. Investigate their wishes, worries, needs, and concerns. When people know you are empathetic, they will feel heard, appreciated, and understood. Being able to relate to others and appreciate their views will help you become more effective in making the change meaningful to them. In my view, effectively building interpersonal relationships is what makes the work of leading change worthwhile, enriching people’s lives one by one.
Also keep in mind that to improve interpersonal relationships, leaders need to not only find ways to keep a finger on the pulse of how people are reacting to the change, but also actively seek to understand how their reactions impact ours. Such a two-way effort helps produce more meaningful conversations and a deeper, shared understanding about the change. Here again, awareness of your Use-of-Self plays an important role. We learn from each other how to create tighter alignment with the shared purpose, to leverage skills and knowledge, and to identify the talents of other people so we can design and implement solutions that produce results that are far greater than what one individual could have achieved on their own.
The second level of outreach is to develop teamwork and everyone’s ability to collaborate with others across and beyond the organization. Teamwork can take many forms, as people may work in a variety of groups: functional, departmental, service, multiprofessional, multidisciplinary, virtual-mobile, global, teams of teams, cross-departmental teams, and project teams, to name but a few. Individuals may also be a member of teams outside the organization, such as in the community or in a charitable organization. People may also be stakeholders, partners, consultants, advisors, or coaches working with others inside the organization. Lastly, someone may be the client or recipient of services or a user of the product. Regardless of the type of team one is on, or whether it is internal or external, collaboration is an essential skill for success in any change effort.
What does good collaboration look like? Here’s how I describe it. You have good collaboration when you create cohesive teams that are able to get along with each other and collectively work to achieve the desired results, not driven by egos or personal self-interests. They are continuously learning and adapting to circumstances as the change occurs. They are committed to a shared purpose. They trust and respect each other and feel a strong sense of belonging. They are accountable to each other and the organization. They can count on each other when times are tough and are effective working together to develop strategies, solve problems, and make decisions. They can be more efficient and act in less time, spend less money, and achieve better results when they collaborate and work with others. Cohesive teams create a positive and fulfilling workplace culture. They are dedicated to developing others. At their best, they are role models and set the tone for the organizational culture that promotes cross-company teamwork and builds partnerships inside the organization and with the community.
Henry Mintzberg, in his book Rebalancing Society and in the CoachingOurselves topic of the same name (see chapter 6), talks about the need to rebalance society.13 He says that we need to challenge destructive practices and create constructive ones in the organizations where we work, the communities where we live, and the governments we elect. A healthy society balances the collective power of governments in the public sector with the commercial interests of businesses in the private sector and the communal concerns of the citizens in the plural sector, which are our communities, charities, not-for-profits, clubs, etc. Rebalancing begins with the grounded engagement of ourselves, each of us and all of us in our communities, as citizens, and as consumers. Thus, we and organizations in all sectors need to function at our best, which means as communities of human beings, not collections of human resources.
In chapters 5 and 6, we will explore further the dynamics of teamwork and how to build and develop teams that are able to lead, manage, and influence others to embrace change and participate meaningfully in the process.
A successful change plan requires careful thought, expertise, and alignment with the overall organization’s strategies and goals. A plan that is at odds with the larger organization’s priorities and that lacks the appropriate supports is doomed to fail.
A 2015 global survey conducted by McKinsey & Company revealed that the most effective transformation initiatives involved four key actions: (1) role modeling, (2) fostering understanding and conviction, (3) reinforcing changes through formal mechanisms, and (4) developing talent and skills.14 No single action was more important than the other. All four actions were critical to shifting mindsets and behaviors. The more actions that were used, the more likely executives were to rate the transformation as a success.
But the most intriguing response to the survey was that transformations were more likely to succeed when leaders took a systematic approach to obtain input from a wide range of stakeholders and then prioritize the resulting initiatives according to the organization’s strategic goals. When all of these elements fell into place, 76 percent of transformations were successful, compared with 22 percent when none of these elements were present.
The LMC Process that you will read about in the next chapter uses what I call the Master Change Plan approach designed to align the strategic priorities, project plans, and supports with the organization’s larger purpose. This systematic approach is critical to avoiding numerous common problems that organizations often encounter in a change effort, such as these:
Leading meaningful change requires a deep, shared understanding of the organization’s culture. You develop this by collectively experiencing and studying the culture to understand how it evolved, why it exists, and what elements need to change or be sustained over time for success. Changing organizational culture is complex and must be analyzed at each level of the organization, inside and out.
In his CoachingOurselves module Probing into Culture, Edgar Schein, a noted thought leader in organizational development, defines culture as follows: “Whenever a group shares a common experience, a culture emerges.” He describes corporate culture as “the deeper level of basic assumptions and beliefs that are shared by members of an organization, that operate unconsciously, and define in a basic take-it-for granted fashion an organization’s view of itself and its environment.”15 In his book The Corporate Culture Survival Guide, Schein describes three levels that we need to examine to understand organizational culture:16
All three levels combine to create the explicit and implicit organizational culture that leaders and staff viscerally feel each day, no matter what might be stated otherwise.
Here is an example of how a senior leader, Pierre, who worked in a travel business, was surprised to learn about his organization’s culture through the eyes of a group of new employees. As the vice president, operations, Pierre had hired this group and soon learned they were unhappy and were considering leaving the company. He was shocked and wanted to find out what had gone wrong. Listening to their complaints, he learned they were frustrated because they felt the new ideas and innovations they offered were often shot down. The decision-making process was too slow for them, and there was a lot of red tape. Ultimately, they believed they did not fit into the company’s culture.
Attempting to rectify the problem, Pierre held a meeting to explore a strategy that could close the gap between this group of new hires and the long-term service managers. Both the old and new groups of employees were asked to come to the meeting with an artifact, a story, or an experience that spoke to how they experienced the organization’s culture. One new employee who was recruited for his expertise in the service industry was tasked with revamping the interior design of the product line, and he brought a bedspread to the meeting. He commented that this same design for the bedspread was used in the organization for over ten years and was out of date. He used data from customer satisfaction surveys to validate his comments and proved that younger customers agreed it was outdated.
Prior to this meeting, the new employee had approached his manager and asked to change the bedspread so it would be more modern. His idea was shot down. He was told that he couldn’t order a different bedspread because the item could only be ordered from the current supplier, who did not carry new designs. “That’s the way things are done here,” he was told. Of course, the new hire was deflated and felt this small innovation would be an easy one to accept. The manager who had rejected the idea was at the meeting and, up to this point, had not realized the impact of his decision.
The discussions during the rest of this meeting created a shared experience that helped both groups better understand their culture. In the end, they agreed to challenge the way decisions were made and evaluate when old assumptions were outdated and possibly worth letting go. In this way, they learned about their organizational culture and what was important to hold onto versus what could be let go.
In another case, I was having trouble understanding the background information that a new client sent to me because the documents were full of unexplained abbreviations. When I asked the company for a lexicon or dictionary so I could understand the abbreviations, they emailed me another 100-page document! After I caught my breath, I slowed down and reflected on this type of organizational culture. I concluded that the lexicon was more than an explanation of terms. It actually represented an honest attempt to create a common business language that would be used across the company, regardless of employee rank, gender, race, or nationality. In this way, it validated the challenges of being a global company following a series of mergers and acquisitions. The company represented over 27 countries, with employees speaking multiple languages and reflecting multiple professional disciplines, each of which also had their own business terms and national and regional languages. It turned out that the company was having difficulty implementing a change effort and needed to find ways to orient people to a new organizational culture.
As you can see, language plays a key role in shaping culture, especially when introducing change. It can be difficult to keep up with the pace of new words and special phrases developed to accompany the change if you are not part of the group who created the language. Developing a lexicon, briefing notes, or a list of frequently asked questions can help get everyone on the same page. On the other hand, using abbreviations is not for every culture. One organization that I worked with stopped using abbreviations completely because they were getting in the way of communicating clearly and simply.
In my work with managers from the City of Ottawa, we learned that the special magic of successful culture change lies in perceiving it not as a single large transformation, but rather as a series of small shifts occurring over time among many groups of stakeholders. This approach helped us become more purposeful about each shift and articulate more clearly the organization’s need for the overall cumulative change.17
In an article I wrote a few years ago for Queen’s University, I described culture shifts as follows: “Culture shifts are smart adjustments in organizations that are created through a series of changes that result in different ways of working and being in relationship to each other.”18 Culture shifts are often initiated through the implementation of new business models, organizational designs, business processes, technologies, or all of the above. Often, these changes are complex, with both planned and unexpected impacts that make them challenging to lead, manage, evaluate, and sustain over time.
As you implement change in your organization, examples of the culture shifts you may experience include moving away from a hierarchical culture to a flatter organization with fewer spans of control and more accountability and decision making at lower levels of the organization; shifting your leadership values to focus more on collaboration and staff engagement and less on a command-and-control style of leadership; or redesigning your organization so that it is more customer-, product-, or service-oriented, which requires shifts in the way people work together. Regardless of the type of change you are implementing, mastering the principles and practices of culture change will impact the way you design, lead, manage, and sustain meaningful change.
To fully understand and successfully implement the change we seek to make, and why it is important, we need to take a systemic view of the entire organization.
Consider how the people involved in any change effort are actually a system in themselves. We are all connected and influenced by each other in how we live, work, and play, especially today through the use of technology and social media. Organizations are human systems that are constantly emerging and evolving as a result of each individual’s interactions with their internal and external environments. As an individual working in an organization, we may be a member of many human systems—our team, department, service area, product group, various committees, and so on. Externally, we may be a member of a professional network or a board member of an association, community group, or social club. Lastly, we may be a member of a family, which itself has its own systems. In addition to these human systems, we interact with technological systems that support our business processes and communications.
As you can see, these are all systems and networks in which we interact daily, so we need to consider a wide array of people when we lead meaningful change. We interact with many systems that may be interdependent, so making a change in one part of the system may impact many parts. In leading meaningful change, we need to understand the interrelationships of the people, culture, external and internal environments, and community involved to fully understand the impact of the changes that we want to make.
Here’s an example of failing to think in terms of human systems in favor of what appeared to be a simple tactical solution to a problem. The director of an organization wanted to reduce the expense of the organization’s real estate. He provided employees with state-of-the-art computers so they could work from home more often, and he rented a smaller office for when people needed to meet in person or with a client. One group did not agree with the change, so the director conducted an experiment that he thought would prove the positive impact of his change. He gave up his office for one month and used his phone and laptop to work in the “new world of the mobile office.”
He soon discovered that his experiment created confusion and frustration because people did not know where he was and found it hard to reach him when they needed his advice or approval. As well, the space he had leased was too small for the growing demand for the group’s services—their work was often political and sensitive, requiring room to talk and collaborate privately as a team, and they needed an office to meet clients.
In another example, an organization I consulted with had centralized the photocopy and printing machines in one area of its large office. The idea was that the organization would save money by purchasing fewer but larger machines that were cheap and fast. On paper, the plan sounded good, but the leaders of the change forgot to consult with the people who used the machines day in and day out. These people complained that the machines were placed too far from their offices and that the time it took to go to the distant machines was distracting and contributed to increased downtime and errors, which negatively impacted their clients’ experiences. To prove their point, they logged how many steps they walked to get their documents for one week. Surprisingly, they were walking approximately four and a half miles (seven kilometers) per day just to go to the printers! As a result, the company altered course and created additional photocopy and print stations in strategic locations across its offices.
Taking a systems approach requires a relationship mindset. The changes you are leading are part of a system with many moving parts. To ensure you are conscious of your intended impact and to be adaptable and responsive to any unintended consequences, you need to ask questions like:
When we change one part of the system, it can change another part and possibly create an unforeseen ripple effect in other areas. Looking at and analyzing change as part of a larger system shines a light on unintended impacts and possible risks that may need to be managed. You need to remain open to issues you hadn’t thought of, as well as new ideas and possibilities that come forward. You need to remain agile with your change plans and willing to incorporate diverse perspectives and innovative solutions. In essence, the change effort must remain flexible as new issues or ideas develop.
Organizational structures are also required to facilitate and sustain change. Depending on the nature of the change, the structures can be temporary, transitional, or long-term. They may be captured in formal organizational charts or maps that make explicit the relationships between people and the interdependencies in governance, accountabilities, decision making, influence, business processes, work flows, and the development and delivery of products and/or services.
For large-scale change, it can be useful to plan for small and impactful changes in the system that will culminate in a series of culture shifts that, over time, achieve the transformation. Such large-scale changes include implementing a new organizational structure and alignment process, restructuring jobs, redefining the roles of the various levels of the organization, increasing collaboration through employee engagement at higher levels across the organization, building partnerships with other departments and political external stakeholders, implementing new business, product development, and process improvement processes, and executing succession planning and leadership development strategies.
It is very important to regularly monitor and evaluate the change journey. As the saying goes, “What gets measured gets done.” This requires putting in place a formal process to assess the objectives of the change and how well people are doing as they lead and manage the process. Evaluations help ensure that the change plan is achieving the desired outcomes and impacts. If discrepancies or anomalies are found, you can focus on the best next steps to ensure ongoing adoption of the change, thus increasing the team and organization’s performance and achieving faster and better results.
The evaluation process should be meaningful and conducted over time. It should also consider the flow of change, including what is planned and what emerges, as well as the pace and rhythm of the change. Whether the change is developmental, transitional, or transformational, it is important to put in place ways to measure, monitor, evaluate, and sustain it. My sense is that we do not ask often enough—even with a brilliant plan—what we should stop doing or modify to reflect the reality of the change as it is taking shape.
Depending on the complexity of the change, you may have multiple projects underway at the same time, each one possibly not at the same stage of change. Each needs to be evaluated separately, and all of the results then need to be compiled into a comprehensive evaluation process. This will help you keep your eyes on the bigger picture and be more purposeful about how you measure, adapt, and coordinate your change plan to ensure you achieve the intended impacts and business results while also being responsive to the unintended ones that may arise.
Conducting a regular evaluation of the plan, its actions, and its impacts helps you ensure the continuity of the positive culture shift and changes that you are making over time, and spot those that are not working. Consistent reviews inform leaders and help them develop a shared understanding of whether people are adopting the changes, demonstrating the new values and behaviors, and achieving the desired results. A comprehensive evaluation process helps leaders work more collaboratively and think strategically and operationally, while at the same time constantly learning and developing themselves in a fast-paced, ever-changing environment.
Evaluation feedback needs to come from multiple sources at all levels of the organization at many key stages during the change journey. This type of evaluation is dynamic, not static. Think of it as taking photos throughout a long vacation and, when it is over, putting them into an album to tell the narrative of your trip. You are capturing moments in time—snapshots of people, activities, and places visited. Sometimes you need to use a panoramic lens, other times a wide-angle, and other times a macro for a close-up shot. Eventually, at various milestones, you put all the photos together so you are able to see themes, patterns, and synergies that give you insights into the change journey so you can understand and appreciate where you came from, where you are now, and where you want to go in the future. This process is also a way to test the pace of your change. Depending on the feedback you receive, you may need to slow down or modify your approach.
In an article I co-authored for Queen’s University we describe an approach that measured and evaluated the alignment, integration, actions, and impacts at each stage of a transition process at the City of Vaughan.19 At one point in the organization’s journey, we received feedback from participants in a working session that they did not fully understand the vision, and as a result were not fully aligned. We then slowed down the process and adapted our original plan by adding another working session, coaching, and supports from the design team. This process helped the leadership team to maintain momentum, build capacity, and refocus as they developed and implemented their service excellence strategy.
The LMC Process you will learn about next uses many types of evaluation metrics. You can measure employee engagement through pulse surveys, consultations, and interviews. For other key stakeholders like clients, you can conduct group interviews or site visits. You might engage in conversations during management or staff forums, hold leadership working sessions, or conduct leadership and team assessments. You may also include a review of operational performance and service delivery and other metrics that may be relevant to your particular organizational context.
These seven principles are the compass that guides the LMC Process. Let’s take a look now at each of the four stages.