The LMC toolkit is designed to highlight some of the key exercises that you can use to put the concepts from part 1 into practice. The toolkit supplements the many exercises described in detail in chapters 2, 4, and 6 with additional exercises that were not elaborated on in the chapters. You can do these exercises on your own or as a team to

Here is the list of all the essential exercises discussed in the book. You can refer back to the chapters for the exercises listed in regular typeface. The ten exercises in boldface are in this toolkit. Please customize and adapt these exercises to develop your approach to leading meaningful change.

Chapter 2: Six Keys to Guide Your Use-of-Self in the Leading Meaningful Change Process
Chapter 4: The Four Stages of the Leading Meaningful Change Process
Chapter 6: Tools to Foster Teamwork, Collaboration, and Partnerships in Leading Meaningful Change

Power Map Exercise

This exercise is designed in eight steps to help you assess, understand, and develop strategies to navigate the formal and informal power dynamics that you may be experiencing in the LMC Process. An example of a power map follows the instructions.

  1. Step 1: Pick a power challenge
  2. Step 2: Map the people who are involved
  3. Step 3: Map your relationships
  4. Step 4: Map their relationships to you
  5. Step 5: Map their relationships to each other
  6. Step 6: Reflect on your power map
  7. Step 7: Develop your action plan
  8. Step 8: Develop a power map to understand the formal and informal networks

Step 1: Pick a Power Challenge

Think about your change process and select a power challenge or a struggle that you need to address. Here are some examples:

Step 2: Map the People Who Are Involved

Now that you have a challenge, draw your power map. At the end of this exercise is a sample that you can use.

  1. Draw a circle at the top of the page and write your name in it.
  2. Draw one circle for each person you interact with and who are involved in your scenario, and write their names in the circles. Each circle should have one name in it. These people may be members of your senior leadership team, direct reports, peers, or members of extended teams, networks, or informal groups.

Step 3: Map Your Relationships

Start with your circle and draw arrows from you to each person, using this legend for the type of arrow to draw to illustrate your relationship with them.

If you have six people, for example, you will have at least six arrows and possibly more.

Step 4: Map Their Relationships to You

Use the same legend and draw arrows from each person to your circle to illustrate their relationship to you.

Step 5: Map Their Relationships to Each Other

Use the same legend and draw arrows between the other people’s circles to show their relationships to each other.

Step 6: Reflect on Your Power Map

Here are four types of power and some questions to help you reflect on your use of power and the power dynamics that you need to navigate in your scenario:

Personal Power Formal Power Informal Power Collective Power
  • Personal charm and charisma
  • Expertise, achievements, and influence
  • Wisdom
  • Roles
  • Responsibilities
  • Accountabilities and structures
  • Processes
  • Procedures
  • Informal relationships
  • Friends
  • Family
  • Colleagues
  • Shared interests inside and outside the organization
  • Membership in communities of practice
  • Professional networks
  • Associations
  • Political and strategic partnerships
  1. What does your power map tell you? Are there any surprises?
  2. With whom do you have positive and supportive relationships? Why?
  3. Are there cliques, alliances, pairings, or silos that are helping or hindering your ability to advance your plan? What are their interests, concerns, and fears? Who supports your work? Are you part of or excluded from any partnerships, teams, or alliances that are important for you to get your work done?
  4. Are these the relationships you need for success? Who is missing? Who is not involved and needs to be? Are there relationships that you can build or strengthen to help you influence others?
  5. Who are you having difficulty working with? Who is resisting? Who are their supporters?
  6. With whom are you or others experiencing tension or conflict? Why? (Go back to question 3.)
  7. What are your strengths and challenges using personal, formal, informal, and collective power?
  8. What types of power are you using that are effective? What can you modify, adapt, learn, or develop? What types of power are you underusing? How is this working for you? Where are you blocked or stuck?
  9. What supports do you need? Are there informal networks or people that you need to tap into for support?
  10. What can you do to be more effective navigating these power dynamics?

Step 7: Develop Your Action Plan

  1. What are your next steps?
  2. What choices and assumptions are influencing your approach to dealing with these power dynamics?
  3. What types of power do you need to be effective?
  4. How are you empowering yourself and others?
  5. How are you disempowering yourself and others?

Step 8: Develop a Power Map to Understand the Formal and Informal Networks

This step is an extra one. You can use the same approach and develop a power map of the formal and informal networks that are connected to the people in your first map. This may include the extended team, stakeholders, networks, and informal groups.

Example

Scenario: Charles, the new vice president, strategy, was responsible for implementing a project management process to support an innovation initiative in his organization. He was having difficulty getting buy-in for the new process and developing a shared vision with his project team. He discovered a lot of power dynamics were at play, so he completed a power map to help him develop a strategy to address the conflicts and build a cohesive team. As you can see in Diagram 1, Charles has a mutually positive and supportive relationship with George and Jane. These three team members are aligned.

But look at Charles’s relationships with the other members of the team in Diagram 2. There is mutual tension and conflict between Charles and Henry, and between Jean and Henry. Jean and Phillip are also in conflict. While these conflicts exist, Charles also realizes that he has no relationship with Jean or Phillip, as there are no lines from him to them.

Diagram 1 Alignment

There is one outlier: a positive relationship from Phillip to Henry. Perhaps Charles can leverage this to help him build his relationship with Henry.

Diagram 2 Conflicts

In Diagram 3, there appears to be two teams within the team, and no relationships between George and Jean, Jane and Jean, or Jane and Phillip. Charles needs to develop strategies to break down these walls and get the team working together toward a shared vision.

Diagram 3 Silos

Action plan: At first glance, Charles may notice some opportunities to leverage his formal and informal power to build relationships. As the leader of the project team, he is accountable for developing a cohesive team and implementing the new process. He may want to bring the team together and develop strategies to help them work more effectively together (formal power).

Since he is new, he may also want to build trust with each team member. He could check into their interests, such as sports or local interests, and make arrangements to attend an event together. To break the silos, he could organize an evening at a ball game to help people get to know each other better. These activities would help Charles model his teamwork values and what he expects from the team (personal power).

This map also shines the light on the negative impact that the conflict between Charles and Henry is having on the team. Charles may need to reach out to Henry and build a more constructive working relationship with him (formal power).

Since Charles and Henry are not communicating with each other, Charles could also informally seek advice and support from Phillip, who has a positive relationship with Henry, to find out what Henry’s issues and concerns are (informal power).

Now, looking at Charles’s extended relationships in Diagram 4, you will see that he is aligned with the senior leadership team (formal power) and academic partners. He is also very active as a board member at the university (collective power). However, he needs to work on his relationship with the board, as it is tense (formal power). He also has a mutually negative relationship with the industry trade association (collective power). These relationships will be important for advancing his work. Henry shares these concerns, as he is very active with the board and associations. Given these insights, Charles could work with Henry to develop a plan to build these relationships and address his concerns. This would help Charles to gain Henry’s trust and confidence in the plan, which would hopefully resolve the conflict.

Diagram 4 Relationships to Build

Coaching Conversation Exercise

This exercise is designed to help you prepare for a five-minute coaching conversation from three points of view: the coach (the leader or manager needing to coach someone), the coachee, and the observer. This process will also help you learn from each other about how to give and receive feedback and develop your coaching competencies.

Select a topic for the coaching conversation that is meaningful to you and that will help you overcome some obstacles to your success in leading and managing change. Here are some examples of coaching conversations that you can use as a guide to develop your own scenario:

Instructions for the Coach

If you are taking on the role of the coach, review these questions and explain to both your coachee and the observer what you would like feedback on as you have this coaching conversation.

Part 1: Coaching Context: Describe Your Coaching Conversation Scenario

  1. Who does it involve? Where does it take place?
  2. What does success look like for you and the other person in the conversation?
  3. What are your intentions?
  4. Why is this conversation important to you? The other person? Your department? The client?

Learning Goals

  1. What do you need to be at your best during this conversation?
  2. How will you use your strengths as a leader and/or coach in this situation?
  3. What challenges or learning opportunities do you want to work on?
  4. What do you want the observer and coach to pay attention to or give you feedback on as they observe your interaction in this coaching conversation?

Part 2: Reflect on How You Did in the Coaching Conversation

  1. What went well in your coaching conversation?
  2. What strengths did you discover or affirm?
  3. Where were you challenged?
  4. What might you do differently next time?
  5. How successful were you in building an effective relationship with your coachee?
  6. Were you able to accomplish your intentions? If so, what did you do to be successful?
  7. How well did you follow the coaching conversation structure?
    • ☐Check in
    • ☐Define the purpose
    • ☐Review objectives and actions from previous session
    • ☐Identify successes and learning opportunities
    • ☐Develop an action plan
    • ☐Check out
    • ☐Follow up

Instructions for the Coachee

If you are the person being coached, answer these questions to help you reflect on your coaching experience:

  1. How was your experience in this coaching conversation?
  2. What did your coach do well?
  3. What did the coach do that was effective in building your relationship?
  4. How did you feel? Were you heard and understood?
  5. What could the coach do differently to enhance your conversation?

Instructions for the Observer

If you are the observer, answer these questions to provide feedback to the coach:

  1. How well did the coach follow the coaching conversation structure?
  2. What did the coach do well?
  3. What did you observe about the coach that addresses their original request for feedback and their objectives?
  4. What could the coach do differently to enhance the coaching conversation?
  5. How did the coach help the coachee to understand the issues and commit to a mutually agreed-upon solution or action plan?

Change Leadership Challenge Exercise

This exercise is designed to provide you with an opportunity to reflect on your approach to leading meaningful change. First review the guidelines and examples to help you select your change leadership challenge topic. Once you have your topic, move on to complete the change leadership challenge outline.

Guidelines

  1. Select a project that you are currently working on or are about to launch to ground your learning and put into practice the theories, concepts, and tools of the LMC Framework.
  2. Don’t worry about having all the answers to the questions. This exercise is a living document that you will modify and adapt as you develop and implement your plan.
  3. You can complete this exercise on your own or as part of a team.
  4. Your change leadership challenge must be work that is real and in your span of authority or control.

Examples

Here are some examples of change leadership challenges to help you identify your topic for this exercise:

  1. Developing a process to create a shared vision for a department, a service area, or your entire organization
  2. Determining strategies to deal with resistance as you develop or implement a new business process, organizational structure, or technology system
  3. Developing a process to create alignment, commitment, or support from key leaders and stakeholders
  4. Motivating people to come out of their silos and collaborate across the organization
  5. Developing strategies to lead and manage a culture shift that involves transforming the traditional organization to a digital workplace
  6. Developing ways to be more effective dealing with conflict and political dynamics
  7. Learning how to inspire, communicate, and engage others throughout the change process
  8. Any other challenges that are relevant for you

Your Change Leadership Challenge

Title:

1. Describe your change project or leadership challenge:

This can be a specific project or initiative that is in your span of control and that you are currently responsible for leading and managing.

  1. What is the context (factors influencing the change: internal and external forces for and/or against the change)?
  2. Why is it important to address this project or challenge at this time?
  3. What are the objectives, deliverables, and expected outcomes?
  4. Who are the key stakeholders who need to be involved in the change?
  5. How will you measure success?

2. Describe the anticipated impacts of the change on the

  1. people
  2. culture
  3. process
  4. technology
  5. structure

3. Provide an overview of your project or initiative:

  1. Where are you in your project plan?
  2. What key milestones and results have you achieved?
  3. What successes have you achieved?
  4. What is helping you to be successful?
  5. What are your challenges or learning opportunities?
  6. Where are you blocked, stalled, or needing some assistance?
  7. What is preventing you from being as successful as you would like to be?
  8. How ready are your key stakeholders to participate and engage in the change process?

4. Describe your learning goals and objectives:

  1. Where are you having the most success leading and managing your change leadership challenge?
  2. Where are you having the most difficulty?
  3. What impact do you want or need to have for success?
  4. What are your goals and objectives?
  5. What key questions or hot topics would you like to address that would be most helpful to you and your team in developing your change plan or strategy?

Example

Here is an example of one manager’s change leadership challenge.

Change Leadership Challenge: Leading the Implementation of a New Compensation System

1. Describe your change project or leadership challenge:

We are currently in the process of changing our compensation structure to move from a seniority-based system to a performance-based system. Our organization has been using our current compensation structure for decades. Salary increases are based on seniority, years of service. We are experiencing significant growth and cannot afford our current model. We are falling behind our competitors and are losing our ability to attract the best talent because we can’t afford to match our competitors. Our current compensation model is not sustainable. In order to be more cost-competitive, high-performing, and a sustainable organization, the decision was made to align our compensation structure with the best practices within our industry. Our approach includes two phases and impacts all managers and employees.

Deliverables:

Phase 1: Understand and evaluate the current compensation model

  1. Move to a job evaluation system that is more widely used within our industry.
  2. Evaluate all positions that are affected within the new system.
  3. Align all these roles within the new salary bands.
  4. Develop and execute a change management plan that includes communications about the new structure and impact on employees.

Phase 2: Design the new compensation model

  1. Develop and implement key performance indicators (KPIs) for all roles.
  2. Develop a new performance evaluation system.
  3. Develop a new compensation model and administration guidelines and process.
  4. Develop and execute a change management plan that includes training and communications on the new compensation model and process.

2. Describe the anticipated impacts of the change:

People:

Managers will have more accountability in the compensation process. They will be required to actively manage performance with targets and deliverables. This will require monitoring, developing, and evaluating employee performance and business results. Managers will need to develop skills in having difficult conversations with employees as they justify performance ratings and salary increases.

Culture:

The new compensation program will have an impact on the organization’s culture at the manager and employee levels. Currently, employees receive salary increases regardless of performance. Going forward, salary increases will be tied to employee performance, advancement, and succession planning. These changes will move the organization away from a culture of entitlement to pay for performance.

Process and technology:

The human resources (HR) team will need to align this project with the new human resources information system (HRIS) that will be launched in the next year. This project will bring changes in the way we conduct performance appraisals. Ratings will be completed online, allowing for easy access and better administration of the compensation program. In addition to a new compensation process, managers and the HR team will need to be trained on how to complete performance evaluations in the new HRIS.

Structure:

There will be a new HR structure that includes changes in roles and responsibilities. There will be HR advisors who will be involved in more strategic, less tactical work. Managers will take on more responsibilities in the performance management process and be restricted in how they can financially reward their people. Employees will also need to use technology to access HR information and rely less on direct contact with an HR agent. Development to lead and manage this significant change will be required for all employees.

3. Provide an overview of your project or initiative:

Phase 1 is almost completed. All jobs within the organization have been evaluated under the new job evaluation system and aligned to the new salary bands. All employees were advised of their new salary bands. A change management plan was developed and implemented for phase 1 and introduced to the managers.

The change impacted a significant number of employees who no longer were eligible for salary increases due to where their position sits in the new salary bands. As you can imagine, some managers are angry and not supporting the changes. They are resisting because they do not think the new system is fair. Their salaries are reduced. Some employees even lost their automatic cost of living increase. In addition, staff expressed concern that the changes in our compensation structure are an indicator that we are losing our small-company feel and becoming a large machine.

Our new structure is making it more difficult to recruit for contract roles in some areas where significant experience is required. Our managers are not used to losing candidates due to salary expectations or having to hire a candidate with less than the desired level of experience. Some managers are finding the adjustment difficult.

Phase 2 is underway and managers are rolling out KPIs as part of our new compensation program. Based on the managers’ feedback, they are telling us they need more coaching and support on how to discuss the changes with their staff. Changes that impact compensation are never easy and managers need to be more comfortable with engaging their employees in these difficult conversations.

4. Describe your learning goals and objectives:

Over the next two years, we need to lead and manage these significant culture shifts. We want to be intentional in ensuring we maintain the best parts of our culture while we address our short-term needs and remain sustainable for the long term. The change to our compensation, shifting from entitlement to pay for performance, is only one of several changes the organization will undergo in the next few years. Personally, I need to understand more about leading and managing people through change. I also need tools to understand the organizational culture and paradigm shifts and how to create a master change plan to effectively lead and manage this change leadership challenge.

Evaluating and Sustaining Meaningful Change Exercise

This exercise is best done as a team. It is designed to walk you through each stage of the LMC Framework—alignment, integration, action, and renewal—so you can reflect on and evaluate the effectiveness of your LMC Process, develop your next steps, and increase your potential to sustain the culture shifts you need for long-term success.

Instructions

  1. Review your change plan.
  2. Answer the questions on the following pages to assess the impact you are having at each stage of the LMC Process.
  3. Fill out the checklists for each stage to assess how complete your change effort is.
  4. Based on the checklists and questions, are there ideas or strategies that you need to add to your plan? What actions might you need to take to enhance your plan and create the highest potential for success?

Stage 1: Alignment

This stage focuses on creating alignment on the strategic priorities, purpose, vision, and values that will guide the change journey. The goal of this stage is to ensure that leaders at all levels of the organization understand their role and the context for change, and plan how they will work together to lead and manage the journey. Here are some questions to help you assess alignment:

  1. How are you creating alignment on the need for change and developing a shared purpose, vision, and values?
  2. Do you have alignment with the people who need to help you or who will be impacted by the change? Do you have their commitment and support for the plan?
  3. Why is this change important? What is the benefit of the change for your employees, clients, and stakeholders?
  4. How will people find meaning in the change? What will motivate them to be involved in supporting the change?
  5. How does your change align with and support your organization’s vision, purpose, and strategic priorities? Are there synergies or disconnects?
  6. What culture shifts do you need to make?
  7. Who needs to be involved to lead and manage your plan? Are they informed, engaged, and participating? Is there any resistance?

Stage 2: Integration

The focus of this stage is on creating opportunities for people to develop the skills, tools, and supports for their own learning and development as they go through the change process. Grounding the plan, tools, and techniques with real-life examples using people’s real work will facilitate the process. Here are some questions to assess integration:

  1. How are you integrating the purpose, values, principles, and behaviors in your strategy or plan?
  2. How are you leading, managing, and communicating your plan?
  3. What actions can you take to ensure people understand the relationship and impact of the change to their work?
  4. What processes and structures do you have in place to develop people to lead, manage, and participate in the change process?
  5. Do you have a way to measure how well you and others are integrating their learning and the changes in their day-to-day work?
  6. How can you customize the tools and approach to guide and communicate the change so they are easy for people to grasp and apply in their work?

Stage 3: Action

The focus of the action stage is to participate in a continuous and dynamic cycle of action, reflection, and learning as you develop and implement the plan. Here are some questions to assess action:

  1. How are you living the purpose, mindset, values, and behaviors as you put your plan into action?
  2. How are you tracking the planned and emerging themes, trends, and issues that may influence your change plan?
  3. What culture shifts are needed for success?
  4. What actions are you incorporating in your plan to achieve these changes?
  5. How effectively are you communicating, engaging, and collaborating with others?
  6. What are your personal leadership challenge and development priorities going forward?

Stage 4: Renewal

The focus of the renewal phase is to conduct an overall evaluation of the change process. This evaluation should be done at critical milestones, at the completion of the project, and/or just before you begin the next phase of work in the LMC Process. Here are some questions to assess the renewal stage:

  1. Are you achieving your desired results and impacts?
  2. How are you evaluating and measuring the impact of your plan?
  3. Do you need to work with other people, projects, or initiatives to advance your plan and achieve your desired results?
  4. Do you need to manage any risks to ensure the highest probability of success?
Stage 1: To assess alignment, check off the elements you have in place. Strategies for next steps
  • ☐Engaged champion(s) and leader(s) to actively lead the change
  • ☐Identify credible and engaged champion(s) and leader(s) to actively lead and engage others in the change.
  • ☐Form a design team to lead and manage alignment.
  • ☐A shared understanding of the need for change
  • ☐Develop a process to create a common awareness and understanding of the need for change.
  • ☐Have people observe other parts of the organization to gain empathy and understanding of complex issues, resistance, and other factors that influence their positions.
  • ☐Clarity, commitment, and alignment regarding the purpose, vision, and priorities for the change, and the principles, values, and behaviors that will guide it with
    • the executive team
    • middle management
    • the front line
    • clients
    • political stakeholders
    • partners
    • other stakeholders
    • the community
  • ☐Conduct consultations with internal stakeholders.
  • ☐Conduct consultations with external stakeholders.
  • ☐Hold forums to discuss observations and respond to feedback or suggestions.
  • ☐Share examples and best/wise practices.
  • ☐Show how the concepts and best/wise practices apply to your context.
  • ☐Develop stories that illustrate where you are headed.
  • ☐An effective governance and organizational design that outlines accountabilities, delegated authorities, and decision-making processes that are defined, understood, and followed
  • ☐Develop a governance structure.
  • ☐Develop an organizational design and structures to support change.
  • ☐An understanding of the executive/leadership team’s role and contribution to the change process
  • ☐Clarify roles and responsibilities.
  • ☐Provide training and development.
  • ☐Coach and mentor.
  • ☐Hold forums and working sessions with the team.
  • ☐Meaningful participation from all relevant stakeholders:
  • internal stakeholders
  • external stakeholders
  • partners
  • ☐Design working sessions that are meaningful and provide opportunity for learning, input, decision making, and teamwork.
  • ☐Develop a strategy to develop leaders to lead and manage change.
  • ☐Defined language to guide your communications at all levels of the organization and beyond
  • ☐Provide direction, guiding principles, tools, and supports for communication.
  • ☐Develop a lexicon.
  • ☐Develop tools and supports, such as videos, websites, online surveys, etc.
  • ☐Teamwork and collaboration where required
  • ☐Develop key messages as a team.
  • ☐Apply any of the previously mentioned strategies.
Stage 2: To assess integration, check off the elements you have in place. Strategies for next steps
  • ☐A baseline to measure how well you and others are doing throughout the change process, including:
    • pace of change
    • progress on your plan, deadlines, and commitments
    • successes and challenges
    • skill development
    • adoption of change
    • culture shifts
  • ☐Develop, implement, and monitor the plan.
  • ☐Put in place program/project management principles, methodology, and process.
  • ☐Develop and implement an evaluation process.
  • ☐Share feedback, observations, and emergent actions and impacts of the change plan with the design team and use the observations to advance, enhance, or modify the strategy and plan.
  • ☐Communicate and reinforce performance targets, timelines, deliverables, commitments, and expected outcomes.
  • ☐Customized materials, examples, tools, and processes that help employees understand and integrate the concepts and changes in their work
  • ☐Customized stories that demonstrate successful changes or movement in the desired direction
  • ☐Integration of the purpose, principles, and values to guide and communicate the change, including language, materials, and methods
  • ☐Customize the change program design, tools, and supports for learning and integration in real work.
  • ☐Develop a lexicon that describes the new terms, abbreviations, and concepts.
  • ☐Provide concrete examples.
  • ☐An approach to measure and evaluate the executive and/or leadership team’s development and impact throughout the change process
  • ☐Hold regular checkpoint meetings with senior management/leadership teams and relevant stakeholders to educate them or develop their understanding of the plan, results, and expectations of them to continue leading and managing the culture shifts.
  • ☐Review communications to ensure integration and consistency.
  • ☐Communicate successes.
  • ☐Reflect on stakeholders and where there are challenges, and develop strategies to address their concerns.
  • ☐Coach upward, with peers, and across the department and organization.
  • ☐Use the data to develop more empowering strategies that work and are relevant for your culture.
  • ☐Conduct a stakeholder analysis and develop strategies to reinforce mindsets and behaviors.
  • ☐Follow up with people to address their concerns and resistance and to explain the change.
  • ☐Self-assessments or formal evaluations conducted before, during, and after the change to understand how the change is integrated and to obtain feedback
  • ☐Surveys, interviews, and evaluations from individuals and teams that provide input on how they are adopting the changes in mindsets and behavior that demonstrate active and visible change in the desired direction
  • ☐Develop and administer assessments throughout the process.
  • ☐Provide coaching and direction where required.
  • ☐Integration of the changes in the business
  • ☐Have a design team conduct an organizational review and a working session with leaders from the business to develop a process to integrate the changes in
    • strategic planning;
    • human resource policies, practices, and rewards;
    • information technology;
    • learning and development strategies;
    • project management;
    • communications;
    • operations;
    • service;
    • governance; and
    • culture.
  • ☐Quick wins and results that are moving in the desired direction
  • ☐Celebrate success.
  • ☐Communicate the results that have been achieved, and how.
Stage 3: To assess action, check off the elements you have in place. Strategies for next steps
  • ☐An approach to track themes and patterns from shared experiences, actions, and learning
  • ☐Develop and implement a process to track themes and patterns from shared experiences, actions, and learning over time.
  • ☐Measures to assess the culture shifts
  • ☐Meaningful feedback from meetings and pulse checks
  • ☐Track and monitor how the desired mindsets, values, and behaviors are being lived inside the organization, with partners and stakeholders, and in the community.
  • ☐Provide tools and checklists.
  • ☐Tell stories to enhance learning, reinforce the culture shifts, and demonstrate mindset, values, behaviors, and competencies required for success.
  • ☐Provide models and wise practices based on current, real-life examples of successful projects and the lessons, concepts, and tools that can be replicated across the organization.
  • ☐Delegated accountabilities and formal and informal power structures that are clearly understood and acted upon at all levels
  • ☐Create a common understanding of the reasons for the changes and the complex cultural and power dynamics that need to be honored, challenged, or changed.
  • ☐An understanding of your Use-of-Self and the impact of your actions on what was implemented, changed, or adapted
  • ☐Establish personal leadership development goals and action plans that include resources and support systems to draw on for growth and success.
  • ☐Obtain a baseline of the individual and/or team leadership profile.
  • ☐Review results of assessments.
  • ☐Identify common leadership strengths and challenges.
  • ☐Track performance and progress over time.
  • ☐Develop learning and development plans for the individual and/or team.
  • ☐Provide individual and/or team coaching, mentoring, and learning and development activities.
Stage 4: To assess renewal, check off the elements you have in place. Strategies for next steps
  • ☐A process to monitor, measure, benchmark, and report on the plan, results, and impacts achieved (people, business, financial, time, quality, process, service, and product improvements)
  • ☐Implement a process to review all strategic and operational plans to ensure the purpose, priorities, and impacts are understood by all the people involved in the change.
  • ☐Review all plans to ensure the purpose and the priorities that cross over all services or functions are reflected in the operational plans.
  • ☐Review objectives, provide an update on strategic/operational plans, and assess progress and results.
  • ☐Culture shifts that are embedded as a way of working and incorporated in
    • behaviors
    • day-to-day operations
    • service delivery
    • product development
    • policies and procedures
    • checkpoint meetings
    • annual and quarterly reports
    • manager forums
    • training and development activities
    • presentations
    • other aspects of the business
  • ☐Reviews, surveys, and pulse checks that demonstrate increased confidence, satisfaction, and positive feedback from
    • senior management
    • leaders
    • managers
    • direct reports
    • operations
    • political and governing stakeholders
    • clients
    • partners
    • others
  • ☐A process to communicate success stories and lessons learned
  • ☐Conduct a reflection process to deepen the understanding of the culture shifts, impacts, and results and how they were achieved.
  • ☐Continue or make adjustments to the plan.
  • ☐Assess stakeholders’ understanding and adoption of change at all levels of the organization.
  • ☐Assess how effectively people are using their formal and informal networks.
  • ☐Develop ways to learn and build on ideas from other areas and departments.
  • ☐Develop strategies to increase employee engagement.
  • ☐Develop rewards strategies to support the culture shifts.
  • ☐Develop strategies to increase client satisfaction.
  • ☐Develop strategies to increase operational excellence.
  • ☐Increase the breadth, depth, and scope of the project.
  • ☐Transfer knowledge and learn from wise practices being used in other places.
  • ☐Qualitative and quantitative measurements of the impact of the changes on employees’ health and well-being, performance, and/or learning
  • ☐Assess pace and adoption of change and adjust accordingly.
  • ☐Review staff turnover, sick leaves, and health and wellness data to foster a healthy workplace.
  • ☐Strategies, plans, and projects to sustain change, innovate, and go to the next steps
  • ☐Develop customized supports, coaching, and mentoring for people struggling to implement the culture shifts.

Action Plan

Based on the results of the questions and checklists above, what should you focus on next?

  1. What needs to be modified, adapted, or incorporated in your Master Change Plan?
  2. What does the team need to do to advance this work?
  3. Who else might need to be involved?

Stakeholder Analysis Exercise

This stakeholder analysis will help you assess where your stakeholders are in the LMC Process and develop an action plan to help them adapt and move through the change process.

Step 1: Stakeholder Analysis

In the grid opposite, list your stakeholders at the top of each column; you can either use their name or their title. Then, using the legend below the grid, mark a check mark, a circle, or an x to indicate the status of each stakeholder for each stage of the LMC Process. Are your stakeholders where you need them to be?

An example of a completed grid is shown on page 226. (If you prefer, you can use people’s real names instead of their functions. For example, you can write “Jane, head of IT,” “Richard, head of operations,” etc.) As you can see in this example, the executives and directors are on track, the managers are not fully supporting the change, and front-line staff are resisting the change. All stakeholders are on track for the renewal stage because they are not yet at this point of the LMC Process.

Stakeholders
Stage of LMC Process Name Name Name Name
Alignment
Integration
Action
Renewal

Legend:

Step 2: Stakeholder Analysis Action Plan

In this grid, identify further details about each stakeholder’s status and reflect on what technical, political, and symbolic strategies and skills you can employ to mitigate any resistance and concerns. (Add more rows as needed.)

Who are your stakeholders? What types of resistance are they demonstrating?
  • Cognitive
  • Ideological
  • Power
  • Psychological
 What are their motivations, issues, and concerns? What strategies can you use to obtain their support and engagement in the change process?
  • Technical
  • Political
  • Symbolic
       
       
       
       
       
       

Master Change Plan Exercise

Objectives

The Master Change Plan will help you align your project plan, priorities, and supports with your organization’s larger purpose and strategic priorities. Use the grid below or make a spreadsheet similar to it.

Chapter 4 (pages 108–13) provides detailed instructions on using this tool, but briefly, here is how to fill out the grid:

Timeline and Change Journey Rows

The columns in the grid reflect your timeline. Depending on your project, you might use the business cycle of quarters (Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4) or a monthly timeline (in which case you will need 12 columns).

Using the timeline you decide on, write down in each column of the second row an answer to the question, “Where do you expect to be in the change process?” To answer the question, use the four-stage LMC Process. For example, are you creating alignment, planning for integration, taking action to implement and/or evaluate change, or renewing it?

Corporate and Project Rows

In the corporate row, you identify the corporate or institutional milestones, decision points, activities, or the interdependencies that you need to consider and that will influence your projects and change plans. These activities may include checkpoint meetings like monthly or quarterly executive meetings. They may also include summary reports, production forecasts, and/or board or council meetings.

Most people start developing their Master Change Plans in the project row of the chart because their project is already underway and they often have a project plan. However, these projects are sometimes not aligned and integrated with the larger organizational strategy. In the project area, map the key milestones, activities, and interdependencies that will be addressed in your project plan.

Supports Row

In this row, identify the structures, processes, leadership development activities, networks, and other supports that people will need to build the competencies for leading and managing their project. Supports may include new task teams or project teams, participation from executive members, or specific leadership and technical development activities to build new skills or implement new technologies and processes.

Communications Row

This is where you review your project plan and identify the key milestones, processes, and supports you need to help you communicate with and engage others. This row usually presents opportunities to make use of and streamline existing corporate and departmental communication methods, products, and processes. It also helps to identify what needs to be communicated and when and how to approach stakeholders, especially when an organization is undergoing significant change. Mapping your communications activities helps you collaborate more effectively and efficiently by making more visible what, why, how, and when communication needs to happen and who needs to be involved.

When to Create Your Master Change Plan

You can develop a Master Change Plan for one specific project or for each of the multiple projects supporting larger corporate initiatives or transformations. The timeline can also be extended depending on the complexity of your change strategy. There is a lot of value in doing this exercise with multiple projects and stakeholders to identify synergies, create alignment, and build better focus and capacity to lead and manage your plans.

The Master Change Plan Workshop

In many larger organization-wide change initiatives, we conduct a one-day Master Change Plan Workshop for leaders or teams from business functions and/or from other change projects or initiatives. Prior to the session, we usually ask people to complete their project plans. The plans are then posted on the wall during the workshop for everyone to view and discuss. We then look at what we are observing and learning to

Here are some questions to help guide this discussion:

  1. What observations and insights do I have related to the guiding principles and priorities for the change?
  2. What additional opportunities do I see for alignment, synergies, efficiencies, and collaboration?
  3. What are the people, strategies, and actions that are interdependent and/or dependent on some of my department or service area’s deliverables?
  4. What resources do I need to share or make use of to build capacity and focus for success?
  5. What ideas can I leverage or integrate in my department or service area’s plan?
  6. What feedback do I need to give to my colleagues or specific teams or departments?
  7. See the recommendations in chapter 4 (pages 114–15) for avoiding some common pitfalls when using and presenting the Master Change Plan.

Developing a Communications Plan Exercise

This exercise is designed to help you develop a communications plan to support your change. Please follow these steps to complete the exercise.

  1. Experience the communications process as a member of an audience
  2. Develop guiding principles and key messages
  3. Understand the needs of your audience
  4. Develop and practice doing an elevator or coffee conversation
  5. Develop a communications plan

Step 1: Experience the Communications Process as a Member of an Audience

Attend a presentation on change or an all-staff meeting or forum in your organization. As a member of the audience, notice how the presenter communicates. Consider these questions:

  1. Who was the target audience for this presentation?
  2. What was the presenter’s goal and key message?
  3. How did the presenter set the stage for the presentation (podium, stage, teleprompter, physical setup)?
  4. What messages are you picking up about the presenter’s Use-of-Self, such as tone of voice, body language, values, and beliefs?
  5. How did the presenter use key messages and guiding principles?
  6. How did the presenter communicate a plan or use data, stories, analogies, metaphors, or images to communicate?
  7. Notice how you are feeling. What emotions surfaced for you? Are you inspired and committed to action? Are you tuned out, bored, or concerned?
  8. What did the presenter do that evoked these emotions in you and possibly in others?
  9. How did you feel at the end of the presentation? Did the presenter achieve their objectives?
  10. What advice would you give the presenter?
  11. What insights will you incorporate in your communications going forward?

Step 2: Develop Guiding Principles and Key Messages

Here are some questions to consider as you develop your key messages:

  1. What principles and values are going to guide your change journey?
  2. Why is this change needed?
  3. Do you have a plan? If so, do you have confidence in it? If not, what is your plan to develop the plan?
  4. What will change, is changing, or has changed?
  5. When is the change going to happen, start, or stop?
  6. Who will be involved in or impacted by the change?
  7. How are you going to lead and manage this change?
  8. How do you feel about talking about the change?
  9. What is the impact of the change on people, your service or product, or the community?

Step 3: Understand the Needs of Your Audience

Review the types of resistance and identify the motivations, issues, and concerns of your stakeholders. Based on what you are learning, what messages and strategies do you need to incorporate in your communications plan? (Add more rows as needed.)

Who are your stakeholders? What types of resistance are they demonstrating?
  • Cognitive
  • Ideological
  • Power
  • Psychological
 What are their motivations, issues, and concerns? What strategies can you use to obtain their support and engagement in the change process?
  • Technical
  • Political
  • Symbolic
       
       

Step 4: Develop and Practice Doing an Elevator or Coffee Conversation

An elevator or coffee conversation is clear, short, and to the point. The goal is to send an easy-to-understand message about your vision and need for change. It is meant to

Here are a few guidelines to help you develop your elevator or coffee conversation:

Practice Exercise

  1. Select a stakeholder or stakeholder group and imagine that you are taking a two-minute elevator ride with them or standing around the coffee counter.
  2. What questions or concerns about your change challenge do you anticipate they may have for you?
  3. Develop a two-minute conversation that helps you address their concerns and communicates what your vision or change challenge is about.
  4. Practice your conversation with your colleagues so they can give you feedback.

Step 5: Develop a Communications Plan

Review your change plan and strategy and complete the communications planning tool. (Add more rows as needed.)

Target Audience: Groups and Individuals Commu­nication Activity Methods and Tools Require­ments Responsi­bility Date and Frequency
           
           
           
           
           
           

Change Leadership Competencies Exercise

This exercise is organized in two parts. The first part is a reflection exercise that builds on your previous experiences leading meaningful change. The second part is a self-assessment that you can do based on your reflections or using your current work.

Part 1: Reflecting on Leading Large-Scale Change

1. Reflect on a time when you led (or participated in the team that led) a large-scale change that required a shift in your organization’s culture.

2. Now think of a time when you were successful collaborating and building partnerships with stakeholders that were not originally aligned and possibly had divergent or competing interests from you and your team or department.

3. Now reflect on a time when you contributed as an influential team member in leading and managing a significant change.

4. What are your overall reflections on leading meaningful change?

Part 2: Change Leadership Competencies Self-Assessment

Using the results of the above assessment, complete the following change leadership competencies self-assessment. You can use this self-assessment as a baseline to monitor how well you are doing individually and as a team throughout the change process.

Step 1

For each question, use the scale 1 = no agreement to 8 = full agreement to best indicate your status.

1 = no agreement
8 = full agreement		 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
1. I understand the vision, direction, and context for leading the changes.
2. I have strategies to lead the change in my department.
3. I have strategies to lead the change with key stakeholders outside my department.
4. I am confident in my ability to lead the change across the organization.
5. I understand my role in leading the change.
6. I am effective developing and implementing strategies to help people overcome resistance and adapt to the change.
7. I am effective working on the leadership team to lead change.
8. I am effective working with my management team to lead change.
9. I am effective working on the project team to lead change.
10. I am effective building collaborative relationships to lead and implement the change plan.
11. I am effective communicating change.
12. I am effective engaging my staff in the change process.
13. I am effective developing, coaching, and mentoring others.
14. I am achieving my goals and objectives in leading this change.
15. I have effective practices, tools, and support for my own learning and development.
16. I am fully engaged in the change process.

Step 2

Answer these questions:

  1. What are the top three priorities that will help you to successfully lead change?
  2. What do you expect to achieve by working on these priorities?
  3. What actions will you take to achieve your objectives?
  4. How will you measure success?

Assessing Your Personal Style of Managing Exercise

Step 1: Self-Assessment

Consider how you manage in your job. Circle one of the three words in each row that best describes your style. When you are finished, add up how many you have circled in each of the three columns. Together they should add up to ten.

Ideas Experiences Facts
Intuitive Practical Analytical
Heart Hands-on Head
Strategies Processes Outcomes
Inspiring Engaging Informing
Passionate Helpful Reliable
Novel Realistic Determined
Imagining Learning Organizing
Seeing it Doing it Thinking it
“The possibilities are endless!” “Consider it done!” “That’s perfect!”
Total scores      

Step 2: Review Your Results and the Theory

The first column represents art, the second craft, and the third science. This assessment was developed by Beverley Patwell and Henry Mintzberg in 2008, based on the work of Henry Mintzberg and described in his books Managing (2009) and Simply Managing (2013).25

These three styles—art, craft, and science—are highlighted in the triangle shown below.

Excessive attention to any one of these styles can lead to imbalanced managing.

The cerebral style can become calculating, placing too much emphasis on science and analysis. The insightful style can become narcissistic, paying too much attention to art. The engaging style can become tedious, hesitating to venture beyond the manager’s own experience.

Even a combination of two of these styles without the third can be problematic, as shown on the three lines of the triangle: a disorganized style (no science), a disconnected style (no craft), and a dispiriting style (no art).

Effective managing requires a blend of art, craft, and science, whether in the person of the manager alone or in a management team that works together. Management may not be a science, but it does need some of the order of science while being rooted in the practicality of craft, with the zest of art.

Step 3: Complete These Reflection Questions on Your Own or as a Team

  1. What is your preferred approach to managing?
  2. What effect does your style have on your ability to lead meaningful change?
  3. What are your strengths?
  4. What are your development opportunities?
  5. Review your results and insights from this assessment with your development plan and identify any actions you want to add or enhance in your plan.

Leading Meaningful Change Self-Development Guide

Leading meaningful change can be a time of great excitement and opportunity. For others, it can also be a challenging time—one of loss, confusion, and uncertainty. This self-development guide is designed to support you and your team by

This exercise is designed to help you reflect on your critical role as a member of the leadership team and as the leader of your change project initiative, branch, department, or service area. It is also designed to help you develop your own personal leadership development plan to support your learning and growth throughout the change process and advance your real work in leading and managing meaningful change.

Step 1

The following process is designed to help you initiate your personal development plan:

  1. Review your project and/or change initiative priorities.
  2. Review your role, mandate, and organizational structure.
  3. Review your team’s priorities.
  4. Review any feedback that you may have received.

Step 2

Throughout the process, people will be looking to you for leadership, inspiration, and confidence. You will also need to engage them to follow and embrace the new strategy and direction for your organization. The following questions are designed to help you develop some key messages for your staff, family, and colleagues about your leadership philosophy and purpose.

Vision and Purpose
Values
Priorities
Development and Support Plan

To help you answer this question, you may want to review previous leadership assessments, 360-degree feedback results, performance reviews, employee satisfaction surveys, and any other forms of feedback that you might have received over the last few years to reflect on what you know about yourself.

You might also want to review your role and mandate as a leader and member of the team. Reflect on where you are comfortable and where you might be stretched or developing.

Here are a few questions to help you consider what you might also be thinking and/or feeling about your personal leadership journey:

Yourself Your Team
Executive, senior management team
Direct reports
Peers
Project teams
Employees
Clients, customers
Governing boards, committees
External political stakeholders
External industry stakeholders
Community partners
Others
Development Goals

Based on your personal leadership assessment:

Given the answers to these questions, develop two to three development goals that you will work on over the next 6 to 12 months. Here is a guide to write your goal and a sample to help you get started.

“In the next 6 to 12 months, I will (describe the goal and actions…) so that (describe the benefit for yourself and others). Indicators of my progress will be (describe the results that you and others will see).”

Sample Goal Statement

In the next 6 to 12 months, I will communicate my vision and values for leading and implementing a plan to create a shared purpose throughout the organization. I will implement the process consistently and in a compelling manner so that my management team and all of my staff will be inspired, be engaged, and be able to clearly articulate how they support a shared vision for our branch, department, or service area. Indicators of my progress will be direct feedback on how well I am communicating our shared vision and the plan from my managers and staff. I will also hear from them about how they are demonstrating the mindset, values, and behaviors of the vision and their accomplishments.

Support Systems

The following is a guide developed by Charlie Seashore, who defined a support system as “a resource pool, drawn on selectively, to support me in moving in a direction of my choice, which leaves me stronger.”26 As you develop your support system, think about the following:

  1. What am I experiencing?
  2. What type of support do I need?
  3. How will this support help me?

Think about what resources you have in your network to support your learning and development. What types of internal and external supports do you need to continue, nurture, or develop? Ensure your support system includes people who will challenge you, support you, develop you, and hold you accountable to your plan.

Experience Support Type Outcomes
Confusion Role models, mentors, and coaches Clarity
Isolation People with common interests Social-professional contacts
Vulnerability Helpers-experts Supported
Lack of confidence Affirmation of my strengths Confidence
Disconnection Referrals Connections
Plateau Challengers Cutting edge

Step 3

Now fill out the template below and share your plan with your boss or the person whom you selected to hold you accountable.

Leadership Development Plan
Vision and Purpose
 
Values
 
Priorities
 
What are your top three development priorities? Why is this priority important? What impact are you hoping to achieve for yourself and others?
1.
2.
3.
Development and Support Plan

What strengths will you leverage?

What opportunities will you embrace for development?
   
Goal Statement
 

Actions

What actions will you take to achieve your goals?

Expected Outcomes

How will you measure success?

Date
     

Accountability

Who can you enlist to hold you accountable for following through on your development plan?

Support System

Who will you seek out for support?