One Calendar with Social Networking PowersVisualizing Change
One of the rewarding things about working in the Waterloo region is being able to support the rapid growth of organizations—from tech giants like RIM to smaller, local community organizations.
A few years ago our partner company, MFX Partners, was called in to help a local community health centre manage change. Meeting with the management team, we discovered that rapid growth was causing unrest among the employees. Until recently, all employees were used to working in one building. They had built a strong internal community and created rituals such as potluck lunches, etc. However, because of the growing demand for health services, the organization received government funding and added a number of satellite offices. The expansion changed the workplace environment and some employees weren’t handling the change as well as others.
We led an employee session where we utilized design thinking techniques such as role playing and change mapping. Looking back, I believe the most powerful aspect was providing a safe environment that allowed everyone involved express how they felt about the changes taking place.
During the change mapping component, we drew three vertical lines on a flip chart representing three stages of change based on the work of internationally known speaker, author and consultant, William Bridges, they include:
Endings – A stage that often involves high stress, shock and denial for many people.
Neutral Zone – The foggy place between the old way and the new way of being and doing things. This middle zone is often disorienting and confusing.
Beginnings – This stage occurs as the clarity of the new way of being surfaces.
During this exercise we asked each employee to place a dot on the chart to next to the stage they were at. The interesting thing was that there was a fairly even distribution of dots:
1. One third of the employees were in the endings zone
2. Another third were in the neutral zone
3. The remainder had moved on to the beginnings stage of change
This simple visualization exercise assured everyone that, whatever stage they were currently in, it was completely normal, and it reinforced the simple, but often forgotten need to find safe ways to allow people to express themselves and work together to a brighter future. This new awareness helped management identify solutions to manage the change and move everyone forward.
