June 11th, 2010 11:35am
Taylor Clarke blogger
Over the last year or so at Taylor Clarke, we’ve been developing a new product offering: Resilience for Change. Given the amount of change we get to see across hundreds of client organisations, we’ve wondered for a long time about how we can help build capacity for change within organisations. By this we mean – how can we help individuals and teams absorb change; and to respond to, cope with, and even grow through and learn to thrive during change?
When you think about it, we human beings actually quite enjoy change, and often bring change voluntarily into our lives (think about the promotions and jobs you’ve gone for, the new house you’ve sought, the challenges you’ve sought out in your life in order to stretch yourself and prove to yourself that you can achieve big things!). We know that lack of control within organisational change can be a hugely debilitating factor. But what else needs to be accounted for, when organisations are embarking on huge change initiatives? (more…)
June 11th, 2010 10:51am
Taylor Clarke blogger
In Taylor Clarke’s Book Club, we read and discussed this engaging and practical book (by Patterson, K., Grenny, J., McMillan, R. & Switler, A.; McGraw-Hill; 2002) which encourages us to “discover how to communicate best when it matters most”.
Think back to conversations you’ve had recently; how did they feel, what was the outcome, how much do you remember from them, how important were they? These are all things to consider in assessing the effectiveness of conversations, whether they are short and informal or structured and vital. All conversations can be important, but it is these vital or ‘crucial’ conversations that we turn our attention to here. Patterson et al define ‘crucial conversations’ as “a discussion between two or more people where: the stakes are high; opinions vary and emotions run strong”. Within today’s climate it is easy to see how more and more of these ‘crucial conversations’ are having to take place, for example, relating to redundancies or major changes and restructuring, and this may even be a result of past ‘crucial conversations’ not being handled effectively or not taking place at all; therefore it is key that we recognise these potentially difficult conversations and have the ability to handle them well. (more…)
June 10th, 2010 05:32pm
Taylor Clarke blogger
With many organisations in the UK still suffering from hard economic times and redundancies continuing to affect people, it can be hard to devote time to thinking about and listening to, those employees who survive the cutbacks and downsizing. It can be tempting to assume that the employees who remain in the organisation are fine, after all they still have a job, they are the lucky ones, aren’t they? Well that depends on whose perspective you see it from and the individual circumstances they face.
‘Survivor Syndrome’ is a phrase which has long been used to describe the set of shared reactions and behaviours of people who have survived an adverse event. It is now increasingly being used to describe the impact on the emotions and behaviours of employees who remain in organisations where large-scale redundancies have recently occurred. (more…)
June 10th, 2010 04:34pm
Taylor Clarke blogger
Every so often in any organisation, whether in the public or private sector, the economy has a habit of delivering unexpected surprises, as with the current recession, which has been unpredictable in nature.
For many organisations this is a swift reminder of the need to take stock and re-evaluate many aspects of their organisation and in particular how they handle change.
While restructuring, headcount reduction, budget cuts can be unpleasant for those involved, it’s not all doom and gloom and smart organisations take the opportunity to step back rather than rush into short sighted “myopic” hastily planned and often insensitively communicated cost cutting exercises. Hasty action often creates more problems longer term which can exceed any short term benefits achieved…..and employees have long memories when it comes to poorly executed change. Its particularly important to avoid the attitude of believing employees “should just be lucky they have a job.” Remember what goes around, comes around.
As both a change practitioner and a consultant, I have experienced and survived two fairly major recessions and have a few lessons learned I’d like to share. (more…)
March 17th, 2008 05:19pm
Taylor Clarke blogger
In conceptualising change within organisations it can be tempting to think that people experience change in a similar way. Theories of change are useful in giving us an overview of the stages which large groups of people could be expected to go through; however they can also mask the differences which individuals exhibit during change - differences in their reactions, their needs, their behaviour, and the contribution they want to make during organisational change. The Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) gives us a robust basis for talking about individual differences during change and transition.
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February 18th, 2008 03:45pm
Taylor Clarke blogger
Brainstorming has been with us since Alex Osborne coined the phrase in the 50’s. So it really amazes me that we so rarely use it properly.
Years ago when running an Advertising Agency, I came across the problem which I’m sure Alex Osborne had when he thought up brainstorming (he also ran an Advertising Agency). Our creative team just could not come up with any ideas let alone decent ones. We tried scanning magazines and books for inspiration and whilst this often worked, the ideas were often flat and unimaginative. Eventually we tried real brainstorming and the results were impressive. We went for quantity rather than quality and suspended judgement until we had exhausted our creative juices. It was great fun and many ideas came as a result of other’s crazy ideas. In fact, so fruitful were the crazy ideas at stimulating new trains of thought, that I actively encourage people to come up with crazy ideas and then we try and generate more practical ones from them.
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July 31st, 2007 12:16pm
Taylor Clarke blogger
I attended a Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) Conference on Resilience in May, which I’ve been persuaded by Laura to now write up. Actually, having a nudge to reflect deliberately on a conference is just what I need …I love learning, and I love reflecting, when I have the time to do it, and when I discipline myself to do it. Then I remember what I did really learn, and how I might be able to apply it with clients.
I’m an occupational psychologist, so it was interesting to spend two days with an audience of mostly clinical psychologists (in a lecture theatre holding 800 delegates). I know bits’n’pieces about CBT, but must admit, am not overly attracted to it. However, I do know it’s the only therapeutic approach which carries enough research on it, to be able to ‘prove’ its efficacy in working with clients. Hence, I believe, it’s the only therapeutic approach which is officially endorsed by the NHS.
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July 12th, 2007 04:14pm
Taylor Clarke blogger
I recently attended a very useful seminar looking at the pitfalls and success drivers underpinning effective post acquisition integration, as part of our research for a new acquisition related change product we have been working on.
Having personally led a couple of acquisition integrations during my own managerial career, I can tell you it was quite a cathartic experience with many flashbacks…..leading me to reflect on the fact I was attending the programme 8 years too late!
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June 25th, 2007 05:14pm
Taylor Clarke blogger
How do YOU make sense of the umpteen theories and models of organisational change that are on offer? I’m not sure I’d have been able to put a theory or approach or model into a helpful framework or historical context before Birkbeck College introduced me to Chin and Benne. (Not to be confused with Bill and Ben).
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June 20th, 2007 03:43pm
Taylor Clarke blogger
A lot of Taylor Clarke’s work has been and remains leadership development. We often use an exercise which we first came across when working with a large public sector client on their major leadership programme a few years ago. The exercise is called ‘Think of a Leader’ and it is, without doubt one of the simplest, yet the most energising and affirming exercises I’ve ever used when working on leadership development programmes. Just give people some time for reflection around the following statement, “think of the best manager you ever worked for?”And then ask two straightforward questions: “What was it that they did that made you think of them that way? How did working for them make you feel?”We normally give people five minutes for so to make some notes and then go round the room asking each person in turn to tell the group about their best ever manager.So what do people say? Well, thankfully for someone who works in leadership development, they say what you’d hope that they’d say. However what makes the stories remarkable is the consistency between people and between groups of people across organisations throughout the UK. Even more interestingly people tell their stories with a level of emotion which is compelling, especially given that in some cases (sadly) they are speaking about a manager who they worked for over 20 years ago. (more…)