Category: LRNT 525

“We are living today in a constantly growing global business environment, where change has become the norm for organizations to sustain their success and existence” (Al-Haddad & Kotnour, 2015, p.234).

Even with it being mainstream and the norm within an organizations DNA it is still suggested the success rate of change initiatives is less than 30 percent  (Balogun et al., 2004; Beer et al. 2000; Grover, 1999 as cited in Al-Haddad & Kotnour, 2015).  As suggested by Dunphy and Stace (1993) organizations, project teams, managers, consultants need to look at change as situational and need to vary change strategies to achieve “optimum fit” with the changing environment (p.235).  “Change methods need to be continuously evolving to align with the environmental factors” (Al-Haddad & Kotnour, 2015, p.235).  What this has provided is further clarity and an enhanced spotlight that the interconnectedness and multifacetedness of all the moving parts and people within an organization are all intertwined to how successful the change will be.  For instance, this has me thinking about a recent change that didn’t go as well as hoped in our organization and there was the lack of consideration of the changing workforce demographics over the past couple of years, to the recency of many more virtual teams and leaders, as well as many remote employees, cultures and subcultures within the organization just to name a few, which all had some role to play in the degree of successful change.

Some of the ways adoption and evolution have occurred with the changing landscape of change management are other disciplines addressing it within their own context through challenging, asking, research & study, and expert discussions, where they are looking at change within their own respective disciplines such as Psychology and Sociology, Management and Leadership and Organizational Development practices.  An example of this is the evolution of Management and Leadership where it was suggested that the five main leadership practices are “modeling the way, inspiring a shared vision, challenging the process, enabling others to act, and encouraging the heart” (Kouzes & Posner, 1995 as cited in Al-Haddad & Kotnour, 2015, p.239).  These are all very important characteristics of leaders to manage, support and lead change. If we can now evolve the way we see Management and Leadership we can then give the education, tools and resources to our leaders to be equipped to lead change.

My personal leadership style as it relates to Change Management would be aligned and described very closely to a Facilitative Approach where I firmly believe it is a team effort and we all succeed together.  There is a co-dependency, shared ownership and responsibility and involvement by stakeholders to support change.  Everyone from those on the project team, to super users, change champions, and end users are involved and contribute to the success.  It would also resemble closely to Adaptive Leadership where I find myself being part of the solution and identifying barriers and opportunities for success (Khan, 2017).  Finding myself constantly and consistently communicating in support of change is another key and essential attribute (Weiner, 2009).   I also seem my level of resilience as a leader demonstrated as a key behavior to others.  Showing persistence and the ability to absorb, embrace, adopt the change, along with my ability to support staff through it by developing engagement, excitement, empowerment and encouragement (Weller, 2013).  I find my organization is not aligned with my leadership values to change, as they are in quite an immature organization, exponentially growing and have not taken the time to slow down to consider the importance of having the organization and leaders prepared to support, manage, and lead change.  I am optimistic and do believe it will get there one day, however do know during the ‘growing pains’ change will not come easy and may be at the expense of others.

The role of leadership is key to change management.  “Leadership is about the innovation of new ideas and new concepts that brings new desirable outcomes.  The entrepreneurship, creativity and innovation embedded in leadership are very important to successfully managing change” (Al-Haddad & Kotnour, 2015, p.239).  As leaders we must help the organization move towards our vision and help those around us see how this change will get us there.  Leaders help make and support the right decisions at the right time to help steer and guide with changing environments.  Its leaders who motivate and empower people at work during uncertain times and times of change, when there is ambiguity and uncertainty.

As one of my own personal leadership attributes, resilience enables to move along with change at a must faster pace.  Resilience helps develop, engage, educate, empower, and encourage those that demonstrate that behavior.  Resilience requires adaptation and evolution to new environmental conditions, utilizing technology to change practices where it is desirable, however representing practices if they are deemed to be necessary (Weller, 2013).

 

References

Al Haddad, S., & Kotnour, T. (2015). Integrating the organizational change literature: a model for successful change. Journal of Organizational Change Management, 28(2), 234-262.

Biech, E. (2007). Models for Change. In Thriving through change: A leader’s practical guide to change mastery. Alexandria, VA: ASTD [Books24x7 database]

Khan, N. (2017). Adaptive or Transactional Leadership in Current Higher Education: A Brief Comparison. The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 18(3), 178-183.

Weiner, B. J. (2009). A theory of organizational readiness for change. Implementation Science, 4(67).

Weller, M., & Anderson, T. (2013). Digital Resilience in Higher Education. European Journal of Open Distance and E-Learning, 16(1), 53-66.

 

“We are living today in a constantly growing global business environment, where change has become the norm for organizations to sustain their success and existence” (Al-Haddad & Kotnour, 2015, p.234).

Credit Union A

The turn of a Millennia in early 2000 three credit unions merged together forming a new corporation. With the merger there was now 1200 employees that spanned over North Shore, Lower Mainland, Fraser Valley and Victoria and a membership size of 180,000 people.

Credit Union B 

Spanning between 2010-2014 Credit Union B acquired and merged 4 smaller credit unions into one.  One unique difference that set this merger apart from Credit Union A, was the preservation of each entities name and having representation of local senior leadership roles, alongside divisional head offices located in each of the local communities.  With the merger there was now 1700 employees that cascaded from the Fraser Valley, Lower Mainland, BC Interior (Kelowna, Okanagan, Princeton), Island (Victoria, Duncan, Nanaimo) and a membership size of 150,000 people.

There were differences amongst the tale of two credit unions such as they occurred a decade apart and further advances in learning technologies had taken place, organizational philosophies (vision, mission, values, culture, & strategic priorities), a centralized team in one location versus a centralized function with decentralized locations.  However, even with these differences similar learning issues were encountered.  The need for harmonization, optimization, standardization and digitization was essential and if innovation & creation, influence & advocacy, launch & implementation for the necessary changes didn’t take place in the learning space, it would be extremely problematic, ineffective, inefficient and costly for both credit unions.

Change is Coming

The senior leadership teams in both cases proactively anticipated many things would change, disrupt and transform the business and rattle the familiarity once known.  With several infrastructure, logistical and learning impacts anticipated, Credit Union B clearly demonstrated their realization the organization needed an integrated approach to drive change and minimize destructive barriers (Al-Haddad & Kotnour, 2015), where Credit Union A didn’t. With the concern gaining momentum, the need to identify new learning solutions was tasked to me as the Learning & Development Manager to find solutions and implement the new changes to remedy the problem.

Digital Learning Environments & Disruption

Through collaboration with teams, departments, key stakeholders, leaders and end users several new learning solutions resulted in addressing many of the problems faced by both entities. A fundamental difference was Credit Union B realized  the change and implementation of a new LMS was connected and would affect the whole organization (Al-Haddad & Kotnour, 2015) where Credit Union A seen it in isolation of just a change within L&D. Through coordinating efforts across many individuals and groups and promoting organizational change in learning helped identify collective capabilities, as well a gage on readiness based on organizational culture, risk adversity, and flexibility and adaptability (Weiner, 2009). These findings equally helped strengthen the case for L&D to advocate for rising concerns with changes in the learning space and expectations from learners such as real-time and on demand training, flipped classrooms and short, bite size learning’s.  In the absence of learning technologies this was next to impossible to satisfy and now with the organizations dependency on learning for the success of the merger, it finally gave us the inroads to draw attention to the changes necessary in the learning space.

In both cases very similar learning solutions and priorities emerged to support the merger and strategic priorities to harmonize, optimize, standardize and digitize in the space of learning. The top priority and solution for both credit unions was to implement a new Learning Management System (LMS). Through the comparison chart and info graphic, you’ll see the key aspects, methods and descriptions of change management and leadership style that supported the successful implementation of a new LMS at Credit Union B and the not so successful implementation of a new LMS at Credit Union A.

Table for Change Management and Leadership Style

Change Management Info-graphic

 

References

Al-Haddad, S., & Kotnour, T. (2015). Integrating the organizational change literature: a model for successful change. Journal of Organizational Change Management, 28(2), 234-262.

 Biech, E. (2007). Models for Change. In Thriving through change: A leader’s practical guide to change mastery. Alexandria, VA: ASTD [Books24x7 database]

Hiatt, J., & Creasey, T. (2003). Change Management: The People Side of Change. First edition (Proci Research). Colorado: Loveland.

Weller, M., & Anderson, T. (2013). Digital resilience in higher education. European Journal of Open, Distance and E-Learning 16(1), 53-66.

Khan, N. (2017). Adaptive or Transactional Leadership in Current Higher Education: A Brief Comparison. The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 18(3), 178-183.

Krathwohl, D., & Bloom, B. (2001). A taxonomy for learning, teaching, and assessing : A revision of bloom’s taxonomy of educational objectives: Complete edition (L. Anderson, Ed.). New York: Longman.

Weiner, B. J. (2009). A theory of organizational readiness for change. Implementation Science, 4(67). 1-9. https://doi.org/10.1186/1748-5908-4-67

 

 

 

I’ve been in leadership roles and leading teams for the past 20 years and consider my journey as a leader ‘in progress and not there yet.’  From my perspective to be a great leader there are several layers of leadership and a hierarchy of gratification to be fulfilled.  This will develop over time through desire, drive, experience and education and when I get ‘there’ it is not about the highest earnings, highest position or a prestigious job title, rather an intrinsic motivation fulfilled with the broadest and most diverse perspectives learned throughout my leadership journey making an impact and difference in whatever goals I set out to achieve.

Leading self, leading teams and leading organizations, my experience and education has provided me opportunities to excel in these areas.  Skills have been easier to obtain and develop, as many organizations focus on core, leadership and functional competencies that align with leading self, leading teams and leading organization.  It has however been limiting to expand abilities within leading community and leading globally as many places I’ve lead within haven’t had communities, province, nation and global matters as a priority.

“Alone we can do so little, together we can do so much” Naomi Khan

As a leader I would describe my leadership style as one that leads alongside my team and someone who pays little attention to title or position on an org chart.  In the reading, Pillars of Digital Leadership, Sheninger said, “leadership is about action, not position” (p.1) and further defined leadership as a process of social influence and camaraderie to lean in the aid and support of others, in the accomplishment of a mutual goal and task (Sheninger, 2014).

TRUST

Leadership is about team ownership and commitment, owning business problems and solutions interdependently for the greater purpose of the organizational vision grounded within the essentials of trusting relationships, openness, authenticity, transparency and honesty.  “A leader’s ability to build trust in high-performance cultures is characterized by motivated and engaged employees” (Castelli, 2016, p.222).  Motivated and engaged employees have a greater desire to contribute and achieve excellence, excel in performance to indulge in meaningful and rewarding work.  Motivated and engaged employees make it easier to lead change and transform as they feel part of a safe environment through trusting relationships.