Considerations Before You Build What is your organization's culture and history? It is crucial to understand the environment in which this change process is going to be placed. What is the organization's previous history with change efforts? To what extent have these efforts caused damage in the organization? How have they helped? Can management and the consultants form an effective partnership? Each group provides leadership. Management cannot delegate its responsibility to lead the change effort, and the consultants cannot deny management’s knowledge of and expertise in the change process. We believe that effective partnerships require that each group feel 100% responsible for the change effort and use its expertise appropriately. The consultants do not have the leadership’s organizational knowledge, and the leaders rarely have the consultants’ organizational-change expertise. Do the consultancy’s principles fit the organization's aspirations? The collaborative systems design principles are important building blocks for the change process. Crucial to the effort’s success is leadership's understanding and willingness to work with these principles. If an organization does not currently embrace them, is it willing to adopt them? Is the decision making process clear and congruent? Our bias is that the process be as open as possible. Boundaries that are too tight do not invite participation. Boundaries that are too loose, e.g. do what ever you want, are not believable and produce distrust. False boundaries are also problematic: we have seen attempts to make our process seem participative when in fact it wasn’t. Starting the process with a predetermined solution and pretending that people have a choice breeds contempt and resentment. If there is a choice, then people need to know that. Perhaps participants can then design the implementation process.
Are you prepared to follow through? Enormous energy and hope are created in the direction of the preferred
future. The Axelrod Group, 723 Laurel Avenue, Wilmette, Illinois 60091 Phone: 847.251.7361 Fax: 847.251.7370
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