Leading Change Training

Jeffrey Russell

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2006
• Print ISBN:
  9781138433533
  9781138433533
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9781136388484
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

The Trainer's Workshop Series is designed to be a practical, hands-on roadmap to help you quickly develop training in key business areas. Each book in the series offers all the exercises, handouts, assessments, structured experiences and ready-to-use presentations needed to develop effective training sessions. In addition to easy-to-use icons, each book in the series includes a companion CD-ROM with PowerPoint™ presentations and electronic copies of all supporting material featured in the book. Leading Change Training helps you create solid change programmes within your organization and integrate leading-edge change leadership models and other theories into your programme. It not only involves simply reducing resistance, but also creating an awareness of the challenges and responsibilities that each person, irrespective of level, faces as a change initiative goes forward. Contains exercises, handouts, assessments and tools to help you:
• create effective change training for executives, leaders, managers and staff
• build support and reduce resistance to organisational change
• become a more effective and efficient facilitator
• ensure training is on target and gets results "This book offers not only the 'how' of a programme on leading change, but also an insightful and helpful look at the why, when and where."
Lin Standke, Instructional Design Manager, Centre for Professional Development, CUNA & Affiliates Other books in this series: Leadership Training, Customer Service Training, New Employee Orientation Training, Leading Change Training.

Chapter 1

Introduction: How to Use This Book Effectively

What’s in This Chapter?

• Discussion of the value of an effective training and development programme on leading change
• Comments on designing change workshops for executives, leaders, managers and supervisors, as well as staff
• Explanation of how to use this workbook most effectively
• Description of what’s included in this workbook and on the CD

Every organization is where it is today because of a multitude of changes. Whether these involved moving from a small ‘kitchen table’ operation to a stand-alone business; doubling staff size over two years; embracing a new manufacturing process; adopting new technologies to serve customers; dealing with turnover in key positions; relocating operations to a different geographic location; focusing on a new customer base; or a host of other possible shifts in direction, focus, or operations, your organization’s history is a chronology of the changes it has experienced.

Some of these changes have been joyful and others have been painful. Some have achieved their goals, while others have been complete failures at realizing their intended objectives. All of these changes, however, have left their mark on the organization and on those who were either leading the change or were affected by it. The goal of any change initiative is to achieve certain organizational strategic or operational objectives while minimizing the pain, disruption and disequilibrium it can create for employees and customers.

Although the absence of change is death to the future of any organization (or at least obsolescence), the presence of change that is perceived as tumultuous and relentless can lead to organizational disintegration. Neither option (death by status quo or disintegrating change) is a particularly healthy place to be. Effective change leaders, trainers and organizational development consultants can avoid both of these unacceptable options by knowing how to provide others with a framework for leading change in their organizations.

The Value of an Effective Training Programme on Leading Change

Building the skills of change leadership in your organization will have a tremendous impact on the results you achieve. The value of an effective training and development programme on leading change will immediately be visible through your employees’ better understanding of the reasons behind a change, lower levels of resistance to new ideas or approaches, a higher degree of initial commitment to the change and a longer-lasting commitment to embracing change as a new approach for sustaining organizational success.

The evidence — and perhaps your own personal experience — suggests that the absence of a thoughtful and informed approach toward leading change leads to discouraging results. A survey conducted by Kepner-Tregoe found that for 11 different types of change initiatives (including productivity improvement, quality initiatives, cultural change programmes, empowerment/involvement activities and re-engineering) only 20 per cent of respondents indicated that these initiatives had met or exceeded expectations.

A study of 584 companies in the United States, Canada, Germany and Japan, conducted by Ernst and Young and the American Quality Foundation, found that the majority of quality initiatives failed to achieve significant improvement. And, finally, in yet another study of executive perceptions by Kepner-Tregoe, nearly two out of three executives surveyed felt that employee morale was ‘worse’ or ‘the same’ as a result of change initiatives that had been undertaken by their organizations. More than 60 per cent of these executives rated their employees’ reactions to organizational change as neutral, sceptical, or actively resistant.

Fortunately, there is an alternative to these unfortunate results: a well-designed training and development programme that integrates the insights gleaned from successful and unsuccessful change efforts with good instructional methods and technologies. A well-thought-out training programme that is designed for a specific change initiative actually compels the organization to consider some fundamental questions before beginning a change initiative. It can also provide a roadmap to guide leaders and staff along the often treacherous path towards the goal of the change.

A training programme that is closely aligned with a change effort can make all the difference as to whether the company hits or misses its mark. And, given the substantial direct and indirect costs of most change efforts, most organizations can’t afford to get it wrong. Training’s value lies in focusing the vision and goals for the change initiative, communicating expectations to key stakeholders in the change, and guiding people at all levels of the organization in helping themselves and others through the organizational and personal challenges presented by the change.

Designing Two Types of Training Programmes

An important bonus of this book is that it offers change training designs and methods for two groups of participants: the executives, leaders, managers and supervisors who are often the agents of change and the staff who are often directly affected by a change.

By explaining how to design training programmes targeted to change leaders, this book helps the leaders understand their role within the change process, how to involve others in designing the change, how to deal with resistance when it occurs and how to build employee commitment to new ideas or methods. The competencies of the change leader include both the skills of designing and introducing change and the skills of guiding others successfully through it.

By explaining how to develop training programmes targeted to the employees who are directly affected by a proposed change, this book helps employees better understand the reasons behind a change, how to take a more proactive (and therefore healthy) role in influencing the design of a change, how to take care of themselves to avoid emotional and physical fallout from a change and, finally, how to strengthen their own resilience in the face of difficult changes. The competencies to be developed in employees through these skill-building sessions include how to influence change for the better and how to take care of themselves throughout the change process.

How to Use This Workbook Most Effectively

Whether you are an experienced trainer or a novice instructor, you will find this workbook a useful resource for developing and facilitating change workshops for both leaders and those affected by a proposed change. By understanding the basic concepts about how change works and then reviewing the sample training programme designs, you will be able to custom-design the programme you need to offer a given audience.

If you have used the other books in the Trainer’s WorkShop Series, you might notice that this book offers only single- or two-day options for training. Other books in the series offer scripted options for a half-day, full-day, or multi-day programmes. This book is a little different. Because change does not happen in a vacuum and usually affects an organization from top to bottom, the programmes in this workbook offer the minimum recommended amount of training for leaders, managers and employees. You can use the material provided to meet your own needs, either by creating longer or shorter programmes or by adding some of your own material. Keep in mind, however, that thoughtful training is key to successful change. It is difficult to rush the process.

To derive the greatest benefit from this book, the authors recommend that you follow these steps as you design your training programme:

• Skim the book. Take a quick look through the entire contents of this workbook. Study the ‘What’s in this Chapter?’ lists. Get a good sense of the layout and structure of what’s included.
• Understand the mechanics and dynamics of change. Read Chapter 2 to gain important insights about change, how it affects people, and the critical role that both leaders and staff play in enabling change to finally provide positive results for the organization, its employees, its customers and its investors.
• Assess your organization’s readiness for change. Chapter 3 introduces a variety of methods, approaches and tools for assessing the level of ‘change readiness’ in both leaders and staff. The important message of this chapter is that you don’t begin a change initiative without understanding the possible reactions that a variety of stakeholders are likely to have when confronted with the change. With a better understanding of your organization’s readiness for change, your skill-building efforts are more likely to be successful because you will have customized your training to fit the readiness of your target audience.
• Review the methods for good training design and creating a positive learning environment. By reading Chapter 4 you will review approaches and strategies for effectively teaching adults, preparing them for learning, supporting the ‘transfer’ of knowledge to practice and designing effective training programmes. Even if you are an experienced trainer, you should find that a review of this chapter will reinforce what you are...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• About the Authors
• Chapter 1. Introduction: How to Use This Book Effectively
• Chapter 2. How Organizational Change Affects Us
• Chapter 3. Assessing the Organization’s Environment
• Chapter 4. Turning People on to Learning
• Chapter 5. Evaluating Training Programmes
• Chapter 6. Two-Hour Executive Briefing on Change
• Chapter 7. Workshops for Managers and Supervisors
• Chapter 8. Workshops for Employees
• Chapter 9. Learning Activities
• Chapter 10. Training Tools
• Appendix. Using the Compact Disc
• References