Keith E Rice - Change Management

"Change from what to what?" - Barbara Jordan
It might be clear to you what you need to do. It’s not always clear to others – and, even if it is, there’s no guarantee the changes will appeal. They may not share your Mission and Vision.

We all know of Mission Statements and Vision Statements which organisations proudly display in public areas but which very few people seem to take much notice of. The reason for this is to do with the neurological level of Values & Beliefs; the declared Mission or Vision simply doesn’t ‘chime’ with what’s important to them. Thus, it is either ignored as irrelevant or it even may be actively opposed.

Having a vision is critical for a leader; but there’s not much point in being a leader if no one is following. So vision has to be ‘sold’.

‘Selling’ to all relevant mindsets is critical if the Vision is to be effective. The understanding of how to do this is relatively new in leadership & management theory – as are the techniques to facilitate it. Fortunately, I have both the understanding and a number of tools!

By looking at the memes dominating culturally amongst different groups and key individuals and the vMEMES which are driving them, it is possible to tailor messages memetically to appeal to different mindsets. With my in-depth knowledge of what each vMEME values and how those vMEMES influence the Move Towards/Move Away From Self-Referenced/Others-Referenced meta-programmes, I can advise on what language and concepts to use to get the message across to each mindset.

I often use my 'Spiral Dynamics: Looking at Organisation Culture' survey to assess an organisation in the areas of Vision & Values, Leadership and Teamwork. This provides hard data on the perceptions of stakeholders and takes some of the guesswork out of deciding what others think of you, themselves and the organisation. It’s particularly informative when sampling across different departments, processes and geographical locations. Key information if we are to deliver multi-values messages that will appeal to all pertinent mindsets.

(An example of using the survey to great effect is given in the North Lincolnshire Council Community Investment Team case study.

Using the 4Q/8L schematic, we can see that the information on the culture of the organisation fits in the Lower Left Quadrant while the Mission and Vision come from the leaders in the Upper Left. To achieve organisational change in the Lower Right, the vMEMES of the Upper Left address the needs and wants of the Lower Left at the same time as driving change in the Lower Right.

Don Beck & Chris Cowan (1996), developers of Spiral Dynamics, make the point that, for leadership to be effective, it must use language half-a-vMEME ahead of the followers. So, for example, if the followers are centred on BLUE, the language of the leaders must be BLUE/ORANGE – primarily BLUE but liberally sprinkled with ORANGE – to stretch the followers’ understanding and create the conditions for change. Too far up from the Spiral linguistically and it the concepts will be too complex to understand. Too close on the Spiral and leadership cannot be demonstrated.

In looking at the symbiotic relationship between the two lower Quadrants, it can also be highly informative to use the Organisational LifeCycle – and in particular the balance of Ichak Adizes’ (1989) 4 Roles in relation to movement on the LifeCycle. Have we got the right kind of thinking – vMEMES and schemas – to make each role effective for where we want the organisation to go on the LifeCycle? I can help you assess the suitability thinking patterns to role and you decide what to do about it if there is a mismatch.

Devising action, of courses, requires planning.

The Influence of Key Individuals

It’s a mistake all too often made in organisations to think that the only real decision-makers are the leaders and managers. Decision-makers are often interspersed throughout several different parts of an organisation.

This is why Adizes distinguishes between Authority to make strategic decisions and the Power to make the strategies work and seeks to obtain CAPI – Coalescing the Authority and Power through Integration.

Adizes demonstrates the effect of Power to enable or disable strategic decisions through the anecdote of the packer in a shoe warehouse who, being alienated by management, deliberately packed 2 right and 2 left shoes in every third pair of boxes – and persuaded two of his colleagues to do likewise. Thousands of boxes had been sent off to the retail stores before the packer’s sabotage was discovered.

Thus, it is important to focus on the part ‘influencers’ will play right throughout the organisation and ensure that they especially can find value in the organisation’s Mission and Vision.

I can help with interviewing such individuals, assessing which vMEMES are running their attitudes and advising what kinds of things will enable them to buy into and support where the leaders want the organisation want the organisation to go. Again 4Q/8L can help us consider how an individual fits in with where the organisation is and where it will be going.