When Change Is Unavoidable

What does a leader do when change is unavoidable? John Kotter in his book Leading Change lays out a process to implementing change in an organization. He places an emphasis on the processes by encouraging several steps to be followed by the leader. The process begins with developing a desire for change by examining the market and competitive realities and identifying and discussing potential crises, or major opportunities. Next, the leader would create a guiding coalition by putting together a group with enough power to lead the change and encouraging the group to work together like a team. This coalition would develop a vision and strategy to help direct the change effort. The coalition would also communicate the change vision by using every vehicle possible to constantly communicate the new vision and strategies and model the behavior expected of followers. The leader would then empower broad-based action by changing systems or structures that undermine the change vision and encourage risk taking and nontraditional ideas, activities, and actions. Next it is important to generating short-term wins by visibly recognizing and rewarding people who made the wins possible. These wins lead to consolidating gains and producing more change by reinvigorating the process with new projects, themes, and change agents. The last step is important as the leader must work to anchor new approaches in the culture by creating better performance through productivity-oriented behavior, more and better leadership, and more effective management. These steps should be effective in developing means to ensure leadership development and succession in the organization.

Reference:

Kotter, John P. (1996). Leading Change. Boston MA: Harvard Business School Press

The Leader As An Interventionist

Sometimes, as leaders, we are called upon to be interventionists. In his Intervention Theory and Method, Argyris asserts that an interventionist has three primary tasks: to generate valid information, to foster free choice, and to achieve internal commitment. Accomplishing these necessitates an understanding that people have mental maps with regard to how to act in situations. This involves the way they plan, implement and review their actions. His assertion is that it is these maps that guide people’s actions rather than the theories they espouse. Argyris suggest that two theories of action are involved. He makes a distinction between those theories that are implicit in what we do as practitioners, and those on which we call to speak of our actions to others. The former can be described as theories-in-use. They govern actual behavior and tend to be unspoken structures. The words we use to convey what we do can then be called espoused theory. When someone is asked how he would behave under certain circumstances, the answer he usually gives is his espoused theory of action for that situation. This is the theory of action to which he gives allegiance, and which, upon request, he communicates to others. However, the theory that actually governs his actions is his theory-in-use. Making this distinction allows us as interventionists to better anticipate behavior and reaction to change.

References:

Argyris, C. (1980). Inner Contradictions of Rigorous Research. San Diego CA: Academic Press.

Argyris, C. (1994). Knowledge for Action. San Francisco CA: Jossey-Bass.

Argyris, C., & Schön, D. (1978) Organizational learning: A theory of action perspective, Reading, Mass: Addison Wesley

Organizational Change As A Process

Nobody likes change. Not really. We grow accustomed to a certain way of doing things and change can be uncomfortable. Sometimes however, staying the same renders us both stagnant and impotent. Change may be necessary to be effective. Change can be difficult, often attracts resistance, and is time consuming. Change in terms of organizational development must be seen as a process and not an event. What good does it do for the leader to yell charge and rush to the top of the hill only to find he arrived there alone? A more progressive approach to change is the better part of wisdom. This takes adequate planning and this is how we, as leaders, can become change agents. French and Bell speak of organizational development in terms of organizational improvement through action research. Leadership is confronted with circumstances that make the necessity of change obvious. A change agent becomes essential for the following reason: external pressure, competition, new technology, cost, and failing systems. Furthermore, economic and social conditions as well as cultural flux can escalate the necessity of long-term change. The first step is arguably the most important and where the leader can be most effective; this is the planning stage. Proper planning can reduce the resistance that change sometimes encounters. Proper planning would involve in depth investigation in order to develop a preliminary diagnoses as well as a data gathering effort designed to ensure clear and precise status reports that can be used to develop an action plan. In the language of systems theory, this is the input phase, in which the member system becomes aware of problems as yet unidentified, realizes it may need outside help to effect changes, and participates with the leader in the process of problem diagnosis and affective change.

References:

French, Wendell L. & Bell, Cecil (1973). Organization development: behavioral science interventions for organization improvement. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall

Johnson Richard A. (1976). Management, systems, and society : an introduction. Pacific Palisades, Calif.: Goodyear Pub. Co

When Change Is Necessary

Change is the only constant in an organization. The environment is always in flux. Churches who refuse to address the changing culture are in jeopardy of becoming irrelevant. Leaders today must become change agents or interventionists in order to insure proper adjustment to the changing landscape. In certain instances, some among the leadership, as well as the members are frozen in past traditions and intervention is required to facilitate the change. The leader may be called upon to orchestrate this intervention. If you find yourself in this position, I recommend Argyris & Schön’s change model as a guide. They recommend the change agent or interventionist move the process through six phases.

1. Mapping the problem. This includes the factors and relationships that define the problem, and the relationship with the living systems of the organization.
2. The internalization of the map by members. Through inquiry and confrontation the interventionists work with members to develop a map for which members can accept responsibility.
3. Test the model. This involves looking at what ‘testable predictions’ can be derived from the map – and looking to practice and history to see if the predictions stand up. If they do not, the map has to be modified.
4. Invent solutions to the problem and simulate them to explore their possible impact.
5. Produce the intervention. Make the change.
6. Study the impact. This allows for the correction of errors as well as generating knowledge for future designs.

References:

Argyris, C., & Schön, D. (1978) Organizational learning: A theory of action perspective, Reading, Mass: Addison Wesley. (pp. 220-221)

The Leader As A Change Agent

There is one thing in any church that will never change…and that is the fact that everything changes. This makes change leadership essential. Factors that necessitate proper change management include external pressure; which can encompass competition, new technology, cost, and culture changes, as well as constantly changing economic and social conditions. Many organizational change management theories and models are based on Lewin’s unfreeze-change-refreeze theory. Lewin believed that the motivation to change was strongly related to action: If people are active in decisions affecting them, they are more likely to adopt new ways. He embraced the idea that change management proceeds in a circle of steps. The steps embrace the idea of:

• Unfreeze - becoming motivated to change: Faced with a dilemma or disconfirmation, the individual or group becomes aware of a need to change even though there may be resistance to said change
• Transition (or Change) - change what needs to be changed or moving to a new state: The situation is diagnosed and new models of behavior are explored and tested.
• Refreeze - making the change permanent: Application of new behavior is evaluated, and if reinforcing, adopted

The cycle begins with a series of planning actions initiated by the leader who works as a change agent. This model can be adopted by church leaders as they become change agents in order to be effective in a constantly changing culture.

References:

Lewin, K. (1948) Resolving Social Conflicts. Selected papers on group dynamics, New York: Harper and Row

Lewin, K. (1951) Field Theory in Social Science, New York: Harper and Row

Will God Use Ordinary People?

Recently, I was reading John MacArthur’s book: Twelve Ordinary Men. He points out how in Matthew Chapters 8, 9, and 10 Jesus shares leadership responsibilities with his disciples. Our Lord chose ordinary men and trained them to become extraordinary leaders. There are four natural progressions in their training. First, they simply followed Jesus. These followers grew as they listening to and learning from his teachings. A fundamental principle of discipleship and leadership training is that you cannot be trained as a leader if you are not interested in learning and following. In other words, difficult to lead others if you have not first learned to follow. How can you lead if you do not understand being led? Second, there must be commitment. When Jesus called these men, they left everything to follow him. You cannot be trained to lead others if you fail to commit. If there is absence of self-sacrifice, there is absence for service. There is a connection between dying to self and service to God and for God. Third, there is internship. The Twelve had wonderful opportunities and were privileged to spend premium time with Jesus being mentored and taught by him. Think of it. How would you like to be mentored personally by the Son of God! Such education and experience can not be obtained in Seminary. It is through the process of internship that their character was shaped and their destiny fashioned. The final step of leadership training is empowerment for specific service. This is primarily the work of the Holy Spirit. Jesus instructed followers to stay in Jerusalem until they receive the dynamic power from the Holy Spirit so that they might fulfill the Great Commission (Acts 1:8). These were ordinary men. The lesson here is God uses ordinary people to do extraordinary things so that He can be glorified. John MacArthur says, “God’s favorite instruments are nobodies, so that no man can boast before God.”

Reference:

John MacArthur, Twelve Ordinary Men (Nashville: Nelson, 2002), 15-19.

Jesus: The Servant Leader

In Matthew 4:19: Matthew shows how Jesus establishes Himself as an effective leader. Matthew builds a progression in the text that shows a natural establishment of Jesus as a leader. “Come, follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will make you fishers of men.” . Jesus' call to leave profession and family was radical, the sort of demand that only the most radical teacher would make. This text provides us several examples of servant-leadership and radical discipleship. Jesus' seeking out disciples himself may represent a serious breach of custom as Jesus is seen "coming down to their level" socially. Kouzes and Posner identify this challenging of the “status quo” process as a quality of great leadership. Notice also that Jesus relates to his followers in terms they can understand. Jesus did not call professionally trained rabbis to be his followers. He called fishermen and encouraged them that the skills they already had were serviceable in the kingdom. Great leaders use persuasive rhetoric and can motivate followers through rhetorical lens’. Bass points out that transformational leaders “move followers to go beyond their own self-interests” (fishing) “for the good of their group, organization or community, country or society as a whole” (fishing for men).

Bass, B.M. (1985). Leadership and Performance Beyond Expectation. New York: Free Press

Kouzes, J. M., & Posner, B. Z. (1993). Credibility: How leaders gain and lose it, why people demand it. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.