December 14, 2009 - Creating a climate for change
The following is an excerpt from my new book, The Painful Side of Leadership
There is one overarching strategic action foundational to successfully implementing any change process. As the leader, you are the only person in your organization that can do this. You have the unique platform through your position to create a climate for change. Doing the following can help create this climate, no matter the kind of step-by-step change management process you later initiate.
Picture a preferred future for your organization. My earliest attempts at creating a climate for change included brow-beating my followers for their inadequacy, telling them how bad they were, and reminding them how good my experience had been in my previous ministry setting. For some mysterious reason, that didn’t work!
It’s incongruous to tell people how inadequate they are and then tell them they are adequate to fulfill your dream, if they will only get on board. We forget church members or ministry employees are where they have been led. If you are new in your setting, they followed your predecessor. If you have been in your position for a while, they followed you. Either way, a negative approach to their present circumstances is counterproductive. Telling the truth about your current situation, without blaming past leaders for their
decisions or your followers for willingly supporting them, is a far better approach. Harping on how bad things are and how dumb your followers are for being in their present state is pointless.
To create a climate for change, focus your energy on creating a picture of a preferred future. Communicate your dream for what can be more than your criticism for what is. When you do this, followers will evaluate their present state without feeling threatened. In doing so, they are much more likely to cooperate on the change strategy you later ask them to implement.
Encourage dialogue about the future. Too many leaders start a major change process by telling their followers what needs to happen rather than initiating dialogue about what might happen. Dialogue is threatening to some leaders. They fear losing control of the conversation and, therefore, the outcomes. But that isn’t what usually happens. Remember this powerful fact about dialogue: The person asking the questions controls the conversation.
A wise leader asks the right questions to get people thinking about the future. Here are four of my favorite questions to facilitate this process:
1. If we fulfill the Great Commission in our community, (or through our ministry organization) what would it look like?
2. If another (50 or 100, or 1000 depending on your setting) people joined our church, what would have to change to meet their needs?
3. When we celebrate our (10th, 20th, or next significant) anniversary, what are the accomplishments you dream our organization will celebrate that day?
4. Suppose our church (or organization) didn’t exist. You were given the money and power to start it over. What would it be like?
Ask these questions in formal and informal settings to promote dialogue about the future in churches and ministry organizations. Formal settings include retreats, committee meetings, or staff meetings; including occasional sessions devoted specifically to vision-development or a change-initiating process. Informal settings include lunch with key leaders, over coffee where members or employees gather informally, or while riding in the car to ministry functions. One rural pastor who led his church through remarkable change told me, “I drink coffee most mornings at the cotton gin and have lunch a few times a week at the diner. That’s where we make most of our church decisions. We may vote on them at church, but we talk through them someplace else.” Brilliant leadership by a pastor who understands how to guide dialogue related to managing change.
Don’t misunderstand the concept of dialogue. It isn’t manipulating people into agreeing with you. It doesn’t mean everyone must be consulted on every matter or every idea has to be included in the final decision. Dialogue with key leaders, employees, or stakeholders engages people in the process and creates a climate for working toward real change. Dialogue is valuable because your questions give people a preview of your thinking and where you/they might be going. Dialogue can also help you see shortcomings in your ideas or timeframe for change. But perhaps it’s most valuable because it helps people feel connected to the process, to feel like insiders on leadership decisions. Once, when working on a major visioning process, we invited every employee – every secretary, custodian, landscaper, manager, director, and vice-president - to participate through focus group dialogue and providing written input. When the process concluded, several employees thanked me and one said, “No matter if you use my ideas or not, it’s great to be part of such an important process.” That’s the power of dialogue. Eventually, you will articulate the major changes you believe must happen. But do that later in the process, after appropriate dialogue, not at the beginning before people are ready for it.
Develop major change proposals in a group context. Some leaders have the “Moses on the mountain” mentality about receiving God’s direction for their ministry. While that model worked once for Moses, major ministry decisions today are usually best made in the context of a small group. Every leader needs a small group of trusted colleagues who partner to develop major change initiatives. These groups function best when they are not concerned with day-to-day programs and operations and are primarily devoted to thinking, praying, and developing strategies for the future. For a pastor, this is usually elders or deacons or some other form of governing group. In a ministry organization, board members, senior leaders, or department directors often form this kind of group. Again, while some time must be spent on operational problems, they should also have primary responsibility for thinking about the future and major changes required to move the organization forward.
Whether you are considering a new facility, a radical reorganization, a major staff addition or change, or some other paradigm shifting decision about your organization – you will almost always make a better decision, more readily embraced by your followers, if you make it with a group that represents them and has their confidence. We romanticize solo leaders who ride tall in the saddle. Those people are also the easiest to shoot! Most of the time, we are more effective if we ride with a posse.
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