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at past events

August 17, 2010  

Breakout #1: Building an Innovative Culture

Today's leaders need to become more attentive to the role an organization's culture performs in influencing performance.  The interaction between leadership, culture, and performance shows a significant linkage between these three organizational variables.  Ideally, leaders will develop and work with an adaptive or innovative culture that allows continuous organizational transformation change and innovation.  This session will focus on: the relationship of transformational leadership and an innovative culture.  The elements necessary to facilitate a culture of true innovation will be the focal point of this session.  This active discussion will be led by Dr. Tim Reymann.   

Breakout #2: to be determined

July 14, 2010  

Breakout #1: Behavioral vs. Structural Approaches to Change

Many organizations launch change initiatives in an effort to change perceived dysfunctional behavior.  These initiatives achieve varying degrees of success, but often many fail.  The question is, “Why do so many change initiatives fail?”  Change initiatives and activities can be broken down into two general approaches: 1.) Behavioral approaches—which focus on changing specific behavior, using activities such as training, personal development, and incentives; and 2.) Structural approaches—which focus on changing the underlying causes of unwanted behavior, relying on more strategic and process oriented methods.  Both of these approaches can be successfully employed, depending on the situation.  However, the key to success often lies in correctly matching the approach taken with the given situation.   This discussion will focus on the dynamics of both behavioral and structural approaches to change, as well as when to employ each.  As change facilitators, participants will be asked to share their own observations and experiences on the subject.  This discussion will be facilitated by Tom Panek.  

June 8, 2010  

Breakout #1: BSC Strategy Map, Part 2 – Implementation (continues the April discussion)

In April we began the exploration of the Balanced Scorecard and Strategy Maps as change tools by presenting materials from Kaplan & Norton with examples drawn from non-profit and higher education organizations.  This session will begin with a brief review of the material covered earlier and continue with a focus on how these tools can be used for changing how organizations execute their strategy.  Do they work best for communicating, and if so when and to whom?  Do they work for developing measures?  Do they work for alignment or increasing line-of-sight within the organization?  Also, how do these tools work along with other change-oriented tools such as those within Six Sigma and TQM?  This session will be facilitated by Dr. Jan Lyddon and Bruce McComb.   

Breakout #2: Understanding Resistance to Change  

Various reasons for change resistance will be discussed including some rational reasons often found embedded in such resistance.  Topics will include active vs. passive resistance, alternate views of the future, vested interest in the past, and identifying influencers in the organization.  Much of the discussion will connect to approaches for mitigating change resistance.  This active discussion will be led by Dr. Ross Wirth.    

May 11, 2010

Breakout #1: Engaging the Grassroots

To be truly effective, change leaders must be able to actively involve others in a collective effort where everyone is aligned with the desired change.  This form of engagement needs to be fully participative and open to ongoing learning that facilitates the change process.  Further, leaders often face the challenge of working with shifting group membership while still needing to motivate them to embrace a vision that is truly compelling.  This process also requires leaders to know what things to leave alone and what really needs to change.  This session will be facilitated by Dr. Tim Reymann and will address the core competencies leaders need to bring to the process of engaging individuals in change initiatives.

Breakout #2: Understanding Stages of Change   

Change doesn’t happen on a timetable that we can dictate.  People (and organizations) go through stages of change that have different challenges that must be overcome prior to moving to the next stage.  This breakout session will discuss the Transtheoretical Model of change with a focus on identifying various stages of change that will be encountered in any change initiative.  Once identified, there are then prescriptive actions that are effective in moving the change process along.  Dr. Ross Wirth will facilitate this session and will describe how mismatched actions to the stage of change often leads to failure or delayed change to occur. 

April 13, 2010

Breakout #1: Using the Balanced Scorecard (BSC) to Build a Strategy Map

The Balanced Scorecard (BSC) was designed to position performance evaluation within the framework of how organizational value is generated.  In doing so, the BSC moves performance analysis from an historic financial exercise of past performance to a review of strategic drivers for future results.  Integral to this use of the BSC is the strategy map that identifies how internal competencies drive operating process, which in turn drives customer outcomes that result in financial performance.  A strategy map may be used to clarify thinking as a strategy is developed as well as to communicate the strategy once it has solidified.  The underlying strategy map can also be used within non-profit and government organizations as they drive value for their stakeholders.  This breakout session will be facilitated by Dr. Jan Lyddon and Bruce McComb. 

Breakout #2: Learning to Lead Change    

Change leaders often move into their role with little or no prior experience.  Further, they rarely have much notice prior to assuming their duties.  This breakout session will be facilitated by Dr. Tim Reymann and will cover the following items: (1) The core competencies needed by change leaders at all levels in the organization (from follower to the upper echelon); (2) Communicating the purpose, goal, and vision related to change;
(3) Changing learning anxiety into a learning opportunity (forming a "comfort zone");
(4) Building a guiding organizational coalition; (5) Developing follower involvement, ownership, and true trust; and (6) Moving new approaches/changes into the organizational culture and values.  Part of the discussion will center on “learning how to learn” just-in-time, on-the-job.

March 9, 2010 

Breakout #1: Avoiding (or overcoming) Change Fatigue   

The global business environment puts enormous pressure on organizations to adapt in order to remain viable and competitive.  However, top management either frequently fails to implement effective change initiatives or launches too many change endeavors resulting in significant organizational instability.  This sets the stage for passive-aggressive behavior toward change and/or burnout by followers from daily disruptions of unsettled change.  The challenge is to sequence change initiatives leaving periods of stability for “resting” plus, individual and organizational growth between cycles.  This session will be facilitated by Dr. Tim Reymann.  

Breakout #2: Alternate Leadership Models 

The traditional Leader-Follower-Goal model of leadership fails to adequately explain group processes when leadership is shared or otherwise built into the self-managed governance structure.  This breakout session will be facilitated by Dr. Ross Wirth and covers collective leadership, the Direction-Alignment-Commitment model of leadership, and the leadership role played by internal networkers in organizational change.

January 14, 2010

Breakout #1: Communicating change: Is anyone listening?

Communication is at the center of virtually every change initiative – “communicating like never before” – informing, involving, and ultimately motivating employees to engage in the change process.  So how does a company develop an employee communication strategy for implementing change more effectively?  The answers will vary for each company, but there are some tried and true steps that help to formulate the right communication strategy.  Six steps will be discussed: (1) clarify goals; (2) indentify your audience; (3) assess resistance; (4) get the correct message across; (5) train communicators; and (6) choice of media.  This session will be facilitated by Professor George Redmond. 

Breakout #2: Building a sense of “community” within a group.

A sense of community requires individuals to move beyond themselves, to embrace the benefit of cooperative alignment with others.  In effect, it is becoming part of something greater than themselves while being empowered as a co-creator of the resulting spirit that holds the group together.  In this effort the change leader’s role is that of shifting context and enabling mutual interdependencies to be understood and nurtured.  The breakout session will be facilitated by Dr. Ross Wirth.

December 15, 2009 

Breakout #1: Understanding change from the perspective of complexity science

Most people have some familiarity of complexity science through hearing about the “butterfly effect,” “tipping point,” and “edge of chaos.”  This breakout session will work toward an understanding of these phrases and much more, focusing on how complexity science provides guidance for leading change.  This breakout will be facilitated by Dr. Ross Wirth.

Breakout #2: Performance improvement: Building a high-performance organization

Organizations often focus primarily on financial metrics to assess performance.  However, there is increasing realization that success comes from: (1) consensus on strategy; (2) alignment of goals & objectives across the organization; (3) sufficient feedback and information to establish goals and objectives; and (4) the competency to develop a long-term competitive strategy.  This breakout session will discuss methods for integrating customer processes, organizational learning, and performance assessment necessary for successful performance.  The breakout session will be facilitated by Dr. Tim Reymann.

November 4, 2009 

Breakout #1: Leading Change with Influence (Not Authority)

Change agents often work through the informal organization without the benefit of delegated authority.  This is especially true in non-profits where it is necessary to lead volunteers or set a vision for contribution efforts.  Others need to influence peers across the organization in order to meet their goals.  Even with positional power, managers are often more effective using influence techniques to overcome overt resistance and/or passive-aggressive behavior.  This breakout will be facilitated by Professor George Redmond and Dr. Tim Reymann.

Breakout #2: Questions that Lead Change

Many large group interventions and grassroots change initiatives are built on a foundation of deep questioning that leads the group toward a common understanding upon which to face their challenges.  This breakout will discuss how these question-based forums are established and how to craft the questions that will drive change.  The breakout session will be facilitated by Dr. Ross Wirth.

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Last modified: July 17, 2010