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Change Management

Leadership in Turbulent Times

About This Seminar

No organization in the twenty first century can afford to brag about its ability to stand still as the world around them changes at ever increasing velocity. Peter Drucker comments about our time: "We are in one of those great historical periods that occur every 200 to 300 years when people no longer fully understand the world anymore, and knowledge of the past is not sufficient to explain the future."

The failure rate of organizational change is dramatic, even though a plethora of training and education programs attempt to help leaders, managers and change agents to make sense of the complex world around them. Several studies point out that the most frequent and most severe cause for these failures is a neglect of organizational culture. In this program we examine, among other things, how some organizations have proverbially eaten incumbent competitor's lunch, while well established organizations have to sell off divisions, repeatedly have to let go CEOs, and radically downsize to survive.

In this program we examine the nature of organizational culture, its tendency to seek stasis, how to thaw organizational culture-permafrost to force it to periodically redefine itself, and we define a simple, yet rigorous process to ensure that culture matches the strategic aspiration of an organization.

Who Should Attend

This course is most useful to leaders and managers who are asked to orchestrate change efforts; it will help consultants and teachers design and conduct change processes necessary to shape work cultures they are operating in; it will enable workers on all levels who become subject to change processes to understand the change process and the role they need to play in the course of events.

Learning Objectives

  • Understand why organizational culture matters.
  • Identify the key components of organizational culture that need to be simultaneously managed.
  • Develop a work understanding of a culture assessment framework.
  • Assess your organization's culture and identify any needs to change.
  • Identify the/your emergent leadership/change agent implications from your organizational culture diagnosis.
  • Learn to differentiate between 'L' (technical) and 'l' (adaptive) leadership as the distinct and different styles relate to the organizational change you are facing.
  • Practice the associated skills and competencies serving the above.

Professor Bio

Horst Abraham is a Faculty Partner of the Strategy, Leadership and Change Group. His skills as a process consultant and coach were developed first in working with high performance athletes. From 1971 to 1984 he served as the education vice president of the Professional Ski Instructors of America.

Since 1984 he has worked with top executives at many Fortune 200 firms to support a variety of organizational change interventions, including: building and managing high performance teams, leadership development, performance management and culture change. A partial list includes: Allstate Insurance, AT&T, Behringer Ingelheim, Boeing, British Petroleum, Cellular One, Citibank, Clariant, Coca Cola, EDS, Florida Power & Light, John Hancock, Head Industries, Johnson and Johnson, Lucent Technologies, Marsh Inc., McNeil Pharmaceutical, Merrill Lynch, Microsoft, PCC-Precision Casting Corporation, SFC - Securities and Futures Commission Hong Kong, Sun University, and Sony. He is an adjunct faculty member of the University of Michigan, Ross School of Business, Executive Education.

Horst has written two books on the topic of learning and performing: Skiing Right (Harper, 1982) and Women in Sports (Penguin, 1984). His innovative thinking in the domain of learning and teaching earned him an honorary assignment to the Education Commission of Japan. He holds an MA degree in Education and the Behavioral Sciences from the University of Vienna, the University of Cologne; he is a graduate of the Colorado Business School, as well as holding the highest-level ski and mountain guide licenses from France and Austria. He is an avid mountain climber and was a nationally ranked, competitive sailor. Since 1964 he has resided in Vail, Colorado and Punta Gorda, Florida.

Outline

  1. Introduction to Change Mgt
    • The Anatomy of Change:
      • 'Future Shock' revisited.
      • What is changing about the rate and nature of change?!
      • Assessing the rate and magnitude of change in your organization.
  2. Managing Organizational Culture
    • What is Culture?!
    • Why Culture Matters!
    • Key dimensions of organizational Culture.
    • The paradoxical leadership challenge in leading/managing culture.
  3. Managing Culture Change
    • Assess how your organizational culture needs to change (or stay the same) in order to serve your organization's strategic intent.
    • What do the identified change needs mean/do not mean.
    • Identifying the primary change targets.
    • First steps to serve the above.
    • Culture experiment: intent into action.
  4. Change-leadership Implications
    • Individual change as a key to organizational culture change.
    • Key attitudes; key change leadership skills and competencies.
    • Distinguish between 'technical' (L) and 'adaptive' (l) leadership.
    • Assess your personal leadership skills and their match or mismatch with the organization's change needs.
    • The role of communication and feedback in the change process.
    • Practice of 'crucial' communication skills - words matter in the change process!
  5. Summary
    • Action commitments.
    • Learning Quiz.

Days/Duration

1.5 days (shortest possible duration) to 2.0 days (optimal)