Changing others through changing ourselves

1. Changing others through changing ourselves • Real adaptive change can only be achieved by mobilizing people to make painful adjustments in their attitudes, work habits, and lives. In adaptive change, people must step outside known patterns of behavior – they must surrender their present selves and put themselves in jeopardy by becoming part of an emergent system. This process usually requires the 1) surrender of personal control, 2) the toleration of uncertainty, and 3) the development of a new culture at the collective level and 4) a new self at the individual level.

2. Traditional Change Strategies • Empirical-rational strategy • Educate about the logic and benefits of change • People may understand why they should change, but they are often not willing to make the painful changes necessary for adaptive change.

3. Power-coercive strategy: • Emphasizes political and economic power, forcing people to change through the use of external sanctions. • Usually evokes anger, resistance, and damage to the fundamental relationships of those involved in change

4. Normative-reeducative strategy: • Individuals still guided by rational calculus, but extends beyond self-interest to the common good. • Leader welcomes the input of others as equals into the change process • Involves others in an honest dialogue while mutually searching for win-win solutions. • ACT puts a greater emphasis on the need for leaders to change themselves

5. Seeks to create an emergent system Recognizes hypocrisy and patterns of self-deception Personal change through value clarification and alignment of behaviors Frees oneself from the system of external sanctions Develops a vision for the common good Takes action at the edge of chaos Maintains reverence for others involved in change Inspires others to enact their best selves Models counterintuitive, paradoxical behavior Changes self and system Advanced Change Theory (ACT)

6. Changing an organization requires leaders to change themselves first • Emergent system • Requires shift away from self-interested behavior to purposeful behavior • Leader strives for inclusion, openness, and development and minimizes the need for hierarchy • Recognize hypocrisy and patterns of self-deception • Discrepancy between what people espouse and how they behave • Reduce integrity gaps • Natural defense mechanisms often shut down change process. Claim that we want progress, but often pursue the preservation of our current position

7. Argyris: there is a systematic discrepancy between what people espouse and how they behave and they are often unaware of it. • Results in miscommunication, self-fulfilling prophecies, escalating errors • “Universal human tendency” to organize our lives around four basic values: • Remaining in control • Winning • Suppressing negative feelings • Making a rational pursuit of objectives

8. Mismatch Or errors Governing Values or Assumptions Actions Single-loop learning Double-loop learning

9. Personal change through value clarification and alignment of behaviors • Be open to the possibility of reframing your viewpoint in a situation • Ensure behavior is aligned with key values • Free oneself from the system of external sanctions • Do what is right rather than what is prescribed by existing laws, rules, or authority • Go against the status go

10. Develop a vision for the common good • Must be a vision for the common good if others are expected to make painful changes • Takes action to the edge of chaos • Courage to act on faith • Step out of your comfort zone to do the right thing vs. the easy thing • Maintains reverence for others involved in change • Trust rather than control becomes the basis for relationship • Competence • Integrity • benevolence

11. Inspires others to enact their best selves • Ask for stretch efforts while modeling courage, integrity, competence, and concern for others • Models counterintuitive, paradoxical behavior • See the big picture; system complexity • Changes self and system • Change must begin by looking inside

12. Revolutionary power follows from the practice of reflection, self-examination, and the creative enactment of clear principles. When a person enacts principle driven behavior, it challenges the current system and forces people to chose between what is expedient/easy and what is the right thing to do. This kind of awareness separates people and generates conflict. It alters everyone, including the leader of change. • Your circle of influence might be larger than you believe

13. ACT practitioners become empowered when they take responsibility for themselves, risk new behaviors, and evolve meanings. • Leaders become self-authorizing individuals with a unique voice • Organizations cannot empower people. People can only empower themselves.