Leading Change Through Dialogue: What Human Resource Leaders Should Know
In the current climate of unprecedented global transformation, human resource leaders can lead the charge in re-energizing, re-vitalizing, and re-constructing our organizations. What strategies can we use to implement successful organizational change? Perhaps one way we can lead this charge is by targeting organizational culture through improved dialogue. The goal of this article is to discuss organizational change and how we can improve organizational culture by influencing stakeholders meaning-making. I conclude with practical strategies human resource leaders can use to improve dialogue and increase the chance of successful organizational change.
Time for a Change – Again
Having a firm grounding in various change process models is vital to successful change implementation, especially in this current climate. While there are many change models, most discuss the interplay between leadership, values alignment, and creating momentum for change. Invariably, models emphasize the importance of the leader’s role in change: leaders must judge the readiness for change, generate social support among followers, set goals, elaborate plans and communicate to stakeholders. Furthermore, leaders must adjust organizational processes because change efforts often fail because the intended change is never integrated into the day-to-day life of the organization. Leaders should also create feedback loops and follow-up structures to monitor the effectiveness of the change effort and realign the strategy if necessary. Finally, many change models emphasize leaders role as the source of vision, the moral compass, and the director in the change effort. This is often seen as a key point in managing the change effort.
There are no lack of “tips” and “advice” to leaders trying to implement change. In fact, sometimes these tips are conflicting or are linked to the latest fad. Some call for creating urgency, and in communicating small wins. Others call for retiring old symbols or creating new ones as metaphors for a new reality: even going so far as to hold a funeral. Much of this advice highlights the belief that successful change comes from a deep personal conviction and an understanding of the change process. Essentially, when all sources of guidance to leader is distilled, successful change targets organizational culture.
Organizational Culture: Who are we?
Many thinkers, academics, and leaders work hard to understand organizational culture. Organizational culture is the outward expression of an organization’s values, beliefs, or norms; and we express this culture through myths, rituals, stories, legends, or language. We often define organizational culture simply as: “How things get done around here”, or “How we treat each other and our customers”. Many times we enshrine culture in values and mission statements in an attempt to preserve who we are and what we mean to each other…respect, excellent customer service…etc. We create and change culture by our evaluation of the world around us. Based on our previous experiences, we make judgements, take action and, in this process, make meaning. In essence, our organizations, the structures we create, the buildings, technology policies and procedures rest upon our search for meaning.
This process of meaning-making is at the core of organizational culture and organizational change. Our personal set of beliefs and values influence how we act towards a thing, or situation. We create meaning through our experiences and we mediate that meaning within our relationships with others. In other words, we filter a particular meaning of an experience, or event, while interacting with others. Now imagine the webs of meaning-making that occur in an organization when leaders introduce a change initiative. Members trying to make sense of the change (sometimes even the manager introducing the initiative!), often with little help from those who seek to implement the new initiative. It is here that I believe that leaders can increase the successes of their change initiatives by monitoring and influencing the meaning-making that occurs in organizations.
The Power of Dialogue: Re-energizing, Re-vitalizing, and Re-constructing our Organizations
Dialogue is a major way organizational members create meaning. In our quest to implement change to address our new reality, we often take short-cuts that bypass the meaning-making that goes on in hallways, at the water cooler, or in the cafeteria. We focus our efforts on providing detailed plans, with resource allocations, SWOT analysis and business plans. While these processes are important to the change effort, so is influencing the meaning-making process that permeates these activities. For example, change initiatives will often include communication activities and feedback opportunities. However the communication is often one way and rarely provides opportunities for those affected to develop a clear understanding of the change.
Dialogue is the process of building new understanding, not through debate, but by seeing oneself as an extension of others- part of a team or network. Dialogue can give leaders an edge in influencing the meaning-making process, which in turn affects the organizational culture and the success of the change initiative. Dialogue can only occur when there is a) mutual understanding based upon a sincere intent to create shared meaning, b) when there is a sharing our truths (as we now know them), and c) the understanding that all points of view are valid.
Effective dialogue bridges the gaps in creating the new understanding essential in anchoring organizational change efforts. Organizational lay-offs is an example of organizational change that we can mitigate by the use of dialogue. In dealing with lay-offs many organizations focus on those leaving, however, those left behind are at risk of succumbing to anger, depression, a sense of loss and grief. This situation can drain creativity, create rifts, and sap vital energy that should be aimed at increasing the organization’s ability to meet current challenges. Leaders need to offer these organizational survivors an opportunity to understand what’s happening. These opportunities can come in the form of dialogue: dialogue aimed at the sharing of perspectives, hopes and fears. These opportunities are not occasions, or events wherein survivors are asked simply to talk about their perspective about what is happening. Organizational leaders must engage with survivors in a meaningful way: helping survivors by offering information, providing direction, and vision. These dialogues can help build connections between survivors and leaders by creating shared meaning.
Given the role of genuine dialogue in creating shared meaning, here are four strategies human resource leaders can use to promote dialogue among organizational members:
- Scheduled dialogue groups provide a forum for managers and employees to talk to each other openly about what is occurring in the organization.
- World Cafés invite stakeholders (employees, managers, owners, customers, etc.) to engage with each other around a specific issue; to listen and respond to each other.
- Open Space Technologies. Allow stakeholders to work collaboratively in solving organizational problems.
- Using Communication Plans. Communication plans are key in any change effort. Leaders must ensure that they provide ongoing, two-way communication and that plans contain various approaches and methods of communication.
In a climate global transformation, organizations demand that human resource leaders lead the charge in re-energizing, re-vitalizing, and re-constructing the workplace. Dialogue helps leaders connect with employees and jointly create shared meaning. This unified vision improves team effectiveness as they face change and adapt to new challenges together. There is tremendous opportunity inherent in change. We can assure the success of our change initiatives if we do things that improve the meaning-making that occurs in our organizations through dialogue.