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Barriers to Change Understanding Roadblocks to Progress in Organizations

and Communities

Froswa' Booker-Drew November 6, 2013

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Today’s Speakers

Froswa' Booker-Drew Consultant

Soulstice Consultancy

Jamie Maloney Community Developer, 4Good

Founding Director of Nonprofit Webinars and Host:

Sam Frank, Synthesis Partnership

Part

Of:

Barriers to Change:

Understanding Roadblocks to

Progress in Organizations and

Communities

Froswa’ Booker-Drew

Froswa’ Booker-Drew

• Director for International NGO

• Leadership and Change PhD student at

Antioch University

• Author of Rules of Engagement: Building

Relationships that Last

• Consultant to nonprofit organizations around

the US

What is Change?

Leaders and Change

• “…twenty-first-century leaders

must find a more effective way

to engage the emotional lives of

their organizations and their

leadership teams.”

Kegan, Robert; Lahey, Lisa Laskow (2009-02-15). Immunity to Change: How to Overcome It and Unlock the Potential in

Yourself and Your Organization (Leadership for the Common Good) Harvard Business Review Press.

Reflection Moment

Think about those areas in which change hasn’t

occurred and is creating dysfunction in our

organizations and communities especially

around our own challenges as individuals in this

work.

Why is Change Difficult?

“The problem is the inability to close the gap

between what we genuinely, even passionately,

want and what we are actually able to do.

Closing this gap is a central learning problem of

the twenty-first century.”

Kegan, Robert; Lahey, Lisa Laskow (2009-02-15). Immunity to Change: How to Overcome It and Unlock the

Potential in Yourself and Your Organization (Leadership for the Common Good) Harvard Business Review

Press.

Making Meaning

Every day, we make meaning of the things we

experience. Often, our meanings create

challenges for creating change.

In our organizations and in our communities,

what are some ideas that mean different things

to different people and cause conflict?

On the Balcony vs. on the Dance Floor

“When you move back and forth

between balcony and dance floor, you

can continually assess what is

happening in your organization and

take corrective midcourse action.”

Heifetz, Ronald A.; Linsky, Marty; Grashow, Alexander (2009-05-18). The Practice of

Adaptive Leadership: Tools and Tactics for Changing Your Organization and the World

(p. 8). Harvard Business Review Press.

Our Lens is Important

• Structural

• Human Relations

• Symbolic

• Political

From “Reframing Organizations: The Artistry of Leadership”

Using the Wrong Lens

• “….people begin analyzing problems by

personalizing them.”

Heifetz, Ronald A.; Linsky, Marty; Grashow, Alexander (2009-05-18). The Practice

of Adaptive Leadership: Tools and Tactics for Changing Your Organization and the

World (p. 8). Harvard Business Review Press. Kindle Edition.

Technical versus Adaptive Challenge

• Technical challenges are those that require a

solution that involves a skill.

• Adaptive challenges are those that skills can

not change and require a change in ourselves

and the way we view situations.

• Applying a technical solution to an adaptive

challenge does not solve a problem. Often,

our self-identity is a part of the adaptive

challenge.

Technical Versus Adaptive Challenges

As a group, think of times we see technical

solutions being used instead of adaptive

ones in the workplace? In our communities?

Adaptive Challenges

• “Adaptive challenges can only be addressed

through changes in people’s priorities, beliefs,

habits, and loyalties.”

Heifetz, Ronald A.; Linsky, Marty; Grashow, Alexander (2009-05-18). The Practice of Adaptive

Leadership: Tools and Tactics for Changing Your Organization and the World (p. 20). Harvard

Business Review Press. Kindle Edition.

Change is About Development

• True change in our communities and in

ourselves is about development and not

increasing our knowledge or behavior.

Coping and dealing only adds “new skills or

widen(s) our repertoire of responses.” We are

the same person who hasn’t changed.

Kegan, Robert; Lahey, Lisa Laskow (2009-02-15). Immunity to Change: How to Overcome It and Unlock the

Potential in Yourself and Your Organization (Leadership for the Common Good) Harvard Business Review.

Adults Can Change!

Adults have different plateaus in mental

complexity.

This is demonstrated in:

a. The socialized mind

b. The self-authoring mind

c. The self-transforming mind

The Socialized Mind

• Shaped by definitions and expectations of

our environment

• I am strongly influenced by what I think

people want to hear

• Sensitive to and influenced by what it picks

up

• May read more into what is being received

than what actually was intended

Self Authoring Mind

• Creates a filter for what it allows to come

through

• Places priority on information that is sought

to accomplish plan

• If I didn’t ask for the information and it is not

relevant to me, it can’t get through my filter.

Self Transforming Mind

• Can look at a situation and also look

through the situation

• Involves systems thinking—can see multiple

variables at work

• Has the ability to see the positive and

negative of a situation at the same time

Challenges for Leaders Today

• “….data suggests that the gap between what

we now expect of people’s minds (including

our own minds) and what our minds are

actually like is quite large. We expect most

workers to be self-authoring, but most are

not. We expect most leaders to be more

complex than self-authoring, and very few

are.” What does this mean for our lives? Our

organizations? Communities?

Kegan, Robert; Lahey, Lisa Laskow (2009-02-15). Immunity to Change: How to Overcome It and Unlock the

Potential in Yourself and Your Organization (Leadership for the Common Good) (Kindle Locations 622-624).

Harvard Business Review Press. Kindle Edition.

What is the Immunity to Change Process?

• Improvement Goal

• Worry Box--If you do what you desire, what

worries you about making it happen?

• Competing Commitment—What is getting in

the way of the goal being accomplished?

• Big Assumptions—If you make the change,

what do you assume will happen that isn’t

positive?

Self-Reflection as a part of Change

“Self-reflection is a central aspect of any

organizational work.” Self-reflection is not only

important in organizations but as leaders, we

must take time to reflect on who we are and

those things that impact us.

Your narrative about yourself could contribute to

your inability to create change.

• Kegan, Robert; Lahey, Lisa Laskow (2009-02-15). Immunity to Change: How to Overcome It and Unlock the

Potential in Yourself and Your Organization (Leadership for the Common Good) .Harvard Business Review

Press.

Steps to Becoming an Adaptive Leader

• Engage Above and Below the Neck

• Connect to Purpose

• Listen to the Song Beneath the Words

• Diagnose the Political Landscape

• Uncover Values Driving Behavior

• Acknowledge Loyalties

• Name the Losses at Risk

Steps in Becoming an Adaptive Leader

• Name the Elephants in the Room

• Share Responsibility for the Organization’s or

Community’s Future

• Protect and Engage the Voices of Dissent

• Know your many identities

• Know Your Triggers

• Grow Your Network

• Heifetz, Ronald A.; Linsky, Marty; Grashow, Alexander (2009-05-18). The

Practice of Adaptive Leadership: Tools and Tactics for Changing Your

Organization and the World . Harvard Business Review Press. Kindle Edition.

Contact Information

Froswa’ Booker-Drew

soulsticeceo@gmail.com

Rules of Engagement: Making Connections

Last

• For information on the book, visit

www.austinbrotherspublishing.com