Shaping for Mission? An Introduction to Change Management in a

Methodist Context

Richard Andrew

Aim – to explore change processes and identify some tools for change management

In pairs share a positive and a negative experience of change connected with your own practice. From your conversation distil two points of learning to share with the group.

Exercise

Change is an ongoing process not a “visionary end state” which can be reached

in a highly programmed way

Defining Change: A False Start

http://www.lindsay-sherwin.co.uk/guide_managing_change/html

_change_strategy/06_mckinsey.htm

Change = a process of moving from a less desirable to a more desirable state of affairs consistent with the beliefs, values and purposes of an organisation.

  Assumption – change management is a social

process involving re-configurations (small or large) in human relationships and behaviour.

Defining Change: A Definition

PERSON-OBJECT RELATIONSHIP

PERSON-PERSON RELATIONSHIP

People are not Machines

P O

P P

Rule #1 - People are different Rule #2 - People are different Rule #3 - People are different

www.rapibi.com

Three Leadership Rules of Change

As you watch the DVD jot down any observations you have about its success/failure as a process of change.

Exercise: Brides of Christ

1.people need a degree of stability and predictability in their environment both at the level of relationships and social space

2.change threatens identity - it involves disruption to the normal course of events or to a world view - underpinning someone’s approach to congregational life is a world view which is not only made up of rational ideas but emotional attachments, stories, memories and symbols

3.significant change poses the possibility of upsetting or modifying the balance of power among groups – churches are ‘coalitions’ of different interest groups

‘Brides of Christ’: Key Factors Related to the Experience of Change

D x V x M must be > P

D = dissatisfaction with the status quo

V = vision of a better future

M = method or some practical first steps

towards this future

P = pain or cost of change

Change and Pain

Martyn Snow, Leading Change in the Church, Grove, 2009

Change is generated by creating dissonance that has to be resolved.

Benjamin Franklin’s definition of insanity, "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results."  

‘…movement to the desired state is effected by offering contradictory evidence and then supporting those involved in travelling to beliefs and behaviours where there is no conflict between what they believe to be the case and what they experience’.

Dadswell, D, Consultancy for Mission and Ministry: A Handbook, provisional title, forthcoming SCM Press, December 2011.

Change is a Result of Dissonance

In order for change to occur, a person (or a group):- must experience dissonance - must have a sense that the new behaviour will

improve the situation (for the individual or group)- must have a sense that he or she is an active player

in the process, that he or she can influence the process. Macdonald I. et al, Systems Leadership: Creating Positive Organisations, (Aldershot: Gower, 2006), p.

27

Change is a Result of Dissonance

!‘Crazy Time’!

Change and Bereavement

http://www.dailystrength.org/groups/haven-of-peace-for-estranged-parents-hope/media/796196

J. William Worden, Grief Counselling and Grief Therapy, (Routledge, 2009).

Four tasks that the bereaved need to undertake to adapt successfully:

Task 1 – accepting the reality of the loss; Task 2 – working through the pain of grief; Task 3 – adjusting to an environment in

which the deceased is missing; Task 4 – relocating the deceased

emotionally and moving on with life.

Change and Bereavement

+ -Honest Dishonest

Trustworthy Untrustworthy

Courageous Cowardly

Respectful/ Disrespectful/Dignifying Undignifying

Fair Unfair

Loving Unloving

Leadership in a Context of ChangeMacdonald I. et al, Systems Leadership: Creating Positive Organisations, (Aldershot:

Gower, 2006), p. 19

‘It is not the plan that will change people and give direction to the congregation. It is the conversation of the people one with another and with God – that

is a part of the planning process – that changes people… Margaret Wheatley states: ‘there is no power equal to a community discovering what it cares about’. She then goes onto say ‘it is always

like this. Real change begins with the simple action of people talking about what they care about.’Rendle, G. and Mann, A. Holy Conversations: Strategic Planning as a Spiritual Practice for

Congregations, (The Alban Institute, 2003), p. xviii

Change as Conversation

Three critical formation questions (Rendle and Mann, p.xiv):

 

- Who are we?- What has God called us to do or be?

- Who is our neighbour?

Change and Vocational Identity

Phil Potter (Director of Pioneer Ministry, Liverpool Diocese) – notes the importance of harnessing memories from the past as a means of journeying into the future.

Speaks of three stages: Honouring Harnessing

Healing

Mark Wakelin – living ‘as if’ in the ‘not yet’

Change and Vocational Identity

Where have you glimpsed these change processes at work?

Which of these ideas do you think help to illuminate your practice of change management?

Plenary