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intelligent change
Oct. 14th, 2010 07:45 pmToday was a marathon! I was in a 9am to 7pm OIT retreat at work on the topic of intelligent change - both as a technological path - but also as it particularly applies to change management in a higher education setting. Absolutely fascinating topic, actually! (I have been in change management professionally several times; most notably at Swedish Medical Center in Seattle)
The two-day conference is officially titled, "The Heart of Change." The two day workshop outlines a framework for implementing change that sidesteps many of the pitfalls common to organizations looking to turn themselves around.
The essence of the message is this: the reason so many change initiatives fail is that they rely too much on "data gathering, analysis, report writing, and presentations" instead of a more creative approach aimed at grabbing the "feelings that motivate useful action." and - goes the materials - that when embraced, change happened because the players were led to "see" and "feel" the change.
This is particularly helpful in higher education settings where folks can get deeply silo'd and compartmentalized and stop seeing the bigger picture of processes that don't work or the mentality of "we've always done it that way at (Insert Name of Large University Community Here)."
I think it was a very powerful topic - considering some of the gigantic changes we're about to embark on at my job. (5 enterprise wide game changing systems and applications in the next fiscal year (including moving all external facing websites to a Drupal based content manager that I will be building) - plus the launching of two brand new world-class conference centers (one opened last fall, and one opened this fall) as well as the brand new Knight Business Center and world-class Bing Performance Hall, both opening in spring/summer 2011. Change is good - and it's going to be CONSTANT for the next year.
The tone of the conference (which fits well with my personal beliefs as well) is how does OIT in particular find a way to RESPONSIVE to all this change vs. REACTIVE - how do we LEAD the change effort rather than get swept up in it.
POWERFUL STUFF! There was a lot of frank discussion and involvement today - and I'm pretty well socked in the head (and the heart) over the entire topic.
The two-day conference is officially titled, "The Heart of Change." The two day workshop outlines a framework for implementing change that sidesteps many of the pitfalls common to organizations looking to turn themselves around.
The essence of the message is this: the reason so many change initiatives fail is that they rely too much on "data gathering, analysis, report writing, and presentations" instead of a more creative approach aimed at grabbing the "feelings that motivate useful action." and - goes the materials - that when embraced, change happened because the players were led to "see" and "feel" the change.
This is particularly helpful in higher education settings where folks can get deeply silo'd and compartmentalized and stop seeing the bigger picture of processes that don't work or the mentality of "we've always done it that way at (Insert Name of Large University Community Here)."
I think it was a very powerful topic - considering some of the gigantic changes we're about to embark on at my job. (5 enterprise wide game changing systems and applications in the next fiscal year (including moving all external facing websites to a Drupal based content manager that I will be building) - plus the launching of two brand new world-class conference centers (one opened last fall, and one opened this fall) as well as the brand new Knight Business Center and world-class Bing Performance Hall, both opening in spring/summer 2011. Change is good - and it's going to be CONSTANT for the next year.
The tone of the conference (which fits well with my personal beliefs as well) is how does OIT in particular find a way to RESPONSIVE to all this change vs. REACTIVE - how do we LEAD the change effort rather than get swept up in it.
POWERFUL STUFF! There was a lot of frank discussion and involvement today - and I'm pretty well socked in the head (and the heart) over the entire topic.
