Reidy Associates Newsletter

Navigating the Territory: Good Ideas for Leading in Complex Environments

Volume 1, Number 4
November, 2009

Greetings!

This issue of Navigating the Territory: Good Ideas for Leading in Complex Environments focuses primarily on the theme of change, in particular on the usefulness of crafting a story that can effectively communicate the key features of a change to others. It's the first issue to feature a guest interview and article, more of which are planned for the future. William Dupre, Director of Staff Development for the Massachusetts Department of Correction, is interviewed about an exciting change undertaken by that agency: the creation of a comprehensive workplace wellness initiative. Following that interview is an article about the initiative.

For back issues of this newsletter, you can find them in the archives:
http://archive.constantcontact.com/fs076/1102561682356/archive/1102700377250.html

If you have a challenge or a solution that you'd like to share with others, please contact me for inclusion in an upcoming issue. Thanks for your interest and support.

Deborah

Creating a Compelling Change Story

by Deborah Reidy

Imagine this scenario: your team has been hard at work on a big change that is going to affect how your organization operates. It's a complex change process and you've worked tirelessly for months to envision a desired future and to develop strategies to bring about the change. The deadline for roll-out is fast approaching, you've run out of time and you congratulate yourselves that you did it, just under the wire. You all leave the final meeting exhausted but proud of your work. The next day, other people in the organization start asking you about the change and you realize you don't know quite what to tell them. Or you try to tell them, but your story sounds flat and incoherent. Or you're halfway through explaining and you realize the other person is seeing red: "How is this going to affect the line workers? Does the union know about this? Will my job be affected?" Uh, oh.

As the day progresses, the emails from your colleagues start piling up. They are running into the same problem. And before the day is over, you suspect that your wonderful plan is dead in the water. What happened? Something I've seen (and even been part of, sad to say) many times: In your haste to wrap up the "what," you've neglected to address the important question of, "How are we going to communicate this change in a way that people will buy in?"

Having a compelling way to communicate a change is as important as knowing what the change is. Yet this step is often completely overlooked. I suggest that any kind of change effort will have a significantly better chance of succeeding if leaders make an ironclad rule that one of their change strategies is communicating the change to enhance the likelihood of buy in. Sometimes this may involve engaging people in co-creating the change itself. Other times it may involve communicating the proposed change in a coherent and attractive manner. Wherever in the process people are engaged, enhancing buy-in is the desired result.

There's a very useful formula for creating a Change Story that I picked up from my colleague Dave Flanigan, who adapted it from various sources including Tichy and Bennis (see review of Judgment below). It asks five questions. I've used this with individual coaching clients and with teams. I even did an event with the senior leaders in the Massachusetts Department of Correction as they were implementing a set of changes that would affect the way the prison system did business. After briefly sharing the Change Story elements with the group, they got into teams of people working on a series of different initiatives. Each team developed a draft Change Story, presented it to the whole group, got feedback and then refined the Story before taking it to the field.

The questions are simple, they can be answered in any order that makes sense. They become refined over time and revised depending on who the audience is. Try it and let me know how it works for you.

Story Elements:

Where are we going?
How will we get there?
Why do we need to transform?
Why now?
What's in it for us?

Case Study

A Comprehensive Workplace Wellness Program for the Massachusetts Department of Correction

The Massachusetts Department of Correction (DOC) has embarked upon an exciting change initiative aimed at developing a comprehensive workplace wellness program. Below is an interview with William Dupre, Director of Staff Development, describing the initiative using the five "Change Story" questions described above. Also included is an article describing the initiative in more detail.

DER: Where are you going?

WD: To develop a comprehensive workplace wellness program that's intended to assist employees, family members and the community improve their fitness and wellness: physical, mental, emotional and spiritual. This is about changing the culture. We have a tough business, a difficult work environment, and we hadn't taken time to think through how we're supporting employees.

DER: How will you get there?

WD: We've taken time to really do it right. It won't happen overnight but we are looking at having a good strategic direction to build a comprehensive program. We needed structures to make that happen: the Department of Public Health (DPH) approached us to partner. It helps to have a partner that has influence regarding wellness policy. We took their invitation and started building a pilot segment of the workforce, small successes that we could continue to build on. Nine institutions were identified in the southern region, and we created an overall wellness team and teams within each institution. There was backing from the senior manager in that region. Then we distributed a wellness survey to all employees at the pilot sites to discover what they wanted. From there, we identified four goals. (see article below for more detail)

DER: Why do you need to transform?

WD: We need to serve as role models to our inmate populations. We haven't been role models of what we expect others to be. Also we know comprehensive wellness programs lead to better morale and a better impact on the bottom line: reduced workers comp, absenteeism and health insurance costs; increased retention.

DER: Why now?

WD: The invitation to join with a credible agency, DPH, which was supporting these initiatives. We had support and resources that we'd never had in the past. We took advantage of this opportunity. More importantly, we recognized that our workforce is affected by serious health conditions: heart disease, anxiety, diabetes, overweight, sleep deprivation. The environment promotes bad habits emotionally and physically. We knew we had a problem.

DER: What's in it for people?

WB: All of the above. We connect this program with our overall mission. When we talk about leadership, it has to do with relationships with employees. We sometimes become dehumanized in corrections. Often, our bottom line affects how we support our employees. We're trying to build relationships through this initiative and also to change a culture so that the employees' health and wellbeing is at the forefront of what we do. We're trying to put wellness out front and make it part of our everyday mission.

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DOC Worksite Wellness Program

Written by: William Dupre, Lisa Antunes - Division of Staff Development

The Massachusetts Department of Public Health, the lead state agency for disease prevention and wellness, developed the Working on Wellness initiative. Eleven public and private employers were recruited to pilot the Working on Wellness initiative. The MADOC was selected in February 2009 as one of the public employers to pilot the program which consists of a seven step process: obtaining a mandate for wellness; composing a wellness team(s); assessing health status, needs and interests; formulating goals and objectives; developing an action plan; plan approval; plan implementation.

The DOC Worksite Wellness Program (WWP) has completed steps 1-6 in the planning process and will kick off step 7, the plan implementation, with a Fitness and Wellness Expo in October 2009. View the details on the DOC Wellness Webpage.

It takes cross-functional teams to plan for and implement a successful program of this magnitude. A DOC Worksite Wellness Team was assembled with members appointed from the Division of Staff Development, Assistant Deputy Commissioner's Office, and Representatives from the DOC Wellness Committee. The DOC Wellness Team serves as an oversight group responsible for promoting, guiding, and supporting the WWP Plan. The Southern Sector Institutions (MCI Cedar Junction, MCI Norfolk, Bay State Correctional Center, PondvilleCorrectional Center, Old Colony Correctional Center, Bridgewater State Hospital, Massachusetts Treatment Center, Massachusetts Alcohol and Substance Abuse Center, MCI Plymouth) were selected as the pilot population for the DOC Worksite Wellness Program. Each institution is comprised of a wellness team made up of representatives from various stakeholders within the institution. As a subset of the DOC Wellness Team, the Institution Wellness Team is responsible for the planning and implementation of the WWP at the institution level. In addition, each Institution Wellness Team needs to have a designated leader - the Wellness Champion. The wellness champion is the process leader for the team and represents a healthy lifestyle acting as a role model for others in the institution. In June 2009, a WWP kick-off meeting was conducted with the Institution Wellness Teams to establish its purpose and build energy for this initiative.

To collect information to better understand the workplace environment and the health risks of employees we formulated a few key questions: What are the interests of the employee population? What are the underlying health risks within the employee population? What environmental changes would support employee health and well-being?

A Wellness Survey was then distributed in April-May 2009 to all DOC Employees. Approximately 1500 employees completed the survey. The data collected from the Wellness Survey and other sources provided a view of the health practices of the employee population, their preferences and interests. The survey results can be viewed on the DOC Wellness Webpage.

Based on the data provided through the Health, Interest, and Environmental Needs Survey key goals were formulated to provide the overall context for what the WWP is trying to accomplish. Four goals were identified to provide the framework for the WWP:

1. To build an infrastructure to support and sustain a comprehensive WWP.

2. To maximize participation in WWP interventions/programs.

3. To support employee's physical activity and weight management goals.

4. To promote wellness in our employees, work environments and communities.

A hallmark of a successful Worksite Wellness Program is that it is available to all employees, regardless of health issues, work shift, or level of ability. The WWP will include interventions with multiple approaches for each goal area. Intervention components may consist of Information Awareness Strategies; Behavior Change Programs; Social Activities/Events; Environmental/Policy Support; and Biometrics/Biomedical (blood pressure, cholesterol, BMI, etc.). The delivery of these interventions will utilize a variety of methods ranging from printed and electronic aids, events/activities and structured programs.

In conclusion, the WWP is intended to assist employees in making voluntary behavioral changes which will reduce their health and injury risks and enhance their individual productivity and well-being (Chapman L.S. 2005).

Book Review

Judgment: How Winning Leaders Make Great Calls
by Noel M. Tichy & Warren G. Bennis, Portfolio, 2007
Review by Deborah Reidy

This is an ambitious and complex book on the topic of judgement written by two top leadership scholars and advisors. The primary purpose of the book, the authors write, "is to develop a framework that will help leaders make better judgments and help shape the next generation to do the same." It is filled with stories, anecdotes and strategies drawn from the successes and failures of leaders in both the public and private sectors.

Synopsis: The basic framework of this book is something called the "Judgment Calls Matrix." The authors have very neatly summarized this as follows: "JUDGMENT: the essence of effective leadership. It is a contextually informed decision-making process encompassing three domains: people, strategy, and crisis. Within each domain, leadership judgments follow a three-phase process: preparation, the call, and execution. Good leadership judgment is supported by contextual knowledge of one's self, social network, organization, and stakeholders" (p. 21).

Review: This is a book that will be hard to digest in one reading. As the synopsis above suggests, the conceptual framework developed by the authors is complex and subtle. It's loaded with interesting and relevant case studies to illustrate the concepts but many of the case studies feature people at senior levels in organizations engaged in large scale endeavors. It was hard to translate the examples into more modest arenas. The book is very worthwhile but not easy. My recommendation is to start with the "Handbook for Leadership Judgment" that is appended to the narrative. Very practical and accessible.

Takeaway idea: "Good judgment calls are a process, not an event. It starts with the leader recognizing a need and framing a call. It continues through execution and adjustment."

What We're Up To

This month, I signed up to be a volunteer coach with an organization called One to One: Women Coaching Women. I heard about it from my colleague Marsha Hughes-Rease, who has really enjoyed her involvement with the organization. One to One is a nonprofit organization "dedicated to assisting women to achieve sustained success by creating positive changes in their lives." It was founded in 2004 and has since coached over 100 women all over North America. I am in the orientation phase of the program, familiarizing myself with the model and expectations. I have been assigned a mentor/peer supervisor who will guide me through the process and be available if I have questions or concerns during the coaching experience. My commitment is to coach my client for 45-minute weekly sessions for a total for 26 weeks. Additionally, coaches agree to participate in monthly training teleconferences. I'm looking forward to becoming involved with this community of really dynamic women! If you want to learn more about One to One, check out their new blog: Women Coaching Women

On another subject, I wanted to share the inspiring work of my business partner, Cynthia Way. When Cynthia and her friend Bonnie accompanied their friend Rebecca last year to adopt a little boy from Vietnam, Cynthia formed a bond with a girl named Duyen and they have stayed in touch this past year. She, Bonnie and another friend recently went back to the orphanage, after having raised about $4000 for computer equipment, internet service, clothing, tutoring and fun things like crafts that the children could do. The list of what they were able to do for that amount of money is remarkable. She told me the trip was one of the high points of her entire life. You can see pictures and read Cynthia's reflections on the trip at Duyen Village

Upcoming Events

Virtual Training Events

Throughout the year, I will be offering free 60-minute Virtual Training Events (teleconferences) linked to the themes in this newsletter.

November 19, 2009, 9 to 10 am ET
How to Delegate and Get the Results You Want
For more information and to register, click on this link:
Reidy Delegation Event

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Reidy Associates offers customized solutions that enable leaders and their organizations to succeed in complex and uncertain environments.

413-536-9256
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