A New Season

(Breakfast with the President at Eggspectation - how apt)

At the start of the week, newsreaders on every channel announced the official end of summer - a new season had arrived. This was true for the School too, because all the reorg plans were announced. Well, people weren't taken by surprise - the School had thought carefully about letting Directors of various teams speak with their teams first, followed by Director-Generals speaking with all the teams in their Directorate, topped up Branch retreats (ours happened yesterday at the Chateau Laurier). As I watched and listened to them emote about issues at different forums, I reflected on three things:

One - what's good about this picture? What appeared to me to be good was that the new lines they were going to cut up the School by would build sustainable internal capabilities, allow them to extract more mileage from existing work, and strengthen horizontal relationships.

Two - what could go very wrong? The balance of timing, for sure. Bring about change too quickly and people's insecurities could escalate; go about it too slowly, and people may lose patience waiting for promised results. Also, I wondered if they are thinking about the 'human' outcomes of the reorg. It's well and good to lay out the tangible goals, but what does the culture and environment of a successfully restructured School look like to them? Are people stronger, happier, healthier as a result of restructuring?

Three - what can be done to ensure success? Taking a leaf from Kotter, they need to look out for the informal champions of change. They probably should celebrate small successes regularly too. And I wish quite hard that they will not forget to pay attention to their middle management, who have a tough job of providing day-to-day assurance to many people amidst an uncertain, evolving roadmap.

It's cliche, but change is a journey. To expect that leaders can guarantee and define the end from the beginning is often unrealistic. But leaders can guarantee that they will constantly question the integrity and direction of the change journey, to get a real picture of the effect of change. What do I not know that is needed? What questions can I ask to find out? What was good about the past that we want to preserve?

In the journey of change lies the seeds of promise, and a decision to trust. The leader's ability to encourage people to take that decision to trust is influenced by his/her track record of credibility, authenticity, honesty and genuine concern. It helps people to look forward to change with eggspectation, and not feel all scrambled up.

(Dandelions at Centre Asticou, the School campus in Gatineau, Quebec)