In this episode of Change: The Conversation we are back with Chris Carter, a change consultant and the founder and principal of orgshift solutions.
 
In this final conversation with Chris Carter, he tells us more about his experience with a suburban library that was facing a big change and transformation. We get deeper into how this organization approached Strategic Planning differently and why. Chris tells us about how the leader was the driving force behind this change, and how the approach to strategy was deeply linked with the leaders desire to change the organization from the inside out. We talk about how the vision was the thread that tied everything together and how culture was a driving force behind how this organization internalized this incredible change and sustained it.
Chris shares the tool he uses most often to assess and identify cultural attributes, and then, how to use this information to create meaningful change.
 
Denison Organizational Culture Survey
 
More about Chris:
Chris is an experienced business and IT management consultant with over 25 years of experience in all aspects of change, especially when enabled by technology. Leading with a business-first perspective, Chris has consulted to both public and private sector organizations: facilitating strategic direction, designing appropriate and flexible organizational structures and processes, documenting business and system requirements, creating road maps and action plans, preparing change program business cases, assessing outsourcing strategies, implementing benefit realization plans and systems, and providing program management support and leadership to achieve desired business outcomes.
Chris is the founder and principal of orgshift solutions, a leading boutique consultancy focused on heliping clients from all sectors – non-profit, private and public sector – design and deliver strategic and operational decision-making, value-driven transformation programs, and breakthrough group collaboration performance.
 
Follow Chris at:
Website  |   LinkedIn
​

Great change communications are the cornerstone of a strong and successful change implementation.  But we’re usually confronted with someone who has the idea to “put a few posters up” and call it a day.  We know this won’t be a successful, so let’s start getting into why.  Change communication needs to focus on purpose first, and modality second.  So first of all, you need to know why you’re communicating and secondly what, before we even get into how.  Change implementation is long, and we have so many points along the way.  It can get confusing and overwhelming especially when we have sponsors and others involved.

To help clarify this, I like to think of communications in two main categories: 

• Advertising, and
• Tactics

Advertising communications happen throughout the change, but the content of the communication changes depending on where you are in the change journey.  Tactical communications escalate before, during and after implementation and tend to have a shorter, but purpose-driven run in your change strategy.
 
The purpose of Advertising communications include:

1. Get your stakeholders to understand that change is happening and understand what the change is.  For example, that the Finance information system is changing on May 1st and that the technology is changing.
2. The benefits of change for individuals or broader groups of people.  For example, the Finance information system is changing because we need better data, and a central infrastructure.  The benefits are that expense reports will be easier to create and submit, and department and division finance will have access to analytics for budget and spending anytime, not just quarterly. We won’t need to use extra excel spreadsheets to manage process outside of the system, a process that people find cumbersome, and is error prone.
3. The importance of the change. Signal this with having powerful people talk about the change and how important it is.  For example, the CEO talks about this change at a town hall meeting, rather than the CFO, signalling that it is important to the organization.
4. Create a sense of urgency, excitement, and anticipation. This is all in tone and delivery – how we talk about the change (positive, exciting etc) and the body language, pitch, and tone of how people speak about it communicates and transmits these desired sentiments and emotions
5. Driving adoption Success stories as the change is happening, hearing from peer voices, making it real for people on the front lines. Competition and collaboration can be a highlight of this part of change communications.

Tactical communications answer the questions, where, what, who, when and how.  Tactical communications include (as examples):

• Scheduling and tactics around change implementation – when is training happening, how can I sign up, when is the implementation happening, what do I need to know, when is “go-live” what does it mean”
• Specific changes relevant to individuals or departments. For example, all managers will be required to look up and sign off quarterly spend and budget adjustments in the system using a new process.
• Where to access ongoing help or training - who are the super users, where can learners access training, manuals, guides, etc.
• How to implement the change – what are people expected to do, specific to their group or process.

 
I find that poor change communication focuses too heavily on one of the categories, where great change communication focuses on both!  Change leaders can also be hesitant to communicate early and often because they think they need to have all the answers to the questions in the tactics section.  But we can help bridge this gap by talking about the categories. It makes their role clearer, and easier to understand.

In next week’s article we will get into some of the more tactical aspects of change communications including what types of communication modalities you need to use in today’s context.

A reminder for our readers, we’re sharing a free communications plan template with our subscribers in the November edition of our newsletter.

Sign up before November 1st HERE to reserve your copy!

​Going forward we’re going to be sharing free templates for core change management deliverables every month with subscribers to our newsletter. 

In this episode of Change: The Conversation we are back with Chris Carter, a change consultant and the founder and principal of orgshift solutions.
 
Chris and I are back, to talk about how strategic planning used to be and how this will change in the future. Chris is working on the cutting edge of strategic planning, and how we are using digital tools to rethink this process, make it more inclusive and part of a journey. After all, it is so much more effective if we can bring together more people, have broader participation and as a result, better implementation, ownership and accountability. We talk about how the success of strategy is in the execution and how digital facilitation is the starting point that makes this so much more powerful.
 
Chris provides his key advice for leaders on how they can rethink strategic planning facilitation and how digital is a means for positive change.

More about Chris:
Chris is an experienced business and IT management consultant with over 25 years of experience in all aspects of change, especially when enabled by technology. Leading with a business-first perspective, Chris has consulted to both public and private sector organizations: facilitating strategic direction, designing appropriate and flexible organizational structures and processes, documenting business and system requirements, creating road maps and action plans, preparing change program business cases, assessing outsourcing strategies, implementing benefit realization plans and systems, and providing program management support and leadership to achieve desired business outcomes.
Chris is the founder and principal of orgshift solutions, a leading boutique consultancy focused on helping clients from all sectors – non-profit, private and public sector – design and deliver strategic and operational decision-making, value-driven transformation programs, and breakthrough group collaboration performance.
 
 
Follow Chris at:
Website  |   LinkedIn
 

In this episode of Change: The Conversation we are speaking with Chris Carter, a change consultant and the founder and principal of orgshift solutions.
 
Chris and I have worked together on several occasions, and both have a deep and abiding passion for change!  Chris talks through his experience building a change facilitation practice and his deep experience in this field.  We talk about the power and benefits of using digital to enhance change facilitation, something that Chris has exceptional experience with.
Chris shares a story about one of his clients and how group facilitation was the key tool that helped this client come to terms with their challenges and help them chart a new course for the future.
 
More about Chris:
Chris is an experienced business and IT management consultant with over 25 years of experience in all aspects of change, especially when enabled by technology. Leading with a business-first perspective, Chris has consulted to both public and private sector organizations: facilitating strategic direction, designing appropriate and flexible organizational structures and processes, documenting business and system requirements, creating road maps and action plans, preparing change program business cases, assessing outsourcing strategies, implementing benefit realization plans and systems, and providing program management support and leadership to achieve desired business outcomes.
Chris is the founder and principal of orgshift solutions, a leading boutique consultancy focused on heliping clients from all sectors – non-profit, private and public sector – design and deliver strategic and operational decision-making, value-driven transformation programs, and breakthrough group collaboration performance.
 
 
Follow Chris at:
Website  |   LinkedIn
​

In this episode of Change: The Conversation we continue our conversation with Stephanie J. Marshall. 
Resistance is the bane of the change manager's existence! So what about resistance? We're back in this episode to continue our conversation with Stephanie J. Marshall, alignment coach, on the power and purpose of resistance in personal change. Her approach? Resistance is where the GOOD stuff is. Resistance comes from our assumptions about change and how we are going to feel. Steph talks about how she approaches resistance and works through it with her clients, and walks through her approach. Managing resistance within ourselves is the key to leading change successfully and is an essential journey for every change leader. Learn to expect resistance, wrestle with it and excavate it for yourself, and you'll become a much stronger leader. Working through and dealing with emotions is one of the thorniest areas of change both personal and professional and we talk about the conflict between logic and emotion and how to address it.
 
More about Stephanie:
Stephanie is a Toronto-based alignment coach and mindset coach, speaker, and podcaster. She helps women who feel stuck get out of their own way so that they can figure out what they're capable of and start having real fun. She has coached people from all over the world, from artists to executives, and from all stages of life. As co-founder of Kickstartology Coaching she created the Alignment Coaching Framework and the Kickstartology Alignment Coaching Program, rooted in neuroscience, cognitive and behavioural psychology, and research in coaching as well as behavioural change. Her clients get phenomenal results. Stephanie started her career working in Media and has an MBA, but so do a lot of people. She dabbles in stand-up comedy and knows her dog is the best.
 
Follow Stephanie at:
Website  |  Instagram  |  LinkedIn