Summary of Client’s Challenge
This state-level education association found itself at a crossroads in terms of the internal politicization of their organization and their people. A deeply-entrenched culture of political infighting existed among employees, where others’ efforts were sabotaged, fellow employees were thrown under the bus in order for another to come out on top, and gaslighting as an undercutting mechanism…again for political posturing. Association Education Department leadership hired Change by Design to work in a substantial way with those in the culture to help shift it to greater health.
The Three Components For Project Success
To enable this shift, Change by Design offered the following three products for use towards this end-goal.
System Needs Assessment Analysis
Conduct a pre-retreat ‘System Needs Assessment Analysis’ to become aware of the challenges faced by potential retreat members in order to best design retreat activities. This included confidential interviews to obtain the following information:
A general understanding of each individual’s environmental context, including day-to-day tasks and experiences within the organization and their experience with the association and beyond the association prior to their taking their current positions. Multiple examples were provided, enabling us to gain a clearer picture of the overall employee experience day-to-day.
A list and description of what was positively working in the organization and in their own jobs, and to what they attributed those results.
A list and description of what was NOT working in the organization and their own jobs, and to what do they attributed those results.
Executive Retreat
Conduct a 2-day executive retreat in a comfortable remote setting to assist participants in collaboratively charting their way forward in their roles within their groups and the association using proven skills-based change management-related tools.
Summative Report
Prepare and deliver a post-retreat summative report that included decisions made at the retreat and forward action to be taken.
Interviews and Analysis
Change by Design strongly believes in developing and maintaining trust with interviewees. As this project was no exception, we promised anonymity to each interviewee, and – in the later facilitated retreat and report – made sure that no one’s comments could be attributable to that individual. After all interviews were conducted, we qualitatively analyzed results, determining both cultural positives and challenges. From this rich information, we determined set of goals for the two-day retreat:
RETREAT GOAL 1
Develop a shared perspective on how the Association should operate in delivering positive results to society and their target members.
Retreat Goal 2
Develop an understanding of how their organization contributed to and detracted from these results, and understand how each individual’s efforts aligned with these results.
RETREAT GOAL 3
Develop an understanding of the change process to enable interpretation of system-wide and sub-system-wide activities and how they could insert themselves to support a positive culture.
Begin to develop a perspective for each individual on how modifications of their current efforts could lead to a larger overall system shift towards the positive.
Develop skill in specifically what they could do to start and sustain a positive shift.
RETREAT GOAL 4
Collaboratively build a model of how to problem-solve to align each individual’s perspective with the overarching goal.
Two-Day Retreat
As the basis for this retreat, we utilized our bespoke problem-solving training called “Strategically Thinking Outside the Box”. Rooted in Dr. Roger Kaufman’s strategic thinking, planning and doing model he affectionately called “Mega-Planning”, participants examined the Association as a system in terms of current and desired results, identifying gaps in results, conducting a root cause analysis, identification of objectives, a SWOT analysis of each objective, generation of essential solution criteria, and the building of a solution that addressed the majority of the problems. This collaborative problem-solving process training builds innovative capability in a fun, interactive manner using everyday stories and conspicuously not including strategic planning verbiage.
We additionally layered into this problem-solving effort a four-hour skill building in change facilitation process to help participants see ‘behind the scenes’ how persistent issues could be shifted to the positive. A highly significant event occurred when our facilitator helped participants see how fear-driven their Association was, as well as their Education Department, leading them to realize that they needed to step out of the fear and into places where they could positively impact results for their organization.
Final Report
In our final report to the state Education Association, we summarized all activities, outcomes and what the group learned. In addition, to support the forward movement of this team, Change by Design developed and delivered a separate document to enable this leadership team to move forward to the right education outcomes.
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“I attended one of Sue Ebbers seminar series thinking I would get some helpful information. Little did I know how it would change my life! Dr. Ebbers’ presentation brings essential awareness about change and how we can change. Hers is a message of hope. No matter what it is or how many times you may have tried to change an aspect of your life in the past, Dr. Ebbers insight can offer something new. She is not just providing information, she is providing the energy of clarity about a very powerful process. I recommend her to anyone who is thinking about changing some aspect of their life, who may have tried multiple times and failed, but who still harbors the desire. Dr. Ebbers offers the words, the research and the techniques to help you take charge of your life.”
Director of Professional Development, Association Danielle M.
Contact Change by Design today if you need a system assessment evaluation or facilitation of a multi-day staff education and development retreat to improve workforce alignment.