Whole-Scale Stories – Richmond Savings

If you have read our book, Whole-Scale Change: Unleashing the Magic in Organizations, you may recall the story of Richmond Savings.  Here is a great example of engaging the whole system to set organizational strategy.  This classic video was made by the client shortly after the large group meeting that culminated more than a year of work with this Canadian bank in Vancouver, B.C.  For those who want to experience how the Whole-Scale process works,  this video is still as inspiring as it was way back in 1994. – Al Blixt

DTA Workshop Coming to Washington, D.C. in October 2011

How to Plan and Implement a Successful Change Strategy:
Creating Change People will Believe In and Support
Dannemiller Tyson Associates and the Georgetown University Executive Certificate Programs in Organization Development and Organizational Consulting and Change Leadership invite you to three days of learning to improve your knowledge, skills and confidence as a facilitator of whole system change. The workshop will be held October 18-20, 2011 in Washington, D.C.  Whether you are new to the field or a seasoned practitioner, you will come away with new insights, tools and ideas for leading and managing change initiatives for your organization.  The early registration rate is just $995 until August 31st.  For more about the workshop read on.

Loss of Focus Threatens Organizations or Why Growth Is Not A Strategy

Nonprofit organizations are increasingly challenged today.  In our town, a wonderful social service nonprofit closed its doors recently after many years of growth.  Part of the problem was reduced funding from some of its main sources like the United Way; but the larger problem was a loss of focus.  The organization made a number of seemingly logical growth moves over the years adding, one at a time, programs that served at-risk youth, the mentally ill, the homeless, seniors, the disabled and a number of other groups.  Often this involved a merger with other social service organizations.  In each case, the leadership felt that there would be economies of scale that would reduce costs and improve service.  In the end, just the opposite happened.  The organization was unable to adapt to changing conditions and hundreds of workers were laid off when it closed.

And then something surprising happened.  Most of the programs found new homes with organizations that focused on just one of these groups.  Some of the workers moved with their clients to the new organizations.  The organization ended but the work went on.

For those of us doing strategy work in both the profit and the nonprofit sectors, there is a lesson here.  Growth for its own sake is not a strategy.  In this case, the organization lost its sense of purpose.  It’s mission became unfocused.  As a result, it was not sustainable.  All planning needs to begin with the questions: 1)” Whom do we serve?” and 2) “How do we intend to create value for those stakeholders?”.  To be successful, an organization needs to be very clear about its purpose and to avoid being distracted by opportunities that lie outside that purpose.  — Al Blixt

Resistance, Leadership and Emotional Intelligence

I was at a party a while back and I began talking with a wonderful woman who had just retired as a nurse administrator at a major healthcare system.  We got to talking about the work of leadership and fostering change in organizations. I mentioned that simply getting leaders to be better listeners was often a powerful way to improve their effectiveness.

She recounted the story of her problems with one of her midnight nurses who was always complaining about something.  She always dreaded seeing that nurse coming and there were continuing problems.  Then she took a workshop about leadership.  As the workshop facilitator was describing how leaders create resistance by trying to stifle resistance, my new acquaintance said, “Suddenly, I realized I was the problem. My attitude was preventing me from seeing any value in what this nurse was saying.”  She then described how she later sat down with the night nurse and said, “Here is what I think I am doing that is keeping us from working together and here is what I think you are doing.”  In the simple act of naming the problem between them, the conversation shifted.  The relationship improved and the resistance soon melted away.  In our Whole-Scale work, we often ask people to “see the world through the other person’s eyes”.  For leaders this is especially important.

If you are a leader or are trying to help one be more effective, a good book to look at is The Emotional Intelligence Quick Book by Travis Bradberry and Jean Greaves.  It is a short but insightful look into the four domains of emotional intelligence and comes with an on-line test that will help your leader evaluate her/his strengths.

Al Blixt
Partner, Dannemiller Tyson Associates

Introduction to Kathie’s Gifts

During one of our periodic cleans of our office in Ann Arbor I found “Kathie’s Gifts” hanging on the wall.  It was like seeing a painting on a wall in my home for the first time even though it had been hanging there for years.  Fast forward to recently when I welcomed eight new members to our linked-in group; in that process I learned that three of them personally knew Kathie one even knew Chuck Tyson who passed away long before I came to DTA in 1996.  This caused me to again think about “Kathie’s Gifts” a list of 28 of Kathie Dannemiller’s favorite mantras, this time I only had to turn to my computer files to find them.  

Over time and I’m planning to write about these and share them with you.  In thinking about my writing, I went back to something Kathie wrote for her PhD application in 2002: “I am a 72-year-old Organization Development consultant, retired by reason of disability from a rewarding professional life.  Since 911, I have been possessed by a driving need to continue making a difference, even though I am no longer able to do “real work” (meaning to do it the way I used to do it).  The query I find burning in my heart is the following: How do I substantively change my current body of beliefs about how to bring about change, finding a way to make those beliefs relevant to the larger system I now see in the world?’ 

Perhaps you share the same query, and perhaps my writing about Kathie’s Gifts will help to stimulate your thinking, I’m sure it will stimulate mine and I invite you to share your thoughts on the writings with the whole group. I’ll be back with the first gift in two weeks.

Mary Eggers
Partner, Dannemiller Tyson Associates

Gift 1: Purpose

I believe that Kathie lived her life from the place of the first gift – Purpose.  In our books we’ve written about our belief in the power of a compelling purpose statement that the client articulates to guide the work ahead, whether it is the purpose of an entire change journey, the purpose of a meeting or the purpose of the next activity in a meeting.  As Kathie used to say, “there are no throw away lines” (another of Kathie’s Gifts). Everything is purpose driven.  A good purpose statement is not a restatement of desired outcomes.  It is energizing and ennobling.  It answers the question “What will be different in our world (our organization, our community, our family or the larger world) because we have done this work?”  One of my partners says “a good purpose statement can be said in one breath.”  So it’s short, yet very powerful; it drives all activity; and it often takes time and hard work to develop.

Al Blixt and I just finished a single-day meeting for the board of one of our favorite nonprofit clients.  Over the last seven years we have been called into this organization whenever they hit a bump in the road.  This time the bump was pretty big and the purpose of the meeting was the centerpiece of the day.  In the data collection it was clear that two sides of their Board felt they were at an impasse regarding key issues. The purpose the group decided on was: “To bring the best practices from our varied individual experiences to build one Board in support of the mission of [our organization].” Though conversations geared toward better understanding, members of the Board were able to be both strong and vulnerable in discussing the issues.  The outcomes of the day were a deeper appreciation of each other, deeper clarity about their individual views and increased trust.  They left the meeting, having a sense for the first time of being “one” Board. The purpose statement guided both the conversations and our facilitation.

So that is the essence of purpose in the Whole-Scale^® change methodology and I’m not doing this series of writing just to highlight how these 28 gifts are used in Whole-Scale^®.  I’m writing about the 28 gifts, hopefully to bring us to how these gifts can shape our lives – they certainly have shaped mine.  I believe that Kathie’s “driving need to continue making a difference” might just have been her life’s purpose.

Ten years ago right after my mother died I settled into my couch with a box of tissues, a blanket, and the only book I’ve read multiple times in my life – Letters To A Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke.  The book is a compilation of ten letters that Rilke wrote to a young poet who had asked him to critique his work.  In reply to the request, Rilke said “no” to critiquing the work and “yes” to engaging in a conversation though letters (snail mail in the early 1900s) that went much longer than ten letters.  In his letter dated October 29, 1903, the quote, which I believe is about purpose, that stood out to me was: “Through such impressions one gathers oneself wins oneself back from the exacting multiplicity, which speaks and chatters there, and one slowly learns to recognize the very few Things in which something eternal endures that one can love and something solitary that one can gently take part in.” 

This small quote changed my life in terms of its purpose.  I got up off the couch and signed up for my first serious art class and that has brought me to the artist I am today (which I believe is the purpose that I’ve always been most afraid of) and the artist I am today has shaped my consulting work in that I bring more of my full self to the work. 

On purpose, I’ll leave you with what author Richard J. Leider’s in his book The Power of Purpose, has to say: “Purpose  is the conscious choice of what, where, and how to make a positive contribution to our world.  Purpose helps us create a lager meaning for our lives.  It feeds our three deep spiritual hungers:

• To connect deeply with the creative spirit of life
• To actively know and express our gifts
• To know our lives have made a difference.”                                      

So that’s how Kathie’s gift of “purpose” has shaped my life and work I’d welcome hearing how “purpose” has shaped your life or work.

Mary Eggers
Partner, Dannemiller Tyson Associates