Things are changing …
… are you ready?
“Because things are the way they are, things will not stay the way they are …” Bertolt Brecht
It begins with a question
Change is faster now. More complex. More personal. It is constant. It is everywhere. Change that sticks is no longer a realistic goal. Why? Because it is the nature of things not to stay the way they are.
Change forces questions. Questions like: Is there something we need to change? How do we know? Will this change help or hurt us? Keep us on track? Get us to the next level? Help us innovate? Recover? Compete? Succeed? And inevitably: Will we need to change again? (Yes.) In today’s environment where uncertainty and volatility are prevalent, leaders – at every level and more than ever – must ask the hard questions. Undauntingly. Persistently. Boldly. Courageously.
Asking questions is how we can open the doors and windows of our organizations and bring the outside in – to test our impact, our competitiveness, and our relevance.
InterrogativesWork is about helping you ask the hard questions, and getting and acting on inputs that will inform your change strategies. In this way you and your teams can build the core capabilities you need to handle change that is – and is not – within your control.
What you can expect from InterrogativesWork
Build change capability so your team can handle today’s challenges – and prepare for tomorrow.
A whole-system way of thinking so that your change planning and implementation are aligned with your big-picture strategy. Persistent focus on your goals, what is needed to change, and whether and how your change initiatives will result in their desired outcomes.
What?
Support that is grounded in what works, best practice, real-world experience, and plain English
Why?
Organizations need leaders and teams who are nimble and can anticipate and adapt to change
So That..?
Your organization can thrive as managing change becomes part of your operating model.
The work we’ll do together …
Leading & Learning
- Org’l change strategy & action planning
- Future-shaping working sessions
- 1:1 leader consults
- Data gathering (e.g. org assessments, focus groups, interviews)
- Communities of Practice for knowledge-sharing, reflection, & skill development
- Pre-implementation stress testing
Implementing Change
- Change plan development
- Current state analyses
- Adoption management
- Stakeholder outreach & engagement
- Team strengthening
- Tiger Team & Working Group support
- Board & constituency building
- Meeting-to-meeting continuity
Communicating
- Communication strategies & tactics
- Unified ongoing leadership messaging
- Information-sharing & dialogue
- All Hands meeting design for interactive participation & collaboration
- Feedback loops & listening tours
- High quality communication products
Building On What’s Working
Client-centered, connecting and working side-by-side with your leaders and teams through on-the-ground day-to-day execution as well as executive-level future-shaping, problem-solving and thought sessions. We’ll stress test change strategies, use stakeholder feedback to correct course, and we’ll keep asking: what are we learning that can help us with the next change?
Examples of client work …
New Leader Transitions
Interim and Acting Leaders, Chiefs of Staff, and team members often experience disruption when there are changes “at the top.” And new leaders typically must learn, assess, and act. These kinds of transitions can be complex and often benefit from support as everyone concerned adjusts to their roles and their paths forward.
May include: 90-day action plans; role and goal clarification; tailored, timely, and unified messaging; and targeted organizational assessments.
New Teams and IPT Stand-ups
Entry of a new member into an existing team changes the team and its dynamics. And org changes often bring people together who may not know each other and previously have not collaborated.
May include: Accelerated multi-level and multi-functional team planning and strengthening to get traction quickly, bring their best to the table, produce and evaluate results, and then in disband or re-group in an orderly and intentional way.
Process and performance improvement
Everything boils down to performance! Changes in strategy, goals, process, or policy always require a sustained eye toward desired performance impacts.
May include: Development of collaborative approaches to setting achievable goals and metrics as part of a change effort; obtaining user/customer inputs and feedback to inform process changes; and engaging stakeholders and team members to enable those most involved in delivering results to “own” what they are working toward and committing themselves to.
Culture change and performance
These two go hand-in-hand: striving for “culture change” without clarity regarding performance change is rarely meaningful. Establishing what observable values-in-action – i.e. behaviors – are needed in order to achieve targeted performance outcomes and user/customer benefits is what moves “culture change” from an illusive theoretical “nice-to-have” to a real and observable dynamic.
Work involves identifying and tying specific behaviors across the organization to what it means to be a high performing team, defining and delivering world class customer service, or operating as a highly reliable organization. These are just three examples of where “culture” and performance intersect. This approach also helps advance organizational agility – that is, an organization’s or team’s ability to pivot as needed while its values-in-action are solidly in place.
Governance and policy change
These two areas often stumble when it comes to implementation for two reasons – insufficient stakeholder engagement right from the start and/or insufficient information sharing and lackluster communication from leaders on down.
Work focuses on how “top down” efforts can be informed by and benefit from bottom-up reality-testing, feedback, scenario planning, and meeting-to-meeting structure and support for effective execution.
IT modernization and adoption management
Digital transformations rely on user adoption to be successful.
Includes: Integrating adoption management outreach and user engagement from the start – and into the IMS – is key. From site prep and pre-training messaging to trainer support, feedback mechanisms for software developers and the project team, collaboration with the deployment team, and close cooperation with Service Desk teams to establish and monitor adoption metrics – facilitating adoption and mitigating resistance is threaded throughout the change process.
Structural and functional re-alignments, enterprise transformations to integrate siloed business functions across the organization, and PMO stand-ups
Organizational change occurs with increasing frequency as changes in technology, environment, regulatory requirements, competition, and more impact strategy and mission achievement. People often experience considerable “gain/loss” impacts during these transitions.
May include: Current state assessments (including focus groups and interviews); multi-level leadership scenario planning, role and goal definition and KPI revisions; team re-configuration; implementation planning; and development of cohesive communication and messaging strategies, including on-boarding protocols and materials.
Meet Nina Kern, MA, MSOD
I love working with leaders and their teams to plan, implement, and integrate change as part of their organization’s operating model. To be honest, I ‘m not crazy about the term “change management” – these days no one really even knows what it means. But change – and learning – are part of life itself – and life doesn’t stop at the front door of where we work. Everything we do in our organizations – from solving problems to setting goals to meeting our mission and serving our stakeholders and customers – hinges on how adept we are when it comes to change and learning
Change by its nature just isn’t tidy: it rarely follows a straight path, and typically involves uncertainty and ambiguity (and often surprise!) even if you know the future state you are seeking to achieve. That’s what makes it so hard to communicate during times of change and challenging to engage people so that they don’t just “comply” but actually want to “take ownership in” the change process. And yet, this is precisely the space I enjoy working in with clients, and navigating our way forward to solve problems, do better, innovate, and have impact. Impact that matters.
I’ve been a manager – with a team of over 100 people, and responsible for everything from annual strategy planning and monthly P&Ls to day-to-day customer service, field operations and safety, community engagement, marketing and billing, team building and training, you name it. I know it’s hard work – and beyond that, it calls on not just what you do but who you are – and that perhaps is what makes being a manager – a leader – one of the most challenging – and rewarding – roles there is. I understand that deeply – and it is that understanding and a deep fascination with change as a force to be reckoned with – as an organization and as humans – that brings me to this work.
I have 25+ years of hands-on experience providing client support for business, non-profit, and government organizations, serving a variety of sectors including: civilian and military health; risk management, finance, and procurement; aerospace; defense, cybersecurity and intelligence; IT implementations; boards and governance; education, and communication.
I hold an MA in Communications and an MS in Organization Development. I’m ProSci trained, and graduated from both the Johns Hopkins Fellows in Change Management Program and Georgetown University’s McDonough School’s Change Management Advanced Practitioner Program (CMAP).
Visit me on linked-in, and be sure to read some of my writings on organizational change at govloop.com, changemanagementreview.com, and Government Executive. I hope we get to work together sometime soon.
