Creating Tomorrow
Newsletter October 2016
I am back now in the UK following an enjoyable and productive trip to Australia. The long flight gave me time to think about the importance of understanding how a change that needs to made, might impact others. Research shows the most successful leaders strive for genuine buy in and commitment — they don’t rely on compliance techniques that only secure short-term persuasion.
So, in this edition, I have included two tools which will help. Firstly an advanced version of our popular stakeholder mapping tool, familiar to all of you who use Change2, it adds influence and relationships into the mix. Secondly a way of re-framing the change so that others may see it in a more positive light.
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Pat Collarbone
Leading Learning and Teaching : Stephen Dinham 2016. ACER Press
The challenging question of how to successfully lead learning and teaching is practically addressed in this book from Stephen Dinham published recently. Stephen demonstrates that the role of the instructional leader involves regularly updating and deepening educational knowledge and applying this to the constantly changing working context. The main theme running throughout the book, we can never be complacent in education, resonated with me. This book makes a practical contribution for all leaders in their quest to educate themselves, colleagues and all students.
Advanced stakeholder mapping
This tools allows you to agree the extent your stakeholders are involved in any change and how they are disposed towards it. It helps you to identify who you need to influence and what actions to take.
Firstly identify your stakeholders and then agree as a group their level of involvement and their disposition towards the work you are undertaking. The next step is to consider relative influence of the stakeholder by the size of the circle, the larger it is the greater the influence. Finally link those stakeholders that have a relationship with each other using lines. The thicker the line the stronger the relationship.
Once complete you can develop a plan of action for each group/individual to move them from the left hand side of the map to the right hand side taking into account their influence and relationships.
For those individuals or groups, who you consider could be an asset to the project and/or those who you would like to see more involved, you will also need to plan actions to engage them and utilise their strengths.
Remember: Never print or leave your map lying about – it can be very sensitive.
Engage others in “their there.”
In the next column capture the teams perceptions in order to compare and contrast. This helps to highlight the gaps between how the Change Team see the potential changes and what they believe to be the stakeholder’s perceptions. This informs the next step . . .
On the basis that this stakeholder may hold quite different perceptions from the team of the prospect and impact of change, the team needs to consider alternative ways in which to present the changes. Think of ways in which this stakeholder would consider the change more favourably – based on their WIIFMs (What's in it for me) and WAMIs (What's against my interest). It is vital that the team does not misrepresent the changes. If the stakeholder’s engagement and support is to be won and sustained, then the perceptions of change must be accurate and need to be fulfilled.
In the right hand column the team identifies ways in which to promote the proposed shift in how change is perceived. The strategies may range from targeted communications; by enlisting the support of other stakeholders that might reinforce a more favourable message or exert a stronger influence; or by co-opting the stakeholder onto the Change Team with a specific responsibility. In some cases, a more favourable perception of change may only be achieved by changing the solution itself, rather than how the solution appears.
Finding ways in which to demonstrate that change appeals to a stakeholder’s WIIFMs is much more powerful than playing down the WAMIs, so always try to establish what a person values and then create ways to relate change to those values.