In order to lead change effectively, it is crucial to understand personal and organizational change styles. The resources in this section provide questions and inventories that can help you begin to understand your and your organization's change styles.

Scroll down to view each of the change style inventories or go directly to:

• Personal Inventory
• Organizational Inventory

Personal Change Styles

Use the tools in this section to gain a greater awareness of your personal change style as well as those of the people with whom you work. When you work through this section, you will learn what causes resistance to change; the characteristics of those who are adept at change; and the shifts in personal learning which are important for working effectively with ongoing change.

Tips for Managing Personal Change

Listed below are some guidelines for managing change in your worklife:

• Identify what is in your control to change.
• Identify your options.
• Create a support system.
• Examine your attitude.
• Remain flexible.
• Give yourself a break.
• Strive to achieve balance and perspective.

It is important to know one’s own pace of change and not set oneself up for failure by going too fast or too slow.

Individual pace of change depends on the following five factors:

• Safety: The need to feel secure before trying something new.
• Specificity: The need to start small and be specific.
• Age: You are less able to make changes and to adapt as you get older.
• Time: Allows you to break old habits.
• Attitude: Your belief that you can’t change to become self-fulfilling prophecy.

Discuss these with board members and others.

(Bloomfield, H., and Cooper, R. (1995). The Power of Five: Hundreds of 5-second to 5-minute Scientific Shortcuts to Ignite your Energy, Burn Fat, Stop Aging, and Revitalize Your Love Life. Emmaus, PA: Rodale.)

Key Points in Successful Change

• The hardest thing to change is a hardening of attitudes; nothing kills change faster than attitudes that resist it.
• Failure stems from two sets of works: "I can’t" and "Yes, but…"
• Those adept at change don’t reject good advice just to prove they aren’t being controlled by those who give it.
• Complaining is good if it isn’t a substitute for action – but often it is.
• High self-esteem results from making small positive changes in spite of fear. Confidence comes from conquering fear of change.
• Unexpected pain can result from either huge setbacks or successes.
• Change-artists analyze how fear of success can stop them from changing. They also know success does not magically bestow happiness.
• Fear of commitment to goals can make one stop short of setting appropriate goals.
• Choices and options are all open. One can make new choices anytime.
• Giving positive strokes to oneself is as important as giving them to others. But self-criticism is easier than self-stroking.
• Balancing pleasing oneself with pleasing others is often difficult.

(O’Grady, D. (1994). Taking fear out of changing. Holbrook, MA: Bob Adams.)

(The above is excerpted from Leadership and Technology, published by the National School Boards Association's Institute for the Transfer of Technology to Education.)

Working Effectively With On-Going Change

In an on-line conference in February 1997, participants identified the following shifts in individual learning as being key to working effectively with on-going change. How does this correspond with your professional interactions with others?

 PERTINENT ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

Other useful resources for understanding personal change styles:

Organizational Change Styles

Use the tools in this section to gain a greater awareness of organizational changes When you work through this section, you will learn group dynamics and the organizational capacity for change and learning.

Key Points

For successful organizational change, you must:

• Secure executive commitment and sponsorship.
• Set aside resources.
• Empower the Core Team.
• Instill a "no flex" project schedule .
• Prepare and support employees.

Characteristics of Effective Change

In an online conference in February 1997, participants identified the following shifts as characteristic of organizations that were increasingly effective in working with change. How do these correspond to your school, district or other professional setting?

Work Group Development

 Intergroup Relations

 Organizational Capacity for Change and Learning

PERTINENT ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

Other useful resources for understanding organizational change styles:

In this section:

In the Toolkit: