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This morning, Leslie, Linda E. and Erik attended a change management workshop offered through the professional development center. The workshop touched on a variety of issues surrounding approaching change, managing change in work settings, and working with colleagues to address issues surrounding change in the workplace.
From the initial discussion of participants it was clear that change is a popular theme at Wake Forest right now and we spent a considerable amount of time talking about seeing an organization through both anticipated and unanticipated change.
A few of the strategies included bringing more people into the process of analyzing and problem solving, using extensive communication to make sure that everyone is informed about what is going on, anticipating reactions to change and planning for alternatives, and making sure that everyone had a shared concept of the ‘big picture.’
2 Comments on ‘Erik, Leslie, Linda E attend Change management workshop’
At yesterday’s “Getting things done” discussion, we talked about the explosion of email that we have to contend with now to keep up with regular workflow. It sounds as though many of the strategies discussed for managing change include greater participation and greater communication. As a result, greater numbers of email…so it sounds as though we are doing things right.
There was an interesting thread that I saw during the discussion about the role of information technology in helping manage change. While the general agreement was that despite the efficiency gains, IT tended to be a bit impersonal for substantial communication I have to wonder about whether or not certain ‘socially aware’ tools might not serve the purpose pretty well. For example there are a number of facebook groups that exist to notify the community, build consensus, or exercise group-opinion. Perhaps the traditional hierarchical approaches to managing change just aren’t in sync with these tools yet 🙂