Developing Teams and Organisations to Respond to Change
This article was originally published in the newspaper “La Estrella” and is part of a biweekly column from the ICF Panama Chapter to disseminate what professional coaching is. It seeks to inform, create more awareness and differentiate professional coaching, in which the coach is governed by ethical principles and is continually improving his or her skills.
See the original article in this Link.
One of the challenges to achieving successful transformations in organisations and enhancing their development and sustainability is having leaders and teams prepared to respond to change.
Bushe & Lewis (2023) identified in their article published in the Leadership & Organisation Development Journal, three change strategies for organisational development. The three strategies defined by the authors are: (1) a data-driven strategy (data-based), (2) a high commitment strategy (high engagement) and (3) a generative strategy.
Each of these strategies corresponds to a vision of the organisation and its system, its processes, structures and relationships.
The authors consider that adopting one of the three strategies, mentioned above, in change situations is dependent on the type of challenges that the organisation faces and the level of commitment required from the different interested parties or stakeholders.
- A data-driven strategy is appropriate when there is a lack of understanding of the problem or challenge and the collection and Previous data analysis is important to clarify it, and the data is also important to convince others (teams and/or stakeholders) of the need for change. This is also an appropriate strategy when the company’s challenges, in addition to being complicated, are more linear, allowing data collection and analysis to establish causal or functional relationships.
- A high commitment strategy is appropriate when leaders have a clear vision of the desired future, but the commitment of collaborators and/or others stakeholders It is essential to ensure the success of the change process. With this option, central coordination in the selection of change strategies is important, for example, due to capital requirements, but participants in the process have the opportunity to influence the structuring of the exchange rate or its implementation.
- A generative strategy is appropriate when change is a complex and adaptive challenge, requiring greater interaction and communication, and when there is the possibility of trying different simultaneous approaches to achieve the objectives. In this strategy, the concept of purpose (defined as what the organisation tries to achieve each day), and which is different from the vision (understood as the desired future or the solution to a problem) is shared by all those involved in the change process, making everyone unite around the purpose. This strategy is appropriate when the change process will require a transformation in people’s behaviours and beliefs and, for this reason, also requires their active involvement in promoting change. This strategy, which involves greater commitment from all employees and other stakeholders, is appropriate when the leadership team requires faster transformations than in idealized and implemented top-down change processes.
The role of the leadership teams is different in each of the strategies, from a more directive role to a role that is more of a facilitator and promoter of learning through trial and error.
The leader in the generative strategy is a facilitator of resources, relationships and conversations and of learning processes. For this strategy to be effective, it is important to cultivate psychological safety, trust and empowerment in teams.
A team coaching process, with a team coach with experience and knowledge of organisational dynamics, can support leadership teams to discover a purpose that inspires and engages others in the change process, and that creates value for different stakeholders, to clarify processes, to create relationships and alliances that enhance commitment and change, and to create a learning culture in teams and organisations. External team coaches can positively impact team performance and contribute to the organisational transformation process.
Author: Fátima Ribeiro
The author has the PCC credential (ICF Professional Certified Coach) and is a Coach in professional development, leadership and team processes, and a member of the ICF Panama Board of Directors.
