An Action Based Leadership Workshop That Will Help You

“Lead and Drive Your Business Forward”

Workshop Overview

In general, we are good at executing today’s business tomorrow;

We are not good at executing tomorrow’s business today.

Implementing a change effort means doing work in new ways. Even when the expected results of such a change are well understood and senior leadership has high levels of confidence in the outcomes of the change in business operations, there will be significant pushback by the forces of day-to-day operations.

Bottom-line: known routines tend to take formal and informal priority over new routines. This alone makes it difficult to implement changes even when they have the support of executive leadership.

Bottom line: when the work is new and the outcome is uncertain, one thing is certain; these projects get the least of our attention and effort when they compete with our need to accomplish our day-to-day operations.

The fact is that most management time and attention is focused on managing the present. We must maintain our competitive position today if we are to have the resources to invest in the future. That said, far too many leadership teams put all their eggs in today’s basket at the expense of tomorrow. They fail to identify the talent needed for tomorrow and once they manage to secure the talent, what do they do with it ?.

For “change-in-operations” (change) initiatives to be successful, new work practices must be integrated and refined until they are equally repeatable as existing work routines. In other words, “until this becomes the way we do things around here”. This leads us to “The Change Challenge.” The issue that most change programmes fail to address is all to do with implementation. The pertinent questions that we have been asked time and again by organisations around the world……

“How do we modify the existing operations model to accommodate new work practices, processes and routines?”

“How do we intentionally create tomorrow while we simultaneously execute today’s business model?”

“How do we nurture the talent we have today to become more viable and productive for tomorrow?”

“How do we lead the plethora of changes required to make this business a success?’

Leading Change^TM is a facilitated / interactive workshop experience for leaders in all organisations who are facing the challenge of implementing change, motivating their teams to do something new, increase the urgency and to think differently. Based on years of research from some of the world’s foremost thought-leaders, Leading Change^TM (LC™) takes a refreshingly simple but highly effective look at the challenges change presents for managers and leaders alike. Not only that, it is highly engaging, informative and motivational. It gets people to do take action…NOW.

Using the best principles of Accelerated Learning, this workshop engages, stimulates and educates the learner in a way that ensures retention and application of knowledge is maximised. LC™ works by engaging leaders at all levels to become an active part of the change effort; to understand the principles of effective change and provide leadership and support necessary to make change stick. LC™ is based on the belief that leading change, when done right and supported at all levels, is not only a competitive advantage – it is a fun, meaningful and engaging way of life at work.

Although the LC™ program is designed to attract leaders at all levels. We strongly recommend the senior executive team either attend a workshop as an executive team or partake with their respective divisions or both. This is preferable as they get to understand the programme and can better determine what action needs to be taken thereafter. Through experience we have found that unless the senior executive team are on board the change initiative and believe in it 100%, change will struggle to happen within the organisation.

 LEADING CHANGE™ WORKSHOP

Leaders of Change: Creating Change Leaders at all Levels

• For Leaders developing key Change skills
• Learning Outcomes:
  • Learn core Leadership and Management competencies.
  • Understand and adapt your own leadership style in the context of change.
  • Learn principles and strategies for leading the emotional side of change (individual vs corporate aspects of change).
  • Understand and use a process and toolkit for leading the change process.
  • Create a personal & business action plan for a current or future change you are responsible for.
  • Apply an easy to use Change model to a current change focus.
  • Build readiness for change by creating a high sense of urgency.
  • Learn how to overcome the fear of change.
  • Understand that people react differently to change
  • Help people feel more comfortable with change and understand change.
  • Unleash leadership at all levels to build greater commitment to change.
  • Understand habits and behaviours as they relate to change.
  • Understand how to transition from where we are now to where we want to be.
  • Apply the combination of leadership and management to optimise results.
  • Identify unique individual strengths that produce greater results.
  • Apply a simple change model to a specific change initiative.
  • Understand the indicators of change progress within the Bridges (personal) and Kotter (business) models.
  • Learn how intact teams accelerate change.
  • Use a change scorecard to assess change readiness.
  • Create an action plan to implement a given change.
  • Develop a self-directed change leadership development plan.
  • Understand change motivations
    • Passion driven change
    • Intellect driven change
    • Structure driven change

Workshop overview:

A short pre-reading based on the work of John Kotter (Our Iceberg Is Melting) is highly recommended. Delegates will learn the importance of the principles discussed in the book and apply them:

-using a story about a colony of penguins trapped on a melting iceberg

-through highly engaging, interactive and stimulating facilitation methods that ensure full learner engagement.

Finally, delegates learn a process for leading the change journey using the 8-Step process for change developed by John Kotter. Once again, this is reinforced through activities and exercises linked to the story of penguins on a melting iceberg as well as relating the process steps to change in the delegates’ own organisations.
The workshop culminates with the completion of a Leading Change^TM scorecard and action plan to capture the delegates’ learning and actions against all of the elements of the programme.

How do we do this?

• Discovery learning – pre-work (read the book Our Iceberg Is Melting) introduces concepts and the workshop draws out this information to develop skill and insights.
• Activity based learning – engage participants in a series of exercises and activities to apply key learnings to their current change focus.
• Application based – results in a structured action plan to assign accountability for next steps and guide team activities.
• Contextually relevant – real-life examples to build a common language for change.
• Research Based – leverage the 30+ years of the top thought leaders’ applied research on Leadership and Change from Harvard Business School plus the experience of the facilitator who has worked in the corporate world for 25 years having held various senior executive positions.
• Practical examples – I have had over 25 years of practical experience in the corporate world having held senior positions in large multi-national companies. I use this experience to bring out the best in the participants. I have used this model in the real world and it works. I have failed but more often I have succeeded when using this model – I share these experiences with participants in the workshop. I focus on making the workshop a real “live” I am passionate about what I do and hopefully this behaviour will be contagious.

Workshop Formats:

• On-site workshop – Delivered at client site or at a venue decided by the client. I require aprox 5-6 people per table with the tables set out in cabaret style seating with plenty of room to walk around. If possible a flip chart for each table plus I require speakers for my computer and a projector.

Reactions: Who Leading Change™ has helped

• Testimonials:
  • “This is the most impactful training we have ever received…great for leadership initiatives“
  • “Thank you for delivering such a dynamic class. This was the best module in the MBA Leadership Programme“
  • “The learning was direct and practical with an immediate action plan to deploy.“
  • “All I can say is WOW – motivating, stimulating and practical. Why did we take so long to get you in here? I look forward to my team attending the next session.”
  • The best workshop I have ever attended, thank you. I can apply what I have learnt to my personal and professional life.
  • This is what leadership is all about… making things happen. Too often we sit in our offices and think about taking action. We do not take action. These two days has moved me to take action. Thank you. Just the kick I needed, lots and lots of ideas.

Please refer to www.paulrigby.biz for a list of a few of my current clients. I do not work with more than 3 large multi-national clients at any time. This allows me to engage and follow up after the workshop is delivered. This is where the rubber hits to road. This is where the results are focused – workshop to implementation. An idea is just an idea until it is commercialised … and that requires action.

Leading Change^TM outline / agenda

• Understand change
• Leading vs managing and how this relates to change
• Individual change – characteristics and how we handle change
• Transitions and how to deal with them
• Habits and behaviours
• Kotter 8 step model with examples and how to implement
• Action plan for implementing change
• Scorecard for change

1. Overview of the Bridges and Kotter model and how they work together to ensure effective change.
2. Numerous examples provided throughout the session

Timings are not provided due to the interactive nature of the workshop. Usually we start at 8h30, take a 45 minute lunch break and aim finish each day at 17h00. Occasionally we finish later as the groups enter into serious discussions on various topics.

Who should attend?

Change is a “team sport”. It requires everyone to understand it and leaders to make it happen. It also requires managers to help plan and organise it – hence: leaders at all levels within the organisation should attend. Every employee can contribute to change, but it is very important to communicate how he or she can contribute. By attending this workshop you will understand exactly how to contribute to change. You will have a better understanding of how to drive the business forward.

Typically, when one sees something strange or unfamiliar coming towards one, the natural reaction is to get out of the way. Neither of these actions is suitable for change. We need to embrace change and lead by example. We need to ensure that new ideas are implemented for the benefit of the organisations’ future using a disciplined approach and to ensure the organisation becomes more and more agile.

The real question to ask is:

Are you managing today or creating for tomorrow?