Good grief: Facilitative leadership in Agile transformation initiatives

Good Grief and Facilitative leadership Welcome!

Esther MatteCULTUREcon 2014Boston, MA

Losing someone… or something…

• Grief can also happen at work

• Small changes, big changes: both initiate a grief process

• Dealing with grief is mostly an individual process

• In an organization, it influences interactions and productivity

• When conscious of the grief process, people can help each other

• Grief cycle is a healing cycle

MISS!

• The worst change I experienced in an organization.

• Imposed

• Not explained

• No influence, no autonomy

• What made it happen: H2H

• Conversation

• Connection

Adapted from Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, Harrison Owen

and Genuine Contact™ Program

Grief cycle

Agile News : Shock, Anger

« Why?Urghhh!?! This is stupid and unnecessary! What’s going to happen to me? »!Help : Clear explanation of why; not a good stage for training.

Denial

« It’ll pass - just be patient. Let’s keep doing our job. Not much will change. »!Help : Talk a lot about the change, clarify it’s pertinence, reassure but avoid talking about only positive aspects: recognize difficulty and effort needed

Memories

« Hmm… Do you remember when…? We did a great job on that one! »!Help : Listen, recognize and honour the past, DO NOT accuse people to be resistant to change

Acceptance« Things change. I want to know more about this. How is this going to work? »

Letting go

« My expertise can probably still be valuable and helpful.!Will others help me? Will I have time to learn and adapt? How long will it take before I feel expert again? »!Help : Ask for feedback, express gratitude, recognize expertise, involve people in something positive

Openness

« I wonder how we can make this work well or better than before… » !Help : Invite people to share experiences and learn together, invite energy to create and innovate

Reframing

« Lots of possibilities and opportunities to grow! »!« Let’s try this… »!« I wonder if we can make it even better? »!Help: Celebrate!

Open Space Technology is a great tool!It creates space for grief work AND for figuring out how to become agile in your organization.

WARNING: It is a cycle. If you try to skip a step, it’ll get you later! My Verchères-Manhattan-Bromont story

Listen with curiosity and

compassion… !

Have clear info and good

conversations… !

Give it time… !

Create space for a common

vision…

Adapted from Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, Harrison Owen and Genuine Contact™ Program

Questions? Comments?

About Esther Matte, organizational coach and trainer in collaborative methodologies

• Independent consultant for 20 years

• Started in strategic communications, moved to facilitating collective work in the context of change and transformation

• Works and teaches mobilization and development of teams, organizations, communities

• How I work:

• Use collective intelligence

• Generate openness, authenticity and responsibility

About Ev Lagüe, Illlustrator

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Thank you!