Dealing with Change

Life is change. The notion of supporting personal and group change, therefore, is not relatively new. Approaches to providing that support however, while seemingly as numerous as it's many practitioners, can be grouped into three basic strategies. There are the behaviorists, the dominators, and then there's what we do: Corporate Facilitation. Behaviorists and dominators essentially cajole/demand individual or organizational submission to change in different ways. In the former, the emphasis is on policy, process shifts, applied behavioral psychology with little participatory planning and preparation and, in the latter and perhaps less covert approach, you are handed a new scenario and simply told to 'deal with it.' Without judging either the behaviorists or dominators as good, bad, right, or wrong, consider that the consequences of limiting or eliminating the participation of the stakeholder community must eliminate or limit the desired outcome. If change is intended to maximize a productive outcome, then neither the behaviorist nor domination approach can be ideal. The Corporate Facilitator strategy, however, engages active and creative participation in change by all stakeholders; facilitation is based on empathy, understanding, self-leadership, and personal responsibility; it does not presume the outcome of an individual's or group's relationship to the proposed change. It does, however, view the change as entirely necessary. From this view, individuals and groups find their own answers.

In this approach, creative input is of critical value and is actively sought and engaged. Open and revealing definitions of the real issues are continuous outcomes of facilitation. The day-to-day actions are naturally and persistently re-tuned resulting in more personal or group acceptance. The task then of the Corporate Facilitator is to guide leadership into how to foster unity of thoughts, movement, and sustainable momentum. At the heart of Corporate Facilitator's focus is Communication. Raising the level of communication by observation and persistently expanding the definitions of self or group. Exposing conceptual and emotional blocks to change does this. The next step is taken by each individual or group and is simply their choice as to whether or not they deem the 'block' as meaningful to them. Blocks can have many forms - idealogical, financial, etc During sustained change, organizational identity context is often challenged, even lost. It is, in fact, in flux as well, however, Corporate Facilitator's role is to assist in the evolution of that context. This is accomplished through repetition and presence within the experience meaning persistent and active observation and communication. Corporate Facilitation also assists in resolution development through translating challenges into merely ideas through which new possibilities are accessible. Benefits derived are: (A) A Sense of Stability in the midst of the impending 'change.' Stability originates from recognition that issues are being brought into increasing clarity of understanding. During 'change,' stability is the first attribute to be threatened. (B) A Sense of Continuity is not only maintained, but not disrupted, and even enhanced reducing the potentiality for resistance to future change. (C) A Learning Experience begins to emerge in the background of change and issues begin naturally translating into opportunities. (D) A Sense of Confidence that the issues have been identified, understood, accepted, and integrated into the new and emerging understanding.