‘The pessimist complains
about the wind
The optimist expects it to
change
The leader adjusts the sails’

Real Time Strategic Change
Learning Series
Session I
February 18, 2009

Who is Here?
• First and last name
• Where are you logging in from (and if
different, where you live)
• How you’re feeling today
• Best movie you’ve seen recently and
why

Consultant, Author, Teacher, and Learner
• Executive • Corning
Excellence • Ford
• Consulting to • Marriott
Management
• Mobil
• Leader to
Leader • National Health
Service (UK)
• New York Times
• National Forest
• Strategy and Service (US)
Leadership
• New York City
• Strategic HR
Review

Winds of Change Group...
We help people get clear, connected, committed,
and achieving common goals.
Three ways we make a difference:
• Partner with you throughout your change effort
• Get hundreds of people making needed changes in days
• Help you make fast and lasting changes on your own

Who Here Has Already Participated
in a Webinar?

What tips and advice would you offer the rest
of us based on your experience?

Series Purpose
To learn how to make the future
happen faster in all of your
change work.

Series Outcomes
• Understand and be able to apply the six RTSC
principles to accelerate all of your change work
• Know the best ways, best times, and best people to
include in your change work to achieve the best
results
• Understand how to identify key leverage points to
accelerate your change work
• Gain insights that you can act on right away
• Know ways that you can support or sabotage your
efforts

Session I Purpose
To set you up for success in the
Series by:
• Beginning to build our Learning
Community
• Getting an overview of RTSC
• Understanding how the course can
meet your unique needs

Session I Outcomes
• Clarify what you want to learn during the Series
• Understand how to best leverage the ways we’ll be
working together for your own learning
• Appreciate the depth and breadth of RTSC work
• Recognize how RTSC is the same and how it’s
different from your current change work
• See how RTSC can be applied in any situation

Agenda
• Welcome/Introductions
• How We’re Going to Work Together
• RTSC Evolution and History
• What is RTSC?
• Ways and Places RTSC Has Been Applied
• Integrating RTSC Into Your Current Work

What Led You To Sign Up For This
Series?

What Will Make You Say... “Wow!
This was Awesome!”

How We’re Going to Work Together
On-Line Learning
• Material Presented
• Questions and Answers
• “Buddy” / Breakout Work
• Virtual Think Tank

How We’re Going to Work Together:
Off-Line Learning
• Review Archived Sessions
• Applying insights, ideas to your daily work
• “Buddy” chats

History and Evolution of RTSC

A Real Time Strategic Change Story...
• Three people working...
• “I am cutting a stone”
• “I am cutting a corner stone”
• “I am building a cathedral”

The Essence of Real Time Strategic Change
\"I know no safe depositary of the ultimate powers
of the society but the people themselves; and if
we think them not enlightened enough to exercise
their control with a wholesome discretion, the
remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform
their discretion...
Thomas Jefferson, 1820

What is Real Time Strategic Change?

Real Time Strategic Change Principles
Think and act in real time Get clear on your preferred future
Live in your future and plan for it at the Combine the best of your past and present
same time. When you think and act as if and compelling visions for your desired future.
you were already the organization you When you build this integrated picture, people
want to become, your desired future are energized to make it real.
happens faster.
Preferred
Real Future
Time Create community
Engage and include Ensure people feel allegiance to their
Create
Clear direction with limited inclusion All respective part of the organization
and broad-based participation can both Community
and allegiance to the larger whole.
be engaging. Keep asking, “Who are RTSC
When these dual alliances exist,
the key stakeholders and how can we Engagement Work people collaborate as part of
engage them?” to build commitment something larger than themselves
and ensure you get the right answers that they have created and believe in.
for your organization.
Build
Reality is a Understanding
Make reality a key driver key driver
Expand your thinking by looking outside your Build understanding
organization to gain perspective and focus inside Share information that needs to be common
your organization to gain insight. When people throughout the entire organization and restrict
maintain these two points of view, they make custom information that meets unique needs
more informed decisions and are better to specific parts. When people understand
prepared to respond to emerging issues and the big picture and how their work is related,
opportunities. it leads to aligned action.

Real Time Strategic Change
Areas of Work
Scoping
Possibilities
Creating
Organization-Wide
Developing Congruence
and Aligning
Leadership

Some Features of RTSC
• Future Happens Faster
• Purpose and Outcomes Driven
• Principle Based
• Great Flexibility in Application
• Multiple Roles for Everybody
• Systems Perspective
• Highly Inclusive / Freely Shared Data
• Builds Sustainable Organizational Capacity

How is RTSC the Same and Different
From Your Current Practice?

Ways and Places RTSC Has Been Applied
on a Large Scale

Ways and Places RTSC Has Been Applied
on a Small Scale
• Senior Leadership Strategy Development
• Coaching
• Conflict Resolution
• Career Planning
• Staff Meetings
• Speaking/Presentations

Any Other Ideas...?

Consulting Critical Success Factors
For RTSC Work...
• Think and act as if the future were now
• Work in your part of the system; focus on the whole
system
• Clear purpose and outcomes for all work
• “The many” design for “the many”
• The more you live the RTSC principles, the faster you
create your preferred future
• Change work is real work; real work is change work
• Move what might traditionally happen further
downstream back upstream in the process

Leadership Critical Success Factors
For RTSC Work
• Formal and informal leaders need to:
• Understand the scope and scale of the work before
them
• Find opportunities to display visible, tangible
commitment to the effort
• Dedicate time, energy, and significant
organizational resources
• Do their daily work in ways that are congruent with
the organization's preferred future

Integrating RTSC Into Your Current Work --
Getting Clear About Purpose and Outcomes
Why Bother With Purpose and Outcomes?
• Clarifies what to include / exclude
• Guides what to do, whom to involve, what discussions to
have, and what decisions to make
• Scales from organization, to change effort, to initiative,
to event, to meeting, to conversation
• Reduces anxiety – clear what you are up to
• Answers the question “Why bother?”
• Helps resist the seduction of going straight to activities

Examples of Purpose Statements
Vague Purpose
• To make the place better
Limiting Purpose
• To improve our working relationships so we can become a
world-class organization
Purpose With Meaning For Senior Management Only
• To achieve improvements of $30 million
Purpose With Meaning For Everyone
• To improve the performance, efficiency, quality, and
satisfaction of patients and employees of our hospital

“Case Study” Purpose
Improve the concept and approach we will use for
Team Development for the Execution Phase of our
Strategic Planning.

“Case Study” Outcomes
• Understand how we got in the room today
• The Execution Phase of the Strategic Planning effort
• The structure of teams in this Phase, how they relate to each
other, and what their job is
• Additional resources I believe will make us more effective in
this Phase of work.
• Understand the approaches we’re planning on using going
forward
• What they are
• How they have helped other Strategic Planning processes
• How they can help the teams who will be leading the next
stage of planning and implementation of our Strategic Plan

Purpose and Outcomes: “Buddy Work”
1. Identify a current project that would benefit from RTSC
2. Who are the key stakeholders in this work?
3. How would they define success?
4. What would bring “greater health” to the system?
5. Capture these ideas in a clear, simple statement
• Remember to focus on results, not activities
• Use the “5 Why” approach

Getting to a Purpose Statement
To have a great set of slides for Session I
• Why?
To make it easy for people to follow along
• Why?
So that people “feel smart”
• Why?
So everyone has a good start to the Series
• Why?
To set you up for success in the Series

Pulse Check: What Worked For You?

Pulse Check: What can we do to improve for
o
Session II?

Additional Resources
• Learning Series “After Hours” Chat Room
http://virtualthinktank.ning.com/group/
realtimestrategicchangelearningseries
• Winds of Change Group Website
http://windsofchangegroup.com
• Winds of Change Group Blog
http://windsofchangegroup.typepad.com/blog/

See You Online and at Session II of
the Real Time Strategic Change
Learning Series!
Session II: March 23
Session III: April 24
Session IV: May 18
All Sessions Begin at 1:00 PM EST
(Please reserve 90 minutes for each session)