1. Implementing Impact:
managing change
Impact of Infrastructure 2012
Donald Ritchie, NCVO
Marilyn Keats, CommUNITY Barnet

2. About today’s workshop
 Change and VIP
 Things that we know about change
 Case study: CommUNITY Barnet
 Change and organisational culture
 Questions as we go along …

3. Factors helping take up Factors hindering take up
Organisation is actively looking for a Organisation restructuring, shrinking,
tool to measure impact* merging etc – so off agenda even if
keen
Strong internal leadership and New computer system, so off agenda
personal enthusiasm for the project, until this sorted.
sense of urgency and capacity to be
able to make it a priority *
Struggle with the online system –
They feel it is the right tool for them glitches, time needed to input paper
– accessible, meaningful, can do dials, size of displays etc*
everything they need*
Question whether funders really want
Find online system easy to use, and it*
are computer literate*
Not many other people use it: will join
Have a task that the tool will do well, when it is the “norm” *
e.g. evaluation, or away days
Already measuring impact so
Happy to be leaders in a new area* interested if benchmarking nationally
is available *
External incentive: e.g. The funder Learning from VIP in Year 3:
wants impact information Factors that encouraged or hindered usage

5. What does change feel like?
Working in pairs:
 Think about workplace changes that you’ve experienced
 Share with your partner what those changes felt like

6. Things we know about change

7. 3 levels of organisational change
• Developmental change - improving current activities or ways of
working, part of the evolution of the organisation
• Transitional change - replacing current activities or ways of
working, eg new (or fewer) projects, programmes, systems … in
other words strategic development
• Transformational change - changing people’s beliefs or their
awareness of what is possible … often involving change to the
organisational culture
 The greater the level of change … the greater the amount of time,
planning and work required to achieve it

8. 2 ingredients of change management
Substance
• The case for change, with a vision for a better future
• The changes that are needed, based upon good analysis
• A clear plan for implementing the changes
Process
• The people affected by change, and how to engage them
• Gaining their input and dealing with their feelings
• Winning them over … buy-in, ownership and commitment
These core ingredients are equally important, one without the other is
unlikely to succeed

9. How people can respond to change
DENIAL COMMITMENT
The change I see how I can make
won't affect me this work for me
RESISTANCE EXPLORATION
I really don't want to How might I cope with
deal with this this?
X
Ref: E. Kubler-Ross, J. Fisher, etc

10. How organisations can respond to change
Freeze Unfreeze Refreeze
• Frozen state: before any change
• Unfrozen state: the process of transition and change
• Refrozen state: commitment - embedding the change
Ref: K. Lewin

11. Foundations of managing change
Leadership is key
• Change is almost always a lead process
• It calls for consistent vision and direction that inspires people
• Leaders embrace and champion change … to make it stick
Strategy and change – two sides of the same coin
• All strategies involve change, the question is how much change
• Sometimes organisations do strategy but don’t appreciate that it
involves change - sometimes they make change and don’t
appreciate that strategy is the way to approach it

12. Over to Marilyn …

13. Culture: the key to change?

14. Culture: understanding your organisation
Organisational culture is about the way that we do things:
•It is defined by people’s shared meanings: values, beliefs, feelings
and a particular view of the world
•Often these shared meanings aren’t written down or said clearly –
they often differ from stated values
•Culture lives in the subconscious – it shapes how people think, their
assumptions and the way they behave
Understanding your organisation’s culture can be the key to
successfully managing change

15. Culture is multi-tiered
Organisational culture works at three levels:
– Visible representations, artifacts, the working environment
– What people say and do, for example: strategy, policy, publications;
also how people treat each other, run meetings, make decisions
– Underlying beliefs: basement values - often invisible, and sometimes
people don’t even admit to them - but fundamental
• Achieving cultural change requires action at all three levels, built
upon some understanding of the basement values
• Cultural change calls for leadership and time - it can be a long and
difficult path to follow, but often a critical one
Ref: E. Schein

16. See
Say & do
Really believe

17. Be a culture detective!
Describe an organisational culture you know well … your own
organisation if you’re comfortable with that:
b)By its artifacts – what you can see
c)By what it says and does – statements and working practices
d)By its basement values – deep and often unspoken beliefs
Work in pairs: take 10 minutes each to interview your partner
… and make sure you get to some basement values

18. Thanks!
And do keep in touch …
✉
donald.ritchie@ncvo-vol.org.uk
http://www.ncvo-vol.org.uk