Comments on: Online Communities and Organizational Change Management

By: Richard Cummings

Richard Cummings — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 13:12:27 +0000

In general, these are good points though I disagree slightly with number 1, the “sense of urgency”. While it is important for employees to know the importance that their work gets done, it is also important to not create an environment of stress, which wastes energy and thwarts creativity. Stephen Covey once broke this down into a quadrant, saying that most people do their work in the “urgent, important” category when they should be really working in the “non-urgent, important” category.

By the way, I came here after watching the SEO Smackdown. Thanks for your thoughts…

–Richard

By: rChange Management – What’s In It For Me? « Strategic Project Portfolio Management

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 13:42:00 +0000

[...] change management here, stressing the importance of repeatition in communication. And a nice post here that draws on Kotter’s change framework. Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)The [...]

By: Communities and Organizational Change Management Presentation at Fast Wonder: Online Community Consulting

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 22:06:45 +0000

[...] August, I wrote a post about how Organizational Change Management principles could be used to help increase participation in online communities. Bill Johnson asked me to [...]

By: Collaboration Technologies and Organizational Change

Collaboration Technologies and Organizational Change — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 16:01:56 +0000

[...] about some of the principles of organizational change management. I wrote a blog post about how organizational change management applies specifically to online communities, but it also applies more broadly to organizations implementing other online collaboration [...]

By: Toby Lucich

Toby Lucich — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 15:17:03 +0000

A great reflection on the disciplines of Organizational Change Management.

I continue to find traditional copmanies struggling on the balance of urgency and ownership when it comes to “new” [anything for that matter]. So many new processes and practices are introduced with the emphasis on “how” the new work is to be accomplished, less so on the “why.”

Absent the why, the best consultants or tools have a sour “flavor of the day” or temporary quality about it.

It makes me think of the complementary balance that is struck with new tools and increased face to face time. One of my clients has increased his volume of one-on-ones with direct reports, while also adding more skip-level meetings to his agenda to get his vision and urgency explained first hand. It is also proving a powerful way to get the feedback he needs to monitor the perceived level of importance among the line staff.

We’ve also been working to “infect” a broader pool of folks from across the organization in our change efforts – including those that are typically resistant to change but are seen as informal leaders. Once these cultural cornerstones get their minds around the need for change and the power of the shift, the effort becomes more grassroots and takes on that employee-ownership quality we all hope to see.

Thanks for the spark.

By: Internet Marketing, Strategy & Technology Links – August 11, 2009 | Sazbean

Tue, 11 Aug 2009 12:04:29 +0000

[...] Online Communities and Organizational Change Management (Fast Wonder Blog) [...]

By: Angela Connor

Angela Connor — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 13:58:38 +0000

These are excellent points and especially important for those who constantly and consistently bash various industries for refusing to change or for being very slow at creating change. The newspaper industry has been criticized ad nauseum, for example. As someone who was deeply involved in creating organizational change in the deeply rooted corporate culture of a South Florida newspaper which was created by a 100-year monopoly, I understand the growing pains, change of mindset and amount of convincing it takes to move forward even the tiniest bit. Sure I criticized the mindset and was often very frustrated but I ultimately learned how to operate within the system and help the company move forward. Numbers 3 and 4 of this list helped me do that.
As someone who is now a community manager I see it across all industries. I is not as easy as people may think and those who are successful at creating change work very hard at it. It goes way beyond number one, which is what man people do..create the urgency but never explain it in grave detail or provide a vision for getting there. Love this post, Dawn. Thought-provoking and smart! I am going to send these principles up the chain!
Angela Connor
Author, “18 Rules of Community Engagement”