How Effective Leaders Use a Four Stage Learning Process For Change

The basic unit of change must be individual and what better place to start than you as the leader. If you want to bring about change there are two separate issues that require consideration. The first issue is the nature and culture of the organization and the second issue is the way you personally interact with that culture and the people within it. The question which is central to the whole concept of change is, "How well resourced are you to implement change?"

You probably know some of the characteristics required to deal with the changing environment of leadership. Characteristics such as the ability to learn, flexibility, the skill in getting the best from your people, the will to try new things, and the ability to see the big picture so that you can collect and analyze vital data. However, leadership is much more than this. Recognizing and understanding these characteristics is not leadership. Leadership is the ability to do it. It is the ability to learn, to direct power and to influence people in the right direction.

To put it very simply, leadership is the ability to do things, not to talk about things. The factor most likely to influence our capacity to change is our capacity to learn. The learning process is the key to managing change in ourselves and our organizations. Typically, the effective leader goes through a four stage process. Firstly, the collection of information. Secondly, the evaluation and analysis of that information. Thirdly, the creation of a framework for change. Fourthly, the implementation of change.

Now this may sound very logical and anchored on common sense but life is not like that. For example, everybody has their own pattern and may not be equally strong in all four aspects. Somebody may be strong on data collection, weak on evaluation, poor on creating a framework for change and strong on implementation. Often, because of the pressure of the day-to-day demands of business and the desire to be seen to be taking action, means that the whole concept of evaluation and the creation of a framework for change are minimized. This leaves a situation where the information is collected and the action is taken. The majority of attempts to introduce change into the workplace are carried out like this and the majority of them fail.

This means that the organization lurches after each failure and learning becomes an expensive process of trial and error. It is equivalent to the expression "Ready, Fire, Aim. Without a doubt, leaders and managers within the organization are the basic unit of change. If they are not effective learners, the organization itself will not learn and will fall victim to this situation. "Those organizations that don't learn at a faster rate than their environment is changing will eventually die."