Our Unique "Joint Venture" Approach
The Challenges of Leading Change
Characteristics of Successful Joint Ventures
The Challenges of Leading Change
Most leaders understand the need to change and face similar challenges:
How can we continue to be successful in light of all the changes going on around us?
How can I get people to embrace and feel empowered to initiate change rather than resist or avoid it?
How can I ensure we are making the right changes and that those changes will last?
How can I create a sense of ownership within the organization and its key stakeholders for the changes being made?
How can I build healthy working relationships that allow us to creatively solve problems and help us see and take advantage of new ideas and opportunities?
How can I get everyone on the same page, our efforts aligned and focused?
How can I deal with the uncertainties and avoid the pitfalls inherent in making change?
JOINT VENTURES is a unique approach to developing a culture of continuous improvement, which has proven to be an effective way of achieving the necessary shifts in thinking, behavior and results for many organizations. We can help you apply a JOINT VENTURE approach to making meaningful and lasting changes in your organization.
The Edge Mac Roberts & Associates Provide
We continue to be pioneers in the evolution of union-management relationships. We believe that relationships should consciously evolve over time towards becoming more meaningful and rewarding. Furthermore we believe that this is the basis of all healthy relationships. We facilitate this transformation between willing parties. We believe that a missing ingredient in most organizational change processes is the lack of understanding the value of the relationships within the organization. This extends to inter-organization and intra-organization relationships. In summary the major shift in our business offerings is that we will help you apply similar principles and processes to the areas or to the relationships you feel require improvement.
Areas of opportunity for these processes abound in all organizations. Particular success has been found within improving health & safety, alternate dispute resolution processes, negotiations, service improvement processes and leadership development. Any and all of these will help create a new organizational culture. This is the "mac roberts edge" and what we mean by joint ventures. It is based on the idea that relationships are key and on having all of us understand we don't accomplish much alone. We teach the concept of always being conscious of building relationships as you work together doing any task big or small. Thus, you are always improving the team without diminishing the role of each team member.
“Joint Ventures" is a unique approach to developing a culture of continuous improvement, which has proven to be an effective way of achieving the necessary shifts in thinking, behavior and results for many organizations.We have strong beliefs underlying our work which differentiate our change processes from others:
Change must be a joint process between all stakeholders - Changes that are imposed unilaterally from above or by outside experts will not be readily embraced and are often out of sync with rapidly shifting circumstances. We offer a complete process that engages your entire organization in a way that builds support and ownership. In a true “Joint Venture” key stakeholders work together to lead, plan and manage the change process in a way that results in the mutual success of People and of the Business/Organization. This does not alter in any way the particular roles of those different leadership individuals or groups who represent the various stakeholders.
Building Strong Relationships is Essential to Any Change Process - Adversarial relationships between union and management or between competing individuals or departments consume scarce energy and resources and divert attention away from critically important issues and opportunities. We believe the key to working on change lies within an understanding and a willingness to engage others in consciously building better relationships as you work together on one project (joint venture) after another. “Without a good relationship it is difficult perhaps impossible to move forward on necessary changes required within any relationship”. If you doubt this I would ask anyone to reflect upon their past and present relationships of any kind. It is much more difficult to get agreement within a weak relationship versus a strong one! By consciously developing healthy, respectful, constructive working relationships and gradually achieving small wins together improvements will start to multiply.
Understanding & Evolving Organizational Culture is Critical to Achieving Sustainable Change - Culture refers to the Norms of Behaviour (common ways of acting) and the Shared Values (important, shared concerns or goals) within an organization. Every organization has a culture and it will continually evolve. The Culture can limit the options people will consider because these “social” forces strongly influence behaviour and can override “logic”. If we are considering altering or improving an organizations performance then we cannot ignore its Culture. We believe that the best organizations and the best leaders understand this very well and do not leave it up to natural evolution to determine the norms of behaviour and the values that will guide the organization. Leaders need to help create and sustain an appropriate culture within that organization as a major function of leading.
Improving Quality of Thinking is Key to Improving Organizational Effectiveness - “All meaningful and lasting change starts from the inside and works its way out.” In order to achieve different results, we must behave differently. In order to behave differently we must think differently. We believe that ultimately any organizations’ success is dependent upon the Quality of Thought individual members develop and apply to their work, together with the ability to achieve Quality of Integration of Thought throughout the organization. Organizations are enabled and focused by the capacity of its members to develop their thinking and action from commonly held principles/values that continually extend performance.
Characteristics of Successful Joint Ventures
Beginning the process together is critical. Although companies may have employed other programs to bring about organizational change, it is very important that the parties in a facilitated joint process begin anew. Often much of these previous programs can be later integrated into the process by the parties leading the joint venture.
Doing real work as a means of improving relationships. Many organizations have used team building exercises to achieve this goal, but we have found this approach to be less effective than integrated team development as part of the ongoing process. Most of you don’t have time or energy to waste on minimally productive processes. By working on real-life issues that are common to all concerned, victories are quickly realized and teams begin to emerge. Nothing improves relationships or builds teams like success.
Begin the process where the parties are and build from there. We find that often there is a need to clear up some old baggage prior to dealing with current traditional relationship issues in a non-traditional manner. As success occurs we believe in helping the parties move towards broader organizational and business issues.
Work on improving processes prior to changing systems or structures. Traditionally we have tried to resolve organizational issues by re-organizing the structure. This has often led to confusion and decreased effectiveness. By allowing processes to change first, we create a people centred change process. These changes lead naturally to identifying the systems that need to change in alignment with the new way of working and eventually to a realignment of the structure.
Communications are always important. In this environment of change they are absolutely CRITICAL.
Each organization/entity needs to write their unique book of change. Tailor-made processes are vital. Every individual, organization or community is unique. The best way to maximize the effectiveness of your change process is to build on your own uniqueness, rather than imitating others.
Joint processes should maximize the use of internal people. The development and growth of your own people is critical to your long term success. This is all part of creating a learning organization. Networking is also highly recommended and supported by us.
Organizational change processes are really the combined personal change processes of many individuals within the organization and must begin with the leaders. Remember “All lasting and meaningful change begins on the inside and works its way out”. - Lou Tice
The pace of change is directly related to the trust and confidence built within the relationship of the parties. Therefore, most processes begin slowly but tend to pick up pace over time. Constant energy and effort is required to maintain and build trust!
Developing a simple basis for decision making is crucial to the Joint Venture process. For example, measure all decisions against the impact on the Business and the People and be guided by a set of commonly held principles.
Move the process forward only by mutual consent. Both parties must be comfortable with moving through the various stages of the process.
In order to guide the process it is helpful to develop a set of commonly held principles.
Our efforts with clients are guided by the following principles:
- Added Value & Utilizing Internal Expertise
- Development of the Whole Person
- Integrity
- Involvement & Empowerment
- Keep the Process Simple
- Lifelong Learning & Growth
- Principled Leadership
ADDED VALUE & UTILIZING INTERNAL EXPERTISE
Our involvement should depend on our ability to continually add value to your process. The best way in which we can achieve this is by assisting you in the development and utilization of your people. Furthermore, we encourage and facilitate the networking and inter-organizational sharing of that expertise.
DEVELOPMENT OF THE WHOLE PERSON
We encourage and support processes that include understanding, acting on and believing in the growth of the whole person, not just the working person.
INTEGRITY
We believe that openness, understanding and trust need to be continually nurtured and supported within individuals and organizations. Only in this way do we create and maintain total personal and business integrity.
INVOLVEMENT AND EMPOWERMENT
We believe that the growth of the individual is the evolution of the whole. Our efforts are focused on organizations that are prepared to engage their people in this growth opportunity.
KEEP THE PROCESS SIMPLE
We believe that jargon (intellectual and otherwise) is a real barrier to change. Our processes utilize user-friendly language and terms already familiar to your organization. Progress must include taking the necessary time to ensure all are at the same level of understanding.
LIFELONG LEARNING AND GROWTH
“All lasting and meaningful change begins on the inside and works its way out.” We believe that all individuals, organizations and communities need to pursue lifelong learning and growth with that in mind.
PRINCIPLED LEADERSHIP
Our principles are important to us and we wish to be measured in part on our ability to live and act in accordance with them. We therefore encourage the leaders within our client-base to bring their principles to life as part of their improvement process.