Category: Administration in the Church

My guest contributor, Gary Borland, continues his series on Management of Change. He is happy to receive enquiries. Last week, we continued our overview of ‘Kotter’s 8 Step Process for Leading Change’ as an overlay to a Strategic Planning Process. Concurrent and parallel activity is commonplace in major change or transformation programmes. In this blog, we will look at the next 2 steps step in ‘Engaging & Enabling The Whole Organisation’ which Kotter describes as: Step 5: ‘Empower Broad-Based Action’ Step 6: ‘Generate Short-Term Wins’ Step 5 – ‘Empower Broad-Based Action’ Embrace challenge The number of obstacles in the way of change are often seen only when you start asking people - and the best people to ask are not the leaders themselves! Leaders like to believe that they empower…

Last week, we continued our overview of ‘Kotter’s 8 Step Process for Leading Change’. As an overlay to a Strategic Planning Process, these steps can be highly effective, and can take place concurrently, depending on the nature of the programme. We are now moving onto the first step in ‘Engaging and Enabling The Whole Organisation’ which Kotter describes as: Step 4 – ‘Communicate The Vision for Buy-In’ Irrespective of who defined the change vision the need to communicate it is a critical next step in engaging and enrolling people at all levels and in all areas across the organisation. Unfortunately, many leaders outsource communications to the ‘comms person’ or ‘comms team’ and then wonder why people ‘don’t get it’. Ownership of the communication process by the leaders is vital. Devote…

Last week, we started to look at ‘Kotter’s 8 Step Process for Leading Change’. Importantly, we touched on the need to use these steps as an overlay to a Strategic Planning Process. It’s also worth reiterating that although Kotter’s steps can appear linear, effective application often involves concurrent and parallel activity aligned with the Strategic Plan. We will now look at the next 2 steps in ‘Creating a Climate for Change’ which Kotter describes as: Step 2: ‘Create The Guiding Coalition’ Step 3: ‘Develop a Change Vision’ Step 2 – ‘Create The Guiding Coalition’ [caption id="attachment_5849" align="alignright" width="316"] Commission's Guiding Coalition in a Q/A session during the recent Prayer Days[/caption] A Guiding Coalition is a group or team of people with enough influence, capability and credibility to lead a change…

‘Kotter’s 8 Step Process for Leading Change’ was introduced last week as a helpful model for understanding and managing change, particularly when used in conjunction with a Strategic Planning Process and associated Strategic Plan. It’s important to reiterate that while Kotter’s steps appear linear, there needs to be concurrent/parallel activity which is overlaid and aligned with the Strategic Plan. Kotter’s model is not, in my opinion, a strategy in itself, but rather a very good overlay to optimise the likelihood of success. The steps are shown in the diagram below: We will now look at the first step in ‘Creating a Climate for Change’ which Kotter describes as: Step 1 – ‘Establish a Sense of Urgency’ Change is difficult, transformation is very difficult. Without a genuine sense of urgency, minor…

Where are you going? A successful change or transformation programme has many components. However, unless leadership provides clarity on what a programme seeks to achieve, there is unlikely ever to be more than loose directional alignment and half-hearted commitment. Many organisations, including churches, have no clear framework within which they dream or deliver, preferring to describe their strategy in terms of the collection of (often good) activities that they undertake. But these may not flow from a clearly articulated vision, supported by a top level strategy, through to a set of plans, delivered by highly motivated, enrolled and equipped people. Be specific, succinct and clear Vision statements (the ‘where’) should be future-based and inspire, and give direction to members of the organisation, rather than necessarily to the external community. They…

I continue the series on Management of Change by guest writer Gary Borland. Enthusiasm and Optimism are not enough Like change management, the bookshelves, libraries and online resources offer so much (at times apparently conflicting) material and advice that many simply don’t use any of it. Combine that with coaches, mentors and consultancy firms promising you things they can’t always deliver, and you could be forgiven for thinking that only the particularly gifted can manage or lead. That said, combinations of all of these are required if we are to develop into effective, high performing leaders and managers, rather than simply assuming that osmosis, appointment to a leadership role, experience and a liberal dose of enthusiasm and optimism will win the day. Leadership and management are both vital components of…