About the Change Toolkit

About the Change Toolkit

INTRODUCTION
Kaleidoscope -- the Leadership and Change Toolkit (CTK), based on the work of Rosabeth Moss Kanter, can help people in organizations improve their effectiveness in both operational and administrative functions. All organizations routinely involve change, which is generally a complex and uncertain undertaking, despite the fact that a large amount of systematic knowledge and understanding about organizational change of all sorts has been gained from research and experience over the last 70 years or so.

Much of the learning applies to organizations of all sorts – businesses, government agencies, schools, hospitals, foundations and organized religions. By and large, it has mainly been sought by businesses, in part because they actively actively seek broadly useful and transferable knowledge and are prepared to pay for it, but even there the learning has not typically been combined into a systematic framework. Even where this has been attempted, the result has often been too theoretical and not readily applicable by users. As a result, potentially useful practices have not been made available in as appropriate, as user-responsive and as easy-to-use a form as would be helpful.

It is often said that all organizations are different from one another. It is more accurate to say that every organization is both identical to every other organization – they all share basic properties and processes -- and unique – that is, completely unlike every other. The challenge in using available knowledge is therefore to know how to identify and take the learning that can be generalized – which is what the CTK contains -- and combine it with the specific knowledge that each user brings about a particular system.

USING THE CHANGE TOOLKIT
The CTK consists of three major sections – the Change Wheel, Change Masters and Change Fundamentals, each of which is broken down into major topics. The topics – 26 in all – each have a home page and are graphically identical to one another. Each topic home page contains a menu with links to:

• Overview - a brief description of the topic and its relationship to organizational change
• Background – a longer piece that provides added depth and detail about the topic
• Diagnostic - an interactive questionnaire for assessing a key aspect of your situation with regard to that topic
• Action - decision guides and interactive opportunities to plan next steps
• Example - illustrates the use of the tools, or shows an instance of a problem or opportunity in which particular tools might be helpful
• Misc – Additional tools that may be helpful but are not easily categorized
• Summary or Full Text – A toggle that shifts between two available versions of background and overview tools. The Summary is a one screen bullet point version of the material, suitable for presentations, while the Full Text piece is a longer, richer but more time consuming piece on the same topic.

Many of these topic-related tool pages contain more than a single tool, but each is self-contained and can be used without reference to the rest of that topic set. The entire set of tools can be accessed from matrix of all tools.

• Kaleidoscope is designed for use in a number of different ways. Broadly speaking, people can work on:
• Managing a change project or leading a change team
• Assessing their own change and leadership competencies
• Assessing their organization's or unit’s culture and character
• Solving problems related to leadership and change
• Enabling and leading a systemwide change initiative in their organization
• Developing and introducing innovative ideas to their organization or unit
• Enhancing their organization’s effectiveness in general
• Learning about organizational change in general
• Improving their leadership skills in their current roles

Users will themselves differ in many ways, but there is one way in which all users are treated by the CTK as identical; it assumes that every user is interested in a particular change, in a specific organizational unit or department, though their role in that change will vary widely. Moreover, users are asked in many cases, particularly in the diagnostic and action tools, to have in mind a definite change or innovation (either already underway or simply a possibility), in an equally definite organization, function or department. This is important because the logic and design of the CTK assumes that every user is focused on such a change/organization combination in every visit to the site. It does not assume that these remain the same – in fact, they may well change every time – but the suggestions and responses from the toolkit simply will not make as much sense without this focus.

Users have a number of options in every visit.

• They can always browse the content, following links as they wish.
• They can use the project planning and team management tools (for example, the team workspace, discussion area, to-do lists, meeting minutes, lessons learned templates, etc.)
• They can use any or all of the “How To” templates (available on the high level menu shown on every page), which both lay out a sequence of steps and provide links offering a greater depth of knowledge and insight, and an opportunity to assess a user’s situation through use of other (primarily diagnostic) tools.
• They can take advantage of the “Get Customized Advice” track, which asks users to answer a few questions, based on which it offers some advice about the nature of the change task they’re facing and then lists several specific tools that should be helpful in their situation. At least one of the recommended tools is a specific diagnostic that can provide additional insight about the users' situations and the issues they face.
• If they are associated with a team or working group that is using the toolkit to help manage a change or innovation in their organization, they can dialogue with other team members, proceed as a team through systematic steps in the change process, examine different responses or aggregate responses to diagnostic tools, and coordinate action plans.
• If they are team leaders or project managers, they can set up team action plans, manage team processes, guide team members in their activities, address emerging issues on-line, and generate data from diagnostic tools, individually and as a team, and help ensure aligned action.
• If they are individuals interested in developing an idea they have, or in working to implement an innovation within their own area or work unit, they can learn about the steps in such a process, and can regularly assess their situation and their progress, identify emerging issues and get advice about dealing with them.

The CTK is set up to help users do these things with a minimum need to search through its large and diverse database. It is set up to make it easy for them to take advantage of the three broad categories of content and usage discussed in the Introduction to this document – the Change Wheel, Change Masters, and Change Fundamentals. The Change Wheel is a systematic framework for addressing change in an entire organizational system, which might be an independent corporation, a subsidiary unit or a stand-alone facility. It contains 10 topics, plus an overall introduction,background and diagnostic, which together lay out the key issues that need to be considered and addressed in making change to a whole system. Examples of such changes are: opening or creating a new market, shifting to more teams and teamwork in an existing company, or revising the company's product line.

HOW TO USE THE CHANGE WHEEL
If you, as a user, are involved in or considering major systemwide changes of this type, and if you are either a senior leader with the authority to do this, or are assisting someone with that authority, the Change Wheel would be a good place to start. The quickest way to use it is to click on and fill out the overall diagnostic tool, called the Change Wheel Diagnostic and look at the responses generated by the CTK. In addition, look at your scores on the individual questions and see which of them are relatively low and therefore probably need more attention. Ideally, if you are attempting to realize a systemic change, each of these 10 elements is important, and any that is especially low is cause for concern.

Gaining more insight into each of these elements, however, would be useful, and to do that, fill out the individual diagnostic tools associated with each of the 10 elements (topics). These analyze your situation with respect to a single topic in much greater detail. The responses are often likely to suggest that the information or result from you alone – or anyone alone – has to be taken with considerable caution. Asking other people to fill out the same tool, and then comparing the results can provide a more realistic result. This is also extremely useful as a group discussion topic, either by exploring the implications of the consistent results or by seeking the implications of substantial differences.

BECOMING A CHANGE MASTER
The second major cluster of tools, Change Masters, is quite different. Whereas the Change Wheel focuses on aspects of whole organizational systems, this cluster focuses on the lessons learned from individuals who have been successful in implementing an innovation within an organizational unit, or in bringing an idea to practical realization. Although these skills and the steps or activities with which they are associated are particularly powerful tools for addressing such internal change tasks, these same skills and approaches are also very useful to people involved in systemic change.

As in the case of the Change Wheel, it is useful to start by completing the overall diagnostic tool, Change Masters: A Self Assessment. This will provide a quick impression of the user’s competence in those seven critical competencies. Similarly, it is useful to go into the seven topic home pages and complete the separate diagnostic tools found there. The additional tools, particularly the Action Tools, will offer advice and counsel that can help in gaining new skills or applying existing ones.

PUTTING IT TOGETHER: CHANGE FUNDAMENTALS
In general, both of these clusters – Change Wheel and Change Masters – can be used to address key aspects of the leadership and management of every change initiative; those concerning the characteristics of the system and the ability of key individuals to bring about the end result effectively. In any case, there will be many predictable tasks that are often complex in and of themselves, such as minimizing people’s resistance to change, or making sure that leaders do everything they should to enable others to carry out their own tasks effectively. The third cluster – Change Fundamentals – deals with these issues.

Roughly speaking, these are the equivalent of a manager or change agent’s basic blocking and tackling skills. They can be viewed as the core strengths without which no strategy, however powerful and relevant, is likely to succeed. These tools can be accessed directly, but specific links to them are also built into both the “How To” templates and the topics. Every topic home page also has at least three separate hypertext links that connect that topic to other

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