Reset Your Change Tolerance #cindertoflame

We navigated through disruption and chaos during the lengthy COVID-19 pandemic

(the World Health Organization declared the start on March 11, 2020 and the end on May 5, 2023). The upside - to having been forced to change how we lived our lives during the pandemic - is that it provides the springboard for building resilience and resetting our change tolerance.

Corporations are continually seeking solutions to complex challenges and this requires building a healthy corporate culture of resilient mindsets with a high tolerance for change, at every corporate level.

Let’s utilize the cliché of a light bulb representing an original idea. The photo depicts a “smoking” light bulb that could portray an idea that was extinguished. Ideas that are quickly rejected by an individual, team or leaders are often associated with the fear of upheaval. Undergoing significant change necessitates courage, willingness to take risks and being primed to learn from failure.

Various tools are available to help corporate leaders and their employees manage significant change. Knoster (1991) has developed a model for managing complex change with five components: shared vision, requisite skills, employee incentives, adequate resources and a detailed action plan. The absence of any one of these five components thwarts successful change resulting in confusion, anxiety, resistance, frustration and false starts, respectively.

When organizations prepare for change, diligent attention is focused on educating and training employees on what practices or processes will be changed. The goal is to ensure employees possess the required skills to know how to consistently implement the change(s). However, research has underscored the most critical factor, ensuring employees know why change is important to achieve traction and willingness to implement change(s).

Successful change moves beyond preparation and implementation. The greatest challenge is sustaining change(s) over time and preventing the human tendency for reversion to prior practices. The Canadian Incident Analysis Framework has provided a hierarchy of effectiveness with low to high leverage solutions that help people sustain change. At the bottom (least effective) is education and training, followed by rules, procedures and policies. - Therefore, combining education and training with policies and procedures is insufficient. - Moderately effective solutions include reminders and checklists to guide consistent change. The highest leverage solutions include simplification (through standardization), removal of options and automation (i.e. forced functions).

Reflect upon this quote by Nick Candito who contrasts change associated with continuous quality (process) improvement and major innovation:

“Companies that change may survive, but companies that transform thrive. Change brings incremental or small-scale adaptations, while transformation brings great improvements that ripple through the future of an organization.“

Cinder to Flame helps Corporations solve complex challenges with strategic services that energize people, fuel a healthy corporate culture and ignite major innovation.

Readiness for disruptive and transformational change are critical facets of a healthy corporate culture for major innovation.

You are invited to discuss how Cinder to Flame can help reset your Corporation's change tolerance: https://www.cindertoflame.ca/contact

Here's the link to the Canadian Incident Analysis Framework (refer to page 57): https://www.healthcareexcellence.ca/media/gilnw3uy/canadian-incident-analysis-framework-final-ua.pdf

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