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Managers Letter
Orchestrating Change
by Marie Valenta
"The status quo is now defined as rapid change," says Dan Burrus, a leading futurist and author of
Techno Trends. Not long ago, information was said to become obsolete every 510 years. Now, according to
The Harvard Business Review's recent study, "Productivity in the 21st Century," information will become obsolete every 21 days.
With this rapid acceleration of technology and its impact on society, we must learn not only to live with
constant change, but to orchestrate it from moment to moment. Future leaders must be willing to partner with rapid change,
to work with all the forces in play. Mahatma Gandhi, while taking his followers on a march, decided it was in his
country's best interests to turn around and go home. There was a lot of resistance to his decision.
Gandhi's response was, "My commitment is to the truth in the moment, not to consistency." This is the stance we
must take to be responsive to our changing environment. We must not just flow with change, but plan it. How do we become
a change agent in our own organization?
Reactive vs. Proactive
Is your organization driven by outside circumstances the national economy, global competition, decisions made by
Wall Street? Are you driven by your clients, your boss, problems among co-workers? If so, you are in the reactive mode,
allowing others to control your destiny. The alternative is to be proactive moving toward what you want to create,
regardless of circumstances. When you are proactive, you are designing your future.
To be effectively proactive, you need a clear vision of where you want yourself and your organization to be. Then
design your action steps, projects, plans and goals to achieve that movement. Once it starts working for you, others will notice
the clarity and speed of your success and will want to learn more about your approach.
Vision-Driven Planning Process
Step #1: Create a clear vision or desired state. This could be for your project, team, department or division.
Step #2: Clarify your current reality or present state.
Step #3: Design a plan to move you from where you are (present state) to where you want to be (desired state).
Step #4: Create a target date for the vision using today's date for the present state and due dates for the action steps.
Robert Fritz, author of Corporate Tides and The Path of Least
Resistance, calls the discrepancy between the
present state and the desired state "structural tension" a place where anxiety exists. Tension contains a dynamic
the tendency to move from one condition to another. It possesses its own drive, which often creates an impetus to move
away from the state of tension toward a resolution:
Structural Tension
There is a structural relationship between the actual and desired states. The difference between them creates a state
of nonequilibrium that produces a need to move to the desired state your goals.
The organization will resolve tension by achieving its goals. It can strategically use a structural approach to create
states of nonequilibrium. In the beginning of a project or goal, tension exists because there is a difference between the
desired state (the finished product, the percentage of market share, etc.) and the current state.
When you create tension around desired results, you greatly increase the chance of success because you can
implement action strategies and the organization can direct its efforts toward the desired outcomes.
The Interrelationship of Goals
Do the members of your organization know and understand the function of their major goals? Too often, goals in
one department remain uncoordinated with the goals of others. Goals created on local levels may have little to do with
goals created on the corporate level. This tends to throw the organization into chaos over time.
In an organization built on structural tension, goals are prime organizing principles. Every action taken is linked to
goals that are linked to other related, more senior, goals.
The Relatedness of Goals
Unfortunately, most organizations take a nonrelational approach. Goals are created by departments or teams, which
are guided by general mandates. People are asked to form their own goals, but often they do not know their context. So
goals are constructed in a vacuum. Because people may have an inadequate understanding of the company's direction, they
must rely on their local perception, which does not always always mesh with the goals of the organization. Clashing goals
may lead to groups fighting for adequate resources in order to do their jobs. Eventually, some win and others lose. What
is missing is an organizing principle that ties efforts together.
The key to individual and organizational success is using the structural tension approach on all levels. As an example,
a sales manager is responsible for having her department double sales in one year, from $1 to $2 million. Using the
structural tension approach, she would design a plan that looked like this:
Vision-Driven Planning Process
Vision / Desired State: Generate $2 million in sales in 1997
Target Date: December 31, 1997
Action Plan | Due Date |
Hire two more salespeople | ________ |
Develop additional leads list | ________ |
Target two new niche markets | ________ |
Update research on competition | ________ |
Find key contacts in new markets | ________ |
Develop new incentive program | ________ |
Plan celebration for achieving the goal | ________ |
Ask sales team for suggestions
for celebration | ________ |
Present State: Sales for 1996 were $1 million
Current Date: August 1, 1997
Each action step in the chart above can be the basis for a new structural tension chart, designed to result in the
achievement of specific goals. You can use this simple form on every managerial level throughout the organization. All actions
will lead back to the master chart for organizational goals. All changes in current reality are tracked and recorded and
are available to anyone who needs them.
Katherine Freeman, Director of Riverside Methodist Hospital's Alcohol and Drug Dependency department, reports
that the use of the structural approach in her group has led to a new pattern of success: "After we did our first training in
the structural approach back in 1993, we were able to create remarkable results. Ten or twelve years prior to that, director
after director had the same issues and never had any financial results. There was a lot of talk about management
strategy, but it wasn't working.
"Over a three-year period we completely restructured the clinical program using structural tension and aligning all
the pieces. We ended up last year with better patient outcomes and less recidivism than ever before, and made our
strongest and only contribution to the bottom line in the history of the department. And, we ended up with incredibly high
morale. To the physicians in behavioral health, this was a miracle. They started to want to know what happened in our
department that caused our success."
This example was excerpted from Corporate Tides by Robert Fritz. Also a valuable resource for orchestrating change
is a new software program called Structural
TensionPro*, by DMA Inc. Choicepoint. The program helps manage goals
and current situations as they change. For more information, call DMA at 1-800-848-9700.
Whether you want to advance your personal or organizational goals, this vision-driven planning process is a very
effective approach that will help you become consistently proactive rather than reactive. Use it to enhance your success and
accelerate the achievement of your results.
Marie Valenta
is president of California-based High Performance Programs, a management consulting and training firm specializing in empowering individuals, teams and organizations. She is a motivational speaker, adjunct professor, nationally syndicated columnist and author of
Power Vision: A Guide for Executives and Entrepreneurs.
She can be reached at (760) 632-0126.
The
Managers Letter
is published throughout the year by Olsten Corporation. For editorial inquiries, write Olsten Corporation, Marketing Communications Department, 175 Broad Hollow Road, Melville, NY 11747.
Material from the
Managers Letter
may be quoted or reproduced, provided appropriate credit is given to indicate that the material was taken from the
Managers Letter,
a publication of Olsten Corporation.
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