The final step in leading change is to determine where everyone is on the journey of change that you've been moving through in your organization and figure out, how do you keep people moving forward in the right direction. This conversation begins, where we started with a systems view. Because these are all of the people internal and external stakeholders. So I'd like you to find that particular worksheet number three that you filled out and keep it close. What we're going to do is we're going to put those stakeholders, all of the major players in your organizational system, and we're going to figure out where they are using this lens. And we're actually going to draw a little bit of a map here.

Now, this is the seven phases of a change journey. On the left hand side, of course, we have the old world as it used to be. And way over on the right hand side, we have the new world as it's supposed to be In between, we have the work of leadership, simplifying and engaging the strategy, aligning and implementing the change, and leading people through all three phases of transition. Now, there's a number of ways of taking this picture, we could look at one specific major change. For example, the one that I asked you to focus on, and you chose, when we did that assessment of communication, or the one you use, maybe it was even the same one, to develop a communication plan. So we can focus on one particular change.

We can think about where all of the major changes are in relationship to each other on this journey, and where people's commitment and action as it relates to each of the changes. We could look at progress along the ground with the strategic priorities, or we could determine where everyone is in relationship to the overall vision Achieving the strategic direction. Let's look at some examples of each one of these options from actual maps that were drawn over the years in organizations that I've worked with. So here's a major change. This was a number of years ago back in November of 1998. This was three different school boards merging together in one major new super board.

And this change had been going on for a long time. And those shapes depicted where each of the people inside those functional groups were, as it related to strategy change, and transition. So the admin support group was over on the left the board the new board was way over on the right they'd been involved with this the longest senior management was a long shaped that really was still fully in transition. With still some of them trying to figure out what these actual changes were. So that's a way to represent the functional groups as it relates to one particular change. Now, here's a way to map out all of the major changes.

So what we have here are 246 810 major changes. And what we're looking at here would be Where's critical mass of the people as it relates to each of these changes being successful, and we have a spread as you can appreciate. Another way to look at this is to think about what progress are we making with our strategic priorities. Now, you may recognize as the strategic priorities for that insurance company that we talked about when we did that alignment example. And here March 2012, they thought they had made some significant progress with some and less with others. Now we can use this tool as a way to determine what do our strategic priorities need to be for the coming year or two or three, does it need to be the same?

Or do we need to focus on some more than others? Or do we need different ones because these ones have all really made it to the new world? Well, in this example, clearly, none of them have fully made it to the new world, managing the capital base more effectively, has certainly made some major progress. But the big challenge still is operational efficiency. And that needs a lot more attention going forward. And finally, another way of doing this is to map out progress against a large, broad strategic vision, your overall strategic direction.

Here, in this case, this was a large insurance company, this was the right t group, and they were transforming it now. That's a huge undertaking, probably a three or four. If I remember right, it was supposed to be a three year initiative. There on about your five and a half right now. This picture was taken a few years ago and They use this analogy of a river. And they put the old world in the new world and strategy changed the three phases of transition across the map, and then they positioned some of the major players, some of the major groups.

And I remember there was some interesting stories about the VPS running to find the airport because they realize the CEO and the CEO were way over in the new world. And they had touched down with the corporate jet. And we're taking off on another initiative, where the poor VPS were still back. In the old world, public relations was looking for a bus station not recognizing there was no bridge to the new world. The transformation team was the rowing team in the time in between headed towards the promised land. So an interesting story.

Well, how on earth do you tell where people are? Do you need to send surveys? I mean, what do you need to do? Actually, it's very simple. Open your eyes and look, pay attention. And listen.

Because people speak and behave in very predictable ways based on where they are in the journey. When people are in the old world, you're going to be seeing things like people deleting emails or not showing up at change meetings and still doing things, the old ways. And they're saying things like, relax, be happy. What's all the fuss, our customers love us, the stock price will bounce back, don't worry. So this really is people in the old world. And of course, the work here of leaders is to get people's attention.

Now, when you do that, we end up with people looking for clarification. strategy needs now to be simplified and engaged. So what are people doing? Well, they're still working on the old things, but now they know something needs to be done. They may be attending meetings looking for hope. Maybe they're frustrated by a lack of direction.

They may be keeping their eyes open for job offers, who knows. But they're saying things like the direction isn't clear. It seems as though everybody's packing for different destinations. Why aren't people telling us the truth too many conflicting priorities, the exact might know what's going on, but nobody's told us. So here the work is really get clear on simplifying and engaging a very consistent and compelling strategic message. Now, when you do that, people start to struggle with the changes.

And the work now is around alignment and implementation. What are people doing? Well, lots of things. The activity level goes really, really high here. Lots of competition between projects, some leaders are visible, some are poor initial planning, last minute decisions that need rework, saying things like too much information but not real information. We need to involve more people upfront, we're over billing, some things under billing others here the work really is About get disciplined around aligning and implementing the changes successfully.

And when you do that, people start to slip into transition. And when we deal with each of the three phases of transition, what we'll see are some very typical behaviors. When people struggle with this first phase of transition, they will often work hard at fixing the old ways of doing things. Because if we can fix the old thing, we won't have to do the new thing. anger and sadness are regular emotions that play out yelling at the project teams people quitting and staying withdrawing into their offices or cubicles and not showing up at staff meetings, saying things like who's stupid ideas this I love working with those guys. Those were my guys.

I was hired to hit up this group. Now what am I going to do? Nothing ever falls off the end of the wagon stuff just keeps piling on and piling on and piling on. So the work here for the leaders of course is to be much more intentional about separating away from the comfort and familiarity. The old world. And when you do that people go into the in between behaviors here.

Try to do too many things at once making more mistakes, lots and lots of questions, finding interesting and unique ways of getting things done. saying things like, Is anybody in charge of this? Haven't seen my boss in months? I don't know. If you think it works. Let's try it.

We'll see lots of up in the air, NUS, if you will, lots of ambiguity. So the work here, of course, from a leadership perspective, is to lead your people through that time in between and it's really all about trust and exploration. When you do that, people start to settle in things start to integrate behaviors will see people get along with the new team members, small successes in the new way of doing things, participation and commitment starts to build. saying things like, Well, I'm not 100% convinced, but maybe this might work. Perhaps I can work with these new people. I've had three good days in a row this week.

Wow. People starting to integrate. And as we help people through that phase into the new world, the behaviors the actions, actively engaging, helping others do the same. appreciating the rewards for a job well done. Did you see the numbers last week? We've never done this well, helping others.

Come on you guys. Let's get on with this. I was close. Not quite. Let me show you. I love working with this new group and this new system.

So there's some clues. Those are only clues from my experience and working with organizations, your experiences, the one that's most important. What I'd like you to do is to find worksheet number 11. And here you've got a map and you can use this if you like, on your own. If you've got a group with you, I would highly encourage a flip chart sheet again with some sticky notes. And I'd like you to label this or named this, whether it's one particular change or is it the priority Or what is it that you're actually drawing a map of, and also put today's date on the bottom corner, so that you will know when you took this picture.

So push pause and draw your map