Questions to Help you Think Through Organisational Change
I use the Jones Alignment Model when I’m working with clients to help think through what change is needed and how change in one part of the organisation will have an impact on the other parts.
This usually takes place in the first part of the process when we are making a diagnosis and determining what the challenges are facing the organisation and working out what the changes are that are needed.
Here are some questions that I’ve used in the past that you can ask yourself and your colleagues about your situation.
What questions do you need to ask for your particular situation?
If you want to chat it through, please get in touch.
Purpose:
What are our goals? What are we trying to achieve?
What clear links exist between our work and that of the organization?
What is the purpose of the team/organisation? What would each of the different members or groups within it say if I asked them?
What do we want and need the purpose of this team/organisation to be? What does that imply about structure, systems and processes, culture, capability and leadership?
What about the purpose needs clarifying or developing?
What isn’t clear to me, or to others, about the how the team’s purpose links to daily work?
What are the benefits of bringing people together for us and for them?
What would we like to gain from this? What is my personal vision?
Leadership:
What do you need others to do and say in order to be successful?
What are others saying that they want/need from you?
How are you and your team held accountable?
How do you and your team hold others to account?
How aware are the leadership team of what they need to do?
How ready is the leadership team to change themselves? To lead change?
Which power/group dynamics are helpful to you and which are destructive?
What opportunities exist to help the leaders to develop?
What makes people powerful in this organisation?
What understanding do people have of the importance of leadership (as a skill we all have, not a person in a job) and followership?
What ‘acts of leadership’ have become stories or legends?
How do we keep all these things in balance?
Culture:
Do we have beliefs, attitudes and behaviours that align our actions with our purpose?
What is the existing culture? How does it help? How does it hinder?
Where have we seen glimpses of the culture we need? What can we learn from this?
What underlying assumptions, values, beliefs, attitudes or norms need challenging? Which should be noticed and celebrated?
Which behaviours are productive and can be celebrated? Which are unhelpful?
How well are the desired behaviours being role modelled by me, the team, and others?
What is the culture of the leadership team? How does this affect others?
How can you reward collaboration?
What are the key issues that this piece of work needs to surface/discuss/address? (What are the elephants in the room?)
Capability:
Do we have the right people, knowledge and skills to deliver our goals?
Do people know what skills (knowledge and attitudes) they are expected to have or need to have in order to excel at their jobs?
Do managers know what skills (knowledge and attitudes) are required from employees in order to excel at their jobs?
Do people know what opportunities exist in order for them to develop?
How well are people supported to succeed? What helps and what hinders?
How often are managers and staff having developmental conversations?
What approaches have been tried for developing staff and what more could be tried?
How well is performance management applied within the team? What benefits do we see as a result? What more could happen?
How well do people collaborate? How do they know who they need to talk to in order to collaborate?
How are you making sure that the right people being recruited?
System & Process:
How well are the existing systems and processes followed? How clear are they?
How well can people articulate the benefits of the systems and process that they need to use?
What processes are essential to make this team/organisation work effectively? What do you have and what is missing?
What helps people to do their jobs now? What do they say would help them but is currently missing?
How do people know that they are supposed to use systems or processes?
How often are systems reviewed to see if they still add value? How can people be involved in reviewing them?
Who designs the systems that your teams need to use? How well do they understand the ‘people factor’ and the context?
What systems/process exist (or can be put in place) to help cross team collaboration?
Do we have adequate co-ordination to deliver our purpose?
Structure:
How is the team structure helping us achieve the purpose?
How can structures be simplified to support the delivery of the task?
What impact does the layout of the team area have on how we think, feel, behave?
Do people understand how the structure relates to the purpose of the team?
How far down the structure do you have to go before people no longer understand the purpose or see the link to their work? What impact does this have?
How does this structure help us to collaborate with other teams? How can we improve?
How do we divide up the work?
What level of clarity exists between the roles/teams and expectations of each other?
How clear are the roles descriptions of team members?
How do we know which team is doing what? How do others know?