Free Newsletter Subscription! Email:

February 2010

Six Challenges Shaping Our Work and Our World:
What’s Possible in Turbulent Times   

 

 

Six Challenges	IPI Case Studies
1.  The global economic crisis is leading organizations to rethink how resources are shared across institutions.	The eye health community creates new ways of partnering and sharing resources during these challenging economic times with the support of Mike Feinson, Bernard Mohr and Ada Jo Mann.   In Rhode Island new alliances for workforce development are seeded with the convening support of Jen Hetzel Silbert.
2.  Demands on the healthcare system drive new ways of delivering direct patient care.	With the help of Bernard Mohr and Bob Laliberte, Tufts Medical Center engages 1800 staff members in redesigning its care delivery model to create economic sustainability, better quality, improved patient experience and provider satisfaction.  A complex care unit at Bruyère Continuing Care redesigns their way of working to increase inter-professional collaboration with the help of Catherine McKenna and Joanne Daykin.
3.  Use of social media invites a whole new level of participation in whole system change.	IPI‘s Tony Silbert, Jen Hetzel Silbert and Joanne Daykin  use social media and network analysis tools to help various organizations share information more effectively and spawn engagement.
4.  Company mergers and acquisitions are on the rise.	Organizations find new ways to create synergy and alignment following a merger or acquisition. With the help of Ada Jo Mann, Jen Hetzel Silbert and Roz Kay, clients find leadership alignment to strategy and a shared vision critical to navigating change.
5.  Leaders are expected to spend more  of their time leading major change – requiring new skills and competencies.	Roz Kay, Jen Hetzel Silbert, Tony Silbert and Catherine McKenna  support various leaders in developing competencies, increasing self awareness and building core skills needed to lead change more effectively.
6.  Heightened competition in a down economy demands increased innovation and collaboration.	With the help of Tony Silbert and Bernard Mohr, a Fortune 50 pharmaceutical organization began creating a new ‘sociology of work’ among their bench scientists.

Hidden between slashed budgets, layoffs and service reductions, one high payoff opportunity is constant -- when we leverage existing partnerships (or create new ones) we can accomplish more. 
 
Take for example the eye health community. This highly diverse group which includes producers of frames and contact lenses, managed care companies, advocacy agencies, optometrists and ophthalmologists, research institutes, government regulators and educational institutions each had different messages about the importance of regular eye exams to our overall heath. IPI partners Mike Feinson, Bernard Mohr and Ada Jo Mann were challenged by a national eye health trade association to help them create a consistently high-impact message while lowering costs across the sector.

The global economic recession might have delayed this sort of innovation. Instead, this organization demonstrated forward-thinking leadership by seizing the opportunity to deliberately support collaboration and resource sharing.  Click to view the video of the Eye Health Summit.

In another example of innovation through collaboration, IPI Partner Jen Hetzel Silbert serves as Convener for the Newport Skills Alliance (NSA). NSA is a demand-driven approach to regional workforce development made possible by the ever-growing alliance of partners, employers, educators, social service providers, and state agencies which are each committed to connecting work-ready residents to jobs on demand.  Their supporters have been many: the Governors Workforce Board of Rhode Island (GWBRI), the United Way of Rhode Island (UWRI), the Rhode Island Foundation, Rhode Island Department of Education (RIDE), Community College of Rhode Island (CCRI), and East Bay Community Action Program (EBCAP). NSA’s thoroughly researched, best practice-driven training, education, and case management services are helping to minimize barriers to employment and aiding employee retention and advancement. The result--job seekers gain much needed “soft” and “hard” skills for job attachment and career lattice advancement, employers fill job vacancies with skilled residents and the State’s workforce system comes together to benefit from greater access to state services, grants, training resources and employer tax credits.

Dangerously escalating health care costs and aging populations require more complex care. Now more than ever, we need to disseminate innovations both within and across institutions, and we need quantum improvements in service delivery. Tufts Medical Center is one organization that is doing just that. 

Tufts Medical Center is a world-class academic medical center offering patient care, teaching generations of future physicians and breaking new ground with ongoing, innovative research. Tufts knows that to ensure economic sustainability, patient and student satisfaction and progress toward the next level of care, it must reinvent the way care is delivered.

IPI partners Bernard Mohr and Bob Laliberte, with their colleagues Don De Guerre and Nathalie Fauteux, have been assisting Tufts with this challenge. Beyond incremental process innovations, Tufts wants to change the essence of the culture -- the organizational structures, roles and policies that support professional expertise and clinical practice.  They are engaging nurses, social workers, case managers, technicians, doctors and other healthcare team members in the redesign process.  This  “true team” way of working not only supports excellence in patient care, but also higher quality of work life for members of its health care team. The highly participative and strength-based change process used by the consulting team has helped Tufts create a comprehensive new care delivery model and implementation strategy--a strategy that includes major innovations in everything from housekeeping and security and patient flow to new and clearer roles and responsibilities for all those who serve and interact with the patient. Tufts is demonstrating what is possible with its new level of care delivery.

Canada can be proud that every citizen has access to healthcare, yet it comes with escalating costs. Across the country, Canadian healthcare leaders are seeking to inspire innovation and leadership at every level and to encourage collaboration between the professions. Ontario is in the lead on growing the body of research and practice of Inter-professional collaboration. Dr. Josh Tepper, Assistant Deputy Minister to the Minister of Health and Long Term Care is speaking out at conferences in Ontario and eastern Canada about the necessary shift that must occur from a top-down, silo-oriented service delivery model to one that is more integrated across the heath care professions. He says “…and the only way to achieve this new model of care delivery is through Appreciative Inquiry.” Dr. Tepper calls on providers of healthcare to learn from best practices for new ways of working collaboratively, and Bruyere Continuing Care heard that call.

Bruyere Continuing Care wanted to lead the way toward operationalizing a new model of patient care building on principles of inter-professional collaboration. Catherine McKenna and Joanne Daykin of Innovation Partners were contracted by the VP of Academic & Inter-professional Affairs to design and facilitate a research project that would build in-house capacity for Appreciative Inquiry and assist a complex care unit in increasing collaboration across professions. IPI led the small initial team of leaders through a three-month process to identify their best practices in inter-professional collaboration and to create new ways of working together. The work continues with a new unit, with the in-house facilitators leading the way.

As leaders in healthcare institutions across the globe break new ground, there is a growing desire to be in community with other innovators and change agents to support and learn from others facing similar challenges.  IPI fosters this type of community connection with our “Innovation Expedition in Healthcare”, the third of which recently took place in Cambridge, MA. The Innovation Expedition is an intimate gathering of a diverse group of healthcare leaders, who explore successful innovations from institutions in Canada and the United States and together identify new ways of moving forward.

As a result of the positive energy and engagement created during the 2009 expedition, leaders of the Innovation Expedition, Bob Laliberte, Bernard Mohr, Tony Silbert, Dr. Martin Merry, Danny Nashman and Tom Bigda-Peyton,  created a virtual learning community to further develop and implement  ideas spawned during the IE. “It is helpful to hear their stories and the progress they are making” says Bob Laliberte, one of the co-facilitators of the learning community. He says “Participants are encouraged to bring in topics that are important to them as they wade into new territory. Others offer ideas and suggestions and they receive support for furthering their innovations”.

We’ve all heard it—tweeting, facebooking and blogging are now verbs in our daily conversation.  More and more, we see organizations and groups experimenting with social media and networking platforms to explore how they might influence the effectiveness of change initiatives.

Larry Espe, Superintendent of School District #60 Peace River North, engaged IPI partners Joanne Daykin and Tony Silbert to help his school district prepare for and participate in a system-wide change initiative. Larry began blogging as a way to convey his enthusiasm and excitement about the project and share his thoughts about the challenges of such an enormous undertaking. “In some ways, it is like a diary/journal” says Larry, who has been blogging about this change for nearly three years. As the first district in British Columbia to use a whole system, participative process such as Appreciative Inquiry to develop a shared vision and the inspired commitment to realize it, Peace River North is a trailblazer. People in the community began connecting with Larry about his blog making it clear that it was more than just a personal journal. “It helped me to connect with parents, staff and even some folks from other districts,” says Larry. The blog united some people within the community even before the summit began and continues to keep people informed.  Still, Larry says, “There are many people who don’t do the tech thing so we’ve had to take our conversations on the road on a regular basis.” Larry has become a regular ‘Tweeter’ and  blogger with fifty visits a day to his site. He is continuing to use social media to keep the community and other stakeholder groups connected to what is happening with the change initiative.

Neighborhood Centers Inc. (NCI), an innovative Houston social service agency, is another adopter of social media.  On a mission to develop new approaches to community engagement and service delivery, NCI is including more and more voices in their data gathering and future visioning. In doing so new partnerships within the community have emerged. The vast numbers of staff involved in the process requires a strong communications and marketing strategy to keep the connections viable and the work visible as the journey for change continues. NCI’s website and Facebook presence has become an effective means of keeping the relationships growing and collaborating.

NCI’s Facebook presence allows key staff/personnel to post videos of events and to publicize social gatherings from large summits to local BBQ’s and garage sales. “Email, as our primary means of communication, is outdated,” says Jen Hetzel Silbert, lead IPI partner supporting NCI and avid advocate for social media. “Email requires a ‘push’ tactic for staying in touch using a contact list that changes regularly. Social media allows you to create a space, with privacy settings, where people can come to you. It becomes a magnetic draw rather than a push.”  Websites can provide information to people, but interactive social media, such as Facebook, helps virtual connections, communities and relationships flourish. Members of the community can add to and build upon what is already there.  Jen says, “There definitely has to be a cultural readiness. Employees are becoming increasingly familiar with these very social technical systems and quite often they expect more than a mere website to connect with others in a manner that is quick, easy, and global in reach”.

Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) slowed down with the volatility in the global financial markets in 2009, however Dr. Alexander Mertchev, an economics expert and President of Krull Corp, sees renewed signs of mergers and acquisitions in international markets for 2010.  Mergers and acquisitions present opportunities and challenges. Many organizations face struggles in the course of consolidation that impact their financial viability for years after closing the deal.  The July/August 2008 issue of the Journal of Business Strategy suggests that mergers and acquisitions trouble top management teams of acquired companies for at least a decade following a deal. The study found that companies that were either merged or acquired lost 21 percent of their executives each year for at least ten years following an acquisition – more than double the turnover experienced in non-merged firms.

This challenge of merger was in play when a youth-focused social service agency engaged IPI partners Ada Jo Mann and Jen Hetzel Silbert . They were seeking support in creating alignment and building relationships at the leadership level.  Over several months, two groups of thirty leaders each attended workshops on Appreciative Inquiry and appreciative leadership.  Through the workshops these leaders  gained knowledge about this strength-based approach to initiating and implementing change, and immediately put it into action by creating a shared vision as well as a wide range of innovation projects to support it.  There have been many outcomes--clarity around their shared values of leadership, a stronger sense of their collective strengths, and the development of strategies to help them work together effectively as they take their organization to the next level.  As a side benefit of this leadership program, many of these leaders were meeting face-to-face for the first time which  raised the potential for continued collaborative action.

Mergers and acquisitions are a strategy for growth.  They meet that objective and in the process can create discontinuity of approaches across business units.   A consulting firm in the national defense and intelligence arena engaged Jen Hetzel Silbert and Roz Kay to work with one business unit acquired by another, but it soon became evident that strategy alignment would require the inclusion of the whole business group--both the existing and merged unit. The goal was to create an inclusive strategy that would help the merged business group divisions be more collaborative and move forward toward collective goals. IPI was selected because the initiator was familiar with Appreciative Inquiry as a process that would not only deliver on a strategy, but also build relationships across the divisions. The process created a clearer mission for the organization, strengthened relationships across the business group and has contributed to the sharing of resources across groups.  Through the AI process, they also recognized the importance of establishing programs for supporting people in the organization (training, development, etc.). As a result, IPI’s work continues with selected members of the leadership group who participate in executive coaching and implementation support.
 

Whether it’s transforming the way patient care is delivered, leading change in schools, or engaging stakeholders in the redesign of systems and processes, more organizations are requiring that people across the organization step in to lead through the unknown and uncomfortable. This type of personal leadership at every level requires self-awareness, a willingness to let go of that which no longer works, enhanced skill, and a lot of courage.

A Rhode Island-based partnership of long-term healthcare and community resources recognized the need to develop their emerging, talented leaders. Their idea was to create a cohort-based coaching program that blended the best of positive psychology, strength-based leadership development, and action learning. IPI partners Jen Hetzel Silbert, Tony Silbert and Roz Kay were engaged to design and facilitate the bi-weekly program. Participants identified issues they were facing as new leaders and utilized the IPI-designed Appreciative Capacities Inventory (ACI) ™ to help leaders identify their strengths and areas of opportunity. Supported by peer coaching, participants developed skills and applied the principles of appreciative leadership to a project they initiated and led throughout the twelve-week program. “The progressive design allowed for deepened learning, reflection, and application between sessions,” says Tony Silbert. “It enabled participants to have immediate practice of core learnings back in the workplace and beyond.”

We are also seeing a growing trend toward including executive and leadership coaching in  organizational change programs.  While the return on investment of such programs is still being studied, a report commissioned by International Coaching Federation (ICF) indicates that coaching, in addition to training, provides seven times the investment. IPI partner Roz Kay, a Professional Certified Coach says “the coaching process provides leadership with a dedicated listener who can help them reframe thinking, increase innovation, and take action in new and often more effective ways.”  With the growing emphasis on positive, strength-based approaches to change, there is a greater need to help leaders increase their capacity to lead from the perspective of what works rather than what doesn’t. Roz, who has worked with top leaders and talent within government, profit and not for profit organizations says “top leaders find coaching a way to hone their skills and guide their ability to shift perspective needed for the demands they face today. Coaching provides a way for them to allocate the time for deepening their skills.  Coaching can happen with their schedule and place that works for them.” Catherine McKenna, who completes her certification with Integral Coach Canada early this year, has found that her clients benefit from creating greater self-awareness and from developing new competencies to achieve their goals.

Embarking on the “ Lab of the Future” initiative required the design of a physical building and layout to increase innovation and collaboration in the drug discovery process.  Equally important was the creation of “a new sociology of work”--a culture of collaboration and innovation which would align the excellence of the physical environment with an organizational design to enable great teamwork, where there had been silos, and cross fertilization, where there had been deserts of non-communication.

Using a strength-based Appreciative Inquiry process, Tony Silbert and Bernard Mohr collaborated with a team of senior executives, world class scientists and internal OD specialists. Their aim was to engage every scientist and associate who would be working together in the new building in co-developing not only a new vision of how their work of discovery could change, but also practical innovations in the design and management of the day to day cultural and organizational “space”. One executive sponsor described the results of the summit: “The days were full of unexpected miracles and surprises which would not have been possible without this approach. It is, I believe, the beginning of a revolutionary way of thinking and acting, and will be remembered as living proof that “Lab of the Future” is really NOT only about the furniture.“

The six challenges we have explored in this article are truly shaping our work and our world. We thank you, our clients, for the opportunity to serve you and to learn with you. We look forward to current and future opportunities to help you navigate through tough times, elevate innovation, and discover new ways to lead positive change! 

 

 

Free Newsletter Subscription! Email:

February 2010

Six Challenges Shaping Our Work and Our World:
What’s Possible in Turbulent Times   

 

 

Six Challenges	IPI Case Studies
1.  The global economic crisis is leading organizations to rethink how resources are shared across institutions.	The eye health community creates new ways of partnering and sharing resources during these challenging economic times with the support of Mike Feinson, Bernard Mohr and Ada Jo Mann.   In Rhode Island new alliances for workforce development are seeded with the convening support of Jen Hetzel Silbert.
2.  Demands on the healthcare system drive new ways of delivering direct patient care.	With the help of Bernard Mohr and Bob Laliberte, Tufts Medical Center engages 1800 staff members in redesigning its care delivery model to create economic sustainability, better quality, improved patient experience and provider satisfaction.  A complex care unit at Bruyère Continuing Care redesigns their way of working to increase inter-professional collaboration with the help of Catherine McKenna and Joanne Daykin.
3.  Use of social media invites a whole new level of participation in whole system change.	IPI‘s Tony Silbert, Jen Hetzel Silbert and Joanne Daykin  use social media and network analysis tools to help various organizations share information more effectively and spawn engagement.
4.  Company mergers and acquisitions are on the rise.	Organizations find new ways to create synergy and alignment following a merger or acquisition. With the help of Ada Jo Mann, Jen Hetzel Silbert and Roz Kay, clients find leadership alignment to strategy and a shared vision critical to navigating change.
5.  Leaders are expected to spend more  of their time leading major change – requiring new skills and competencies.	Roz Kay, Jen Hetzel Silbert, Tony Silbert and Catherine McKenna  support various leaders in developing competencies, increasing self awareness and building core skills needed to lead change more effectively.
6.  Heightened competition in a down economy demands increased innovation and collaboration.	With the help of Tony Silbert and Bernard Mohr, a Fortune 50 pharmaceutical organization began creating a new ‘sociology of work’ among their bench scientists.

Hidden between slashed budgets, layoffs and service reductions, one high payoff opportunity is constant -- when we leverage existing partnerships (or create new ones) we can accomplish more. 
 
Take for example the eye health community. This highly diverse group which includes producers of frames and contact lenses, managed care companies, advocacy agencies, optometrists and ophthalmologists, research institutes, government regulators and educational institutions each had different messages about the importance of regular eye exams to our overall heath. IPI partners Mike Feinson, Bernard Mohr and Ada Jo Mann were challenged by a national eye health trade association to help them create a consistently high-impact message while lowering costs across the sector.

The global economic recession might have delayed this sort of innovation. Instead, this organization demonstrated forward-thinking leadership by seizing the opportunity to deliberately support collaboration and resource sharing.  Click to view the video of the Eye Health Summit.

In another example of innovation through collaboration, IPI Partner Jen Hetzel Silbert serves as Convener for the Newport Skills Alliance (NSA). NSA is a demand-driven approach to regional workforce development made possible by the ever-growing alliance of partners, employers, educators, social service providers, and state agencies which are each committed to connecting work-ready residents to jobs on demand.  Their supporters have been many: the Governors Workforce Board of Rhode Island (GWBRI), the United Way of Rhode Island (UWRI), the Rhode Island Foundation, Rhode Island Department of Education (RIDE), Community College of Rhode Island (CCRI), and East Bay Community Action Program (EBCAP). NSA’s thoroughly researched, best practice-driven training, education, and case management services are helping to minimize barriers to employment and aiding employee retention and advancement. The result--job seekers gain much needed “soft” and “hard” skills for job attachment and career lattice advancement, employers fill job vacancies with skilled residents and the State’s workforce system comes together to benefit from greater access to state services, grants, training resources and employer tax credits.

Dangerously escalating health care costs and aging populations require more complex care. Now more than ever, we need to disseminate innovations both within and across institutions, and we need quantum improvements in service delivery. Tufts Medical Center is one organization that is doing just that. 

Tufts Medical Center is a world-class academic medical center offering patient care, teaching generations of future physicians and breaking new ground with ongoing, innovative research. Tufts knows that to ensure economic sustainability, patient and student satisfaction and progress toward the next level of care, it must reinvent the way care is delivered.

IPI partners Bernard Mohr and Bob Laliberte, with their colleagues Don De Guerre and Nathalie Fauteux, have been assisting Tufts with this challenge. Beyond incremental process innovations, Tufts wants to change the essence of the culture -- the organizational structures, roles and policies that support professional expertise and clinical practice.  They are engaging nurses, social workers, case managers, technicians, doctors and other healthcare team members in the redesign process.  This  “true team” way of working not only supports excellence in patient care, but also higher quality of work life for members of its health care team. The highly participative and strength-based change process used by the consulting team has helped Tufts create a comprehensive new care delivery model and implementation strategy--a strategy that includes major innovations in everything from housekeeping and security and patient flow to new and clearer roles and responsibilities for all those who serve and interact with the patient. Tufts is demonstrating what is possible with its new level of care delivery.

Canada can be proud that every citizen has access to healthcare, yet it comes with escalating costs. Across the country, Canadian healthcare leaders are seeking to inspire innovation and leadership at every level and to encourage collaboration between the professions. Ontario is in the lead on growing the body of research and practice of Inter-professional collaboration. Dr. Josh Tepper, Assistant Deputy Minister to the Minister of Health and Long Term Care is speaking out at conferences in Ontario and eastern Canada about the necessary shift that must occur from a top-down, silo-oriented service delivery model to one that is more integrated across the heath care professions. He says “…and the only way to achieve this new model of care delivery is through Appreciative Inquiry.” Dr. Tepper calls on providers of healthcare to learn from best practices for new ways of working collaboratively, and Bruyere Continuing Care heard that call.

Bruyere Continuing Care wanted to lead the way toward operationalizing a new model of patient care building on principles of inter-professional collaboration. Catherine McKenna and Joanne Daykin of Innovation Partners were contracted by the VP of Academic & Inter-professional Affairs to design and facilitate a research project that would build in-house capacity for Appreciative Inquiry and assist a complex care unit in increasing collaboration across professions. IPI led the small initial team of leaders through a three-month process to identify their best practices in inter-professional collaboration and to create new ways of working together. The work continues with a new unit, with the in-house facilitators leading the way.

As leaders in healthcare institutions across the globe break new ground, there is a growing desire to be in community with other innovators and change agents to support and learn from others facing similar challenges.  IPI fosters this type of community connection with our “Innovation Expedition in Healthcare”, the third of which recently took place in Cambridge, MA. The Innovation Expedition is an intimate gathering of a diverse group of healthcare leaders, who explore successful innovations from institutions in Canada and the United States and together identify new ways of moving forward.

As a result of the positive energy and engagement created during the 2009 expedition, leaders of the Innovation Expedition, Bob Laliberte, Bernard Mohr, Tony Silbert, Dr. Martin Merry, Danny Nashman and Tom Bigda-Peyton,  created a virtual learning community to further develop and implement  ideas spawned during the IE. “It is helpful to hear their stories and the progress they are making” says Bob Laliberte, one of the co-facilitators of the learning community. He says “Participants are encouraged to bring in topics that are important to them as they wade into new territory. Others offer ideas and suggestions and they receive support for furthering their innovations”.

We’ve all heard it—tweeting, facebooking and blogging are now verbs in our daily conversation.  More and more, we see organizations and groups experimenting with social media and networking platforms to explore how they might influence the effectiveness of change initiatives.

Larry Espe, Superintendent of School District #60 Peace River North, engaged IPI partners Joanne Daykin and Tony Silbert to help his school district prepare for and participate in a system-wide change initiative. Larry began blogging as a way to convey his enthusiasm and excitement about the project and share his thoughts about the challenges of such an enormous undertaking. “In some ways, it is like a diary/journal” says Larry, who has been blogging about this change for nearly three years. As the first district in British Columbia to use a whole system, participative process such as Appreciative Inquiry to develop a shared vision and the inspired commitment to realize it, Peace River North is a trailblazer. People in the community began connecting with Larry about his blog making it clear that it was more than just a personal journal. “It helped me to connect with parents, staff and even some folks from other districts,” says Larry. The blog united some people within the community even before the summit began and continues to keep people informed.  Still, Larry says, “There are many people who don’t do the tech thing so we’ve had to take our conversations on the road on a regular basis.” Larry has become a regular ‘Tweeter’ and  blogger with fifty visits a day to his site. He is continuing to use social media to keep the community and other stakeholder groups connected to what is happening with the change initiative.

Neighborhood Centers Inc. (NCI), an innovative Houston social service agency, is another adopter of social media.  On a mission to develop new approaches to community engagement and service delivery, NCI is including more and more voices in their data gathering and future visioning. In doing so new partnerships within the community have emerged. The vast numbers of staff involved in the process requires a strong communications and marketing strategy to keep the connections viable and the work visible as the journey for change continues. NCI’s website and Facebook presence has become an effective means of keeping the relationships growing and collaborating.

NCI’s Facebook presence allows key staff/personnel to post videos of events and to publicize social gatherings from large summits to local BBQ’s and garage sales. “Email, as our primary means of communication, is outdated,” says Jen Hetzel Silbert, lead IPI partner supporting NCI and avid advocate for social media. “Email requires a ‘push’ tactic for staying in touch using a contact list that changes regularly. Social media allows you to create a space, with privacy settings, where people can come to you. It becomes a magnetic draw rather than a push.”  Websites can provide information to people, but interactive social media, such as Facebook, helps virtual connections, communities and relationships flourish. Members of the community can add to and build upon what is already there.  Jen says, “There definitely has to be a cultural readiness. Employees are becoming increasingly familiar with these very social technical systems and quite often they expect more than a mere website to connect with others in a manner that is quick, easy, and global in reach”.

Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) slowed down with the volatility in the global financial markets in 2009, however Dr. Alexander Mertchev, an economics expert and President of Krull Corp, sees renewed signs of mergers and acquisitions in international markets for 2010.  Mergers and acquisitions present opportunities and challenges. Many organizations face struggles in the course of consolidation that impact their financial viability for years after closing the deal.  The July/August 2008 issue of the Journal of Business Strategy suggests that mergers and acquisitions trouble top management teams of acquired companies for at least a decade following a deal. The study found that companies that were either merged or acquired lost 21 percent of their executives each year for at least ten years following an acquisition – more than double the turnover experienced in non-merged firms.

This challenge of merger was in play when a youth-focused social service agency engaged IPI partners Ada Jo Mann and Jen Hetzel Silbert . They were seeking support in creating alignment and building relationships at the leadership level.  Over several months, two groups of thirty leaders each attended workshops on Appreciative Inquiry and appreciative leadership.  Through the workshops these leaders  gained knowledge about this strength-based approach to initiating and implementing change, and immediately put it into action by creating a shared vision as well as a wide range of innovation projects to support it.  There have been many outcomes--clarity around their shared values of leadership, a stronger sense of their collective strengths, and the development of strategies to help them work together effectively as they take their organization to the next level.  As a side benefit of this leadership program, many of these leaders were meeting face-to-face for the first time which  raised the potential for continued collaborative action.

Mergers and acquisitions are a strategy for growth.  They meet that objective and in the process can create discontinuity of approaches across business units.   A consulting firm in the national defense and intelligence arena engaged Jen Hetzel Silbert and Roz Kay to work with one business unit acquired by another, but it soon became evident that strategy alignment would require the inclusion of the whole business group--both the existing and merged unit. The goal was to create an inclusive strategy that would help the merged business group divisions be more collaborative and move forward toward collective goals. IPI was selected because the initiator was familiar with Appreciative Inquiry as a process that would not only deliver on a strategy, but also build relationships across the divisions. The process created a clearer mission for the organization, strengthened relationships across the business group and has contributed to the sharing of resources across groups.  Through the AI process, they also recognized the importance of establishing programs for supporting people in the organization (training, development, etc.). As a result, IPI’s work continues with selected members of the leadership group who participate in executive coaching and implementation support.
 

Whether it’s transforming the way patient care is delivered, leading change in schools, or engaging stakeholders in the redesign of systems and processes, more organizations are requiring that people across the organization step in to lead through the unknown and uncomfortable. This type of personal leadership at every level requires self-awareness, a willingness to let go of that which no longer works, enhanced skill, and a lot of courage.

A Rhode Island-based partnership of long-term healthcare and community resources recognized the need to develop their emerging, talented leaders. Their idea was to create a cohort-based coaching program that blended the best of positive psychology, strength-based leadership development, and action learning. IPI partners Jen Hetzel Silbert, Tony Silbert and Roz Kay were engaged to design and facilitate the bi-weekly program. Participants identified issues they were facing as new leaders and utilized the IPI-designed Appreciative Capacities Inventory (ACI) ™ to help leaders identify their strengths and areas of opportunity. Supported by peer coaching, participants developed skills and applied the principles of appreciative leadership to a project they initiated and led throughout the twelve-week program. “The progressive design allowed for deepened learning, reflection, and application between sessions,” says Tony Silbert. “It enabled participants to have immediate practice of core learnings back in the workplace and beyond.”

We are also seeing a growing trend toward including executive and leadership coaching in  organizational change programs.  While the return on investment of such programs is still being studied, a report commissioned by International Coaching Federation (ICF) indicates that coaching, in addition to training, provides seven times the investment. IPI partner Roz Kay, a Professional Certified Coach says “the coaching process provides leadership with a dedicated listener who can help them reframe thinking, increase innovation, and take action in new and often more effective ways.”  With the growing emphasis on positive, strength-based approaches to change, there is a greater need to help leaders increase their capacity to lead from the perspective of what works rather than what doesn’t. Roz, who has worked with top leaders and talent within government, profit and not for profit organizations says “top leaders find coaching a way to hone their skills and guide their ability to shift perspective needed for the demands they face today. Coaching provides a way for them to allocate the time for deepening their skills.  Coaching can happen with their schedule and place that works for them.” Catherine McKenna, who completes her certification with Integral Coach Canada early this year, has found that her clients benefit from creating greater self-awareness and from developing new competencies to achieve their goals.

Embarking on the “ Lab of the Future” initiative required the design of a physical building and layout to increase innovation and collaboration in the drug discovery process.  Equally important was the creation of “a new sociology of work”--a culture of collaboration and innovation which would align the excellence of the physical environment with an organizational design to enable great teamwork, where there had been silos, and cross fertilization, where there had been deserts of non-communication.

Using a strength-based Appreciative Inquiry process, Tony Silbert and Bernard Mohr collaborated with a team of senior executives, world class scientists and internal OD specialists. Their aim was to engage every scientist and associate who would be working together in the new building in co-developing not only a new vision of how their work of discovery could change, but also practical innovations in the design and management of the day to day cultural and organizational “space”. One executive sponsor described the results of the summit: “The days were full of unexpected miracles and surprises which would not have been possible without this approach. It is, I believe, the beginning of a revolutionary way of thinking and acting, and will be remembered as living proof that “Lab of the Future” is really NOT only about the furniture.“

The six challenges we have explored in this article are truly shaping our work and our world. We thank you, our clients, for the opportunity to serve you and to learn with you. We look forward to current and future opportunities to help you navigate through tough times, elevate innovation, and discover new ways to lead positive change!