change management

Change agents are your organization’s real leaders

Market change, economy change, technology change, workforce change, communication change, today change riddles stress cracks in organization foundations. Whether 80-year-old companies, Fortune 500 stalwarts, or new-technology dynamos, change is as much an on-going assault on organizations as rust is an on-going assault on metal and your change agents are your organization’s saviors. You see tomorrow’s relevance [...]

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Tagged as: change, change management, innovation, leadership, strategy

New clichés for organization development

Jargon, clichés, rhetoric – talking while saying nothing. Companies develop their own language or accepted terms. Professions develop their own lingo. People use stock phrases or go-to frameworks. All of these are an attempt to communicate, to create a common understanding, to fit in, to prove what you know, and to make sense of [...]

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Tagged as: change management, facilitate, facilitation, meeting, organization development, strategy

Top 10 blog posts for 2011, 5 to 1

Top blog posts from 2011, from number 5 to number 1, a follow-up from Top 10 blog posts for 2011, 10 to 6 5. The cost of culture, a 50% turnover of the Fortune 500 — This blog came about to reiterate that change is constant and the things that may have gotten a company [...]

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Tagged as: change, change management, culture, Fortune 500, impact analysis, mergers and acquisitions, scope, scope management, social media, strategy

Top 10 blog posts for 2011, 10 to 6

Closing out 2011 I look back at the year’s most viewed posts as a chance to reflect on differences of what I topics I blog about and what people view most. Why were some viewed over others: topic, time-of-year, day-of-week? In descending order: 10. Competing values drives your organization out of business — A 2009 [...]

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Tagged as: Appreciative Inquiry, change management, Competing Values Framework, culture, project, project management, stakeholder, stakeholder analysis, strategy, Twitter

Project management is not a process, but a promise

A project introduces something new. New requires change from what was to a promise of what will. The project deliverable, or promise, undertaken without process is a leap in the dark. No sane person will take a leap in the dark without some promise or rational premise of: what will be, what it will cost [...]

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Tagged as: change management, emotional, process, project, project management, risk, systems, systems theory

Root cause and critical path, that’s organization development

What is organization development? Yes organization development is training and leadership development and coaching and performance management and change management and communications and organization design and competency models and strategic planning and really so much, it is almost more confusing than helpful to really say what organization development is. This challenge spills over when I am [...]

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Tagged as: change management, leadership, organization development, systems theory, training

Fistful of beans 05/11/2011

4 of things I’ve seen, read, or thought might seed results: 1. Think About Diversity of Thought — Diversity Executive Magazine Organizations have cultural norms that employees are expected to work within. Ideas presented by employees need become judged on value, not judged on the different perspectives they represent. Thought diversity introduces not only different viewpoints, but also differences [...]

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Tagged as: CFO, change, change management, collaboration, diversity, Diversity Executive, health care, innovation, invention, magazine, Wall Street Journal

Communication, change, and your mission – if you choose to accept it

Change is fun for some: the energy of the unknown, the passion instilled in people looking forward to a new adventure. Some embrace the unknown as an opportunity to both learn, grow, and stretch their current perspectives. Change is pain for some: the feigned excitement for heading into unknown, the new roles and responsibilities to [...]

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Tagged as: actions, change, change management, communication, goals, objectives, strategy, vision

An organization intervention is not an organization inquisition

Proposals for organization intervention, from business process reengineering to Lean initiatives, typically focus on problems to be solved. Many of these organization interventions for change, however, soon look like organization inquisition. As once a problem is identified, the problem is the focus to diagnos soon both the organization and the people involved pointed out as [...]

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Tagged as: AI, Appreciative Inquiry, change, change management, intervention, organization development, strategy

The communication obstacle course

A successful message retains the oomph of intent. For this to happen communication must travel an obstacle course to reach each person. Some of the bulwarks against communication’s smooth path to understanding include: values, bias, mood, culture, agenda, and emotion. These force communication through filters that affect both the intent and the impact of the [...]

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Tagged as: change, change management, communication, culture, emotional

Fistful of beans 03/02/2011

4 things I’ve seen, read, or thought might seed results: 1. Implementing Planned Change: An Empirical Comparison of Theoretical Perspectives — American Journal of Business Planned change has been viewed from a variety of conceptual perspectives, but few models of planned change we’ve all been part of have been studied using empirical research designs. With a study [...]

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Tagged as: age, American Journal of Business, Bloomberg Businessweek, change management, compensation, diversity, fistful of beans, IBM, Inc., magazine, The Economist

Organization change, the frame retains the name

The success, or failure, of organization change may have more to do with the frame of change you and your leadership view your organization culture through than any other challenge to change. Adopting and sustaining organization change rarely succeeds if you can not frame communication to emotionally and rationally resonate throughout the organization. For change [...]

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Tagged as: change, change management, communication, culture, leading change, organization change

Crowdsourcing your organization strategy, what’s to appreciate?

Crowdsourcing relies on people to participate in a meaningful process as potential partners. In crowdsourcing people who were formally known as the customer now become the collaborator. The power of collective collaboration can not only drive product innovation, but has been leveraged for decades to build organization strategy. Where most organization strategy process finds more [...]

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Tagged as: AI, Amanda Trosten-Bloom, Appreciative Inquiry, Bernard Mohr, change, change management, crowdsourcing, David Cooperrider, Diana Whitney, inquiry, Jane Magruder Watkins, Jeff Howe, Robyn Stratton-Berkessel, strategy

In review: Quality communication in social media

December 2010 in review. A roundup of blogs from the previous month: Quality communication in social media (guest blog) — Helping doctoral students design quantitative research studies as well as analyzing and interpreting data dissertations occurred to me that some aspects of a doctoral dissertation could be applied to social media communications to make information [...]

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Tagged as: CFO, change, change management, communication, development, EI, Emotional Intelligence, EQ, IQ, learning

The pain with change

Bill Hybels, on stirring change, says, “Leaders move people from here to there… The first play is not to make ‘there’ sound wonderful. The first play is to make ‘here’ sound awful.” Though this is a quote on leadership, the key to so many change mantras is that change only comes about when the level [...]

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Tagged as: AI, Appreciative Inquiry, Bernard Mohr, Bill Hybels, change, change management, community, Jane Magruder Watkins, leadership, organization development, strategic planning, strategy

In review: Mergers and acquisitions systems thinking strategies, part 1

October 2010 in review. A roundup of blogs from the previous month: Mergers and acquisitions systems thinking strategies, part 1 — Leadership, management, and talent create and sustain organization success. The total environment of an organization is a major determinant of corporate choice and corporate success. A key to change is circular reasoning — Supporting the [...]

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Tagged as: change, change management, communication, cost of culture, leaders, risk, strategy, trust

The key to change is circular reasoning

Innovation is based on circular reasoning and the key to innovation is change, but change relies on community, but what does community rely on? Let’s try to break into this circle [stay with me, further down the list reveals why I started on 2.]: 2. Can’t have community without transparency 3. Can’t have transparency without [...]

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Tagged as: change, change management, community, innovation, Likert scale, motivation, Peter Block, risk

Mergers and acquisitions systems thinking strategies, part 1

I transitioned into a human capital focus gradually over my career. My collected experiences just overwhelmingly led me to realize without commitment, understanding, and ownership you have little hope of individual, team, or organization success. What on earth brought about a mergers and acquisitions systems thinking approach? Well where we are usually has a lot [...]

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Tagged as: change, change management, human capital assessment, human capital strategy, Kenneth Boulding, Leonard Lewin, M&A, mergers and acquisitions, Robert Ornstein, Roger Evered, strategy, systems theory, Thomas G. Cummings

In review: Organization sabotage and the butterfly effect

July 2010 in review. A roundup of blogs from the previous month: Organization sabotage and the butterfly effect — As a manager, running a team takes more than lining people up and pointing to the finish line. People are all not only motivated by salary. A leader or a manager may feel sabotaged when their [...]

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Tagged as: change, change management, content, economy, innovation, investment, James Fallows, leadership, management, motivation, organization, project, talent, tax, The Atlantic, venture capital

Organizations don’t change, people change

Organizations are, quite simply, made up of social interactions: groups of people. Organizations will not change if people do not change. There is no such thing as organization change, they don’t change, people change. All change: transformation, business process reengineering, technology implementation, mergers & acquisitions, Total Quality Management, Six Sigma, strategic planning or, if you [...]

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Tagged as: change, change management, Charles Darwin, leading change, organization development, project management, strategy

Pavel Khizhnyak, Asia Marketing Director, Forex Club

“Toby is a solid business development and human capacity resource. Toby is easy to work with and has an upbeat personality. As such, he was an effective and supportive colleague, with great listening, interpersonal, and multicultural skills (international experience in Hungary and China as two, very challenging work environments). “I do not hesitate to recommend [...]

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Tagged as: Asia, change management, China, expertise, human capital assessment, Hungary, international, multicultural, Pavel Khizhnyak, recommend

Organization sabotage and the butterfly effect

An intervention. Interventions are principal learning processes in the “action” stage of organization development (OD)*. An intervention is what people outside organization development [the majority of professionals are distinctly NOT part of, or aware of, organization development] might call a project, change, or transformation. The reason a professional might call for an organization intervention, or project, [...]

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Tagged as: butterfly effect, change management, manage expectation, organization development, project, risk, sabotage, stakeholder

Charley Matera, Principal, HiComm Consulting

“I have worked with Toby over this past year, 2009 – 2010, on a signicant change management project in which we are both stakeholders. Toby came into this process midstream and immediately provided a fresh perspective on both strategic and operational issues. “His ideas have helped to re-frame the project into a more ambitious and [...]

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Tagged as: change management, Charley Matera, operational issues, project, stakeholders, strategic

Change management bottom up or top down

Classic change theory: leadership drives change; leadership must be committed for change to work. Seems to make sense, but in reality leadership is irrelevant. The organization’s ability to change is dictated by the operational units and employees, not leadership. The reality: culture eats strategy for lunch. Your workers dictate change and strategy. Leadership doesn’t drive [...]

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Tagged as: change, change management, cost of culture, John Kotter, leadership, management, strategy

Gary Lazor, Business Development Director, Booz Allen Hamilton

“Toby is a solid business development and human capacity resource. Toby is easy to work with and has an upbeat personality. As such, he was an effective and supportive colleague, with great listening, interpersonal, and multicultural skills (international experience in Hungary and China as two, very challenging work environments). “I do not hesitate to recommend [...]

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Tagged as: change management, effective, Gary Lazor, human capital assessment, human capital development, Hungary, international experience, listening, multicultural skills

Change: this time let’s try something new

In today’s Boston Sunday Globe, Ideas Section, under the Uncommon Knowledge, Surprising insights from the Social Sciences, by Kevin Lewis, I read the following: A Time to Try Something New* Whenever you’ve experienced major changes in life, have you sought comfort in familiar things? If you’re like most people, your answer is yes. However, new [...]

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Tagged as: change, change management, Ideas, knowledge, od, organization development, project management

The most difficult industry to work in

I admit each organization is unique. Each handles and manages industry and firm-specific stress and demand differently. I do not admit that organizations are anything more than a system of human interrelations. The organization is a product of human interaction and social construction. Organizations do not follow ordained, industry-driven culture. There is no set of [...]

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Tagged as: change management, cost of culture, diversity, industry, learned helplessness, social construction, sociology

In review: Leaders and fishing

May 2009 in review. A roundup of blogs from the previous month: Leaders and fishing — Leaders craft the vision and convey how to embark on a course from what is to what could be. Leaders must rely on their managers to manage, but leaders need to roll their sleeves up and steward the message [...]

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Tagged as: buy in, change, change management, cost of culture, diversity, goals, leadership, leading, managing, resources, risk, stakeholders, vision

Quick Bio

Toby Elwin has lived around the world and worked globally with, and for, some of the most highly-respected leaders and organizations in their fields.

This site, and thoughts, are rooted in the role leadership and talent have on an organization's motivation to influence, achieve, and sustain.

Toby's work combines systems theory, organization development, marketing, and portfolio and project management from more than 15 years in post-merger integration.
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Blog Archives
Biggest Influences – So Far

See Influence page for more detail:

The Modern Firm: Organizational Design for Performance and Growth by John Roberts

The Workforce Scorecard by Mark A. Huselid, Brian E. Becker, and Richard W. Beatty

Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk by Peter L. Bernstein

The Future of Ideas by Lawrence Lessig

The Truth About Thriving in Change by William S. Kane

The Motivation to Work by Frederick Herzberg, Bernard Mausner, and Barbara Bloch Snyderman

The New Rules of Marketing and PR by David Meerman Scott

Working with Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman

The HR Value Proposition by Dave Ulrich

The Strategy Paradox by Michael Raynor
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