&Samhoud blog

By Barbara de Greeff and Floris de Bruin

‘Nothing lasts forever, except change’ (Heraclitos, greek philosopher)

The Dutch Ministry of Transport and Water Management and consultancy firm &samhoud co-produced a change concept that enables organisations to take the last step in a change process successfully. On their own! The name of this concept is ‘Leaders as Teachers’; managers from within the organisation take the lead in Anchoring the new organisational culture. Not only do they adopt knowledge and competences from their consultants, they also take over the consultants role of process supervisor.

Succesful change

Changing organisations effectively is very difficult: 70% to 80% of change processes fail. Fortunately there are several change processes that did succeed. In our experience successful change processes follow four specific phases that interconnect with each other like a chain:

The last link in the chain, Activation and Anchoring, usually is the biggest hiccup: will change be transformed into individual attitude and behaviour? We actually see a lot of organisations that don’t make this final transformation. The most common argument is that there is too much resistance to change among the employees. However, our experience is that resistance is not the main cause of failure. It’s the right approach that marks the road to success.

Leaders as Teachers

In the past two years we have developed, together with one of our main clients, the Dutch Ministry of Transport and Water Management, a concept that enables organisations to take the last step in a change process successfully. On their own, without the help of external consultants. In essence this concept consists of putting in place empowered leaders from within the organisation who take up the role of process supervisor. They anchor the change process from the inside. Real leaders are the driving force for organisational change. We call this concept ‘Leaders as Teachers’(LaT).

Target groups Leaders as Tachers

The Leaders as Teachers concept aims at two target groups:

1. All managers in the organisation

2. A selection of these managers who are process supervisors throughout the entire organisation

All managers in the organisation

Real change demands inspiration, discipline and learning abilities. Managers must feel both the support and the inspiration to be the figureheads of the change process for their division in the organisation. At the same time they have to be aware of their own contribution to the change process and how they are being managed in that task.

All of this is accomplished by gathering several times a year and learn: about change management, about best practices, about the vision and strategy of the organisation. And they also learn why change is necessary. They are facilitated with a change toolbox, intervision and coaching.

Leaders as process supervisors

A special team of managers go a few steps further. They fulfil the role of process supervisor in which they inspire, discipline and teach other managers and employees. These process supervisors follow a specialized course that teaches them to perform in front of groups of colleagues. The course combines theory and practice and is built up in three parts: show, participate and do it yourself.

A small Program Team supports the ‘Leaders as Teachers’ and monitors the consistency of the different learning activities. Besides the team is responsible for designing and preparing the entire programme of interventions that must lead to the desired change. This responsibility acquires regular consultations with the board of the organisation.

Leaders as Teachers in practice: the Dutch Ministry of Transport and Water Management

In 2003, the Dutch Ministry of Transport and Water management started an ambitious renewal program. During the first years, very good progress was made by bringing a clear structure to the organisation (for instance, the legal structure was changed into a public agency) and by starting to work more public-oriented.     

The change programme lead to several tangible results such as an increase of public satisfaction and employee satisfaction, realizing the legal status of public agency, do more work with less people and last but not least the Director General being elected the ‘Government Manager of 2008’.

However, this success and the long duration of the change process also have a negative impact; the sense of urgency begins to decline. Besides, the desired individual attitude and behaviour fell short of expectations.

So, in 2008 a very important step was taken. The focus of the organisation was shifted from ‘sense of urgency’ to ‘sense of excitement’.

Introduction Leaders as Teachers

As a result of this change of focus, the Ministry of Transport and Water Management and consultancy firm &samhoud co-designed the concept ‘Leaders as Teachers’. A group of inspired managers from within the organisation were selected to participate in the programme. During a course with master classes, coaching and practice they were prepared for a new role and task. Since the beginning of 2009 they play a leading part in several internal management courses.

The management courses are very important means to realize change. We distinguish two types of courses:

• Horizontal courses. These courses focus on exchanging experiences regarding the daily practice of ‘how to implement change’. Horizontal courses also treat the application of new methods and they treat new concepts. The fundament of this programme is the Agenda 2010, in other words the vision and strategy of the organisation.
• Vertical courses. These courses focus on both tangible improvements of the process and substantive organisational issues. Managers and employees from specific production processes solve problems together. Unlike horizontal courses, the vertical courses focus on the entire production chain within an organisation.

In the past year the new process supervisors have co-designed and managed 25 new courses. These courses have also been vehicles to pass on a part of their new competences to all managers who, in their turn, are better equipped to facilitate learning and developing in the workplace. 

Results for the Ministry of Transport and Water Management

The ‘Leaders as Teachers’ concept has brought a new impulse to the change process. Participants largely appreciate that their own leaders put extra time and effort in helping them to change. Besides, the internal process supervisors understand the organisation very well. They connect the organisational processes easily with daily practice. In this phase of the change process that is a very effective combination.

From their point of view the process supervisors indicate that their leadership skills grow fast. They learn to pay more attention to group dynamics and to differtent learning paths of other people. But they have also learned a lot about themselves which is utterly important since their personality is the most important instrument in process supervising.   

Bye bye consultant

This case shows that intensive cooperation between the Ministry of Transport and Water Management and consultancy firm &samhoud has resulted in highly effective co-productions that always focused on one main goal: renewal of the Ministry. Bare in mind that &samhoud has been involved in the change process from the very beginning and that letting go of each other has become harder an harder because of the deep connection that has grown over the years.

But, the very last step of the change process is taken by the organisation itself. As a result of this approach, internal commitment and knowledge have grown which have great impact on the entire organisational culture. And the consultant steps out of the process gradually and in a very natural way. By focusing on the ‘sense of excitement’ in this phase it has given the organisation the right push to finish the change process on its own.