4
Implementing Change
You don't have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.
—Martin Luther King, Jr., pastor, activist, and humanitarian
When she started her journey as executive director of the National Council of University Research Administrators (NCURA), Kathleen M. Larmett observed:
We didn't even have what you would call a board of directors. They called themselves an executive committee. It was a good but a slow-moving group. We didn't accomplish a lot: We held an annual meeting, put out a newsletter, conducted a traveling workshop.
Our board was constituency based—with more than half made up of the chairs of our regional components—rather than based on expertise and skills. The winter meeting consisted of planning the spring meeting. The spring meeting reported on the winter meeting. There was no focus, no strategic planning. They were very insular, there to maintain the status quo.
I was not brought in as a change agent explicitly. I had been there already as staff in the association. But when I interviewed, I did say, “NCURA needs to be more outward focused.” The board must have agreed, since they hired me.
Different people react to change in different ways and with different timing. The leaders who introduce and implement change must look at the journey knowing that there will be a significant investment of energy and people-management, and sometimes little understanding at the outset of the timetable or the details of the journey. Change involves implementing a change process with clear statements of goals, action steps, and communication. This chapter discusses the change management process, from its initial steps to the process of leading an organization to a new “normal.”
Concepts and Application
How to Introduce Organizational Change
Kurt Lewin, often referred to as the father of modern social psychology, states, “If you want to truly understand something, try to change it.” This statement is especially true when making changes within or related to an organization or its culture. Change does not only affect policies and procedures within an organization; it radically influences human perceptions of fit and ability to adapt to a new way of doing things (see also Chapter 2). Organizational leaders must determine the type of change necessary in order to adapt to the needs of its internal or external environment.
When thinking about nonprofit governance change, the goal of the first conversation may be to ensure the majority of stakeholders agree that planned change is desired, even if the objectives are not yet clear. A perception must be created that change will lead to better outcomes or results. That conversation might include:
- Identifying the problems the organization presently faces. These are the reasons for initiating change. Note that problems are best expressed as real threats the organization is facing, rather than a lack of a specific solution. Solutions come later. For example, as we reported in Chapter 1, some boards and CEOs in our study reported member dissatisfaction, apathetic board members, missed opportunities, and other real threats to their association's future.
- Developing a clear change vision. John Bryson (2011), an expert on nonprofit strategic planning, emphasizes the importance of clarifying an organization's mission and vision early in the planning process. Without a clear understanding of the goal, the ensuing planning process may not be productive. This lesson applies equally to change at the board level.
- Carefully articulating and considering the impact change will have on the organization, employees, members, and other stakeholders, and planning for it.
- Making a commitment to effectively manage the process through a thoughtful strategy for effective change implementation and sustained employee and board commitment. This is also the stage where board members make a commitment to see through the change vision regardless of organizational circumstances. When Pam O'Toole Trusdale of the National Association of Trailer Manufacturers looked back at her organization's journey, she recalled the importance of the moment when one board member said to the others: “We can't let money get in the way of vision.”
Starting the Journey of Change
One starts from the status quo. The status quo provides organizations and the people within the organizations a feeling of comfort, familiarity, and safety. Everything's under control. People are often working hard. When there is recognition of needed change, we find that people are often working hard on the wrong things and organizations may be focused on the unclear, unfocused, or unproductive goals or direction. To start the conversation about change, leadership should understand that this will be a deliberate upsetting of the status quo and begin by identifying the reasons for initiating a change and establishing a change vision.
A useful exercise to use to plan the beginning of the change process would be to develop a blueprint of the tasks and action steps (Table 4.1).
Table 4.1 Tasks and Action Steps
| Problem | Task | Sample Action Steps |
| Determine need for change. | What is the problem? (Examples: Decision making is slow, factions have formed, board does not speak with one voice.) | Benchmarking research, environmental scan (e.g., SWOT analysis), board self-assessment, process assessments of board meetings. |
| Establish a change vision. | What is the result we want? | A smaller board size allows more nimbleness, which leads to more effectiveness. By ascertaining what skills, experience, and knowledge are needed on the governing board, the organization strategically builds its board to best serve mission-fulfillment and member needs. See the Visioning Exercise in the next section. |
| Acknowledge past successes. | What have we done well? | Ask the question: Historically our board has been successful in the following ways: ______________. This change is designed to build on those successes by recognizing the need for current relevancy and an opportunity to embrace established best practices. |
| Sound the wake-up call. | If we don't change, what might happen that will create additional problems? | Have an “all-hands-on-deck” meeting. Conduct an environmental scan. Assign tasks. Set deadlines. |
| Sell the need for change. | What is our case for change and how can we ensure our stakeholders get it? | Lay out in detail why the change is needed. Focus on the problem, not on potential solutions at this time. Provide data and evidentiary support. Create a sense of urgency. |
| Appeal to the WIIFM factor. | What are the opportunities for stakeholder groups if we adopt this change? | Define the benefits to change. Personalize as much as possible. Be honest about the changes. For example: “We will need extra time to change the bylaws but by revising board member selection criteria the board will benefit with a better skillset.” |
| Watch for and manage the “light bulbs.” | How will we know when the light bulb goes on? | Actively monitor reactions. Ascertain change responses (see the “Five Cs” framework, discussed later). Create a strategy for engaging those whose light bulbs have not come on yet in additional discussion. |
Imagining the Future: Visioning Exercise
Have your board members write down the one or two words that describe them now, and the one or two words that describe what they would like the board to become in the future. When we ran this visioning exercise with focus group attendees—asking them to think retrospectively about their boards before and after the governance changes they led—the results were as shown in Table 4.2. While not everyone so clearly articulated what you see in the table, when we took the objectives provided by some and tried to match them to current situations described by others, the words magically match up as related problems and goal-oriented solutions.
Table 4.2 Good Governance Visioning Exercise
| My board is now… | I want my board to be… |
| Figurehead | Transformative |
| Micromanaging | Mission driven |
| Internally focused | Externally focused |
| Tactical | Strategic |
| Fearful | Fearless |
| Dysfunctional | Competent |
| Disengaged | Visionary |
| Entitled | Thoughtful |
| Risk averse | Risk takers |
| Frustrated | Effective |
| Insular | Forward focused |
| Parochial | Nimble |
| Operational | Supported |
| Overwhelmed | Rejuvenated |
| Ceremonial | Hopeful |
| Narrow | Flexible |
| Distrustful | Confident |
| Confused | Focused |
| Siloed | Collaborative |
| Traditional | Evolving |
| Wimpy | Knowledgeable |
| Stuck | Learning |
| Staid | Collegial |
| Boring | Energized |
| Unfocused | Targeted |
Designing a Change Plan
The next steps are to establish the change plan. Its components can include the following:
- Establishing a change leadership team
- Documenting the case for change
- Developing a preliminary vision for the change
- Defining the impacts on those affected by the change
- Creating a preliminary implementation strategy and action plan
- Identifying measures of success
- Developing a communication strategy
- Developing a training strategy
- Developing an evaluation methodology
Dealing with Obstacles
We asked our interviewees, “What was most challenging about your governance change?” Respondents could mention as many items as they wished. Our respondents identified seven potential challenges to watch out for in advance of implementing change. Table 4.3 displays the results, the frequency with which the challenge was noted by any single association, and the total number of times the item was mentioned overall.
Table 4.3 Challenges Encountered during the Governance Change Process
| “What was most challenging about your governance change?” | Number of Respondents Who Mentioned This Problem (of 51 interviews) | Number of Times Challenge Was Mentioned (of 111 items) | Suggested Organizational Responses |
| Managing emotions | 31 | 50 | Communicate clearly and often; practice transparency; identify the old guard and address their concerns (see ahead); build trust in the process; be honest; be patient; let go of ego. |
| Time, labor, and resources | 23 | 27 | Outsource elements of the change process; slow the process down to balance time demands on board and staff; use cash reserves to support change timetable; expand board's capacity to recruit new members so recruitment does not rest on CEO. |
| Changes to organizational culture | 17 | 20 | Create events and opportunities to cement and celebrate the board's new culture; keep tweaking the change process to fit organization's culture; build board–staff and board–board relationships. |
| Board and staff turnover during change process | 7 | 8 | Actively manage board nomination process to identify and retain change champions; invest in board education to bring incoming members up to speed; plan an exit strategy for outgoing board members. |
| Managing a diversity of perspectives | 4 | 4 | Plan new activities to engage membership; communicate actively. |
| Lack of models and best practices to work from | 4 | 4 | Invest in research; attend governance workshops. |
| No problems reported | 2 | 2 | Celebrate and share the story! |
We also include possible organizational responses to these challenges, most of them offered by the leaders we interviewed. The remainder of this chapter then covers strategies for working through these obstacles. By proactively anticipating these possibilities, change leaders may be able to develop reasonable solutions to manage both organizational culture and personal preferences.
The results reflect a clear pattern of three major challenges and three minor ones, with the most common obstacles being the need to manage change recipients' and agents' emotional reactions to change (expressed by the majority of interviewees). Much of this chapter therefore addresses change management strategies directed at organizational stakeholders. About half of our interviewees also observed that the change involved a great deal of time and labor. They also described how new or old cultures were difficult to manage through the change process (also addressed in this chapter). It's important to emphasize that few interview subjects actually complained about these various challenges—most accepted them as part of the change process—but many remarked that managing the process and emotions tied up in the governance change required more effort than they anticipated. For example:
One needs to recognize that change takes time and patience. I had to get my ego out of it. I could not be defensive. It wasn't going to be solved with one step. Bringing voices to bear of those who were credible and respected in my organization was critical to effecting change.
Additionally, we heard regional and national associations in particular reporting the challenge of coming to agreement on a governance structure when members represented large geographic areas and a diversity of perspectives. Even within single states, some association leaders described how rural/urban, mountain/coastal, and other geographic distinctions had split their constituencies into factions whose voices were hard to reconcile at the board level. Many of these associations had to shed the historical baggage of constituency-based boards on their way to a stronger governance structure.
We also heard from associations that struggled with forecasting the future when they lacked data or could not find the governance and change management resources they wanted, especially resources accessible online, detailed models for good board meetings, and resources for local and regional associations (since the available resources emphasize national governance needs). We have addressed some of those needs in the following, and also via our suggested references.
In addition to the top-three challenges of emotions, capacity, and culture changes, a minority of respondents experienced the following additional challenges.
Using Knowledge Management to Manage Board Turnover
Some associations found board and staff turnover challenged the change process. They told us that board turnover had two kinds of outcomes. At times it meant that they lost champions prematurely due to term limits, slowing the change process. Lynne Thomas Gordon of AHIMA observed, “It's change management over and over. Some people have already crossed the river and they're looking back wondering why the new people won't even dip their toes in the water.” AHIMA's solution was to invest in new-board-member education. At other times term limits required change leaders to wait for resistant board members to term out, also slowing the change process.
Whether due to term limits or through other attrition, the loss of continuity that comes with board turnover can cause stops and starts to any change process. To mitigate this problem, experts recommend the deliberate introduction of knowledge management methods. Knowledge management—the management of an organization's intellectual assets—can improve a range of organizational performance characteristics and enable an association to act more intelligently (Gupta et al. 2000). Effective knowledge management enables the communication of knowledge from one person to another so that it can be used in the future regardless of who is at the table (Smith 2001).
Smith (2001) describes two forms of knowledge worth managing during an organizational change: tacit knowledge and explicit knowledge. Tacit knowledge is built from experience and resides in our minds. This type of knowledge is often personal and difficult to capture, and it may be dismissed as mere intuition, but it may also yield the most value for organizational growth (Smith 2001, p. 318). Explicit knowledge consists of the expertise and experience stored in books, documents, or other physical or electronic formats. This type of knowledge is easy to capture, articulate, and communicate. This book and many other books on association governance represent explicit knowledge, but the knowledge we have documented here comprises a great deal of tacit knowledge that board members and association CEOs shared with us through their stories. The question is: Have they captured and recorded this knowledge for the benefit of future organizational leaders?
Organizations that take the time and energy to develop knowledge management systems can weather board turnover more successfully. A specific example of tacit knowledge management includes taking time to turn tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge by capturing the observations of outgoing board members about effective governance for the benefit of incoming board members (e.g., exit interviews). Smith's (2001) general observations are highly relevant to the board context, since she notes that most work-related explicit knowledge originated as tacit knowledge. Boards use both kinds of knowledge but may have to work harder to capture and codify the tacit knowledge that board members gain through board friendships, mentoring relationships, casual conversations, and other informal exchanges.
Managing Expectations
The big takeaway from this analysis of challenges is that association boards must be prepared to face a sequence of challenges as they manage a change process. Andrew Davidson of the Oregon Association of Hospitals and Health Systems offered this response:
[What was most challenging?] Expectation management. Not knowing how people were going to react. Managing my own expectations, those of my leadership, those of the rank-and-file membership.…It was also difficult in that when you make these changes you tend to get the A Team who wants to serve on the first board. But you have to stagger terms and slot people in for later, too. It becomes a mathematical challenge.…Now I am worried as people term off. I have to preserve this great culture even as people turn over.
Or as Christopher Henney, Ohio AgriBusiness Association, stated in reference to dealing with the old guard:
We haven't lost any members, but we still have some who say, “That's not the way we used to do things.”
Those individuals—board, members, or staff—who have benefited from the current way of operating may be unwilling to accept change or new ideas. They may perceive the new governance plans as a real threat to their status and benefits. In fact, in cases where board turnover is part of the plan (to restructure the board's representation, bring on new skills, etc.) some board members may lose their seats and some members may feel their influence will be diminished. They have a legitimate role in the process, but managing it can be difficult.
Addressing the old guard involves frank “What's In It For Me?” (W.I.I.F.M) discussions. Be honest about what the changes could mean for them but be sure to define the benefits to change and what the likely positive outcomes will be. Personalize the benefits as much as possible. This will take time, patience, and communication. Additionally, be prepared for compromise respecting the pace of change. Many of the cases we studied involved associations that slowed down governance changes to allow their board membership to turn over, or to allow old-guard board members a graceful exit via the careful structuring and implementation of term limits. Organizations that recognize these tradeoffs will weather change better and preserve the most desirable elements of their present culture.
Staff can represent the old guard, too, since they have their established management routines. Terry Storm, of the Pikes Peak Association of REALTORS®, told us:
The staff were the ones who questioned a new governance model more than the board. They thought that it would be more work than before. They actually ended up doing less because they didn't have to staff nearly as many board committees. It made everything a lot more effective.
As this comment demonstrates, documenting and demonstrating that a new strategy has organizational benefits can help staff recognize the value of change. The “Five Cs” change response framework described later in this chapter can be used to help staff adapt to a new culture, most especially to observe how staff can be incentivized and rewarded for coming on board.
Managing a New Board Culture
Change management requires attending to a shifting organizational and board culture (i.e., one that is more consensual, strategic, casual, formal, professional, collegial, consultative, active, etc.). Board members and staff must define the desired aspects, behaviors, and processes of the new culture. Understanding what actually needs to change, raising consciousness, being explicit about expectations, coaching change recipients, not assuming everyone will get it at the same time or, for some, at all, crafting a deliberate process, and incentivizing adaptation all help to create “the tipping point” when a new culture becomes the majority culture. For further reading, the nonprofit consulting firm Bridgespan (2011) offers specific strategies for managing the process on its website.
Maintaining Momentum: Gladwell's “Tipping Points”
After new goals are defined and momentum has been achieved, change leaders must continue to reinforce new ways of doing things to engrain new cultural habits. Chris McEntee, CEO of American Geophysical Union, recalled that point: “We were still in a somewhat fragile place. You can easily fall into old habits of doing things, so we spent a lot of time at that first meeting of the board asking ourselves, ‘What does this really mean?’”
Malcolm Gladwell's (2000) widely read observations on “tipping points” include three key factors that he suggests are crucial to success. Similarly to Ross and Segal (2002), Gladwell first notes the contributions early adapters and other change champions make in creating momentum. Our interviewees described how they instituted specific strategies for giving champions a bigger voice in the process, including asking them to speak at board and membership meetings, and to participate in visits to chapters. For example, Peg Smith of the American Camp Association described the effort to recruit new board members:
We thought, “Who are the other champions across the country who also have positive reputations, who were viewed well in our community, who were passionate about our mission, and who could bring those additional thoughts and values?”
The second element, Gladwell's “stickiness factor,” describes the undefinable and sometimes out-of-the-box events, actions, or behaviors that are compelling enough to get others to focus on the something new or different. For example, the American Geophysical Union board included a role-playing exercise in which they took themselves outside of their organization and pretended that they were in the White House. The American Dental Education Association added a “Day of Learning” at board retreats, which were designed in turn to get board members “outside of their dental box” and to engage in thinking differently about leading their profession.
The third factor is context, the recognition that the environment in which change is to take place can offer powerful support. From our consulting careers, we recalled a key board meeting in which a CEO simply suggested moving the meeting. The room that had been used for several years had no outside windows, and seating around the table was tight. The second room had a beautiful view over a body of water, and the table and setup were far more conducive to dialogue and conversation. The result was that the tone of the meeting was immediately different and contributed to the adoption of new strategies for the organization.
Culture is a squishy term, and raising board member consciousness regarding the need to strengthen a board's culture (of accountability, professionalism, transparency, etc.) may be challenging. Nonetheless, we know it's an important task if only because the “high-performing” organizational literature we listed in our Introduction mentions “culture” so frequently. Jim Collins wrote more about culture than anything else in his analysis of high-performing businesses in Good to Great. ASAE (2006) did the same for membership organizations in 7 Measures of Success as did Leslie Crutchfield and Heather Grant (2008) in Forces for Good. In the governance context, simple policy questions such as “What decisions remain with the board and what belong to staff?” have a cultural dimension that must be addressed in the course of arriving at an answer (Gazley 2015).
Managing Data (or Lack Thereof)
Change also needs a good evidence base. Some change recipients may advocate for the status quo (or even for an unwise change) based on a certain perception or even spin of data. In other cases, they may rely solely on opinion rather than data. Strategic change leaders should anticipate both events and think through the role that data (or lack thereof) may play in dialogue and decision-making processes to avoid possible snags.
In our interviews, we found associations that weathered change successfully also brought (or quickly developed) a culture of performance measurement at both organizational and board levels. A key to using data effectively in change management is to ensure that the methodology to create the data is sound, the data are presented as clearly and succinctly as possible, and the discussion about implications and courses of action is objective and unemotional.
Managing the Illusion of Democracy
A point that emerged in just a few interviews and one focus group is that boards create power dynamics (over staff, members, and themselves) by virtue of their legal authority in an organization. We found association leaders wrestling with what these power dynamics meant during governance changes. In a provocative essay in Nonprofit Quarterly, Chao Guo (2012) has observed that “relatively little attention has been paid to…the embedded power dynamics that influence…whose voices get heard and whose get left out.” Guo's point is not that a “democratic deficit” exists in all boards but rather that many boards are not actively discussing or creating processes to decide how to govern democratically.
As boards restructure, a window of opportunity appears to open for such a conversation. Some change leaders found, for example, that their original “representative” model of governance had not been achieving its desired objective of engaging members. At the Society of Teachers of Family Medicine (STFM), Executive Director Stacy Brungardt, CAE, recalled that as STFM restructured its governance, “we wanted to embrace the idea of member input but weren't set up for it.” Other association leaders recalled the challenges of incorporating an honest discussion about “shared governance”—a hallmark of member-serving associations—into the governance planning. Even when decisions to assign stronger fiduciary authority to the governing board resulted in less direct member power, they reported success in retaining meaningful membership representation in governance, but only after investing heavily in hearing member perspectives about the changes.
Anticipating Reactions to Governance Change Using the “Five Cs” Framework
Connie Wootton of the Southwestern Association of Episcopal Schools (see full case later in this chapter) notes that as they began to work on governance, the board's biggest challenge was diversity of thought from members representing a large multi-state region. Even individuals from a homogeneous group can react to change differently. Bernard Ross and Clare Segal (2002) have described five possible reactions to change. These five characterizations of change recipients and their influence on organizational dynamics have emerged from their careers in organizational development consulting (for more go to www.managementcentre.co.uk/).
Many of our case studies describe individuals who could be characterized under this framework (i.e., a champion of change, convert, challenger, and so on). Readers may not find that recipients of change in their organization neatly fall into a typology of five, but this framework is useful in helping change leaders anticipate possible responses to change. We have adapted Ross's and Segal's suggestions for engaging each kind of change recipient to the context of governance change, adding strategies we found our interviewees using. The principal conclusion we make is that being proactive about identifying and predetermining how to possibly engage each type of individual will help to move the process along and avoid potential derailment:
- Champions describe those who most easily embrace new ideas and accept the risks of change (see also Gladwell 2000). While they are crucial to success, Ross and Segal (2002) suggest that champions should be employed carefully as change agents, since some may lack objectivity and may be greeted with skepticism by others. They may not always offer organizational leadership the constructive feedback it needs or thoroughly challenge the merits of new strategies. Involving them in governance workshops may help those individuals acquire a more realistic view about the pace of the governance change process. Nevertheless, champions should be, and will expect to be, involved. To engage champions constructively, our interview subjects ensured they also learned about best practices, and sent them to research governance models, sit on bylaws revision committees, speak to others, or secure necessary external resources.
- Chasers will be slower to join up than champions, but Ross and Segal suggest they may offer organizational leadership a more accurate idea of how acceptable a new proposal will be. They should be given an opportunity to discuss new ideas with others before forming a judgment. They may look to key opinion makers in the organization for guidance. But once they do, they should be engaged in the change process because they will move the organization toward the tipping point when the majority of individuals accept the change. Our interview subjects described change processes that gave chasers access to key organizational thought leaders. They emphasized their responsibility to share information with change recipients about what was known or unknown about the anticipated impacts of the change. Open communication with these individuals will pay off in greater ownership and co-creation of the change vision.
- Converts may form the largest group of change recipients, but they may be the hardest to engage and to read. They may not ever speak up. They may also take a long time to embrace new ideas. As boards restructure, converts may be found among board members, staff members, and the association's membership ranks. In a few cases, association leaders recounted change processes that were uneventful. But not everyone can be expected to come on board immediately.
Strategies for engaging converts include offering them opportunities to listen and to ask questions of organizational leadership. The concerns of converts—including the “what's in it for me?” details—should be anticipated, if possible, and addressed in these communications. Leaders should provide opportunities for both individual and group active listening. No one should be talked out of their feelings.
We saw these principles reflected in the heavy investment the association's leaders whom we interviewed had made in communicating with all stakeholder groups. Organizational leaders also practiced active outreach about both the change process and its goals to effectively reach this group. We also saw leaders slowing down the pace of change to accommodate converts. According to Ross and Segal, the advantage of taking more time and effort with converts is that as slow as they are to adopt new ideas, they may embrace them more permanently. Thus, timing the change process at a pace acceptable to the converts can give a change process much greater momentum in the long run.
- Challengers may comprise a smaller group but may demand the greatest effort. They may include individuals who will recognize the benefits of the change eventually but have been poorly socialized about how to confront change effectively. Board members may be executives in their professions and not have had much experience with consensus decision making. In AOTA's case, as referenced earlier, they described some of their board members finally getting “religion.” We also heard from Dennis Simmons, then-CEO of Southwestern Automated Clearing House Association:
An obstacle was people's vision about how the process should unfold—individual opinion versus consensus decision making. Most of the members are senior executives of their own organizations, so they are used to getting their own way.
Experts advise “holding up a mirror” to help these individuals take a step back and understand the effects of their behavior on the board's work. As our interviews revealed, disruptions to the process can be expected, and dealing with challengers can involve periods of stagnation and reversals. When challenges are raised, the first step in finding a successful resolution is recognizing that a person's actions or behaviors usually stem from something specific, whether it is ignorance, misunderstanding, a personality conflict, or a deeper issue. This response is predicated on the assumption that a second step will occur—that leadership will intervene directly, humanely, with unity, and in a timely way. If leadership doesn't guide the process, the trouble could be left unattended and may result in a worse outcome (Kissman 2006).
Our interview subjects described efforts (not always successful) to actively engage challengers on both emotional and cognitive levels to identify the stakes they felt they had in the outcome and understand how to address their expectations. As Ross and Segal have observed, some of our interview subjects reported that challengers caused them to more thoroughly think through possible obstacles and articulate the benefits of a change. But organizations should also anticipate and preempt the most negative aspects of the challenger personality by creating formal rules about the change process in advance to ensure the process is not derailed by objections.
- Changephobes are defined by Ross and Segal as a small group who may never be convinced of the benefits of a new idea. They can be immovable. And if these individuals actively oppose the change, they may lower morale, as some of our stories recounted. The association leaders we studied described a range of disruptive reactions from changephobes, including some who publicly accused the change agents of power grabs, some who ran for a board seat expressly to stop a change process or who initiated parliamentary or procedural challenges, and some who attempted “back-door” maneuvers in attempts to weaken the change leaders.
How these individuals are addressed during a governance change may depend on their number, the strength of their resistance, and the credibility of their perspective. Ross and Segal suggest they be removed as quickly as possible, but this advice does not fit the context of governance. For example, we frequently found that the strongest opposition to board change came from former board members. Therefore, we recommend caution. Changephobes are still stakeholders and should still be treated respectfully, and offered honest information about the planned change. Board members who oppose change should be offered the opportunity to complete their terms. As Kissman (2006) has observed,
No one enjoys confrontation, especially with regard to a professional colleague. Successfully working in a group context is highly dynamic and can engender great passion and emotion when disagreements or conflicts erupt. Paying attention to these dynamics and actively honoring the human element requires commitment and work.
Recognizing resistance, trying to see the situation through the other lens, and then actively addressing resistance head-on is often the only way to defuse it. Communicate, educate about the value of the proposed changes, find ways to allow obstructionists feedback about their concerns, and find points of natural agreement to create a foundation on which to build. Gentle persistence and active management with individuals who are resistant is key. Even then, taking the pressure off increases the likelihood of falling into old patterns of behavior.
Assuming the strategies suggested for dealing with challengers have been attempted, we suggest three means of addressing insurmountable opposition, based on our interviews with governance change leaders: (1) Employ association bylaws to remove the resisting individuals, (2) employ term limits to create board turnover, and (3) sideline and ignore the opposition if you have a clear mandate to move forward. In this last case, it is sometimes sufficient to simply let the challenger know that he or she is outvoted and that sustained resistance will not be valuable to the organization. Leadership can say directly, “We respect your right to your opinion. But because you feel this way and the group feels another, perhaps this is not the board you should be serving on.” Giving challengers a graceful way out serves all.
Summary
Understanding the concepts of change, from the need to formally introduce it with deliberateness and communication, to the value of creating a change plan, to managing the journey, and to having an awareness that different individuals will react in different ways is critical to the journey of transformational change and high-performing governance. Woody Wiedenhoeft, executive director of the Wisconsin Association of School Business Officials, perfectly described this deliberative journey of planning, evaluation, and more planning:
It has been a story of steps. Each step has added to our journey as far as becoming more productive and accountable to the membership. It has actually been hard work by our volunteer board members. Each year we get a little better at it. In a nutshell, a lot has been created because our board has been sensitive in having strategic discussions and multiyear planning, follow-up, and evaluation.
Doing the necessary homework and groundwork before starting down the path is critical where deliberate change is planned; dedicating thought and process in whatever way is possible in the case of unplanned change will also help achieve success. Even when an organization finds itself needing to react to the unplanned event, taking as much time as may be possible to be more thoughtful and proactive in a response will ultimately bring about a preferred result.
While board members and CEOs cannot be expected to be psychologists or therapists, they do need to understand that managing change for success will take active people management and team building. The single biggest challenge in any transformation may simply be getting people to change their behaviors. To succeed in any transformational effort, leaders must get people to see and feel the benefits of change.
Both cases that follow reflect these lessons. In the first, the National Council of University Research Administrators board members had to convince other members that unwelcome governance changes were in the association's best interests. In the second, the Southwestern Association of Episcopal Schools worked through some difficult times by building a board that was accepting of change.