Change Your Change Plan: Five Principles for Resolving Lingering Organizational Problems By Geoffrey Tumlin, Ph.D. This article was originally published in the June 2014 issue of Texas Town & City, and is republished here with the written permission of the Texas Municipal League and author Geoffrey Tumlin, Ph.D. Are some of your best people leaving for other jobs or other cities? Is there too much fighting going on among your executive directors? Does there seem to be a lack of motivation in some of your departments? If issues like these are present in your city, consider gathering a group of key leaders to tackle the lingering organizational problems. Everyone knows it’s demoralizing to work for an organization that can’t – or won’t – fix obvious problems. But the flipside is also true: a city that takes aim at a longstanding issue and resolves it, inspires confidence in its ability to handle future challenges. And the very good news is that your employees are more receptive to making work-related changes than you may think.
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My colleagues and I have spent many years helping organizations of all sizes gather a critical mass of supporters and grapple with serious organizational problems. In our experience, few things unlock employee motivation as much as tackling a problem that’s negatively impacting their daily work life. In fact, fixing a persistent organizational problem provides a double-barreled return on investment: the problem gets resolved, and employees see that the organization has the capacity to self-correct. 1. Get plenty of cooks into the kitchen. Most organizational-level problems require a critical mass of supporters to resolve, so gather up your working group from the start. To address an important problem like disengaged employees, feuding department heads, or alienated staff, you need a number of employees who will work with you long enough to implement lasting solutions. The number of people you need will vary depending on the situation. For example, you’ll need a smaller number of people to deal with feuding managers than you will to address disengaged employees. Just remember that it’s
SOUTH DAKOTA MUNICIPALITIES
