About

Many organisations, including government agencies, are set up to promote stability, routine, and predictability in our lives and in our interactions with others.  Yet our operating contexts are subject to continual pressures for change.  Those pressures come from multiple sources.  When should organisations embrace and pursue change?  How much change should be introduced?  What parts of a system should be maintained?  When change is handled badly, many problems can arise.  When it is done well, change can open up many opportunities previously unrealised.  Politicians, advisors, policy analysts, and public sector managers increasingly need to be effective change managers. 

This seminar draws on state-of-the-art theory and practice of change management to produce insights for achieving successful change.  The seminar gives participants the knowledge and tools needed to effectively plan and implement change efforts across a wide range of organisational settings, with a special focus on the public sector. 

Approaches to change management can run from the simple and straight-forward to the more sophisticated.  Strategies used in any given instance will depend on time constraints and resource considerations.  As well as introducing participants to the fundamentals of carefully-planned change management, the seminar recognises that frequently change must be managed in urgent, difficult, and near-crisis conditions.  The seminar is built around an understanding of the constraints that many public sector managers and analysts work under, and how those constraints affect change processes.  Equipped with the framework emerging from this seminar, participants will be prepared to effectively manage change in many settings.

Training Methodology
The seminar is organised into a series of modules, each of which involves a formal presentation of material followed by structured discussions and case work.  Participants are encouraged to relate elements of each module to current problems and proposals for change in their organisations.  The accompanying workbook contains notes on each module, discussion questions, and suggestions for further reading.

Who should attend?
All those involved in policy planning and implementation within local and central government agencies, including public sector managers involved in:
• Designing and managing government programmes
• Monitoring and assessing programmes
• Implementing policies, projects, and programmes
• Policy development and analysis

Learning Outcomes
After attending this seminar, participants should understand appropriate ways to:
• Interpret current programmes and structures and effectively assess the need for change
• Use evidence to build the case for change
• Create a change agenda
• Communicate change and build a coalition to support change
• Monitor and control change processes
• Manage conflicts arising from change

Outline

Course times 9am-5pm – Refreshment breaks and lunch are included

Day 1: Preparing for Change

Change Management: An Overview
• What is change? Defining change management
• Change and the public sector
• Central Govt vs Local Govt change – are there differences?
• SOEs, NGOs and other non-core organisations
• Case Study: Public Sector Reforms – the good and the bad

Institutions, Stability and Change
• The virtues of institutional stability
• Hierarchies and resistance to change
• Identifying opportunities for change
• Incremental versus dynamic change

Models for Leading Change
• Robert E. Quinn on deep change
• John P. Kotter on the heart of change
• The political economy of change
• An inventory of tools for effective change management

Building the Case for Change
• Diagnosing the current situation
• Identifying key performance variables
• Highlighting weaknesses
• Gathering needed information
• Drawing comparisons across organisations
• Creating sound alternatives to the status quo
• Communicating the case for change

Mapping Processes and Contexts
• Developing a sense of institutional history
• Understanding the lines of responsibility
• Appreciating the organisational politics
• Identifying entry-points for change efforts
• Identifying likely barriers and how to get around them

Creating a Change Agenda
• Treating the process as a product
• Identifying what is central to the argument for change
• Creating and exploiting windows of opportunity
• The art of compromise
• Securing buy-in from powerful allies
• Working with unlikely messengers

Keys to Promoting Change
• Securing energy and commitment
• Constructing a shared vision or end goal
• Leading through conversation
• Starting outside the core and moving inward
• Using flexibility to your advantage
• Locking in successes as they occur

Conclusion: Taking Stock and Looking Ahead
• Review of the day
• Next steps

Day 2: Implementing Change

Successful Change Leadership
• The politics of change leadership
• Selecting the right people to implement and lead change within the public sector
• Building teams to embark on the change process
• Motivating others to embrace change
• Developing a change culture; assessing goodness-of-fit within New Zealand’s current management culture

Communicating Change
• Successfully communicating to reduce and eliminate fear of change
• Creating opportunities for sharing of good news and turn-around stories
• Identifying and empowering champions for change
• Defining stakeholders and effectively communicating and engaging with them

Coalition Building for Change
• Developing an effective change management team
• Anticipating opposition
• Bringing people on board
• Working with politicians, interest groups, and the media

Monitoring and Controlling Change
• Developing clear metrics and measuring the change
• Establishing a management dashboard
• Anticipating and monitoring risks
• Working to secure critical success factors

Conflict Management
• Adopting a future orientation
• Identifying shared interests
• Creating a path to effective resolution

Crisis Management
• Identifying lead indicators
• Developing containment strategies
• Working through crises

Continuing to Build Change Management Skills
• Capturing lessons learned from experience
• Learning from the experiences of others
• Closing knowing/doing gaps

Seminar Review and Evaluation
• Discussion of key points
• Final question and answer session

Facilitator

Michael Mintrom, Associate Professor Political Studies Department, University of Auckland

Michael Mintrom is an associate professor in the Political Studies Department at the University of Auckland, where, since 2002, he has offered courses on Policy Analysis, Evaluation, and Research Methods.  He coordinates the University of Auckland Master of Public Policy (MPP) degree and works with others to run the annual Auckland Public Policy Seminar Series.  He has extensive experience as a trainer of public sector professionals in New Zealand, Australia, Asia, and the United States.

Throughout his academic career, Michael has studied and written about aspects of policy analysis, policy change, and approaches to securing change in the public sector.  His books include Public Entrepreneurs: Agents for Change in American Government (Princeton University Press, 1995), Policy Entrepreneurs and School Choice (Georgetown University Press, 2000), People Skills for Policy Analysts (Georgetown University Press, 2003), and Political Leadership in New Zealand (Auckland University Press, 2006).  Most recently, Michael has been studying approaches used by universities to create stronger research cultures and promote greater engagement between academics and knowledge-based enterprises.

Michael received his Ph.D. in Political Science from the State University of New York at Stony Brook in 1994.  Prior to that, he received an MA in Economics from the University of Canterbury and worked from 1987-1990 as a policy analyst in The Treasury.  From 1994-2002, he was a faculty member at Michigan State University, where he attained the rank of associate professor with tenure in the Department of Political Science and the Institute for Public Policy and Social Research.  He has also been a visiting professor in the School of Policy, Planning, and Development at the University of Southern California.

Michael Mintrom is also facilitating:

• Effective Programme Evaluation

In-house Training