Externalising Change – The Method

‘The Management of Change’ at any stage is based on the recognition that change is ever-present, never stagnant, at times gradual and at times rapid. It is a continuous process and admits to spurts and ebbs but is not segmented or a truncated. In many ways, change is pervasive and dynamic, abhors stagnation and begets novelty and in that sense, change is a fact of life. The Change Management paradigm is based on the belief that most persons are potential change catalysts whose latent energies can be self-triggered, stimulated and directed. The paradigm also admits that positive change is driven by the hope that the good can be better, change seeks inclusion and expansion. While being autonomous, change catalysts seek the company of like-minded and like-willed in expanding circles of consensus to be the change that they seek. Change management is the art of making the impossible a reality.

Recognising the fact that change is omni-present and omni-valent, change management attempts to foster change catalysts or change champions. Sensitised to the cyclical process of change, the catalysts change as continuous organic engagement with life and learning, across all spaces in one’s life- beginning in the home space, continuing through the workspace and encompassing the community space.

The process of Change Management as an external intervention encompasses the 3Ws (Workshop, Workplace & Worksite), as also the Personal/Home space. but since the Change program starts from the workshop.

The Workshop Space

The workshop space is ordinarily seen as the space of learning for doing. The workshop is the site for inner transformation which begins with the engagement of the person in an inner transformation. It is the site for discovery and internalisation of changing meanings, the locus of choice making and defining one’s roles. Change management utilises the workshop space to enable the participant to introspect into the self, interrogate ‘the other’ in one’s self. The focus is to mediate between the ‘is’ and the ‘ought’. The process of facilitation assists intellectual and emotional learning of the potential change catalyst from a static spectator into being an active ‘change agent’ who seeks to ‘bring the change that one seeks.’

Being the change that one seeks then expands into three distinct but convergent arenas of the Home Space, the Workspace and the Work area, through concrete self-designed change initiatives that each participants individually or collectively seeks to engage with.

The Home Space

The home space is perhaps the best site for a change catalyst to put in place the first change project. There are several reasons for this. The first is that perhaps with very few exceptions, the change catalyst will be in a positive supportive environment and working with, perhaps an incredulous but rarely a skeptical group. Besides, the home environment offers greater space for negotiation, collaboration, feedback and review of the initiative. All of which would contribute to the wellness of the family and adds to the creative energies of the change catalysts.

The Workspace

The workspace provides the immediate work environment for the change catalyst to engage in doing and thinking. A change initiative that contributes to the work satisfaction of his sub-ordinates or colleagues would ordinarily be the site for the initiative, which could have multiple if not synergistic effects. The change initiative would lend itself to forging a team with colleagues and sub-ordinates, who could be an integral part of any initiative in the work site.

The team at the work space triggered by a change initiative could function as a crucial support structure, as a site of incubation of new ideas and approaches, creating convergence of thought and action, evolving strategies and tactics, review, reflection and action. The workspace could provide the collective energy to take change at the work site forward.

Work site Space

The work site is the locus for knowing and doing, engagement of a change catalyst with the citizen, a site of performance and actualisation of change. The change catalyst is also challenged to multiply him/ herself in the creation of citizen change catalysts to engage in the project of democratisation. This site completes the cycle, starting with the personal life space of the change catalyst and ending in the public space of citizen change catalysts.

For Further Details contact: Dr. V. Suresh, rightstn@gmail.com, +91-94442-31497