Ellis U2A1 - My Immunity to Change Map and Development Plan PDF

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My Immunity to Change Map and Development Plan Tameka Ellis LEAD5220 – Unit 2 Assignment 1 July 26, 2020

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My Immunity to Change Map and Development Plan According to Kegan and Lahey, managers in a sense are psychologists. They are after all, helping people overcome their limitations to become more successful at work (Kegan & Lahey, 2001). Competing commitments have been found to hinder employees from overcoming their immunity to change and unearthing their big assumptions. In forming an Immunity to Change Map, this method can help to bring forth the challenges that one may face in the workplace regarding change. The map begins with taking note of individual goals that can be improved upon. The map then outlines what the individual is or is not doing that impedes upon the progression of achieving the goal. It recognizes the competing commitments as well as the big assumptions that sustain them. Tameka Ellis’ Goals In my leadership role, Tameka Ellis strives to be constructive and a giving leader. She wants to be amiable in communicating and supportive to individuals in her leadership style. As an agile leader, she aims to foster an environment that is engaging. Dwelling on past events and worrying into what the future holds is not ideal for her as she is working to develop others. These attributes as a leader have helped her to remain balanced and empathetic through tough situations. She has come to realize that with empathy comes acceptance that change will occur and issues will arise. Her personal change to target includes goals of maintaining a positive environment and setting clear expectations for team members which can be quite difficult at times. When Tameka first started her journey as a leader, the practices that she once utilized worked for her team. Providing an engaging environment, offering empathy, trying to remain balanced, and supportive worked for most of the employees if not all of them. As behaviors changed with most of the employees, Tameka noticed that her leadership style must change as well. This was an exceedingly difficult revelation for her; almost embarrassing because she had received such great praises for an outstanding job for so many years. Her primary commitments were very noble goals that had not gone unnoticed. Understanding the challenging competing commitments and making real progress toward overcoming immunity to change has been difficult for a few reasons. Maintaining a positive environment had become a difficult day to day task for her as a leader. Tameka’s worse fear is that she had failed as a leader in her improvement goals because she allowed the stress of the job to get the best of her. She would sometimes let her frustrations out amongst the team and as a leader, she knew that this was not the proper way to lead. In her 2

leadership skills, Tameka seemed to have lost her growth mindset along the way and stopped making substantial gains through hard work and dedication. This was an area in which she worked to improve over the years. As a leader, she often told herself that empathy did not mean adopting other people’s emotions as one’s own and trying to please everyone. It meant rather to thoughtfully consider a team member’s feelings along with other factors in the process of making intelligent decisions and this would help to maintain a positive environment. This idea was lost. Another improvement goal that Tameka has struggled with is setting clear expectations. She feels as if information has been thoroughly communicated to the team but sometimes realize that within the instructions, the details may have been missed. She has later found that the employees have left with the idea that they may have other options about workloads instead of clear, precise instructions of what to do. As a leader, she tries to meet with her team quite often to communicate information to them and build upon their relationships. They meet on a regular basis, but she has found that their meetings sometimes go off track regardless of their area of focus or a planned agenda. Again, as a leader, it is her responsibility to maintain the focus and to ensure that they remain on track. She feels as if she has failed to set the clear expectations at times because she did not want to be viewed as the mean supervisor or the stern supervisor, so she sometimes allow the meetings to “derail”. She has found that this has caused her to suffer as their leader in the long run because some of the employees no longer offered their respect, felt as if they had options about all things regarding their job, and no longer responded to any of the changes positively. Tameka has felt very weak in her position because she has felt like she has totally lost control. Competing Commitments and Big Assumptions Kegan and Lahey seem to view competing commitments to represent some version of self-protection not as weaknesses (Kegan & Lahey, 2001). In Tameka’s improvement goals, she discussed not setting clear expectations and wanting to maintain to a positive environment. These are both goals that she feels that she once as a leader was able to provide to her team. She felt that she had developed trust with them, rapport, and great communication but over the years, she says that something happened. What? Did Tameka’s leadership style change? Could she no longer further develop the emotional intelligence and engage her team? What was Tameka protecting herself from? What are her competing commitments that are arising from these deeply rooted beliefs about herself or assumptions (Kegan & Lahey, 2001)?

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Some changes that occurred in Tameka’s life over the years included growth in her family. Not only was she involved in her son’s select baseball, which required weekend travel, but she was a new grandmother who was trying to obtain a higher educational degree. With these surmountable growing commitments, perhaps Tameka’s leadership behaviors changed. She continued to lead her group as she had before without an immunity to change. She was committed to learning and but could not see that there were problems amongst the team with maintaining a positive environment and setting clear expectations as a leader. But Tameka wanted the issues to work themselves out and she continued to protect herself from the consequences of an unhealthy work environment and team. Her big assumptions as their leader was that she expected the employees to make better decisions as adults and for things to be like they were before. Tameka expected changes would be made without admitting to these issues. Developed Plan Understanding and bringing big assumptions to light can help people to challenge them and recognize why they are engaging in contradictory behavior (Kegan & Lahey, 2001). In identifying Tameka’s competing commitments and the big assumptions that sustain them, she can now work to overcome her immunity through process. Tameka struggled with maintaining a positive working environment and setting clear expectations. She does not sufficiently delegate the work through clear, precise communication as she has before which has also aided in breaking down a positive work environment. Tameka learned through competing commitments that she wanted to remain in control and to ensure that the work was completed in high regard as she continued to receive the noble praise. Her big assumptions were that she did not want to appear as a failure in her leadership or for others to assume that she was incompetent. To help manage an Immunity to Change, Tameka will develop a plan that will record her behavior, look for clues that will cast doubt on the validity of her big assumptions, explore the history of her big assumptions, test them, and evaluate the results (Kegan & Lahey, 2001). Maintaining a positive work environment and setting clear expectations are process improvement initiatives. These are considered incremental changes that are used to streamline change. Incremental changes are usually the easiest changes to make because they are small enhancements (Dallas, 2015). The type of change is best to facilitate with the Lewin’s model because we want to unfreeze the focus on the need to dislodge the beliefs and assumptions of the

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team members so that we can engage them in a new systemic alteration (Cawsey, Deszca, & Ingols, 2016). With Tameka’s team, once the unfreezing occurs, the group will then be susceptible to change. New structures can be implemented to create a positive environment amongst the team as well as habits to develop and set clear expectations. The team can then refreeze into their new form with new practices and behaviors (Cawsey, Deszca, & Ingols, 2016). An example of a new form might be that Tameka could implement a new reporting pattern. This new reporting pattern could require employees to sit with Tameka one on one, instead of in a group, when given job duties to ensure that they fully understand the expectations and requirements. The employees could then be given a clear, outlined deadline to ensure that the project is completed on time. This too will ensure that any questions they may have about the project are brought back to Tameka in sufficient timing so that adjustments can be made where needed. This will afford the employee the guidance they may need directly from their leadership, provide clear instructions, and maintain an efficient working environment. Employees may then build trust in Tameka’s leadership style once again as well. Analysis for Change There are internal and external demands that shape the changes of an organization. The demands might include changes to the organization strategy, their operation, products, and services. The drivers for change that may impact Tameka’s Immunity to Change might include the leadership, the capabilities of the employees to accept the change, and how the change might be measured. It is the responsibility of the leaders to get the employees moving in the same direction. This will include the overall success of Tameka’s anticipated outcome of successfully implementing an incremental change with her team and the support that she will receive from her leadership while making the necessary changes. Many people struggle with the idea of change because it deals with the unknown. Some employees will be capable of accepting change and others will rebel against the change for various reasons. With the use of a subtle model, an incremental change, leadership should be able to use this developmental plan for a successful outcome. The plan can be measured by one on one meetings with Tameka and the employee and through the use of employee appraisals. Tameka is hopeful that she will gain the respect of her employees if she is able to grasp setting clear and precise expectations for them. This will create a positive working environment where employees feel that they can trust their leadership, problems are being addresses, and there 5

is collaboration amongst the group. Perhaps meeting with employees one on one more often rather than in groups can help in the success of this developmental plan. Sometimes employees are embarrassed to ask questions in groups and will sometimes leave meetings without clear understanding of what is expected of them or how to perform their duties.

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References Cawsey, T. F., Deszca, G., & Ingols, C. (2016). Organizational change: An action-oriented toolkit (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Dallas, H. J. (2015). Mastering the challenges of leading change: Inspire the people and succeed where others fail. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley Kegan, R., & Lahey, L. L. (2001). The real reason people won't change. Harvard Business Review, 79(10), 84–92.

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Appendix A – Ellis, Tameka - Immunity Change Map 1. My Improvement Goals (List 1 to 3 Goals):

2. Things I Do (or fail to do) that Work Against Each of My Improvement Goals:

1. Maintain a positive environment. 2. Setting clear expectations

1. I sometimes let the stress get the best of me as a leader and tend to let my frustrations out amongst my team. 2. I feel as if I have provided thorough information of what is expected of my team but sometimes realize that within the instructions the details may have gotten lost. The team member then was left with the idea that they may have had an option instead of clear, precise instructions on what to do.

3. My Competing Commitments (Other Things That Compete for My Time): 1. My family (Husband, Children, Grandchildren, Siblings, Nieces/Nephews). 2. My other personal relationships 3. My education

Notice how your competing interests might affect your ability to make changes.

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