COACHING ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE

It is not new that organizations change, that many (if not most) organizations need to change, and that most organizations which attempt to change—do not. Welcome to the subject of organizational change. As a coach, if you think individual change is challenging enough, consider changing an organization. That’s a much bigger challenge! And it is a challenge that most organizations fail at. Why is that? And what can be done about that?

As individuals get ideas in their heads and then actualize those ideas in behaviors and then those behaviors are repeated often enough that they drop out of consciousness and become automatic programs, so it is with organizations. And as individuals do not like to discover that they have been wrong, mistaken, deceived, or in error and when that happens, they feel threatened and become defensive, so also organizations. Nothing new here; same psychological principles are at work.