Module 4: Change Leadership

This six-part educational video series provides mid-level leaders with foundational knowledge and strategies for leading their team and influencing others as they navigate the shift to value-based payment and population health.

Before You Begin: Complete the Pre/post-Training Evaluation template on page 8 within the Discussion Questions and Activities document before you begin the series and again after you complete Module 6.

Description and Topics Covered

Explore the change process as well as the emotional side of change. Learn specific things you can do as a leader of change to smooth the process and help others.

• Leading change from the middle
• The change process
• The human side of change

Discussion Questions

• What kinds of changes are you currently experiencing and/or leading?
• What examples of unfreezing, changing, and/or refreezing have you seen in these changes?
• How are these change initiatives going? If they’re going well, why? If they’re not going so well, why aren’t they?
• Think of one specific change initiative you are currently leading or have led in the past, and identify one person who resisted that change. Where did they get stuck on the change curve? Would you classify the source of their resistance as technical, political, or cultural? 
• Think of one specific change initiative you are currently experiencing. Where are you on the change curve? If you’re a bit stuck, is it due primarily to technical, political, or cultural factors? How can you address these challenges? 

Recommended Activities

• Talk to your direct supervisor about current or upcoming change initiatives. 
  • Find out what they most expect from you during the course of this change, and share with them what you need most from them in order to meet these expectations.
  • Find out what changes they’re working on that are particularly difficult. Ask what their biggest challenges are, how they’re working to address them, and what they’ve learned from the experience so far.
• Use the Planning and Reflection Worksheet in the Resource Guide to develop strategies for addressing technical, political, or cultural concerns that someone on your team might have about a current or upcoming change. 
• Listen to one or more episodes of The Center’s podcast Managing from the Middle: Leading Through Change.

Resources

1. Switch, Chip & Dan Heath - This book outlines the rational and emotional sides of change and shares strategies for addressing both sides.  
2. Susan David, Emotional Agility: Get Unstuck, Embrace Change, and Thrive in Work and Life - Strategies for acknowledging uncomfortable experiences while simultaneously detaching from them.
3. John Kotter, Our Iceberg is Melting - This book outlines 8 steps for producing needed change in an organization or group.
4. Kubler-Ross, E. (1969). On Death and Dying. New York: MacMillan. - This book explores the 5 stages of grief: Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. 
5. Lewin 3-Step Change Management Model: A Simple and Effective Method to Institute Change that Sticks - Describes the three stages of change: Unfreezing, changing, and refreezing.
6. 6. Technical, Political, Cultural Impacts of Change: Planning and Reflection Worksheet (96.48 KB) - A tool for identifying the source of others’ concern about a given change (technical, political, or cultural) and developing a plan for addressing concerns. 
7. Managing from the Middle: Leading Through Change Podcast series - Mid-level managers play a unique role in the transition to value and serve as a critical link between senior hospital leadership and front-line staff. This six-part podcast series shares best practices for leading through this time of significant change in the health care environment.
8. Podcast: Hidden Brain, March 12, 2018: Daniel Kahneman: On Misery, Memory, and Our Understanding of the Mind - An interview with Nobel Prize-winning behavioral economist Daniel Kahneman about judgment and memory.