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Leading Change in the Church - Lesson 13

Unfreeze and Change

In this lesson, we learn about the unfreezing stage of change and how to create a guiding coalition to lead the change. A guiding coalition refers to a group of people who have enough influence, both positional and personal, to lead the change. They are not necessarily the formal leaders of the church, but rather the opinion shapers who carry the clout within the church. It is important to assemble a coalition of people who understand the urgency of the situation and who can envision the preferred future state. Developing the coalition into a team involves understanding team skills, defining purpose, roles, and process, and establishing effective leadership and communication.

Rick Sessoms
Leading Change in the Church
Lesson 13
Watching Now
Unfreeze and Change

Unfreeze and Change

I. Unfreezing Stage

A. Creating a Guiding Coalition

B. Definition of Guiding Coalition

C. Importance of Opinion Shapers

D. Preferred Future State

E. Developing a Group into a Team

1. Team Skills

2. Purpose, Roles, and Process

3. Leadership and Communication


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  • In Dynamics of Change, the speaker discusses the importance of leading change in the church and emphasizes the need to understand the dynamics of change and its effect on people, as well as the uniqueness of the church in this process, before delving into change strategies.
  • Leadership is about catalyzing change as organizations face an ever-increasing rate of change, requiring strategic leaders who can challenge, mobilize, and motivate people in a rapidly changing cultural climate; change is a function of leadership as it involves fundamentally changing the mind, and progress is impossible without change.
  • You will gain knowledge and insight into the nature of change, the reasons why it is needed in the church, strategies for overcoming resistance to change, the leader's role in change, and the process of leading change, including creating and communicating a vision for change, implementing and sustaining change, and celebrating success and learning from failure.
  • You will gain knowledge and insight into the impact of change on individuals through an exercise where you will think about the most significant change you have experienced in the past ten years and how it made you feel. The lesson will sensitize you to the effects of change and explore the dynamics of change and its impact on individuals before discussing change strategies.
  • You will gain insights into the challenges faced by a fictional family company, Johnson's Shoes, based in Boise, Idaho, and the strategies it must employ to overcome these challenges, including diversification of its product line, development of new technology, and introduction of new management techniques, and learn about the positive and negative outcomes of these strategies, and the lessons that can be learned from this case study.
  • Learn how to manage reactions to change in a church setting, understanding the role of the grapevine in communication, and effectively implementing strategies to help others cope, such as consistent messaging, providing details, and supporting healthy behaviors.
  • Gain insights into challenges faced by churches coping with change, including the movement of American culture towards post-Christianity and lack of common values, and explore questions to consider to help churches face 21st-century challenges.
  • This lesson teaches you about the challenges of leading in a chaotic context, the process of change according to Kurt Lewin's theory, and the importance of overcoming resistance. You will understand the limitations of the 20th-century rational change process model and the unique challenges faced by leaders in the 21st century.
  • ou will learn about the characteristics of effective change agents in the church, including humility, patience, sacrifice, self-control, and courage, as well as change management strategies like overcoming resistance to change and sustaining change through embedding change in culture and systems and continuously monitoring and improving.
  • In this lesson, you gain insights on discerning God's purpose in weathering change, learning to ask critical questions to determine if the change is appropriate, and understanding the characteristics of a change that glorifies God, ultimately leading to a stronger church community.
  • You will learn about the various ways that organizations and churches resist change, including through structural and group inertia, power relationships, and resource allocations. You will also understand how people with access to resources tend to resist change, while those without resources are more accepting. The lesson explains how expertise can also play a role in resistance to change, and how churches have natural systems that promote stability.
  • Gain insight into life cycles and resistance to change within organizations, including the church, and how changing leaders can help an organization change the spiral towards decline or irrelevancy by speaking to people's emotions, not just thought.
  • You will learn about creating a guiding coalition to lead the change in the unfreezing stage of change. This involves assembling a group of opinion shapers who can envision the preferred future state and developing them into a team by understanding team skills, defining purpose, roles, and process, and establishing effective leadership and communication.
  • You will learn how to empower broad-based action by removing obstacles to the future and generating short-term wins. This involves identifying structures, policies, and processes that block change, encouraging new ideas and risk-taking, creating a learning environment from failures, aiming for 90% involvement in problem-solving, and providing appropriate authority, resources, information, and accountability. Short-term wins should be planned for, visible improvements should be celebrated, and those involved should be rewarded. Change should be refrozen by consolidating gains, changing policies and structures, promoting and developing people who can implement the vision, reinvigorating the process with new projects, and anchoring new approaches in the church culture.

The dynamics, effects, and strategies for change in the church.

Dr. Rick Sessoms
Leading Change in the Church
mc612-13
Unfreeze and Change
Lesson Transcript

[00:00:02] So we've talked about establishing a sense of urgency within the church. The second part of unfreezing, remember, we're in the unfreezing stage phase of the process now is to create a guiding coalition. What we mean by that is to assemble a group of people who have enough influence. Positional. Personal, historical, spiritual. To lead the change. Now a wee wee. It's important to keep in mind that. These people. This got in coalition. Ah, not necessarily just the formal leaders of the church. Sometimes we we assume that if the deacons are on board with this and they're, uh, they're good with it, then we've got it made. But the reality is, we could call these people the opinion shapers, the ones that carry the clout. Within the church. It doesn't have to be a large group of people, but it needs to be a coalition of people who really understand the urgency. And and they also began to understand the preferred future state. That makes sense. And then develop the group of people into a team. We talked about team, we talked about purpose, we talked about roles, we talked about process, We talked about leadership and we talked about communication. And so those team. Skills. Those team factors come into play at this point. You may by now be. A feeling that this could take some time depending upon the significance of the change. And if you're feeling that, you're absolutely right. Oftentimes we rush into change. Let me just back up and say that. The way I was taught to do change in the church. And I admit I didn't take any course or even a class on leading change. But somewhere along the line I got the idea that my job in leading change in the church was to go into my study and pray.

[00:02:40] And or maybe go on a retreat by myself. And to seek the Lord. Read a few books, read my Bible, pray, seek a vision from God for the Church. In fact, whenever I would go to a church, a new church, or talk to any group of Christians, one of the questions is What is your vision for this church? So we play it all the time. But the was to come out with a vision and then before anything else, go and announce that vision the next Sunday morning. Now, that may be a little extreme, but you know what I mean? That is kind of the way that we have done it in the church. We have expected our pastors, our leaders to announce the vision to us. And then, of course, it's the is the old trick of getting keeping all the frogs in the wheelbarrow. After that, it's it. How in the world are we going to convince people to follow along? I often found that once I announced this, there may be a couple people even that are cheering me. Go ahead, do this, do this. And I turn around, look, and there's nobody behind me. So that's the challenge. The reason I'm saying this at this point is if we don't get anything else from this unfreeze change, refreeze process, notice that that that that announcing the preferred future state does not come first. It is further down in the process. It's important to establish a sense of urgency and to create a guiding coalition before going public. With the preferred state sort of statement. That's a very, very important principle in this process of change initiatives. Yes. Tammy, I know you said that this group, this position of personal and spiritual. Would you say that ideally in a perfect world, that would be sort of your position, though? Ideally, but I haven't found a church yet where that's the case.

[00:04:54] Now that you're as I'm sure that's the case, Roger. Yeah. Even if those are true about the elders in most churches, that group extends beyond that concentric circle. So that's why it's important to identify who those people are and pull them in to a guiding coalition. Then once you have done that, then it's all about identifying the future state. And developing strategy. The desired future state should be identified in collaboration with the Guardian Coalition. After step one as mine, the collective intelligence of the organization. So at this point, we're still in that stage of working with this small group of people. We've established a sense of urgency and we've communicated that sense of urgency. We've communicated that that positively that that that things can be different. And at this point, identifying a future state is is really about we talk about vision. You'll notice that I have tended to avoid the word vision because that word in the church is loaded. I tend to want to talk about a desired future state because that way it it hopefully it can become more of a of a group process rather than one person identifying this for the whole. But a vision is a compelling, tangible image of the preferred future. A very important concept. It's compelling it because it moves people. It's backed that not change or die, but it's moving people toward a positive future and it's tangible is something you can see with your mind's eye. It's important to to develop language and develop ideas that are going to to describe the gap between then and between now and then to to to create a picture that that is that is easily accessible in the mind's eye to help direct that change effort. Um.

[00:07:23] Sometimes it's easier then to change from one building to another because people can draw a picture of a building and, you know, create that It's sometimes harder to do something that's more intangible. It's important to create that compelling, tangible image of the preferred future. Makes sense. So how can a leader accurately and effectively identify a future state of the church? Let's talk. How do I how can that happen? I think it's well, it's something that once you've done that sort of identifying the, you know, the patterns driving you towards change, then as as a group, you're looking at what what is this? What does it look like to address this sort of area that's causing us urgency? And then you start sort of talking about those, you know, alternate futures of where this problem has been fixed. And so what does that look like? Two alternate futures keyword good one. Another thing you said several times, you said we as opposed to I think it's so important you have gotten that that group of leaders together, you know, listen to. I think if it's the church, it's very much tied into our calling as a people. And I think I'm thinking of a master of this, I guess would be the I have a dream teach. He was sharing a passion for this better world that he had. And he clearly stated, you know, my kids would play with, you know, different kids. Something you could see the vision. Martin Luther King was also helping people say what they wanted to say. And so there was a sense, you're right. But he was giving them a picture of what the pictures of hope were in their minds. So it wasn't something foreign to them. It was something that they could grasp power of because it was deep in their psyche and their soul as well.

[00:09:45] And so part of this identifying is to help people say what they want to say, to feel what they want to feel, to see what they want to see. You know, we all know that good preaching. We don't tell people what they want to hear, but it is helpful to tell people what they want to say because it it it helps to to to identify that God thing that's going on within us. And the key key phrase is we rephrase, we as critical. As you say, people are going to just want to keep stable and they're going to be comfortable in their own comfortable ness. And so we have to allow them to see how uncomfortable they are or bring it to their attention to something they haven't noticed before. And I think that's the first step. You know, you think you're comfortable, but I'm going to I'm going to help you to feel uncomfortable, but I'll show you how urgent this is. Boy, that team is so important because you do that, you can network throughout the others. If it's just the one man that might have the one man or the one woman, that might happen once. But they're going to give up real fast if that individual wants to bring about change too frequently. Well, this tangible, compelling image of a preferred future, the more specific, the better is so critical. I just couldn't help but get serious and talk about Alice in Wonderland. Alice, would you tell me, please, which way ought to walk from here? She asked Cheshire. That depends a good deal on where you want to get to. Alice, I don't much care where. Then it doesn't matter which way you walk, said the cat. So long as I get somewhere.

[00:11:38] Alice said as an explanation. Oh, you're sure to do that, said the cat. If only you walk long enough. So this tangible image, compelling, tangible image of a preferred future is so important for a collective to identify there and then to develop a strategy for that future. The strategy, of course, supports the future state. As strategies got to be realistic, they've got to be manageable. We we won't spend a whole lot of time on strategy simply because because we most of us are already familiar with this with strategic planning. Remember I said before that as you think about strategies, remember that resources are flexible, processes tend to resist flexibility. And so it's going to be more important to focus on processes and and what needs to happen in terms of changing those processes within any system within the church. So here's just a strategy process. Define your objectives, categorize articulate, set goals, prioritize, and so forth, that that's a strategy process that that that many of us are familiar with. But identifying that future state and developing a strategy is important before we go public. So we've talked about three, three major steps in the unfreezing process. We've talked about establishing a sense of a sense of urgency through SWOT analysis, through forceful analysis, through looking at life cycle and through focusing on positive change, through inspiration. We've talked about creating a guiding coalition, which is a group of people that have the clout, that have the capacity to influence others, that can move this organization through the change, and then to identify the future state and the collective together, focus on way and develop that strategy. This all goes goes on before we go public. Uh, to say it just bluntly. Um. Then the fourth stage when we actually get the change step is to communicate the desired change.

[00:13:54] Now, again, this is what I wish I had known when I started out in ministry, because I thought communicating the desired change was the first step, not the fourth. And we save ourselves enormous pain. If we follow this process and do the homework that we're supposed to do before the change gets announced publicly. Questions. Thoughts? Remember, the road is full of landmines. This is not perfect, but it is very helpful to think this way as we're thinking about initiating processing change. This is going to be hard to do because if an individual or a leader wants to see the change, I would think that is just bubbling within him and her to say this right and then to try to put people or get people on board. Yeah, obviously. But I mean, for me that what you just sort of talked about, oh, he was giving time like in a sales training class. And that's what I hear as I do a lot of sales in my former life. And so that that's what. And but the big thing of that is like, you can't rush to the n can't like, ask him to marry you on the first date. There's all these steps you have to go. So you can't just go and say, well, you can't just, you know, say, we won't change this right at the beginning. Or that they haven't they haven't gone with you on all these that are steps along the way. Then you have to kind of come to the conclusion of what you want to change together or they're not going to be on board. And so, you know, you can't you can't make all these decisions before they've had any time to think about it. Yeah.

[00:15:48] And and so when we're talking about this, communicate the desired change. Understand that the first step, again was establishing a sense of urgency. And we talked about communicating, communicating these strengths and weaknesses and opportunities and threats. And so you're providing hints along the way. But as we actually go to identifying this compelling, tangible image of the preferred future state, this is step four, not step one. That's a point. So what do we mean by communicating the desired future state? Communicate by every means possible. In other words, there's the the whole idea of you've probably heard the word creative redundancy be creatively redundant. The larger the group, the more creatively redundant we need to be in our communication. Redundancy is is a can can irritate people unless it's creative. Uh, it but but unless we're redundant, it's likely that people aren't going to hear. Well, I told them once, what's the problem? It needs to be redundant. And secondly, acknowledge people's needs, acknowledge their pain, go back to recognize what people are going through when they experience change. Uh, acknowledge the the pain, the death and dying. Even acknowledge the steps in that that people are likely to experience. Thirdly, use language everybody can understand. This is sometimes requires the advance or on your team to help interpret the vision the the preferred future state. Sometimes a cleric types can can use all kinds of language. That sounds great to theologians, but it doesn't work for people that are so affected by the change. So use the language. Everybody understand, emphasize the positive. In other words, go again. Go back to the the sense that the positive is what most people toward desired goals be creatively redundant, as we've said, shift from either way. That's again we we need to use this is about us not about any single individual.

[00:18:32] And then so important the guiding coalition needs to model the future from the beginning that it's so important for the leaders to lead by example. People watch their leaders very closely, particularly in times of change and crisis. Remember that inconsistent behavior by leadership, by the guiding coalition, fuels cynicism and frustration within the collective. So this is something that needs to be needs to be communicated pretty clearly. The reasons for the change need to be articulated on a consistent basis. What problems are we trying to solve? What needs are we trying to meet? How this change will glorify God and reveal the Gospel. How the change will reach people. Help people reach their highest kingdom potential, including the people that you're talking to. How the process is going to work. That's why the strategy needs to be pretty well developed before you come out of the blocks with it. How and when and where people's voices are going to be heard in the process. There need to be points along the way. Signposts say, okay, next week we want to have an open forum. We want to answer your questions. We want to hear from you. That needs to be on a consistent basis throughout a change initiative and then that preserving to emphasize the proverbs, preserving and strengthening relationships will always be a priority within the church that we, we, we we want all the sheep to survive this and we want to be fulfilled and reaching our potential when it's all said and done. One of the one of the things to keep in mind too, is to relate to a variety of learning styles. Sometimes I can get very conceptual in my discussions. I can talk about organizational theory and I can talk about, you know, disequilibrium and I can talk about disruption and all this this stuff and forget the fact that there are left brain and right, right brain people.

[00:20:35] Some people are very comfortable with concepts. Others are are comfortable with with pictures. There are some people who learn audibly. My son is an auditory learner. He can listen to a comedian and almost verbatim repeat what that comedian has said. It's just amazing to me. I can't hear two sentences and feed them back to you. I'm a visual learner, and if I see a name on a piece of paper, I'm likely to remember it. But if you tell me your name, it takes enormous concentration for me to remember it. There are others that learn through hands on. So remembering as you communicate the future state that there are all kinds of learning styles within the group of people that you're communicating with and appeal to those learning styles so that people can really catch what it is that you're what you're talking about.

 

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