Managing change
New Horizon Consulting Pty Ltd manages change by understanding how your organisation works.
We know that organisational change is not a simple, linear path in which the organisation takes step after step in the right direction. Instead it's more like finding a way through a complex city without a map. It's a process of backward, forward and sideways motion in which people make errors, build new alliances and find common ground before change is implemented.
We use powerful participative techniques that involve multiple levels in the organisation, who together build a strong picture of an agreed future of the organisation.
Human curiosity fuels the urge to change, to gain new knowledge and to explore opportunities. But people can lose confidence when curiosity leads them into the terra incognita that is encountered as part of change. Foreword from Verna Blewett and Andrea Shaw, 1997. Best Practice in OHS Management. CCH Australia:Sydney
Our work is informed by many influences that we have experienced. In particular, we draw on appreciative inquiry and future search conference techniques. We use tried and tested participative techniques tailored to suit the needs of your organisation. We focus on building on what works well instead of looking into the bottomless pit of problems, and we encourage people to work together to create alliances that help make the workplace a better place to be.
Appreciative inquiry aims to examine new directions for action by looking at what works well now, rather than at problem solving. Problem solving tends to be slow, it encourages people to look backward in a search for causes of problems, is about closing gaps rather than looking for fresh ideas, and tends to generate feelings of defensiveness and blame that reinforce power and control agendas. A focus on positive stories and ideas generates a respect for what has been done well, identifies and affirms the part that individuals play in the organisation, reinforces accepted values and invites an expansion of ideas.
We can help you chart a course through the process of organisational change.
Future searching is a collaborative process aimed at having the 'whole system' in the room so that many perspectives are brought together to work on a specific and task-focused agenda. It's a collaborative process that encourages creativity, commitment to actions that are grounded in reality, the formation of new working relationships and voluntary cooperation. The process gives participants the opportunity to share leadership and engage as peers in robust discussion, in an environment focused on the future.
We offer an amalgam of collaborative techniques tailored to the needs of your organisation. We facilitate exciting and ideas-generating workshops and staff conferences that allow participants to be positive, creative and generative. Typically, participants work consistently at a 'fast relaxed' pace but in the process have fun and are energized. They often find that they can do things that they thought were difficult or impossible.
Change is always challenging to some, often because it involves a transfer of power and control. As an external change agent, New Horizon Consulting Pty Ltd is able to ask the questions that are considered to be unaskable by members within the organisation. We can facilitate a shift in perception within the organisation that leads to an understanding of the need for change and how to achieve it.
Our role is not to impose our own ideas, but to influence the thinking of members of the organisation so that they understand the boundaries of the change. This enables them to generate and implement their own ideas within these boundaries. That is, we help the members of the organisation learn to develop an outsider's perspective from a variety of frames of reference; to become mindful of their organisation.
We offer you a collaborative approach to changing your organisation to a desirable place to work; a place where mutual respect operates and where creative thinking and productivity are essential components of work.
Our focus is on assisting your organisation to become a powerhouse of practical ideas that you can, and do, put into practice.
