Bottom Up Change Tool

The Change Lab

Immersing people in what is actually happening
xx Seeing reality with fresh eyes

Enabling the people who will be directly involved to observe each other's services in action, getting closer to the people and places they are serving. This develops a shared understanding of the people and community they all serve, the contributions they make and the improvements required from the customer's/citizen's perspective. This clarifies the real demand for the service - not what service providers think it is. Everyone must get involved and cannot be mere onlookers. People only really know what they do.

LINKS: Listening : Questioning : Observation

Interpreting and connecting people's
xxdifferent perceptions
xx Making sense of what's possible

Facilitating a dialogue between people from multiple-disciplines and multiple viewpoints supports the development of new interpretations of reality. Seeing familiar things from a different perspective allows people's imaginations to entertain new possibilities. The role of the facilitator is to help participants see the patterns and relationships between the objects and events they are familiar with. This builds openness to other contexts.

LINKS: Dialogue : Process Mapping : Dilemmas :

Inspiring people to want to be better
xxand to do it together
xxAccessing inner sources of creativity

Coaching people and providing them with mentor support is the most effective way of helping people to aspire to higher expectations of themselves (inside-out), to connect with what's important to their bosses (top-down), to the people they serve (outside-in), and the people whose support is needed to make it happen (bottom-up). This involves balancing a number of competing interests.

LINKS: Coaching : Mentoring : Dynamic Change

Instant action and implementing
xxof new ways of working
xxCapitalising on new opportunities

This allows the people who are directly involved to learn from the experience of doing. This provides a clear focus and fast experimentation, quickly ruling out options that do not work. People can now work together to formulate and monitor work plans and processes for embedding new ways of working. This requires establishing new habits and patterns of work, sharing time and space to work across and beyond the old boundaries.

LINKS: After Action Reviews : Action Learning : Action Plans