Organizational Transformation
Transformation requires slowing down, leading from a place of vulnerability, and being willing to look at shadows. This week’s Community Call was led by Robert Mulhall of Kripalu, who shared a presentation on organizational transformation, including social conformity, organizational culture, the Theory U framework, and his personal insights on leadership and transformation.
Click the video above to get the full conversation.
Here are a few excerpts and concepts taken from our time together.
Organizational culture develops over time, reinforced via a natural process of social conformity. We actively respond to “beeps,” often without knowing what they are or why we’re responding.
Slowing down and gaining awareness is key. The Theory U framework moves leaders through a U-shaped transformational process, from intellectual to embodied physical and subtle awareness of organizational culture. At the bottom of the U, the ‘narrow gate’ of radical honesty and vulnerability offers an opening to new insights, which crystallize slowly.
The inverse of this creative and emergent process is a pattern we often see in organizations, shown below in blue: a tightly-held resistance that becomes destructive.
To lead an organization into transformation, encourage opportunities to balance challenge and skill. This is where growth blooms naturally.
As organizational transformation (or any large change) occurs, there will be many emotional responses, illustrated as colored circles below. Leaders can care for the community by contributing solutions and support from the correlated colored options on the right.
Facilitator: Robert Mulhall, Kripalu
More notes, visuals, and an audio recording of this session are available at the link below.