Title: Making Change: Boosting Progress and Poise During Transitions 

Event: City of Portland, Office of Management and Finance, All-Employee Retreat

Date: August 24, 2017, 1:00-2:00 P.M.

Speaker: Christopher Dennis

Situation

The employees of the Bureau of Internal Business Services (BIBS) are facing a significant amount of change--the Portland Building move, enhancements to perimeter security, and enhanced customer service standards are just a few examples.

How can the employees engage productively in change and support each other when things are new and unfamiliar?

Solution 

A 1-hour call to action. Fast-paced and focused on individual contributions, the session gives employees tools to help themselves, their colleagues, and their customers—and it gives them the motivation to put the tools to work.

Description for Participants

Feeling overwhelmed by a pile of new duties and responsibilities? Worried because the movers are trucking your comfortable cubicle across town? Want to keep serving the City when you’re a bit dizzy from the pace of change? 

We’re getting wiser about handling the change and challenges of the modern workplace. 

Within a BIBS context, we will differentiate the emotional realities of change from the behavioral necessities of our work. Next we learn ways to express the unavoidable emotions in a way that doesn’t counteract our efforts to make real and valuable change. We will also focus on how to make change easier for ourselves, and by so doing, reduce the impact on our selves, or co-workers, and our citizens.

Objectives 

By the end of the session, attendees will be better able to:  

• Identify emotional processes associated with change
• Articulate their emotional state relative to major changes happening in their environment
• List the practices that help implement necessary change
• Identify steps that make it easier to adopt new behaviors
• Speak out loud about what’s challenging and how they intend to meet their challenges