Make Change Work: Staying Nimble, Relevant, and Engaged in a World of Constant Change

CHAPTER 6

BUY-IN

Where Change Legends Are Made

Faced with the choice between changing one’s mind and proving that there is no need to do so, almost everybody gets busy on the proof.

—John Kenneth Galbraith

THERE WAS DANCING AND SINGING

“We are BSC, and I’ve got all my people with me.”

Can you hear the melody from the 1979 dance hit by Sister Sledge? The 200 or so employees of the newly developed Business Service Center (BSC) at the University of North Texas (UNT) System could, and they were having a great time.

The event was the official kickoff of a new organizational structure that had been in the active planning and development stages for nine months and talked about for at least a year before that.

Today was the official kickoff led by the newly created leadership team. It included speeches, Q&A sessions, a frank discussion of the vision and desired culture, and, most important, open dialogue about what the changes meant for the UNT System, the internal customers served by the BSC, and the employees themselves.

At the end of the 3-hour session, work teams had met for the first time with their new leadership and coworkers, and they caught a glimpse of the enthusiasm of their leaders.

A LONG TIME COMING

The outcome of this session would have been different nine months earlier. The campuses within the UNT System had traditionally operated as autonomous organizations at every ...