Page 5 - The Phases of Culture Change

Phase IV: Team Development
If your design incorporates a house- hold, neighborhood or cluster model, begin as soon as possible to identify future team members so they may begin working together and with the residents. This gives them an opportunity to learn shared decision-making and to shape their future team.
Valuable experience with teams can be gained almost immediately by creat- ing facility-wide work teams to help redesign your home’s operational sys- tems and practices. The members of these teams, if given decision-making authority, will develop the skills needed in future, self-directed work teams that serve the elders.
A future edition of this Journal will fea- ture stories of teams from many facilities and detail organizational and personal changes needed to restructure to Teams.
Phase V: Implementation
The Implementation Phase starts when
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your design decisions begin to be actual- ized in the development of new job descriptions, reporting structures, poli- cies and procedures. It manifests in new work assignments and scheduling, and in training staff in the technical and peo- ple skills required for the transition to work teams and the redefined positions.
Implementation is the final dividing line between the old way and the new. When you cross that line, you want everyone in your organization stepping over together, hand-in-hand.
One way to encourage that is to orga- nize a Strategic Change Event to mark the transition to a new model of care giv- ing. The goal of the event is to help everyone ‘get it’—to understand and commit to the vision so that immediate- ly after, staff, residents and family are moving in the same direction on the journey to Home.
Folks at North Country Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Bemidji, MN, organized “Odyssey 2001”— 4 full days of food, fun and workshops, to symbol- ize their transition to neighborhoods and
the dramatic shift in how they care for elders.
They acquired and decorated space in a nearby church to accommodate large gatherings of staff, residents, family members, trustees, members of the cor- porate auxiliary and individuals from the community. Everyone who attended received an Odyssey 2001 t-shirt.
Action Pact and members of the North Country leadership team present- ed 4-hour workshops on culture change throughout the 4 days. Learning circles gave everyone an opportunity to share their ideas and fears, strengthening their sense of community. Nearly a year of planning and training for culture change preceded the event, says Sandy Runningen, Administrator, so by the time Odyssey 2001 was held, 100% of the staff participated.
The Strategic Change Event at the Liberal Good Samaritan in Liberal, KS, took on a theatrical flavor in honoring the past while celebrating a new begin- ning with the Eden Alternative.
At an open house attended by 150
Carolyn Lorbiecki talking with
Hugo about his many years as a custodian during a daily learning circle at Northern Pines.
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Image from the Action Pact video, “Becoming Who They Were Building Community Among Elders With Dementia.”
©2008 Action Pact, Inc. This For more information, or to order this or any
article is reprinted with permission from Culture Change Now! Magazine, Volume One.
of our products, please visit our website at www.culturechangenow.com or call us at (414)258-3649.