Mission Statement

The Change Leadership Network is dedicated to supporting change leaders and their teams with practical real-world advice from experienced people who successfully lead change every day. Our holistic approach emphasizes the importance of the people side of managing change. We demonstrate how effective collaboration and communication skills intertwine with solid project management techniques. We provide tools and guidance for achieving the change that today’s business environment demands.

Vision

Professionals, who handle complex collaborative projects, turn to the Change Leadership Network when they need real-world solutions to move their projects forward. They freely share their problems, approaches and solutions and take away advice they can put to work right away. Users of the Change Leadership Network come to expect that our advice will always take into account the people aspects of the issue. We recognize that true collaboration requires a common, clearly articulated goal or goals. We understand that communication takes place with the listener. We know that effective project management requires standard processes that are always followed. Our advice—in our books, our blogs, our articles, on our future webcasts—always addresses all three issues: communications, collaboration and project management.

History

The Change Leadership Network took root at the University of Michigan, within The Institute of Continuing Legal Education (ICLE), which provides law practice training and resources to lawyers. The University of Michigan’s supportive environment for innovation was critical for ICLE as it faced daunting changes over the last decade. Once reliant on income from print publishing operation and live seminar presentations, ICLE now offers primarily Web-based services to its customers. This shift transformed our working environment and staff roles. In the past, we used expert volunteer speakers and authors as well as in-house legal, editorial and administrative staff to produce our books and seminars. Now, we are experts with complex Web technology, user interfaces, online publishing systems, webcasting, video production, customer service, and training as we offer our customers Web-based content, training and service. Along the way we had to tackle the unknown again and again. We discovered that innovation requires expert communication, collaboration, and project management skills, not just legal skills. What a change this was for us! To cope with this change, we learned a lot of lessons.

The Change Leadership Network and our Simple Lessons for Change Leaders and Teams book grew out of those simple lessons for complex work. Many organizations and workers struggle with completing projects on time and within budget. The real challenge is to address the people side of the issue—effective communication and conflict resolution—along with the forms and process side of project management. We took on this challenge in our book and now take it on with our blog at this Web site. ICLE benefited enormously from lessons learned as we led change initiatives. We decided to publish our book and launch this Web site to share our insights and exchange ideas with others.

What’s Next?

In the coming months and years, we plan to offer many more change leadership products and services, including books, video demonstrations, online training modules, and interactive tests in the following areas:
• Strategic planning
• Collaboration
• Communication
• Meeting management
• Project management
• Decision making

Participate!

Please share your own practice tips, time savers, and educational exercises, and keep up with our latest additions to change leadership guidance. Add your comments to our blog discussion on this Web site. Let us know about the lessons you have learned as you’ve tackled change initiatives. If you have questions, send them to our experts, Karen Brown and Yvette Harms at authors@changeleadershipnetwork.org. We’ll answer directly as well as share our insights in future blogs.