COACHING FORORGANIZATIONALCHANGE 173
David Dotlich
Creating a Theory for Change
D
espite the number of books that have been written about change, few
leaders have developed their own theory for how change happens. A lot
ofthe coaching I do is to help people elicit, form, or create their own theory
for making change occur in their work, their organizations, or their lives.
The people I coach fall into three broad categories. Most are CEOs or
senior leaders of Fortune 50 companies or global organizations. A coaching
engagement with someone at that level is rarely limited to a single issue or
challenge. Instead, we move back and forth together, covering organizational
and business challenges as well as personal and life issues. A second kind of
coaching that I do occurs with executives engaged in action learning pro-
grams. These are shorter relationships designed to link behavior to business
requirements. The third area of coaching is with line executives and heads of
Human Resources driving organizational change by linking business strategy
with learning initiatives.
Before we begin, I discern whether the people I am coaching know what
they want to accomplish and where they want to go. Although they usually
know what they need to achieve or develop, they often lack an understanding
ofhow change happens. Sometimes, however, we need to back up and de-
velop clarity about where they want to take the organization or determine
the defined objectives they want to meet. From there, we develop a theoryDavid Dotlich, CEO and Managing Partner of CDR In-
ternational, a Mercer Delta Company, consults to execu-
tive committees, CEOs, and senior leaders in the areas of
leadership, business strategy, and executive coaching.
Pr ior to founding CDR International, Dr. Dotlich was
Executive Vice President of Groupe Bull, and Corporate
Vice President of Human Resources for Honey well Inter-
national. Prior to that he was a professor on the faculty of
the University of Minnesota, teaching in the Business
School and the Department of Speech-Communication. He is the coauthor
with Peter Cairo of three books: Why CEOs Fail: The 11 Behaviors that Can
Derail Your Climb to the Top—And How To Manage Them; Action Coaching:
How to Leverage Individual Performance for Company Success;and Unnatural
Leadership: Going Against Intuition and Experience to Develop Ten New
Leadership Instincts.With Jim Noel, he coauthored Action Learning: How the
World’s Best Companies Develop Their Top Leaders and Themselvesand the
forthcoming book, Head, Hear t, and Guts.He can be reached by e-mail at
[email protected].