End-of-Chapter Exercises
TOOLKIT EXERCISE 5.1
Critical Thinking Questions
Food Banks Canada is a very interesting turnaround story about a not-for-profit national
organization that was created by its affiliated members, so they could better address
hunger issues and get needed food to the poor. In response to declining relevance and
poor performance, it altered its governance process, opted for a federated structure,
a. Katharine Schmidt is reflecting on Food Bank Canada’s accomplishments and
challenges of the last five years and considering what they should strategically
target now. Should they stay with their current strategy or alter course?
c. What do you think Schmidt should recommend they do? To accomplish this, will
there need to be changes to their structure or governance approach?
d. What should Schmidt go about generating needed support and approvals from the
National Board, her Staff, the Member Council and affiliated food banks?
e. How should she turn those approvals into successful actions and outcomes?
• How did the video use data to engage listeners?
• Think of an organization you are familiar with (it could be public,
private, a not-for-profit or a branch of government)? What are the
change implications for it, if it were to adopt this approach?
• What do you think this organization should do to enhance its
flexibility and readiness for change?
TOOLKIT EXERCISE 5.2
Impact of Existing Structures and Systems on Change
Think of a change you are familiar with.
1. How did the organization use structures and systems to deal with the uncertainty
and complexity in the environment?
How could the existing structures and systems have been approached and used
differently to advance the desired change?
b. How did these systems/structures influence what happened?
Was this related to how they were formally designed or was this related to
how they actually came to be used in practice?
affect the outcomes that ensued?
3. What role could incremental strategies that were nested with existing systems and
structures have played? Would they have really moved the process forward or
simply avoided the real changes that needed to be addressed?
How would you manage the challenges created by this?
TOOLKIT EXERCISE 5.3
Gaining Approval for the Change Project
Consider a change project in an organization with which you are familiar.
1. What is the approval process for more minor change initiatives?
For more major change initiatives?
Can you describe the processes involved?
a) If a project requires capital approval, are there existing capital budgeting
processes?
c) Does the project alter the way work is organized and performed?
What are the systems and processes used for defining jobs and assessing
performance?
approval power do they have?
2. Are there ways that the perceived risks of the change could have been reduced by
the way the change leader staged the project and managed the approval process?