7 minutes
What you actually move Change is not a slide deck. You move people’s work, identity, and trust.
What you’ll be able to do Identify the practical implication of “What you actually move” and apply it to one live DHS decision connected to Change Management: Bringing People Along. Compare the responses to this question and explain your choice: What should happen before the work is locked? Document a next step for What you actually move: Choose one live work object, name a change or formal escalation, assign an owner, and set the date the result will be reviewed. Bringing people along looks like a working conversation, not an all-staff banner. Minimization in this work: people find out after the memo. Adaptation: they find out with the work. This course does not assign a score.
Why this is a leadership course When a policy is signed, a system go-live is dated, or a reorg chart is posted, leaders often feel the change is “done.” Staff still have to stop doing the old work, learn the new work, and face the public who did not get the memo. Counties, Tribal Nations, and providers may hear it after the press release. People who use services may hear it from a letter they cannot use.
That gap is not a communications glitch. It is a design choice about whose time and trust count. Specialists can help with a rollout plan. They do not own whether people were treated as passengers or as partners.
This lesson names what you actually move when you sponsor a change. Later lessons show how rollouts usually fail here, who finds out last, two honest frames, and a method that fits ordinary work — the along-loop.
In this lesson Separate an announcement from bringing people along.
Name what a change costs in work, identity, and trust.
Spot the difference between buy-in theater and real influence.
Own the sponsor job: you cannot delegate being present for the loss.
If they find out last, you did not manage the change. You mailed it.
Terms used with care Corporate change language is evidence, not the staff-facing deliverable. These are the terms this course uses on purpose.
Key terms Bring along
People who will live with the change can influence the design early enough that the design can still move. Example: county eligibility staff see the new form before it is locked, and one field is cut because it will fail at the counter.
Announcement
Information after the decision, with no path to change it. Necessary sometimes. Not the same as leadership. Example: an all-staff email the morning of a go-live.
Transition
The inner process of ending the old way, walking a gap, and beginning the new. The org chart can change on Monday. People are still in the gap on Thursday. Name the ending or they will keep the old work alive in secret.
Resistance as data
Pushback is often information: a missed partner, an unworkable step, a trust debt. Some resistance is self-protection. Treat it as a signal first, not a character flaw.
Who holds which part Project managers schedule. Communications writes. HR and labor relations handle the formal workforce path. Tribal and Urban Indian Relations supports consultation. None of that removes the sponsor’s job: stay in the room for the people the change will land on.
What sits with leaders versus specialists Leaders own the ending You decide whether the old way is named as a real loss, whether front-line staff hear it from you or from a client, and whether “we don’t have time to engage” is allowed to stand. Culture is set by who gets a draft and who gets a directive.
Specialists support the path Use project, communications, training, labor relations, and consultation experts. Bring them in early. Do not hand them a finished decision and ask for “buy-in slides.”
People who do the work should not have to decode it alone Staff, county partners, and the public should not reverse-engineer a change from a rumor, a leaked slide, or a letter with no contact. “They’ll figure it out” is a leadership statement about whose time you are willing to burn.
Presence is operational: closed laptop, notes, a chance that the design can still move. The shift this course asks for Move from “how do we get them to accept this?” to “who has to live with this, and how early can they still change it?” Acceptance is a lagging measure. Design access is a leading one.
DHS-wide, not a vendor script Kotter, ADKAR, and other models are public evidence that under-communication and skipped coalitions fail. They are not the One DHS deliverable. Minnesota DHS change also lands on a county-supervised, state-administered system, on eleven Tribal Nations, on unions, and on people whose benefits and safety can move when we move. That is the practice context.
Where leaders drop people Staff Counties & providers Tribal Nations The public
Supervisors learn in a meeting. The people who answer the phone learn from the first angry call. Hybrid staff miss the hallway version. Night and weekend coverage is an afterthought.
A memo after the decision. No time to change local procedure, staffing, or notices. Partners are treated as a distribution list, not a design partner.
Consultation is not a stakeholder workshop. If a change affects Tribal citizens or Tribal programs, “we cc’d the list” is not consultation. Use the DHS Tribal and Urban Indian Relations path early.
A letter, a website update, or a news item. If the notice is English-only, untagged, or arrives after the rule is already in force, people did not get a change. They got a surprise.
Sort these statements Choose a statement, then choose the bucket. The point is not to make communications the villain. It is to stop hiding sponsor work inside a send button.
Announcement or bringing along? All-staff email the morning a new script goes live.
Choose a category Announcement only Bringing people along Someone else owns the formal path Front-line staff mark up the script two weeks earlier and one step is cut.
Choose a category Announcement only Bringing people along Someone else owns the formal path A change in hours that may affect a bargaining agreement.
Choose a category Announcement only Bringing people along Someone else owns the formal path County partners see the draft notice and flag a date that collides with their peak week.
Choose a category Announcement only Bringing people along Someone else owns the formal path A press release before supervisors have talking points.
Choose a category Announcement only Bringing people along Someone else owns the formal path Check matches Reset Next: how this usually fails in human services — so “people resist change” stops being the diagnosis.
Put this lesson to work What you can change You control whether what you actually move changes a live DHS process connected to Change Management: Bringing People Along or remains information on a page.
What to watch for The team completes the learning, keeps the same default, assigns no owner, and never checks who carries the burden.
Your next step Choose one live work object, name a change or formal escalation, assign an owner, and set the date the result will be reviewed.
Carry this forward Change is not a slide deck. You move people’s work, identity, and trust.
You control whether what you actually move changes a live DHS process connected to Change Management: Bringing People Along or remains information on a page.
Choose one live work object, name a change or formal escalation, assign an owner, and set the date the result will be reviewed.
Completion is shown by a scenario decision, a knowledge-check response, a completed sort and a saved one-minute commitment.
Choose one live work object, name a change or formal escalation, assign an owner, and set the date the result will be reviewed.
Browse and download only. Course notes are not typed or saved on this page.
Reset this lesson
Course overview Next lesson Participation and course completion in this program do not count toward DHS-required training credits unless management, a director, or DHS leadership expressly approves an exception.
