"We've lost staff, and we've kept positions open in case of budget cuts, but our workload hasn't decreased." "Some of the priorities of the university have increased our workload, but we don't have any additional staff." "Our unit is being restructured, and roles are changing." "I wonder how I can help staff members in my area adjust to the changes?"

Sound familiar? A new Leading Change workshop, offered by Kathy Burkgren and Chris Halladay from the Division of Human Resources' Organizational Effectiveness unit, helps Cornell leaders meet such challenges.

Last summer, after some 430 staff members took the staff retirement incentive, Burkgren and Halladay received numerous queries about how to adjust workloads when the number of staff members has been reduced but the expectations have not. To respond to these inquiries, Burkgren and Halladay, working with campus leaders, developed a set of work-planning tools that are now taught in a one-day workshop, Leading Change.

Since January, 78 human resource and business officers and departmental leaders have taken the workshop, which has been offered four times.

"We start with a diagnostic tool," Burkgren says. "Where are you in the change process? At the goal alignment stage, deciding your organization's mission and vision? Do you have specific goals? Do you know how those align with the university's goals and with your anticipated budget?"

Sometimes organizations already have developed a strategic plan and goals but are overwhelmed by their day-to-day work.

"We ask leaders to group this work into 'buckets' -- must-dos, should-dos, nice-to-dos and won't dos," says Burkgren. "If you're not spending your time on must-dos and should-dos, figure out why."

Such was the case with the Cornell Agricultural Experiment Station in Ithaca, says Mike Hoffmann, director and associate dean in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. "Because of retirements and restructuring in units we work with, more work is falling to our staff," he says. "In addition, like the university, we are placing more emphasis on sustainability, and that has resulted in many new opportunities coming our way. This is a good thing but if unchecked can be overwhelming."

In using the diagnostic tool, Hoffmann realized his unit had too many -- 40 -- priorities. After "bucketing" them, four priorities surfaced: sustainability, renewable bioenergy, communications and running a first-class research facility. Hoffmann will be working with the next tier of management to tie their work to these priorities. "We need to be able to say 'no' when necessary. This tool helps us determine what is important," he says.

Don Viands, associate dean of academic programs in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, used the tool to handle budget cuts through reorganization: "We have five units ... [with impending] budget cuts; we knew we would need to reorganize."

Viands and his leadership team listed their offices' activities under the department's goals rather than by unit, which allowed them to see that one unit, Admissions, was very different from the others. "We are merging the similar units, going from a total of five units and receptionists to two," Viands says. The merger will involve staff relocations and office moves this summer, bringing the four merged units together in one space.

Organizational changes can result in reassigning staff and rewriting position descriptions. Supervisors need to know how to help staff with these individual changes as well as with broader ones. Halladay says, "People move from being content with their current state, to denying an impending change, through confusion about what the change means personally, to renewal. It is important to help them understand and move through these stages."

The Organizational Effectiveness website http://www.hr.cornell.edu/life/career/leading_change.html houses the diagnostic and other change management tools. To have Burkgren or Halladay speak with your management team about leading change in your unit, contact them at 607-254-6400.