Bart Vaessen - Lindenberg
Bart Vaessen, Director, Lindenberg, House of the Arts
"De Lindenberg was in the middle of a merger involving two, different-sized organizations. A small-scale theater came to join a large-scale arts-education institute. We used the Change Monitor to guide that merger.
We chose for the Change Monitor as a baseline assessment. The survey was held shortly after the organizations had started sharing the same space and the results were discussed soon after. It turned out that each group saw the merger process from a different perspective.
For me, the Change Monitor formed the basis for the change agenda. The results were recognizable. They showed there to be a very solid base of support for the merger among the personnel, but also that we had hardly been capable of taking advantage of that base in a positive way. The analysis of the answers gave us insight into how we could make the most of that base of support in the merger.
The nice thing about the intervention was the concrete agenda for the change process that came out of it. We could use the Change Monitor operationally as a change instrument. I found it to be good as a baseline assessment. Other methods, for example a culture scan, often fail to lead to real clarity.
One of these days now, three years after the merger, I would like to do the Change Monitor again to see how we have progressed. That would help us set the agenda for what we need to do next. I can definitely recommend the Change Monitor. If carried out properly, it can be of real help in complicated change processes."