Organizational Muscles to Manage Change

Posted on May 8, 2012 by changegal| Leave a comment
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We have been working with several large organizations lately that are trying to build their internal ability to manage ongoing change.  Change is the new normal for many organizations.  Managing how people adapt and adopt change is something that many are seeing as a critical competency.

Change Management is the discipline of helping people in an organization get ready, willing, and able to work in new ways that are required by a change.   Many leaders that see a long string of changes ahead of them are looking to build an internal Change Management competency.  They, in effect, are trying to build their change muscles so that they can handle the seemingly endless series of changes headed for them.

Organizations that build a Change Management competency do a few things.

First, they foster leadership sponsorship for employing Change Management.  Leaders at the highest levels know what Change Management is and why managing change will help them change more successfully.  And they are committed to making Change Management a strong capability in the organization.  They are willing to stand up in front of the effort,  to put money where their mouth is, and walk the talk.

Second, these organizations use a common methodology and model  for managing change.  Having a common Change Management framework across the organization builds a common language that shapes the way people think and talk about change.  A common model also introduces methods and tools that can help people in the organization actually do the work of managing change.

 

Third, organizations that have a Change Management competency have a broad based understanding of the value of Change Management throughout all levels of the organization.  Everyone has a baseline understanding of why people make the difference between successful organizational change and unsuccessful change, and why managing change is important.

These organizations also each have a strong and capable Change Management team.  A group of people in the organization who are focused on supporting the organization as they begin incorporating Change Management into their projects and change efforts helps the new practices take hold.  The Change Management group has highly capable team members, clear roles and responsibilities, and an appropriate or organization structure.

Lastly, organizations that have a strong Change Management competency reinforce effectively managed change.  When projects succeed because teams have helped people in the organization engage and adopt new work, they are celebrated and rewarded.  Leaders eagerly to put effective changes in the limelight, and the organization learns what successful change looks like.

If you see change coming at your organization like a speeding train, don’t hide.  Instead, develop a change management competency.   That way, you can face change head-on now, and you will be ready for all of the changes to come in the future.

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The Magic Forumula: Business Intelligence PLUS Change Management

Posted on March 20, 2012 by changegal| Leave a comment
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Leaders make decisions every day.  If you connect the dots, almost every single decision is made in hopes of eventually making more money, improving the quality of life for their customers, improving the quality of life for their employees, or improving their chances of doing any of those things in the future.

Leaders of organizations have a tremendous amount of data available these days that can help them make those decisions.

This morning I went to a symposium about Business Intelligence.  I am no expert, but from my layperson’s perspective, I would say that Business Intelligence is the practice of using data to make decisions.

Organizations that don’t do any Business Intelligence work make decisions based on hunches or “gut feelings”.  As organizations start to use Business Intelligence, they start to look at data about what has happened in the past.  They eventually start to develop insights locally and then enterprise wide, until they have a mature, predictive Business Intelligence capability.   (That’s summing up a lot of what I heard in just a few short sentences, but you get the gist.)

The challenging part of each decision a leader makes is the necessary link to human behavior.   A speaker at the symposium actually joked, “people are a big headache”.  He said it flippantly, but it was a key insight about how Business Intelligence and Business Analytics translate into improved organizational outcomes.

An organization that wants to change its outputs must always either change the inputs or change what they do with those inputs in their organization.  It’s just like a simple machine.  If leaders want to change what comes out of their organization (a new product, a different type or level of service, a better positioned brand, better strategic positioning in the marketplace, more money in the bank because less is spent on costly operations, faster ways to deliver products and services, etc…), then changes need to happen inside of the organization.

Analytical models, whiz-bang technical systems that grind and crunch information, and even whiz-bang brainiacs that look at data and develop insights, don’t make the people in an organization change their behavior.  And better choices, making more money, and improving the quality of life for customers and/or employees only happen with real people do real things differently.

Organizations are essentially groups of people.  Organizations change when the people who work within them change.  And changing people’s behavior is another critical area of focus for organizations in addition to top notch Business Intelligence.  If better decisions are going to lead to better organizational performance, then people need to be ready, willing, and able to work in new ways.

So, analyzing data can help leaders make better decisions and better choices.  And for those better decisions to lead to organizations that make more money, improve the quality of life for their customers, improve the quality of life for their employees, or improve their chances of doing any of those things in the future… don’t forget about organizational Change Management.  Organizations change when people change.  Regardless of how good the decisions are that leaders make.

Business Intelligence is great.  Business Intelligence plus organizational Change Management is even better!

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Change an Organization’s Culture? Yes You Can!

Posted on March 2, 2012 by changegal| Leave a comment
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We often think that culture is a messy, squishy thing that we can’t really get our arms around.  And culture often makes leaders uncomfortable because they don’t feel that they can “put their finger on it”.

But there are lots of ways to measure culture these days (just spend a little time on Google or Yahoo! and you will be overwhelmed with the standardized tools, customizable assessments and consultants you’ll find).  And there are lots of companies out there that can attest to their success in building the right culture for their organization.

Just measuring and assessing an organization’s culture at a given point in time is illuminating.  But actually defining what the strategically appropriate culture is for an organization is even more helpful.  Once an organization has a desired culture in mind, and a picture of the current culture, then assessing the gaps and developing plans to close the gaps is all that it takes.

But, don’t be fooled.  Defining the desired culture for an organization sounds easier than it really is.  Getting a group of leaders together to discuss whether it is more important to follow rules or act quickly can be a touchy conversation.  Since culture is an outgrowth to a large extent of leadership, much of the culture is shaped by individual leaders’ styles and work preferences.  If you have a leader who is generally hesitant to make decisions and stick to them, then you may very well end up with an organization that talks about the same issue week after week in meetings but never lands on “what are going to do about it?”

Some think that it’s too hard to change culture… that we can’t change it even if we know what gaps we have between our current state and our desired culture.  Not true.  There are real, tactical activities and leadership actions that can shape a new culture.

For example, if the organization lacks the needed focus on customers, then insist that every manager and above spend at least one day a quarter out in the field with customers.  Or if your organization makes decisions on the fly in the absence of adequate data (not a good thing for, say, a pharmaceutical company), then insist that all projects use Six Sigma or similar tools.  Or if your organization is too cautious and can’t move quickly enough to respond to new demands (not a good thing for, say, a software company), verbally encourage teams to make decisions faster and try new things… and then throw a big party the first time one fails as visible demonstration that we appreciate and value risk-taking and new ideas.

One thing that can’t be overlooked, however, is that “closing the gap” between the current organization and the desired future organization often requires things of leaders… new communication styles, new approaches to work, new ways to lead.  This is often the hardest part.  Certainly there is some impact on culture from the structures and processes and kinds of people who work in an organization; but largely, people look up to see what kind of behavior is acceptable.  If you are up, then you are being watched whether you like it or not.

If we really want to make that strategy happen, we can’t ignore our organization’s culture.  And if that culture is not the right one to make the strategy happen, then that culture needs to change.  If we as leaders decide that we don’t want to do our part to change the culture, then we will live with the consequences of a failed strategy.

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Posted in Change Management, Culture, Leaders

Count Your Successes

Posted on December 20, 2011 by changegal| Leave a comment
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Mom used to always say “count your blessings”.  As the year comes to an end, organizations should to the same – with a twist.

If you work in an organization that is making plans for the new year, you should “count your successes”.

The path to growth and improvement can be long and bumpy.  There can be detours, side-tracks, unexpected challenges.   And that long, bumpy ride can make progress feel like a failure.

But if you stop, take a breath, and look back, you will see how far you’ve come.  It may not be as far as you wanted, but it’s almost always further than you thought it was before you took the time to look back and count your successes.

For the people who work in an organization, taking the time to reinforce the progress that has been made and the good work that has been done is invaluable.  Nothing motivates a team like a bit of success.  A winning team is pumped and ready to go out and win again.

This doesn’t mean you should completely ignore things that have not gone well.  But for just a moment, don’t focus on the misses.  Focus only on the hits.  Tell people that too… “I know it hasn’t been perfect.  We can talk about all of the ways we could have done better another time.  For now, let’s just be proud of all that we have accomplished.”

So take time to count the successes your organization has had over the last year.  And celebrate!

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Posted in Change Management, Culture, Leaders

Fact and Fiction about Change

Posted on December 6, 2011 by changegal| Leave a comment
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In today’s business environment, there’s no such thing as “steady state”.  Getting accustomed to making change happen quickly is an integral part of building and leading an effective organization.  Whether responding to customer demands, making course corrections when a strategy is running off the rails, or quickly integrating a new product or service line when the perfect opportunity drops in your lap, organizations need to change fast.

When it comes to organizational change, there are some things that leaders should know, and some common misconceptions that should be dispelled.  Here’s what you should believe, and what you should not believe.

FACT:  Organizational changes happen when individuals within the organization change.  Organizations are essentially groups of individuals.  New processes, structures and rules can be put in place, but if people are not committed to new ways of thinking and acting, the changes are not likely to be successful.

FACT:  The human reactions that occur during any given change are at least as important as any other aspect of implementing change.  People naturally and inevitably react emotionally when we ask them to think and act in new ways.  The behavior of the people who make the organization work changes as individuals move through their individual transition process and develop commitment.

FACT:  The more involved people are in a change, the less negative their inevitable reactions will be.  People naturally support what they help create.

FACT:  The emotional response people will have to a change intensifies as the speed of change increases.  If you want change to happen fast, you can expect there to be stronger resistance than if you are on a “we’ll get to it when we get to it” timeline.

FACT:  The longer a group, individual, or situation has remained static, the greater the investment in the status quo and the greater the resistance to change.  The fact that people are proud of what they do and how they do it is a great thing – except when you want to change it.

While there are basic truths that leaders should believe about change, there are also some little-white-lies about change that they should not believe.

FICTION:  Time takes care of everything.  People are able to think and act in new ways by moving through the human process of transition and developing commitment – not through sitting and waiting.  Without intervention, that process can take weeks, months, years, or may never fully happen.  (William Bridges, Managing Transitions, 1991 & 2003 William Bridges and Associates)

FICTION:  Everyone who isn’t on board with a change has something wrong with them.  New neuroscience research confirms that it takes more physical energy to do new things than it does to do things the same old way.  And the natural human reaction is to conserve that physical energy. Resistance is a natural response to change.  (Rock and Schwartz, “The Neuroscience of Leadership”, Strategy + Business, Issue 43)

FICTION:  The reasons for the change will be seen in a rational manner and will therefore be easy for people to go along with.  People are not singularly rational beings.  There is an emotional connection that people need to make to really commit to the new way.  (Lee Colan, Passionate Performance, 2004 Cornerstone Leadership)

FICTION:  If communication is done “right” the first time, it is enough.  People generally need to “hear” a message anywhere from eight to ten times to really get it.  And “right” is different during a change process for each person.  While there are times that a company-wide meeting and presentation is what people need, there are also times when they need a one-on-one conversation with a boss or a roundtable conversation with peers.

FICTION:  Change happens at or on a scheduled discrete event.  While new processes, structures or rules can be scheduled to start or take place on a specific date, people travel through their individual transition over some period of time.

Based on the facts and fiction, it may seem that we should all throw our hands up and go home.  But luckily there are proven ways to manage change that can deal with the challenges that are presented with changing organizations. Pay attention to the facts, ignore the fiction, and make your change successful!

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Five Signs You Need Change Management (Signs 4 & 5)

Posted on November 30, 2011 by stacyaaron| Leave a comment
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This blog rounds up my top five signs that indicate you need change management on your project.  Here’s a quick review of what I covered in the previous 2 blog posts:

  1. Sign #1  Leaders aren’t visibly supporting your project
  2. Sign #2 Employees don’t have a clue about what’s going to change
  3. Sign #3 When people talk about the project, you think, “Why are they saying THAT?” 

Sign #4 is  No one’s talking about stakeholder strategies.  True learning, commitment and understanding come from involvement and hands-on participation. The more people are involved in change, the less negative their inevitable reaction will be. People naturally support what they help create. Truly involving others takes time, the ability to select the right people and the ability to delegate and manage diverse groups. Identifying various audiences and involving others the right way takes prioritization, inclusiveness and empowerment. The payoff for this approach is employee buy-in and commitment to the new strategy or goal.

Change managers document impacts by stakeholder and create specific transition strategies so workers are well prepared. These strategies include activities that help promote understanding and commitment to working differently.

Last but not least, sign #5 is  HR is not included in the planning.  Support and reinforcement are critical for making changes stick.  Sometimes, some of the old ways of hiring, developing and compensating people will work just fine in the new world.  But often, the reinforcing systems in the organization are misaligned with the new behaviors.  Without reinforcing new behaviors, people naturally revert back to old ways of working. To sustain change, the organization needs to have the right infrastructure in place to reinforce the change. 

This is where HR comes in. They bring additional perspective on how these systems should and can be changed. They usually play an important role in the training that takes place before go live as well. The sooner HR can understand the impact to the employees, the sooner they can start working on ensuring these supporting eliminates are aligned with the new business goals.

The Change Manager’s role includes connecting communication, leadership, HR and project activities so they are consistent and coordinated in terms of transitioning the workers.

Change Managers work on the People Strategy. This is a critical element when driving organizational change. After all, it’s the people who will do the new process, use the new system or have to work with a new team every day.

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Posted in Change Management, Change Readiness, Leaders, Training

Five Signs You Need Change Management (Signs 2 & 3)

Posted on November 18, 2011 by stacyaaron| Leave a comment
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So, from the previous post, we discussed how  if Leaders aren’t visibly supporting your project, you need Change Management. People take their ques from leaders to figure out what’s important and what’s not. But what else signals the need for Change Management activities?

Sign number 2 is when Employees don’t have a clue about what’s going to change.  Good communication takes strategy and planning. It takes organization, consistency and a continuous improvement mindset.  Sound easy? Most organizations don’t do it. They underestimate what it takes to communicate effectively. Although it takes effort, effective communication is worth it…and is a key element to successful organizational change.

The Change Manager drives a proactive, communication strategy aligned with the project and organization’s vision. This strategy considers messages and vehicles for large audiences as well as specific, targeted strategies for the different stakeholder communities. Often, different stakeholder groups have different needs for information. Vehicle effectiveness varies by audience as well. A change manager has the experience to understand how to communicate during change which is different from communicating during times of status quo.

Sign #3? When people talk about the project, you think, “Why are they saying THAT?”  For change to be possible, people have to believe that the change is worth doing. The idea of change can be a hard sell if the people believe everything is great just as it is. Perception is reality.

In this situation, the employees’ perceptions must be changed before their actions will change. To create this change, the current situation must be reframed in a way that gets the employees’ attention. This reframing will get people unstuck, get them to pay attention and, most importantly, get them to care about new ideas. Reframing also helps employees recognize there is room for improvement and change is a top priority. To change their perceptions, employees need new information, new cues and new messages.

A Change Manager knows how to reframe the situation, help create a sense of urgency and develop a case for change that resonates with the audience.

If you are on a project, where, leaders aren’t visibly and consistently supporting the effort, if you are on a project where stakeholders don’t understand the change and/or don’t think there is a need for the change, you need to add a member to your team with Change Management skills.

We’ve all seen projects fail. Recognizing these red flags and adding change management activities to the project plan, will absolutely increase the chances of project success. Stay tuned for signals 4 and 5 coming soon…

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Five Signs You Need Change Management (Sign #1)

Posted on November 15, 2011 by stacyaaron| Leave a comment
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Many companies staff skilled Project Managers on projects yet miss the boat on staffing projects with skilled Change Managers. Organizational Change  Management skills are complimentary but different than Project Management skills. Change managers focus on communication, engagement, transition, support and reinforcement strategies. You need someone on your team with change management skills if…

1)  Leaders aren’t visibly supporting your project.  People watch
what leaders do and say and then filter that information to figure out if they should support a change or not.  Talking the talk is useless if walking the walk doesn’t follow. During times of major change, leaders are watched with even more scrutiny than usual. I don’t want to make leaders paranoid but they usually underestimate how much importance is placed on even one action. Importance can even be placed on inaction. For example, not showing up to participate in a meeting sends a signal to those attending.

When leaders are aligned and supportive of a change, there is success.
When leaders are not aligned and supportive, there is failure (“Best
Practices in Change Management,” Prosci 2002, 2005). Change Managers coach
leaders on their role. They provide direction, recommend actions and even write
leadership talking points. The Change manager connects the project to the
leaders in a way that influences others to support the change.

If your leadership is not visibly supporting your project, you need to add someone with change management skills to your team.

To be continued…

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Organizational Learning… It’s Not Just for Hotel Ballrooms Anymore

Posted on October 31, 2011 by changegal| Leave a comment
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Truly exceptional organizations facilitate continuous learning and
transformation.  In order to bring about effective organizational change, individuals within an organization needs to be ready, willing, and able to work in new ways… over and over again!  That means that the individuals who make up the organization continuously learn and transform.

Organizational learning is tricky business these days.  People are busy.  Budgets are tight.  And adults are not really programmed to learn in the same ways that most of did when we were in school.

Adults at work learn in lots of different ways.  There is of course experiential learning that takes place every day through interactions, mentoring relationships, and on the job activity.  But there are also crafted learning experiences like training and workshops that are critical components of a continuous learning strategy.

Continually educating the workforce so they can work smarter, leaner and faster can be very expensive if we think about learning from our traditional viewpoints.  Everyone in a classroom.  Days away from the job.  The dreaded hotel conference or ball room.  These models can still work, but there are other options.  With geographically dispersed workforces, as well as ongoing demands of our jobs, looking at virtual options for learning only makes sense.

One concern that comes to mind when looking to virtual forms of learning is the loss of the benefits of interactions with a trainer and classmates.  With live virtual events (“live” meaning that the training takes place with a live teacher and classmates, “virtual” meaning that the group does not sit in the same physical room but shares an electronic or virtual room), the benefits of live training can be paired with the benefits of virtual training.

When facilitating organizational change, there is almost always the need to help people learn new ways of working.  Being creative about the way training is delivered (in one shot or broken up into small bits over time, in one location or from disparate locations) can reduce resistance to training and even improve the effectiveness of the learning.

If people in your organization need training to be effective at whatever change
you are trying to implement, think about how to best deliver that training so that you can meet the demands of the learners as well as the change.

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Building an Organization that Can Change Again and Again

Posted on September 27, 2011 by changegal| 1 Comment
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You don’t need a lot of research to show you that change in organizations is an ever increasing phenomena.  New technologies, new products, new competitors, new regulations, new people with new values and experiences.  Every day, organizations try to stay one step ahead of their competitors by changing to meet the needs of their customers either cheaper or faster or both.

Not too long ago, many started recognizing that change within organizations needed to be proactively managed.  Those that were forward- thinking started working explicitly to help the people in their organizations get ready, willing, and able to work in new ways that were required for future success.

Those that hoped people would just “get with the program” or “do what I said because I said so” have lived (and died) with the results of low productivity, engagement, and performance relative to their more enlightened competitors.

For the organizations that have worked hard to manage the people aspects of change explicitly, the rewards have been forthcoming.  But change is speeding up.  As soon as one change is “complete”, it seems another is starting up.  Just paying attention to managing the people aspects of organizational change will not be good enough as time goes by.  The organizations that thrive in the long
term need to develop an organizational change competency.  Change needs to become part of an organizations culture and DNA.

Given the pace of business change today and in the future, building a change management competency is going to be a clear competitive advantage for organizations of the future.  Organizations that are really good at helping their people move from thinking and acting in existing ways to thinking and acting in new ways that are required for the organization’s success are the ones that are going to beat their competition every time.

For lots of years, organizations have viewed change as an event.  Implementing an ERP system.  Reengineering processes.  Redesigning an organization.  Spinning off a division or merging with another entity.  Some have grinned and bared it just waiting for the pain to stop.  Others have learned to muscle through with less pain, but memories that are less than fond.  And still others have gotten pretty good at managing these kinds of change events.

Organizations range from having no change management focus or skill at all, to complete integration and competence in managing the people side of change.

What does it take to build an internal change management competency?  Some organizations are building change management functions or centers of expertise (such as Motorola).  Having a team of people who are dedicated to focusing only on the human elements of change ensures that it is not forgotten.

Other organizations are developing and adopting common tools and techniques that can be used across an organization to manage change.  For example, Johnson & Johnson has their “Change Integration Process” and General Electric has their “Change Acceleration Process”.  The use of a common language and approach to manage the people aspects of change speeds up the process of managing change and instills a mindset that helping people navigate through change is important.

If you don’t want to create your own model for managing the people aspects of change, then adopt one that’s out there already that fits your organization’s level of sophistication and experience.  Start letting people in the organization know why managing change is important.  The act alone of teaching staff about a change management process and tools sends a powerful signal to employees that
the people part of change is important.  And build the skills, tools, and common language to help people start doing the work.

Change management is the next frontier of business improvement for organizations of all sizes.  Just as Six Sigma and Lean started with big companies and “trickled down” to smaller organizations and became a real competitive advantage for some, effectively managing ongoing change is starting to trickle down.  If you can be ahead of the next guy by building an organization that is capable of managing people during change, you won’t be sorry.

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