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An oxymoron that I can’t seem to get out of my head. Of course it is… and it isn’t.
CEO’s rate their ability to manage change 22 percent lower than their expected need for it — a “change gap” that has nearly tripled since 2006. IBM. (2008). The Enterprise of the Future. White Paper http://preview.tinyurl.com/7gtn5w
So now the status quo is slow change? One of the things I look for with change engagements is whether or not plans, actions, behaviors and approaches are based on assumptions. Yes, of course, always. As a manager, how do you get your staff to buy-in to a senior management strategy when neither you nor your staff like the strategy?http://preview.tinyurl.com/melpbe This question on LinkedIn illustrates a common change obstacle. It has many mini obstacles, but we will take the main one. “Staff” will not support a strategy and their supervisors join in. The chosen “best” answer is classic. Facilitation, firing, but basically communication is at the core of the problem. Our neighbors knocked down their house to build from scratch. From across the street both watching and chatting I witnessed a change process. They saw a future state for the structure and for their family relationship. They made the calculations and had the discussion necessary to define their end state. The change was a result of difficulties in their current state. And they knew there would be a transition.
Sorry a tease I am not ready to tackle this yet. But suffice it to say if you are an executive and a consultant mentions Kotter you would do well to get a second opinion. And look closely at any current program or certification (I will leave out the name but do a change management search and they will rank high-later post) that has Kotter as its foundation. Any method or approach that bases itself on “best practices” is first a few years behind and second grabbing data from one group to answer questions phrased from a different group. Data for one thing that is not the study focus. And run away fast as an executive from anyone who gained their expertise from a study… See Glossary for definition http://blog.visiontowork.com/?p=49 but basically any change that uses money from an executive who either is the CEO or reports to the CEO (although in Fortune 50 it could be the next horizontal). Any title below SVP means they are the project manager. I know a harsh definition because there can be multi million dollar initiatives run (key word here) by Directors. A call to C level executives (and board members)- there is a huge, expensive gap in every organization I have seen in the last 15 years in terms of effectively tying people to business objectives for grand ideas and huge corporate initiatives. What is the one word to put in front of Change Management that represents change that is directly tied (as in owned at the first horizontal) to organizational strategy? OCM (organizational) seemed like a fit until practitioners turned it into an old fashioned OD approach (too much about the people and not enough about the business). ECM was my first choice but IT has grabbed it to mean big software changes. And Prosci is also using it (that contrary post will take a little time and come later, but as a hint they are approaching big change just like small change with old assumptions). Have you ever accidently hit or thrown a ball over your fence and wondered where it landed? If it arches or lobs you probably will not break anything. If it was a line drive effects will follow quickly. An executive who passes the buck to a project lead is the thrower. The neighbors are the stakeholders. And neighbors can get nasty and do sneaky things… I have seen a few change initiatives thrown over the fence with the resultant angry, resistant stakeholders. And so the change is approached with reducing resistance as the core assumption. End StateThe description of the end of the change process. This would include all of the things that will be different but always in words that illustrate a new state rather than a disrupted current state. Future StateThe end of the change. I also use it to describe the end state before it is officially defined (pre-”Why”). Current StateI am almost tempted to strikethrough this one. This is the change at the beginning. It is not struck-through because an end state process could still work BACK to this. There is a laundry list (which will be a fun post-stay tuned) of things that cause Change Management initiatives to fail. The number one problem and the answer I always give to the question, “Why do you think change management fails?, is that stakeholders never get the understanding of how their work will fit in to the Big Picture. In fact set aside Change initiatives this might be the number one reason for lack of employee motivation in general. So why does this happen? It takes empathy and time (=$). Both of which are in short supply. The first step for effective Change Management is to define the End State. Always knowing what the change will look like, feel like and be effective for underlies the whole change process. You will have many different versions catered to different stakeholders and stakeholder groups. Keeping this in mind, the key to successful roll out of change is to work back from those definitions. Once you have a clear idea of the End State then you can determine why the change makes sense, where the effects of the process might land, who will need to be involved and at what level of participation, what needs to happen, how and when it will take place. |
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