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Your stakeholders are most likely frozen with eyes wide open thanks to the last couple of turbulent and less than promising years.
Think of the deer transfixed by the headlights. They are not exactly scared; they do not seem to be curious; they are spell bound. Honk the horn and they do not move. Blink the lights, the same. Turn off the lights and they stand there wondering what to do, with their attention fixated as though by a spell (one of the definitions of transfixed- here are some others http://tinyurl.com/2cn5cmq).
As a C level leader what to do?
- Acknowledge
- Sum up your organizations recent past
- Leverage the good
- Own up to the bad
- Describe the future
- Create and manage a transition period
Acknowledge
Whether or not any given individual found themselves in the glaring lights does not matter. We have all seen, heard or been touched by the nasty spell of economic downturn. That must be acknowledged. Since you, as a leader, are part of the herd too, some of your own personal examples might help. Acknowledgement does not mean a continuation of negative and pessimistic perspectives. You must ease yourself out of the headlights and look ahead.
The Past
As in the last, let’s say, two years.
Odds are you tightened the purse strings, your are lean, maybe you even had some time for retrospection and introspection on an organizational level. If you were smart you took advantage of the slowdown. Put that all together in a message and sum it up in a tidy package as if you and the organization have already moved past that spot into a positive and more profitable future.
The Good
Is most likely represented in cold numbers to show smart consolidation. Tread lightly here since most stakeholders will not see the good in anything from the recent past (unless they owned it, then they will appreciate the connection). The best way to transition from difficult situations is to look at how the time was managed. If individually or collectively as an organization you did what you could then there will be good. If you are the deer or you have let the herd stand in the road for a long time…
Own up
There are plenty of times when we do what we can and what we think is right, practical and responsible only to find in hindsight we were on the wrong track. Use that hindsight to your advantage to illustrate not what could have been but why your process got you to where you are. Doing this well will give you a foundation for process and structure improvements to tag onto initiatives tomorrow.
New End States
Your first instinct in transitioning out of yesterday and into tomorrow is probably to illustrate a clear vision. Be careful here. You are likely to articulate a vision you wish for. In between is the one you want. Better to dig into the one you need. By you I mean literally you, but also the organization and its individuals. Think and communicate in terms of practical end states. Heavily load your change management front end to come up with clear, shorter length attainable end states that have easy participation points.
Transition
The headlights were particularly glaring for the deer in your herd this time around. The car has stopped; the herd is safe. Guide them off the road slowly and smoothly. Because of the participation and engagement needed with front end change management transition is built in. The addition of inordinately positive external resources (if they also have a full quiver of empathy) can help you to time the transition period. Do not with run blindly across the road at this point. The last thing you need is for fear to turn to panic.
Every difficult situation is a leverage point for the future. The deer in the headlights is not scared, just mildly stunned. Take advantage of the fact that in the headlights, for a brief moment all is calm, centered and in the moment. The perfect foundation for positive change.
Technorati Tags: C level, CEO, change management consultant, Change Strategy, executive communications, Garrett Gitchell, strategy, vision, vision to work
Shhh. Don’t let your competition in on this- Organizational Development (OD) can be done at the same time as Change Management. Top Secret tip number two- it can be one in the same person (or small team). If you are a smart executive you will work with consultants who see this as part of their role (if you know my writings this is where the hint comes in- we are not talking Big 3 here [it is still 3 isn’t it?]).
Executive Development
No matter the intensity of the change role for an external consultant there are always stray hours in between that can be used to coach and guide executive development. On one of my recent engagements I let Director and Senior Director leaders know I was available for my hour and a quarter drive in the morning and evening to the client site. On a long engagement (in this case 9 months) there is a lot of that time. Enough so that I was able to develop simple coaching plans around the leaders role in change and guide them through skill and competency development. I personally consider this a stealth value add for my own clients.
Training
Design is a very important part of communicating change. With a little extra effort (and the ability, competencies and knowledge to teach) the CM can build skills for Manager level team leads around the design, organization and dissemination of information. The same goes for project management. There are countless one on one sessions in every large change between the external CM and internal stakeholders and line level leaders. Well thought out (by you the client and the external) these interchanges can have components of skill development- the skills which you, of course, uncovered in your initial data gathering and development of the end state description.
Process
A good trusted advisor high level CM can be your executive eyes and ears (as well as right hand) to the organization. Unless the current initiative is specifically addressing process you may not want to, under cover, change it. You can however cull helpful tidbits from the change exchange that happens quickly and through less layers with your external agent. Given the chance to be an “undisclosed source” most stakeholders will readily give ideas, perspective and input that no amount of organizational suggestion boxes will ever uncover.
Structure
Repeat above surveillance for structure. Process is how tasks play out and how people interact. Structure is the support, tools and reporting. The two together always have a treasure trove of secrets that can be gleaned.
Your own development and introspection
This one is the trickiest and usually requires a 007 level external. They are your trusted advisor. Trust can come from transparency and honesty. What better way to develop that than to trade suggestions back and forth for improvement and enhancement. You have a chance to be each others consultant. Unlike the real spy game you should both stay on the same side (no double agents in this relationship).
As an executive do not miss the chance to build organizational development into your change process and interactions. The current environment looks to be external resource heavy for quite some time. Make sure the transition to a better balance of internal and external is part of your change strategy.
Technorati Tags: Big Picture, business objectives, Buyer, CEO, change awareness, change management consultant, Executive, Garrett Gitchell, Value, vision to work
When consultants are “on the beach” (the inside term for not on client engagements) they react completely different from employees who feel close to losing their job. They dig in, retrench and create. Most consultants are itching to have a chance to build collateral, increase their thought leadership and learn. The economic crises has proved fertile ground for just that.
That collateral for you as an executive is the foundation for effective, efficient delivery of business objectives.
Consultants are by nature restless, enjoy a challenge and thrive in the most difficult of situations. Their sweet spot is to have the tools and collateral, the time to think and just the right environment of confusion (and possibly fear). They like to accomplish things that others are too slow, too scared or not qualified to tackle. When they see a clear path with all those parameters they get things done fast.
Every one of those parameters is now lined up. Consultants have had plenty of time to create, think and learn. Now they are hungry for the chance to apply. For you that means a quick start from the backward slide of the last year or so.
Before you begin dreaming of business objectives and end states finding clear, quick paths to success look closer at what the use of those resources means to your organization and your culture. Your employees are likely fearful. They now worry about their jobs and their roles (and don’t expect that to go away for a long time). An energetic consultant with little baggage and a clear focus on goals is a serious threat. The more the numbers tilt in the direction of external resources (some firms were close to 50% even before the economy tanked) the more threat there is to the culture of the organization itself. And while unfounded (IMHO) those employees may think that the externals could actually replace them.
Your warning is
that too much reliance on external resources can weaken the fabric of your organizational culture. To rely on those resources when your culture has already weathered a storm (without the camaraderie of conquering adversity) can potentially effect those initiatives that happen after the first wave of success.
Why not strive for speed and success while at the same time transitioning your employees from fear to action. Pick a consultant (or small firm- you will not get this from the big firms) who understands what needs to be mended, wants to transfer that built up collateral and knowledge and is looking for challenge rather than maximum possible revenue (hint that would be the big firm- in fact just about any with employees). You will pull your employees into the new reality, accomplish and prepare all at the same time.
Technorati Tags: business objectives, C level, CEO, change awareness, change management consultant, change management strategy, engagement, External Consultant, strategy, Value
Companies have hoarded cash. They are lean and trim. The foot is on the throttle; the hand at the gearshift. Fear is about to switch to anticipation. Once the accelerator is pushed and the up shifting begins there will be BIG change.
Are you an executive in the drivers seat?
That little space there between the twitching fingers and the gearshift is the most appropriate place to insert high level change management. That space, from the stirrings I have seen in the last couple of months, is now.
What do you need to consider and act on to jump start the change process?
Readiness
Not my favorite term as you know if you have read previous posts. This time it fits. Because this time you will want to gauge the overall feeling of your culture. Are they ready for tires burning? Or have they been so ground down and made to be scared from the last year or so that you have some executive communicating to do? You want to look at readiness in general not for any specific initiative. And by readiness I mean the capacity to strap in for the ride. If it is not there then some core parts of the change process need to be done well and communicated to the individual level.
Strategy
If it was strong and well communicated throughout the economic turmoil then Kudos. Odds are it was a an exercise in trimming, reducing, stopping and stalling. Not a good foundation for the change process. And not a foundation for trust with new strategy to move forward. Make sure the redo makes sense, communicate and re-communicate with individual stakeholders in mind. This is the spot to build trust, calm the culture and transition from fear to anticipation.
End States
Leverage your strategy into clear, attainable, but innovative end states. Don’t apologize for the trimming, but don’t ignore it either. If the reason you have the cash stockpiles to change is your cost cutting strategy then let the change come from that. And make sure your organization knows you are moving forward because of the previous strategy.
Development
Who did you lose? Who did you keep? How much time and money do you need to now invest to build back competency and capability? You can use the change from first gear on to help with the development (a core ingredient to our approach at Vision to Work- change and develop at the same time).
Resources
Consulting will grow next year. Transitioning from fear to anticipation and action will require intense energy and motivation to get work done. That will come much faster from hungry consultants. Just make sure as the leader with the wallet you pick firms that enjoy and feel ethically that they should be teaching and developing your people for the eventual exit of the consultant (hint small firms to independent- NOT big firms).
Those consulting firms, or individuals who build a team, should be assessing your competency and leadership gaps, temporarily filling them in and guiding you to replacement (or using their peer network to actually find them for you).
You can’t gun the engine just yet. You must turn fear into action. In this environment you have change within change- call it recovery to change.
Technorati Tags: business objectives, C level, CEO, change awareness, change management consultant, stakeholders, strategy, vision to work
The most important competency for a change practitioner is sense of time.
“…understanding current change capability and capacity requires the horizon of a CM to extend back into the past.
And ensuring sustainability requires a perspective further into the future.” Gail Severini from blog post.
Thanks Gail. This is pulled out of a longer post focused on the difference between CM and PM practitioners, but may be the key to a lot of what change management is about.
The Present
In a way does not exist. It is gone at the speed of thought. A Change practitioner must understand the concept of present. For it is in those spots, those frozen moments where change happens and where it gets recorded. The present is a moving line that represents completion and transition. The present IS status quo. Present is a reality that exists in each stakeholders head. It is something to be acknowledged. It is a grounding spot to illustrate before, transition and after.
The Past
Very much exists- even though it shouldn’t. Because after all it is gone. Where is does exist is within each stakeholders realm of comfort. The past is predictable, immovable- like a concrete foundation. The past is visible to everyone, even futurists. Its negative is the difficulty of erasal. Its positive is as measurement. Numbers and facts come from the past. Predictions and plans arise from those numbers.
The Future
May or may not happen. It will arrive in some way, but like the present is quickly gone. What is interesting about the future is that it is the past transitioned through the present to again be the past. The typical mistake here for CM is to see the future as a transition from the present (think current and future state). Remember the past does not go away. So the future in terms of change should be the end state arrived at through the lens of the past, the capacity of the present and an eye to the next future.
Where does this “most important competency” come in then?
A CM practitioner must be able to recognize and articulate the past (in all its glory and stranglehold), put it in perspective and then feed that assimilation into a dialogue and description of the end state. They must not let the past or the present hold the future hostage.
They leverage that with their innate sense of what happens when you tweak these three views of time in any given direction. Clients should expect change agents to quickly recognize what will happen when different levers are pulled, or pushed. Change agents will know the relative resistance power of timing, demands, resources, communication, collaboration etc.
CM’s, if they are good, know there will be stakeholders living in the past (sounds bad, but not necessarily), intent on checking things off in the present (even if the list is twice as long as it needs to be) or travelling at the speed of dreams (thanks Jimmy Buffet for that one). They all stand on the timeline of change.
You might say the Change Management Practitioner is the driver of the DeLorean, with the capability to travel back and forth in time and across the future, separate from the stakeholders and the initiative.
…and wouldn’t you know I saw a DeLorean for sale the other day…
Technorati Tags: Big Picture, change awareness, change management consultant, End State, future state, Garrett Gitchell, vision, vision to work
I predict, thanks to reduction of employees, belt tightening and the effects of the economy a new obstacle for change- Apathy.
We are creeping up on an interesting flux period for organizations. Those who remain have lived in fear of losing their positions, have seen their work loads increase geometrically and are now years into seeing career paths disappear in front of their eyes. If they were “lucky” enough to remain they may also harbor guilt over “surviving”.
Those who were laid off, furloughed, trimmed, hacked (pick your synonym) are carrying bitterness over plans delayed (or destroyed). They have also had time to look at their situations and perhaps question the value of the “security” (I always say false- this environment supports my point) of full time employment.
Sometime soon the economy will pick up (and there are signs now).
We will have a mix of worn out and therefore apathetic current and incoming employees. Because many of the potential incoming individuals may well have gone their own way the pool might just be diminished. Which opens a window for those who stayed. Quitting is an instant fix for apathy. Finding a better position is a solution to that apathy. Demanding more to compensate for lack of security another.
Take heart though leaders of change. The step after this flux is a healthy energy partly from relief and partly to ensure individual survival the next time around.
Technorati Tags: Big Picture, change management, engagement, future state, Garrett Gitchell, horizontal change management, resistance, stakeholders, vision to work
Assumptions, the status quo, the influence of previous authors/gurus can tarnish the change process. There is often a lot of wasted effort, energy, time and money spent on acknowledgment/honoring before proceeding. Organic change methods owned by individuals based on “best practices” also fall into this category.
I found myself thinking today-
What if I had not read all those books up to during and after my Masters acquisition? What if CM was brought in just before any of these things took hold in the organization? What if as a practitioner I could just be truly naive and do what makes sense? What would that look like?
Mind cleared, childhood naivety (with adult reasoning) switched on, adult fear and justifications turned off… Let’s try this. My kids loved numbered lists, now is my chance.
- There has to be an end state description. Why will have to be answered, so anything that is necessary to do that, will fall under number one (I am guessing these will look like phases, but let’s let it play out).
- Because time, place, context along with relationship to others and their work is important, an initial message that includes the results of #1 will need to go out. That message will have an explanation of how the words, pictures, timelines and interaction of the change group will facilitate participation and understanding. It will also illustrate avenues for feedback loops.
- The meat of the implementation will have leadership guidance, ongoing connection to stakeholders, mentoring of project managers and any needed skills training.
- Adoption of whatever the change is which could include any and all of- technology, behavior, business process, structure, culture and more- is a transition process. So that when the official day of Adoption- let’s say the no turning back spot- comes, most will feel it has already happened.
- The initiative will feed into the next end state description.
Stripped of flavor of the day and marketing fluff (I even left out any mention of horizontal connections, maybe my own version) my 5 steps are a process of making sense of the change, agreeing on the relationship of work to effort and how that will be communicated, getting everyone up to speed on change as well as this change, letting the new blend with then replace the old and worrying more about how well this feeds the next change then the sticking power of the current one.
You can see that I am still basing my steps on assumptions- change happens all the time and people are becoming used to it, you really can make sense of business and people connected, a methodical interactive and collaborative process works (no urgency, no resistance fighting and so no condescending approach) and that CM will begin at the beginning go to the end and be around for the next beginning. One last assumption- that the practitioners will be quick in reacting, adjusting and, in the end, have read all those books and seen the results of putting stock in any one thing.
Because change management has changed. Where it has not, it needs to.
Technorati Tags: change awareness, change excercise, Garrett Gitchell, vision to work
Inside organizations, guiding leaders and stakeholders into the future I find myself asking the same question over and over-
Why are there so many disconnects?
Or, more appropriately, Why are there so many missing connections?
The more I explore horizontal, and now circular and diagonal concepts for change and operation, the more I see that there is a missing piece. No person or entity is responsible for “the whole”. The whole being a perspective that can pull in all of the disparate angles, viewpoints and personalities and arrange them to get to goals. at the highest level. Within organizations it feels as if everything is organized around timelines in a linear fashion. Even strategy sessions seem more like strategic implementation work rather than innovative “whole picture” discussions.
Maybe we are just a little cursed by human nature to approach life and work this way?
Or maybe something is missing in current organizational structure?
Let’s see what we have-
CEO
This would be the closest. The smaller the organization the more it might be possible. Odds are the first instinct of the CEO is to delegate which then separates everything into functions. And our chance at the wrapper disappears. Although a trusted advisor, external, inserted here might be the best solution. But that only gives the perspective and does not necessarily make the connection to strategy and operations.
COO
Here, maybe. Except that senior operational leaders by necessity have a very operational perspective. Probabilities are more powerful here than possibilities. In other words operations overpowers strategy (if strategy even really exists here, it doesn’t always).
SVP of Strategy
See previous category and flip the coin over. Strategy by necessity, operations by default. If there is such a title or person that is a start since the competencies for this role would have to include a whole lot of big picture perspective. From my viewpoint this role has its own wrapper with “business” written all over it. People make business happen.
SVP of HR
So then how about HR? With HR and Strategy we have the same coin with two sides problem. One is business, one is people. And while senior HR leaders try hard to treat people as assets, the transactional side of the function usually wins. People then become overhead and commodities to buy and sell (and depreciate). While HR leaders the world over wish it was different and have been working to make changes for more than my lifetime…when “the table” finished the musical chairs they were all full, leaving HR stranded and out of the game.
The other “C’s” and SVP’s
High level implementation. Functional versions of our wrapper may exist here. Which means this might be a good place to get a description of our end state for this organizational wrapper. We would need someone with the whole picture view to weave it together. Finding the solution now seems in the realm of a tweaked traditional form of change management.
Working toward the description of and the creation of something to address this glaring gap in organizations has become a passion for me. I can see how it would play out. I can see and, at times, describe the end state. To fill the gap is a colossal web to weave. I do have a whole picture view though. That is the seed for change.
In business/life people have to work together to figure out, to make a plan, to accomplish tasks to get to results. I start with that assumption and follow with the assumption that every organization has a process and a structure to get to the results sentence period.
Is this naive? As in having or expressing innocence and credulity.
It turns out the process and the structure are always there. The effectiveness and application of both is the issue. Enter Operational Change Management. Everyone who has anything to do with CM will agree that at its core it is about illustrating a goal, having energy behind the goal, getting participation, following the change path and reaching an end state. Well look at that. Those steps match perfectly with the core operational steps. And I might add look like the hundreds of models I have seen out there.
If it is this simple why is it that it never (yes I chose that word on purpose) happens?
Each of the steps in my first paragraph have major stumbling blocks thanks to people and money. CM done well, at higher levels connects the two. CM that is not done well seems to only address the people (and process). I have yet to see an organization (and few practitioners with the understanding and visibility needed) that can weave this connection.
Maybe it is just too big a task? Maybe it is because organizations do not have anyone, or any entity, responsible for the gluing? Maybe it is because the attempt is either first made internally without external help or done solely on a model from an external influence? Am I naive in thinking it is entirely possible to weave this people, process, money and method web?
I am trying to think of the title for this operational change management person…
VP of the Big Picture?
SVP of PM (people and money)?
Den mother (father)?
Ah, you say, what about VP or Organizational Effectiveness, VP of People, COO? First one is process, second is people, third one is close. CEO… maybe (in a naive perfect world).
I am not going to work toward an answer here. A solution though is running around in my head since we have laid out the root causes… I can just picture being able to pour something out of a can and have it spread over and through the organization. The something would carry languaging, process, structure, collaboration, method and B-12 to all the right places.
Technorati Tags: Big Picture, business objectives, C level, CCM, CEO, change awareness, Change Design, change failure, change management consultant, change management strategy, Change Strategy, Context, corporate strategy, External Consultant, Garrett Gitchell, horizontal change management, Insights, organizational change, Value, vision, vision to work
This is a touchy area I realize. Let’s take a stand-outside big picture look.
+ :
- Energy
- Teamwork
- In some ways more efficient
- Can be powerful for a one shot change
- :
- Threatens leadership (I didn’t say control, that is a different discussion)
- Methodology is organic
- Creates infighting and mini silos (see previous bullet)
- Is a great example of how most change in organizations starts in the middle (of the process and the organization) with no beginning
- It rarely connects to long term strategy
Grass roots organic change can be a great thing for accomplishing a short list of objectives or a small change that has real time constraints. The energy and the shared commitment makes for teamwork which gets work done fast (this is the core scenario for efficient business change). The excitement and commitment pull more people in which can (I emphasize can because there are some negatives here too) increase collaboration horizontally. If it works it can be a great model for the middle, of the change process.
Which is my transition to the potential negatives.
There is a very real threat to the way those responsible and accountable direct work (leadership in general and potentially a threat to a single individual high up). The way the original group goes about the change process will typically do one of two things- either grab a single approach from something/someone well marketed, say a book or grab everything from everywhere and create, well, a “grass roots” methodology. If function 2 happens to be in the same situation with a different change of their own we suddenly have methodology ownership. Grass roots change (and worse change design) is reactionary.
Explaining to do I realize.
From my external viewpoint dropped into the organization at a higher level this is what I see (typically)-
The grass roots energy starts as a reaction to the fact that leadership does not have a handle on change. The organization does not have a guiding entity, group of resources and approach (I like that word better than methodology it seems more human, realistic and practical) to change that ties to strategy, energy and work. That is a vacuum combination for an attitude of doing it yourself.
Grass roots organizational energy, as I see, is typically an illustration of strategy poorly communicated or strategy non-existent (sorry harsh, how about strategy weak). This is in terms of goals to work and demands (still work) to workload. It is amazing how many times the discussions around the grass roots efforts have to do with building a strategy. Makes me wonder who will be, or is, in “charge”…
Change Management has picked up a buzz in the last couple of years. Everyone who is trying to climb internally wants to be the keeper of the design. In one organization I worked with they had no less than six separate “design of change” grass roots groups going (with three big firms and a host of independents suffering a Pavlovian reaction like dogs at a cafe). A little like many businesses competing in a new space- what follows is merger mania with the loudest (not necessarily the best) winning the race.
Tying it all back together to something that works for the organization as a whole- a horizontal approach- is a change initiative in itself (surprisingly or maybe not so, typically started at a grass roots level).
What can you learn as a leader (or a grass roots barnburner if you strayed here) from this fly on the wall post?
Nurture anything that is grass roots. In the process be realistic about why it is happening in the first place. Do not be afraid of a high level group, entity and approach that can manage the connection between you (and your high level leader peers) your stakeholders and strategy fulfilled.
Technorati Tags: Big Picture, business objectives, C level, CCM, CEO, change awareness, Change Design, change management consultant, corporate strategy, Garrett Gitchell, strategy, vision to work
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