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There is something very enjoyable about opportunities to “toot our own horns”. It feels good to hear yourself acknowledge your own success. If the toot elicits a welcome response all the better. Of course I am assuming here an accomplishment vetted in our own heads (not braggadocio).
And so you say, “what does this have to do with change management?”. I’m glad you asked. One up on hearing my own horn tooting is to encourage others to do the same. How often are we given genuine permission to lay out our tackled obstacles?
If you are guiding change as a leader or practitioner this is a tool in your belt- the ability to reveal pride in work. Use it. Use it to reaffirm success. Use it to increase future participation. Use it as an easy way to reward. Use it for dialogue. Cheat a little if you want and use it to possibly get a return platform to spread your feathers.
We need to language a term for this.
Objectives empathy… ? Invitational reward? An acronym? TYH?
I am taking the opportunity while I have your attention to toot my own horn. Here is my own favorite blog post from horizontal change- http://horizontalchange.com/2010/07/c-level-change-management-primer/ (no tiny URL’s for this one!).
It is my favorite because it actually helps me each time I look at it (I, of course, hope that is also true for my readers). It lays out the major areas and the major players in big change. I had fun with words and content alignment. It is one of those posts that begs more. Like a John Irving book kept on the nightstand for a year, closed (I have done that twice now) and ready, it waits to be read.
There my horn has stopped, thanks for the chance.
Technorati Tags: change management consultant, Communications, engagement, stakeholders
“Beware of losing trust by blaming others (i.e. making internal attributions about them). Also beware of making excuses (external attributions) that lead you to repeat mistakes and leads to Cognitive Dissonance in others when they are making internal attributions about you. “http://tinyurl.com/24acxdd (from Changing Minds.org one of my favorite dig deep reading sites). The Attribution Theory.
Some change management connections-
- Internal attributions are often silent and shared- CM practitioners must learn to draw them out and attach new behavior/perspective.
- External attributions spread fast and can become mythical- They are best illuminated and stopped as quick as possible.
- Empathy is a powerful tool here- Despite the silliness of many of these attributions we all do it, it is human, acknowledge that.
- Cognitive Dissonance is uncomfortable- stakeholders are often thrilled to have a CM help them clear the fog.
- See previous bullet point for speeding up and making decisive, decisions.
- Much like negative attitudes these attributions are easily reinforced- hence the ability to overcome the reinforcement, and to teach how, is a key competency for CM’s.
Keep the Attribution Theory in mind early in your change efforts (and throughout since it takes awhile to change the behavior). Your goal as a CM/leader should scrape away anything that points fingers, clouds perspective and influences others to not participate or worse leads others to sabotage the initiative.
Technorati Tags: Communication, stakeholders
An easy change scenario-
The organization will at some point move a performance system from paper based to online access (say into an SAP module). The money and energy is not there for the technical transfer (and the change that goes with it). There is the ability to address the system itself. There are grumblings from stakeholders about the ties between measures, performance and rating (especially against others in similar but different functions). The icing on the cake is a sudden realization from executives that there is both room and need for “enhancement” (yesterdays blog word for change http://horizontalchange.com/2010/08/the-adult-bad-word/).
The approach is straight forward. The components-
- An understanding of the framework for the future software
- An explanation of what the performance system is for and what it should accomplish
- A deep and broad swath of data, perspective (good and not so) and idea gathering
- Potentially benchmarking of other companies
- A clear end state description of the system in action from the stakeholders perspective
To be able to run through these components well ahead of the software implementation is a dream come true for a change agent. It gives a very real chance to construct (or tweak or reconstruct) a system that feeds the objectives of the business, supports core values and makes it clear what works to be rewarded and what does not. With the right kind of feedback from stakeholders the solution can be the best of the current turned into an efficient and fair system and process.
You, no doubt, see many ways this will not be easy…
Odds are good that functions have fertilized the daisies (http://tinyurl.com/2cgbkpz for my organic change blog post) to the point where cross functional comparisons are apples to oranges. They are most likely attached to their way.
An inherent difficulty with performance rewards is the fact that one pool is divided in some way. Across the board pay raises are not common. In short not everyone can get an “A” no matter how hard they try. In every rating meeting I have attended there is also the edge from one level to the next, say high potential to not. Each of the leaders want their people to make the cut above the edge. In their justifications they often stray from fair comparisons (which can be remedied in the re-tweak of the process and measures).
They key for this type of “easy” change is to understand how the current system is viewed, and reacted to, by the stakeholders and then fashion a structure and process that has measures that will be acceptable. If there is also clarity about the reason for the performance system in the first place (that’s not flippant, it is amazing how much time is spent in this area with negligible effect).
Make it make sense and make it work- Easy Change.
Technorati Tags: business objectives, change excercise, Examples, Garrett Gitchell, stakeholders, vision to work
My kids have a list of bad words (dumb, stupid etc.). It turns out there are some adult bad words too. No not the ones you are thinking.
Change
This is, apparently, when you take something that is not that broken and tweak it. Or simply tweaking seems to count too. The word gets progressively worse the more you tweak.
For anyone intending to have changes and wrap change management around them it would be good to have the benefits and the business case rock solid tight before venturing into the change process. With that diligent pre work you can substitute the synonym, enhancements.
Transformation
Like the transformer toys that take the same Latin root this signifies to tired stakeholders the process of turning something that has form and function into something else. I have watched those toys switch forms myself and wondered how hard it is to switch them back?
Transformation has a secondary meaning to stakeholders- tons of change (see previous bad word).
Best bet with this kind of huge change. Place less emphasis on the transmutation of the current organization and more emphasis on a new future state that might include a few pieces from the past.
Change Management
I wish I was kidding.
This comes from the “you can’t manage change, only people perspective”.
It helps here to show that change is a process of people and business. The management piece is illustrating and guiding that process and blend.
While my kids will not let me use dumb and stupid I realize they are words that work in certain, adult, situations. The same can be said for Change, Transformation and Change Management- it has a lot to do with planning, communication and delivery.
Technorati Tags: change communications, resistance to change, stakeholders
Change Management is a constantly customizable and necessarily adaptive pursuit, but the more exposure you get the more you see that in some ways “people are people”. For the weekend I give you generalizations (sorry friends who say I do this too much- it does stimulate conversation though) about stakeholder types.
The Peacock
This is the person who struts around with feathers spread looking for attention. They are colorful in attitude and dress. Typically they range from happy to really happy. Once in a while their displays are of the jilted lover type- everyone feel sorry for me now.
Best used for-
Party planning, organizing needed celebration and the addition of cheer when the going gets tough.
The Shark
Mostly swimming alone this stakeholder circles the periphery waiting to attack. They are visible, but inconspicuous enough to seem harmless. When it comes to work and change they are in it for themselves- rarely a good approach for the path to the end state. To make matters worse they will swim with the pack, at times displaying a gregarious nature, only to shred everything in their path (including pack members who get in the way of the kill) when the attack begins.
Best used for-
Competitive rallying of the troops at the appropriate time. Be careful to build into the process a way to relegate them to single fish in the school status.
The Naysayer
This is Glum of Gulliver’s Travels who said, “we’re all going to die, we’ll never make it” in a deep monotone voice. The problem with this stakeholder is that they are almost always right. If you are a naysayer you read everything, up to and including actual statistics, as doom and gloom. In fact these people go out of their way to justify the end of the world perspective. The closer it gets the more comfortable they seem to be. There is a complete blog post coming for this category- they are the show stoppers.
Best used for-
I am tempted to say not sure…but they are great for layering careful and safe into processes. Also can be leveraged to balance out the eternal optimists (although the numbers are heavily skewed in Glums direction).
The Worrywart
This is a different version of the Naysayer. They seem to want things to turn out right, it is just that they know SOMETHING will happen to get in the way of success.
My kids and I love to play the “ worrywart game”. Start a story of, say a guy walking down the street, and then have the craziest of things happen as the story goes on (cars in the way, stones that trip in strange ways, things that jump out, natural disasters at just the right time… you get the idea). You can’t help but giggle at the possibilities. Too add a twist play this game in the presence of a worrywart. They will be puzzled about why you think it is funny. Hey it could happen, right?
The interesting thing about this category is that they get so overwhelmed by worry that they cannot envision or create paths that address potential problems. It would be a nightmare to have this person in charge of your change process.
Best used for-
Use them to help call out (not communicate or disseminate in any way though) potential issues, stumbling blocks and show stoppers. They will, most likely, give you something early you hadn’t or never would think of.
The Tardy One
Hang on a second… I am not quite ready to do this one.
How many times do you have to be late for a meeting before people either stop trusting you or lie about the start time? And how quickly does tardiness turn into a lack of urgency about anything? What happens then when no one can trust this stakeholder with deadlines?
Best used for-
Well…slowing things down a little. As you know I am not one for “creating a sense of urgency”. If the organization insists on senses of things (rather than actual energetic persistence) then the Tardy One is my ally!
The Eternal Optimist
I saved this one for the last, wanting desperately, of course, to make them first. Since this is often me I will take the baton. These people are few and far between. Because eternal pessimists abound the optimist moves around a lot. It is just not comfortable being in toxic pessimistic environments (and note to all- not healthy either). So they will most likely be your external resources.
The caution for this group is that the eternal and the optimist part can get a little ridiculous. This stakeholder can take the ugliest of situations and put a bright spin on it (they make great marketers). There are times in life where you have to fess up to the doom and the mistakes- there I said it.
Best used for-
Everything. Grab them, monitor them, but set them free and trust that the other groups will damper unnecessary enthusiasm (just control the damper- remember it is probably one against many).
From “it will all work out fine” because we are so good to “despite us it will fail” it takes the full range of stakeholders to move the change process to the end state.
Technorati Tags: stakeholders
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
Communicating for Change Management serves three purposes- to motivate, to guide and to provide place.
Place
We are going backwards from my list to illustrate a point. Most change management methods, and the consultants who practice them, move forward in time with my list. Not so effective. Not so effective because place gets lost in the mix. “Place” is the work of an individual in relation to the whole. When communicated well each stakeholder can explain how their work fits in to the bigger picture, how it connects to the next person and how it leverages the work of the previous stakeholder. At any given time place could mean a lot of things with a lot of connections. It is up to the change team and its leaders to make those connections make sense.
Guide
Having done the job of placing work at a spot in time, communication must address how the whole process moves forward. Actually processes, because there is the list of things to do, the project management, and there is the transition from the now to the end state. That may mean behavior changes, new or different technology, additional or changed interactions, perspective that is not status quo etc. Change communication must help explain these two processes and connect people, individual stakeholders, to the events along the way both to get the work done and to ground a human connection to what may be overwhelming change.
Motivate
I am guessing the cheerleaders on the sideline have little to do with the effort put forth by the players in the last minutes of the game. Change works the same. Cheering, amping up a sense of urgency, creating tension may start the play (and our change) fast and furious. The shelf life for that effect is short. Motivation, the kind that moves people forward by choice and deep down commitment is the third purpose in line. With place and clear guidance (read reason and a measure of safety/assurance) motivation appears on its own. Communication within the change process then becomes an exercise in illustrating the good, the positive, the examples of overcoming, effectiveness, commitment and extra effort by individuals
As a stakeholder if I cannot explain my exact spot at any given time, if I am not aware of what is to come and what has passed and if I am not given a reason to connect to the change in my own way, change management has failed.
Technorati Tags: change communications, engagement, Garrett Gitchell, stakeholders, vision to work
Things begin to pick up for business (less fear, willingness to spend hoarded cash, new competition appearing from garages- not sure which is the cause, but things are picking up in the change arena) and the revisiting begins. Change anew. Except some of it is the programs that were cancelled a year or more ago. How is restarted change different?
History Doubled
The ability to move change forward is always effected by previous attempts (bad or good). To start something that did not finish on the first attempt is potentially tempting fate. If, in our current case, the economy can be blamed for the earlier stop, starting again just slots right into the business environment.
Care must be taken with communication for a restart because, excuses aside, a mistake was made. Sure, as a leader you do not think so – it was all part of the plan. The problem is to stakeholders it must not have been a good plan. Now the Pandora’s box of trust, faith in leaders (which is a specific kind of trust), I told you so’s and the appearance of mishaps is opened.
Address the double history issue with crystal clear as transparent as possible communications. You might want to recheck and possibly rethink the new plan- the last thing you want is two historical mishaps.
Second Chances
Everybody believes in second chances. You have one if you are restarting change. Some of your work may already be completed. Redo work can be done better. Mistakes can be corrected. And acknowledged. Which leads me to the “be careful”.
By necessity taking this second chance is assuming empathy. There is a difference between restarted change and any other- the empathy has to flow from the stakeholders to the leaders. Empathy should (I always hesitate to use this word, but it fits now) go from leaders to stakeholders, that is a given. To go both ways sets up an interesting dynamic. Maybe I should have said an effective dynamic because the core of relationships connected to accomplishments is shared empathy. Give it a double dose on your second chance restarts.
Rebuilding is impressive
Taking what you have, envisioning something different and better and then layering in additions is smart change. As with any remodel matching the old lines to the new can be difficult. Because that is an obvious component of rebuilding/remodeling everyone is impressed when the result is seamless. With your restart this is an opening for a view of the end state that includes overcoming and tackling obstacles.
For that to make sense as an explanation there must be honesty, transparency and camaraderie around stops and starts and the end states they can create.
With that you can restart and rebuild at the same time.
Technorati Tags: change communications, change failure, change management, End State, engagement, Garrett Gitchell, resistance to change, stakeholders, vision to work
I came across a post the other day that said getting stakeholders to use new technology meant addressing their own self interest http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/tech-manager/?p=3976. The post is on the right track. IT implementations are, admittedly, a specific type of change. Every form of change has a “punch a different key” aspect and IT change rarely stays confined in a nice manageable timeline. So lets look at self interest as a general perspective.
Well, of course
Everything we do is in our own self interest. The more we need to change the more our self interest comes into play. We balance need for action against willingness to act. We place ourselves inside the change to see if there is a fit. We watch those around us to see how self interest guides them. We measure action against inaction on a self interest scale.
Just another resistance approach?
Something is just not right with this view of change…it feels negative. “No way are they going to do this… because it is not in their own best interests.” I sense the next statement would be, “we need to show them what not changing will look like”. And then you have another approach based on the assumption that people automatically resist.
Self interest is OK
Better we look at self interest as an automatic thing. Better we use it advantageously. What happens as a result of self interest is usually a symptom of something else- especially if it is inaction. Is the structure of the organization getting in the way? Has history of botched change put up walls? Is the reward system so based on paying off self interest that participating on a larger scale does not make sense? Is self interest dialed in and out based on functional connection (this I have seen in IT do to the specificity of their roles, but they certainly do not own functional connection)? Is corporate strategy weak and/or short term? Do changes make sense (all the way to the individual level)?
Having asked these questions self interest begins to be a barometer of the effectiveness of the organization and its people. It turns out to be a way to, yes, find out reasons to resist. Addressing those valid reasons is a first step for an effective change approach. Self interest just became OK.
Technorati Tags: change awareness, change management, engagement, Garrett Gitchell, resistance to change, stakeholders, vision to work
As an external consultant there is always a fine line between honoring “the way we do things here” and pushing for and guiding change. Many, if not most, organizations have a tie to processes, structure and communication that is hard to break. Here are some areas to keep in mind in terms of the status quo of cultural loyalty:
Group Think
Group think helps people with consistency, clarity and sameness (which is comforting if you keep your viewpoint narrow). It homogenizes to the point where almost everything is predictable. The longer the tenure for an employee the greater the need to stick to the norms-cultural loyalty.
It is surprising how many times at an individual level cultural loyalty (CL) is questioned. The questioning typically (especially if drawn out by a CM practitioner) produces smart, viable alternatives. If that person does not have authority or leverage those alternatives die quickly.
Internal Politics
Patterns appear over time in organizations that are a direct result of the jostling and wrestling for position by individuals. That positioning tends to work the best when the jostler follows the path of least resistance. That path is the road to the way we do things here. So you end up with a structure that rewards and reinforces the status quo.
Functional Loyalty
The same patterns but much harder to break occur at a functional level. Certain functions tend to have more leverage than others (usually because they bring in revenue which, on the surface at least, makes sense). Those functions then match their group think against others. What you end up with is a secondary level of loyalty to culture-functional loyalty. Which is a synonym for a silo.
Founder(s) Influence
The majority of the time the patterns that replicate within the silos and cultural pods in an organization are the result of the founder(s) initial vision, values and business direction. Emulating that package tends to move individuals up the ladder. The more that spreads the more group think builds and the harder to break the way we do things becomes. Another secondary level exists here when the organization gets big enough for the functional leaders to steer their own vision and approach.
Guiding change at the transformational/horizontal level requires the ability to frame the “make sense” communication in order to replace the CL that is holding back change and growth. In my own practice I have found that I must take the difficult step of working with leaders to tweak structure and process before trying to touch cultural and functional loyalty. The same pattern happens with the change process itself. Often there are underlying structural and process weaknesses that will make complete fulfillment of the end state close to impossible.
The fine line approach is to draw out the CL that makes collaboration, negotiating and compromise possible.
Technorati Tags: Big Picture, CEO, change awareness, Change Design, change management, Change Strategy, External Consultant, Garrett Gitchell, horizontal change management, resistance to change, stakeholders, vision to work
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