2009 September | Horizontal Change Management

Project Beginning- think or act?

I took a break from change for half the day yesterday and chaperoned my daughter (8 years old-third grade) on a field trip.

We went to a local farm-Forest Hill Farms in Danville, CA- to learn about agriculture in the Tri-Valley at the turn of the century.

In one module the kids (and me) learned about canning and had the opportunity to draw their own label. And that is where I quickly returned to my change management environment.

I was struck by the many approaches. And fascinated by the connection to similarities with adults “drawing” up change.

Some kids

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Responsibility and Accountability- What’s that got to do with Change Management?

Plenty, but not what you think

Change management is responsible for:

Helping stakeholders always know context of work Showing stakeholders the level of their needed participation Ensuring trust in leadership Translating and communicating project accountabilities Fulfilling the role of central empathetic mediator and communicator Always thinking horizontally and holistically

Change management is accountable for:

The definition of the end state

Yes that is it.

The distinction between accountability and responsibility is crucial for effective change management. To keep the waters clear here, my definition of effective change is the reasonably speedy creation of the end state. So Change Management

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RESISTANCE

Sorry to shout.

What about those stakeholders that really do RESIST?

Granted this does and will happen. I have never seen a situation where that resistance did not make sense (once I dug a little deeper). Clarity here- from the stakeholders perspective.

It can come from previous bad experiences.

It can come from politics and ownership.

It most certainly comes from the way the organization rewards-based on operation rather than change. It can come from a comfort level that will be soon uncomfortable.

It can come from the status quo change approach that expects resistance and cheerleads urgency.

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The 5 W's of change

The 5 W’s of change. A way to simplify the change process and address different kinds of people.

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Corporate Strategy and Change- What about the People?

Employees and stakeholders that I interact with on change initiatives are surprisingly astute about corporate strategy. They expect any change to be tied to and connected with the companies goals. Yet maybe less surprising is the fact that change communication, approach and definition rarely is. To not have the connection is, of course, impossible.

So those stakeholders are left with one of two beliefs (and they are not shy about voicing this believe me)-

One is that management has no idea what they are doing

Two is that management does not care about the individuals in the organization

Belief

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Corporate and People Strategy versus the Strategy of Change Implementation

This is another way of juxtaposing the broad horizontal view of Corporate Change Management with the focused deliverable and list based view present in a project stream. The problem that occurs with change initiatives is that the implementation of the change begins before there is any horizontal strategy. The train leaves before most of the passengers have even arrived. With IT initiatives little do they know the tracks are not even finished yet (since the technology typically develops during the implementation after change requests and legacy phase outs).

It is helpful to have an approach, languaging and communications that

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Vertical Change Perspective- Measures of failure

One of the key elements of change failure and stakeholder disillusionment (read faster failure next time) is the practice of throwing initiatives into functions.

Transformational change into HR (death by irrelevance). Technology change straight to IT (slow, painful death from legacy systems and behaviors) Supply Chain change to Marketing (confusion before death by the external partner/sales firewall) CEO reorganizational change to the succession plan groomee (death by internal politics) Merger and downsizing change (death by experts in the culling of people) Moving change (death in a beautiful new environment-this one has the potential for reincarnation after regrouping)

Change

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Translators- Translation in action

Fair warning if you are an executive ready to lead a change initiative- I have never seen a PMO or project oriented team or “passed to” executive (typically a Director within a function) make appropriate and effective translations. Placing change inside that cocoon and perspective from the start of the initiative (and important, the Idea is the start) is guaranteed to be an expensive false start.

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Assumptions

It puzzles, shocks and intrigues me that multi million dollar years long consultant and resource heavy initiatives can be bulldozed forward by one or two assumptions.

If you are old-fashioned, tied to the status quo and think that people should do things (change) because that is their job, everything you do after that will have that tone. If you think you will have to overcome resistance you will approach change with that attitude. If you think there needs to be a sense of urgency (or are told that by a high paid consultant or team of them) then you

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CEO perspective on change- Even McKinsey is following the status quo

There is a push pull toward change management between business/people and group/individual. With the status quo business and group overpower the individual and therefore people.

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