How often do you find yourself spending what you consider too much time installing or putting together the things in your life?
I found myself there today with the installation of a garage hoist (really cool to push a button and have your stuff just magically make its way up into the ceiling- nice end state). As a change manager I know a process made of steps to get to an ending should be clear, understandable and maybe even enjoyable. Thanks to some really weak and un-thought out directions I have found myself swearing through the opposite too many times- add today and it is waaaay too many.
Is it up or down? Do the two holes go on the left or the right? This bolt or that bolt? Is there anything I need to know before I start?
As it happened today I installed not one hoist but two.
A little like a second engagement with the same client. And in the same way the parts had been improved (lag screws instead of ridiculous hex head screws- 4” long and bendable like putty) but the process, and the directions, were still faulty.
What does all this have to do with change?
Directions
All change has at some point ,directions. They may be as literal as a guide to keystrokes or as vague as hidden expectations from a leader. Those directions worded (or pictured) and/or delivered poorly can create real obstacles to change. Real unnecessary obstacles. (There were a few times today when I thought, this is just dumb, I should have used cabinets). A little like, “whose dumb idea from corporate was this?”. Don’t let yourself have a good idea with a clear end state and then use a bad map on poor pavement.
So-
- Use pictures, graphs, images when they can really pinpoint something
- Put everything in context to the preceding and the following
- Put time (knowing it is both a deadline and a constraint) on things when you know it is possible
- If you can try out your directions first by all means do so (including those “marching orders”)
- If it is technical in nature please include someone with design sense
- Use space in pictures, for relationships on time lines and when you are presenting/communicating (because there are always directions built in to those interchanges)
- If there is something strange up ahead call it out early (and suggesting someone “read through the directions first” does not count- two reads of a bad explanation do not make clarity)
- Be careful how many bullet points you use- I had to stick that in there- a little like telling a kid No, you only get so many chances for effect
Look at your change process. See it as a journey with a series of steps. Make those steps clear. Be embarrassed when your stakeholders finish with “a pile of parts leftover”.
