|
|
Have you heard these comments and responses in your organization?
“Where can I find (fill-in-the-blank) information?”
“It is right there (same fill in for portal, intranet site etc.).”
“How do I do this”.
“Ask so and so”.
Revert to response one.
I am continually amazed that each organization I work with suffers from this problem. (many of my change initiatives seek to address it).
The problem: communicating to the right people at the right time with the right intensity.
The secondary problem: not having to do this over and over and over.
PULL
In order to avoid mountains of emails and memos, organizations big and small must have a landing spot. The landing is a central portal that can be a home page or the place you feed in to from others spots. It is an intranet, a SharePoint site or a web site.
Pull is the secret magic thing that gets people to go from the message and/or the link to that central spot. It is also the usefulness of that central spot when the person gets there. Success on the first try will likely allow pull for the next communication.
The site should develop pull of its own so that users go back of their own accord. Hints for this: a reasonable amount of similar posts (say from leaders), good organization, visual interest, a disconnect from Corporate Communications (if you can get away with it).
Context
Once there users must know how the thing they are looking for connects to the whole and to other things. This information has to have context to be understood and remembered.
Here is where the big problem is (I think). The context that these sites have is textual, like an outline. Outlines make sense when you can see the whole thing. Pull any one of the pieces out of the mix and it gets confusing. Or present it in an unfamiliar way and same thing. If you know CSS you have a good example. A code structure that makes sense if you think that way- words can give you pictures of connection if you are an expert CSS’er.
Repositories
Even the most well run organizations seem to have disconnected repositories. There are all kinds of reasons- silos, security, space limitations etc. Or they have a repository that is holding everything with a horrible search function.
Take lack of pull (from over saturating users with emails) add in textual organization and top it off with storage disconnect and you have users wasting time trying to find things.
This has a lot to do with change management in that sometimes the simplest of things- getting those who will change to read or see something that is important- is next to impossible.
I have no silver bullet…
Except for this (I have never seen this anywhere nor have I been able to convince a client to do this high enough in the organization for it to work):
A Picture Map
The picture map would be a mind map of sorts. Multiple levels of importance would be represented by different shapes, or sizes or colors. Links to each of those areas might be represented by different sized lines depending on importance (or traffic or time). This would be an image map. Everything would be hyperlinked. The number of times you click through things might represent importance.
Each branch might have a similar map of its own- keeping some consistency with importance.
Clicking through combined with the previous organization would give context.
If the map was big enough and organized well enough you might be able to get to anything important in one or two clicks.
Yes much like a good website. But websites are basically textual too. It is the image that is important.
I have tried this at a low level for clients with multiple change initiatives happening at one time- it is VERY powerful and very effective.
Do anything you can to create pull, form context and have a navigable repository. If you can do it with one or a few pictures even better!
Technorati Tags: Big Picture, change communications, change management, change management strategy, Change Strategy, Communications, Context, stakeholders
There is a new breed of CM consultant out there.
Call them the Contrarians.
(there are so few of them I could make them t-shirts and not break the bank).
Maybe they got this way from seeing the crime of forced change.
Maybe it was the limitations of a project focus that made them think a different perspective might save the world (or at least the day).
Maybe they started a little before the template, do it in exactly in this order, cheese loving wave of death began.
Maybe they have that rare superhuman, or at least superhero (heroinne) combination of people and business skills (and perspective).
Maybe they have an intuitive camera in their heads (their superhero strength) that can take mental image pictures of possibility.
Whichever combination of these (or all of them, a mega superhero) got them here they have one thing in common: they see change big and broad and can translate to the here and now. (By contrast the others, not villains, just not superheroes, let alone contrarians, see things in terms of the here and now with the future state far off).
The superheroes weave process and competency into a pat,h then can accumulate expertise and be pulled toward end states.
The others pay close attention to task and phase. They are busy, but a little like the crime fighters I saw as a kid in New York all standing on Wall Street. I was about to say no crime there… bad metaphor I guess.
Without the big picture view and the down to earth understanding of people that these heroes have it is hard to catch all of the things that can get in the way of good and success which of course is what all superheroes and the people they help, want.
Technorati Tags: Big Picture, business objectives, Buyer, C level, CEO, change awareness, change management, change management consultant, External Consultant, Garrett Gitchell, vision to work
For change to work you have to know where you are going.
Not the path, not the process, not the timing- the place.
If you do not know what that place looks and feels like, and personalize that picture, how can you possibly figure out what needs to happen? Let alone who needs to be involved or which road to take.
Yet the change management conversation quickly moves to task, process and people (as in, “how do we get Joe on board” rather than who has the skill and competency to fill in this piece). I will stick my neck out and say that is really not a change management conversation, but project management.
Holistic dialogues like talking about and then describing end states seem to be very hard for most people (I spend a lot of time teaching this in my own practice) to have. Big picture (as big as the scenario, this end state back thing works for small stuff too) viewpoints are pushed aside, not taken seriously and overpowered by operational stuff and status quo thinking.
It is usually easy to point backwards to something the client did to illustrate how a little time defining the end of change would have made a BIG difference (in results and in spending).
I get it though. Pieces and parts make for easier explanations. Pieces and parts work to translate big stuff into real stuff (and small stuff). Our pieces then:
- Destination
- Place
- Journey
- Time
Destination
Vacations that have no purpose, just get in the car and go, are fun (until the first night you can’t get a room). Change that works that way is not fun (or cheap).
Just naming the destination does not count.
Talking about, explaining, imagining, envisioning, dreaming about the destination (the end state) can make it real. That vacation to “Italy”, fill-in-the-blank, was different than you imagined, or expected, it was still a great vacation though. If you had not planned for it and thought about how fun it would be would it have turned out as smooth and enjoyable?
And didn’t that place you were going to define the whole process? This is about… fill-in-the-blank destination. Maybe you learned a language (competency in org. talk). Maybe you bought some things you needed just for the trip (which can likely be reused). Maybe you needed help (even for the destination description) getting the whole vacation thing to work.
Odds are good you knew your destination and took the time to understand it and see it and feel it, pre-vacation.
Place
Did you take that a little further and imagine things that would happen while you were there?
Place (and spot for my change approach) are two of my favorite words. Place is the spot you are standing on (spot the relationship of yours and others places). You can pretend and imagine place before you get there.
Changes will happen along the way that define that place.
Once you know your destination you can begin to define place. You can start to make a high level list of the things that have to happen for that place in time to become.
Journey
A huge component of change has to do with the journey.
In the haste to get going, manage this whole project, the joy of the journey gets buried. In fact to use our vacation analogy it becomes uncomfortable, irritating and overwhelming.
If you know where you are going and have a sense of what that place and spot might be like you can put together some pieces of the journey. Think of it as gathering all of the parts to the building. You have started a high level plan, you have a sense of some of the things you might need. It is ok to gather them before you have the concrete project plan.
Know that as soon as you begin to gather, even plan to gather, the journey has begun.
It would not hurt to stop in the moment once in awhile to acknowledge journey.
Time
Because time just slips away.
And time is precious.
So don’t start manipulating it until you know what you are doing.
At this point in our narrative you have a destination set, you can stand in that time and appreciate what that destination is, you have a sense of the journey to get there, it is now OK to begin placing events on a timeline.
Please, please, please do not set the exact date you will get there (unless we really are just talking about vacations).
Chunk up the journey into pieces that can be labeled. Use your project management process if you want- those always have stage labels… plan, execute, implement etc. And/or try some new languaging for just this project, “across Global IT” is one I am using on my current engagement (signals this will be collaborative and circle the globe).
Then go ahead and get down and dirty with some real project management.
Check yourself on that journey. Sometimes the destination drifts away like an old Twilight Zone show where the hall has no end.
Destination, place and journey are most important for change. Task and chores just fill in the steps to get you there. The hands on work is the easy part…
Technorati Tags: Big Picture, C level, change awareness, Change Design, change excercise, change failure, change management, change management consultant, Change Strategy, corporate change management, End State, Garrett Gitchell, vision to work
To craft a good end state that has lots of room for possibility you have to be able to dream.
Dreaming is a step above imagining and envisioning.
Some pushback responses to this:
“That takes too long”.
“Why dream when that end state is not possible?”
“If I do that I am bound to be disappointed”.
“Everyone will think I am crazy”.
“I am not good at that”.
The only response you can use is the last one. This is something you can get better at.
A previous post, “Change Management from the Shore” looked at this from an executives perspective.
You can get better at this by using your own example and practicing on that.
I will use one of a friend:
She is a teacher, a reading specialist. The teaching environment, especially here in California, is not pleasant to say the least. (Parents are terrible and demanding, unrealistically, pay just keeps going down and down and class sizes keep going up which makes it hard for teachers to do what they chose the career for- teach children).
So we have one catalyst for change- environment.
She happens to be reaching the last step on the union pay scale. This means an automatic (cost of living raises disappeared for teachers five or six years ago) pay cut every year for the rest of her career. The chances for a new union contract in this hostile environment are nil.
Another catalyst for change- something to do with money (or revenue for organizations).
Since she is a reading specialist her dream is to have every kid in the world excited about books, not just a couple of kids ALL of them!
Catalyst three- desire and energy.
Three catalysts for change, a skill set that can transfer, especially in the non profit world and likely good timing (there will be a lot of change for people and roles in the next couple of years).
Putting yourself in your shoes, with your own scenario maybe, think how hard it is to dream of an end state…
For her, maybe it is working for a non-profit that deals with reading around the world. Maybe it is a political action role to build education funding and awareness. Maybe it is a big switch and has something to do with a corporate role with learning and development as the competency set. Or maybe it is something we are not thinking of (remember this is DREAMING).
You have to say “what if?”. You have to pretend. You can’t have any parameters.
Then you can reel back from those end states to see what it would take to get there. When you have reeled in all the line you will be at now. How much of those needs do you have now? What can you carry forward to this new end state?
This is my push for dream end states, personal or corporate: if you do not play out the various scenarios, however exotic, you will not be ready for opportunities. Change takes a certain level of “being ready”. If you do not have that you have to build it and by then the possibility for change may have passed you by.
DREAM of possibilities. DREAM of end states for your own personal life and that of your organization. Then be ready…
Technorati Tags: Big Picture, change excercise, vision, vision to work
A typical bullet point list for change management within an organization:
- something about management vision and understanding
- something about impact
- something about planning
- something about users, stakeholders and participation
They are never numbered, but always in this order. So if they were numbered what would be strange about this?
You can have participation with no vision. I know makes no sense, but look around your organization…
Can you have vision with no participation?
Not for very long.
The order is backwards- 4 needs to be one. Understanding stakeholders over a period of time, refreshed continuously is why change management exists (because it is not happening- or at least its not first on the list).
One could be two- stakeholder then vision.
Impact is a nasty word, negative in connotation. The process and approach that follows usually fits right in to that connotation.
Planning is usually about layering CM over the project process. That does need to be done but not without the stakeholder to vision then back to stakeholders order.
Keep in mind leaders and practitioners (who can influence leaders and the decisions of organizations) you can have participation without vision (however scattered that may become) but you cannot have a vision that means anything without participation. Are you signaling and showing you understand that premise?
Technorati Tags: Big Picture, business objectives, C level, change awareness, change management strategy, Change Strategy, Executive, stakeholders, vision to work
Change management practitioners (who have worked high in the organization as well as side by side with implementers), have a knack for seeing connections to the bigger picture. This is a powerful (and irritating) addition for organizations.
It is powerful because small things mean a lot to individuals. Connecting to something bigger gives each of those small things more significance. More significance in relation to individuals equals more participation.
It is irritating because to most, especially those implementers, there does not seem to be much connection between the little things and more important tasks to accomplish. CM practitioners must seem like mosquitoes in springtime Alaska- they just keep buzzing and it is hard to swat them away.
Something as innocuous as an executive communication within a project, we know as practitioners, can have big connection and important significance for change and the organization. Little trust and confidence threads run through all the organizations interactions, especially those of the leaders. Change feeds on trust (or maybe survives would be a better word). Anything that takes away that nourishment will effect change in a detrimental way.
The way things are done can be reinforcing for those who need to get things done fast. The “way things are done” can feel like “here we go again” to stakeholders and employees. Since those good practitioners do see a bigger picture they are magnets for feedback (even and especially the negative complaining kind, which are FULL of valuable tidbits). Having that feedback in their own database helps them see how badly something can go wrong on a broader scale. (and so they buzz like mosquitoes).
I bring this up here in a blog post because it seems no one is really responsible inside organizations for seeing these connections. Leaders should know better but cant be flies on the wall at the implementary/stakeholder level. Those at the level of task have no accountability for the bigger picture (other than the hierarchical connection to their leaders).
This buzzing about the little things and how they feed the big things, and the conversation about how the big things need the small things is important. Practitioners need to keep it up for the good of everyone. Too bad we can’t bite like mosquitoes. The need to itch would make people pay attention…
Technorati Tags: Big Picture, business objectives, CCM, CEO, change management consultant, corporate change management, Executive, stakeholders
The joy of consulting when change management is really new- especially in an established firm…
There is no perfect “right” for a change management approach. There are some “not so rights” that make getting change to happen difficult. When CM is not present in an organization or is very new (with none of those “not so’s” inserted) this career is pure joy.
Tread lightly in these cases. Here are a few tips that should fall under “right”:
- Set up something that helps define end states.
- Create a place to go and a place to store.
- Template and “ brand” (lightly please).
- Increase Leadership presence.
- Completely wrap your arms around what exists structurally (and be ready to tweak that).
End states
Knowing where you are going, even better seeing and feeling what that might be like, from multiple perspectives, is crucial to change. The better your organization and its people get at defining and describing where you are going the smoother and faster change happens.
Use leadership development, templates with the right questions to ask, and (shameless plug) external consultants.
Set up ways to collaborate to have the dialogue needed to define end states. Add ways to include facts, numbers and the business side support for those end states.
Landing and Destination spot
Create a “place” where information can be exchanged and stored. Take that one step further and make the place collaborative. Tools like SharePoint can help. Adding portals, blogs and regular newsletter type communications adds to the mix.
Consistency
Integrate consistency into your approach.
Have regular communications that happen on a consistent basis. Use colors, shapes, styles to define a few types of communication (maybe your leaders get the blue header, projects green). Do the same within projects and keep that consistent from project to project. (Do feel free to improve as you go along, just make sure you communicate differences and don’t go so far that the original consistency gets confusing).
Consistency can be tough because you do not want to police and/or stifle interaction. The more formal the exchange the easier it is to “template” it. The more you want honest exchange the softer the edges of the consistency box.
Leadership presence
If setting up this change management entity, process, approach is a change initiative of its own move this paragraph up to the top. Leadership presence is crucial for effective change. Trust and energy equal participation. All three can equal end states with some good planning and lots of work through expertise.
Make sure you have places, events and regular activities where leaders can be seen, heard and, in a perfect world, disagreed with once in awhile.
If your leaders do not already accept accountability and responsibility (to their employees and stakeholders- to the board and shareholders always seems to be a given) then create places where they can illustrate their tie to change.
If they do not have those two trust building qualities give them places in your approach and structure to build connection. Maybe you need just as much movement from employees toward leaders as you are asking of your leaders toward stakeholders?
History and structure
While putting this all together keep a list of what has come before.
Culture, structure and history either hold change back or help it move forward. Sometimes you have to call any or all of them out as roadblocks and then build something new. Many times you can simply make just the right adjustments to hold on to what you have while growing into what you need (or want).
By comparison to the less pristine organizations pure client environments are a joy to work with. Having to work with change management false starts and undeveloped structure is often like doing two engagements at the same time. If you are lucky enough to be in one of those “pure” organizations (maybe you are a start up…) get a good start with defining end states, creating landing and exchange places, adding effective consistency, building leadership presence and honoring history and structure (just enough to move forward).
Technorati Tags: Big Picture, C level, change awareness, change communications, Change Design, change management, change management consultant, Change Strategy
Large company- I am picking on Office Depot but I am loyal so that’s fair- regularly sends out coupons. Or company, usually, an online organization, sends out coupons immediately after a purchase. We, as consumers thank all of you for those coupons. We REALLY like that you are so consistent. Behavior change is much easier when it is wrapped in some predictability.
Thanks to coupons I know my own personal behavior and habits have changed. You are welcome Office Depot (and Michaels, Best Buy, Smart Home, Big 5, Bed Bath and Beyond and a host of others) for my patronage.
All of you now have a problem with your behavior changing. Your profit margin is ALWAYS less than you thought it would be because I simply make a nice list and wait. When the coupon arrives I grab an item on the list (at 10 –20% less than regular price).
Were those coupons to stop I would be forced to shop competitors.
Many coupons were sent, and used, before I became loyal. My loyalty (and that of other coupon users) is 10% less valuable.
OK , corporate change tie:
Beware change, and the behaviors to match, that look good on the surface or satisfy one element only. Don’t give out “coupons” and water down loyalty. Better to offer a loyalty program and reward for multiple and long term behavior change.
Perhaps a coupon to entice, say a change in your performance system, with a loyalty program, say extra compensation for collaborative work effort, might make the most “corporate” sense?
Behavior change is fantastic if it produces the correct effect. As our coupon example shows be careful of loyalty reduced by 10%, or more. Be clear why you are looking for that change and tie it to a long term view.
Technorati Tags: behavior change, Big Picture, business objectives, change management, organizational change
Last year seemed to be the year of executive churn at least from my vantage point. Many of my senior leader contacts moved on or were moved on. In a few cases the churn within an organization was substantial (3 or more senior leaders gone in the same year).
This could be the economy, it could be a speeding up of shortened C level and VP tenure or it could just be the machinations of career building. Regardless of the reason there is an interesting dynamic that accompanies this pattern. The trusted adviser(s) are still around and/or still available.
Have trusted advisers become the Strategy Glue for these organizations?
A consultant who has worked with multiple executives successively has a unique perspective on the organization. They know what is possible, probable and likely. They usually have a strong sense of the direction the organization should go to be successful, at least from a people standpoint (if not business too).
Aside from possibly the CEO they can build up tenure with no threat. One clients end to a contract might be the open door for another. Two or three client companies with this relationship for the consultant and partnering can be a back and forth over a period of years- with new executives each time.
The culture and history of course do not turn that fast.
A trusted adviser will be well aware of this. They will probably be twice as effective with the unmoving nature of culture. They could very well have been there for the selection process for the replacement executive so have a head start on integration of a new face into a longer term plan.
I am throwing all this out as a stream of thought while thinking the use of a trusted adviser, especially for the CEO (who MAY stay longer than others), to glue together a longer term strategy is a wise move.
Strategy probably belongs internal. Strategic planning and suggestions may just make sense as an external element- especially in this senior executive churn environment.
Technorati Tags: Big Picture, business objectives, Buyer, C level, CCM, CEO, change awareness, change management strategy, Change Strategy, corporate change management, Executive, External Consultant, Garrett Gitchell, horizontal change management, strategy
We could use more of this for change management.
:to withdraw one’s attention
Merriam-Webster
Webster’s example fits perfectly: “If we prescind from the main issue for a moment, there is much to be gained by studying some corollary questions.”.
Since the “main issue” usually has something to do with short term tasks, resistance, effect or backlash prescind-ing is a way to open perspective and see the broader picture.
Since most CM is added well after the start of the change process a little prescind-tion can reset the timeline to something more appropriate for transition to the new change.
I know every time I have prescind-ed with my clients important components to the change were made visible.
Take the time to veer from sense of urgency, prescind to secondary issues once in awhile.
Technorati Tags: Big Picture, business objectives, change awareness, change management strategy, vision to work
|
|
