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- Ramp up the urgency
- Grab some like minded people to help out
- Now create a vision/story that will increase the tension… I mean urgency
- Start talking, start convincing and start bargaining if necessary
- Put some people in charge- in fact hold them accountable NOW
- You might want to consider some short term wins since you are so far into this
- Give 110%. With enough force you can get a square peg in a round hole
- Now glue it all together to form a new legacy
Just a few comments-
This is actually out of order. The last thing you want to do is follow this in order. In case you missed that- It does not have to be in this order. You will probably benefit from moving that urgency part down to the middle where, in a reasonable change effort things make sense, money is there and the people with the competency are in the right place. Then the urgency is to actually get the pieces of the process accomplished.
Why, exactly would you wait until the sixth step for a win? Any kind of a win even a short one. Why not make the first step solid corporate strategy? Believe me letting change come from that will be a BIG win.
The gathering of information to get to a description of the end state would follow.Urgency and vision close to each other is sure to get snickers from those who have seen it before.
Communicating to get buy-in sounds a little like an expensive TV ad. If you need “buy in” you either have weak change or weak leaders. Yes you will need to explain the sensibility of the change and illustrate your command of the upcoming process. Do that and you will have participation with motivation.
Never let up on your focus on tying context of work into the big picture. Never let up on illustrating all of the pieces, all of the timing, all of the successes and all of the changes of direction.
If you have to make it stick you might want to rethink your eight steps…
There are two posts of mine that seem to be popular “semi-plagiarize” content. http://horizontalchange.com/?s=speaking Although I must admit it is a quick thrill to look something up, find it and then realize you wrote it. Some day there will be so many I will not be able to keep track of it… we all need our imaginary, but possible, end states. In the interest of catering to stakeholders (in this case some distinctly different kinds of readers) here are a couple of exercises to go with the posts- steal away, but something more than 2 pixel font acknowledgment would be nice –:).
The Why Exercise
We are often so focused on producing deliverables and checking off our “to-do” lists that we neglect to answer why.
Choose a perspective, an imaginary end state or an idea, spend 10 –15 minutes developing it and creating fake facts for support. The exercise is to give a short explanation and then have two or more individuals ask questions. The questioners are assigned two roles- one someone who needs explanations and reasons, one someone who expects facts.
You can switch roles and try this multiple times.
The connection to change management becomes quickly apparent. The fact role will force the participants into timeframes, specifics, tasks and action. The explanation role will put emphasis on the early stages of end state definition. If the roles are played well mini battles will ensue. In real life it is important to understand these two perspectives in stakeholders. CM practitioners must address both. In a too low too late scenario the why will need extra attention.
The Work Style Exercise
We listen (or not) in many different ways, it might be because of a learning style, it might be because of connection to the information or it might be because of the way we like to work.
Present a group of four or more with hidden roles for a mock meeting or discussion. Each of the roles will represent a style or way of listening- looking for facts, looking for relationships and connection, looking for attention to detail, looking for speed and action. Conduct the meeting, play the roles and then debrief. It is interesting and revealing to switch roles ,especially if the role you play out is not a normal one for you.
The difficulty of connecting vision/perspective/strategy to work reveals itself instantly with this interchange. As with most meetings if the balance of why and what has not been planned ahead there is a free for all of individual needs and styles. The “speed and action” participants will typically run the show. Stopping at the light to survey the environment is difficult.
“Try the other side”, a friend’s nine year old daughter said to me.
“For what”, I responded banana in hand.
“To peel it, that’s the way the monkeys do it”.
This was a nine year old (kids can get me to do all kinds of new things-they are true champions) asking, I love change and it is just about the strangest request or comment I have had in years. You know what though?
I hesitated. Somehow I did not want to eat a banana differently. I have never seen anyone peel the banana from the other end. What if it did not work? Worse, what if it was better than my version of the top peel? I considered not even trying because it might be BETTER. Have you ever done this? What would it take for you to try? Of course not… Your business? Oh, of course not….
“Monkeys peel from the bottom, people peel from the top”, she encouraged.
That little extra boost was all I needed and I peeled that banana, backwards. You can guess the ending.
THIS IS AWESOME!
It is fast, its is clean- no mushed tops, no two-peels-stuck-together-that-never-come-apart, no cutting off the banana butt (my kids call that last black spot on the banana, on the bottom, the banana butt) it came clean with the peeling and zero waste. I am a complete convert. I will never go back.
How many bananas have you peeled backward lately?
The number one skill for change management is the ability to truly see things from the perspective of the stakeholder. For a practitioner that means everyone- first day employee to CEO. For an internal change leader that means the same including looking at themselves in a different light (especially the CEO).
What is the stakeholder’s perspective?
That the change is far away, both in time and connection.
That it does not really make sense.
That even if it did the leaders do not really know what they are doing.
That even if they knew what they were doing they would not be able to explain and legitimize the change.
Or,
That this really makes sense, but odds are “they” will blow it
That this really makes sense, but the execution will fail (see last comment).
That this really makes sense, but there is no way they will create the space or have the capacity or capability to make it happen.
That this really makes sense, but they will rush it and cause it to fall apart.
That this really makes sense, but is just too big (or too bold, or too innovative or too different from our culture).
Or,
I could care less it it makes sense or not, I am too busy.
I could care less if it makes sense or not, I hate change.
…I like things the way they are.
…I need to be acknowledged personally before I participate in anything.
The lists go on (and on and on).
What is really happening here though? There is a lot of change going on- always. Since corralling that process 15 years or so ago under the title, “Change Management”, stakeholders have become aware. Thanks to a lot of boxes, steps, circles and comparisons to dying that awareness typically borders on confusion. They have also developed, thanks to ease of information, a keener sense of corporate strategy, the business environment and the success/failure ratio.
It turns out to be able to “see things from the stakeholders perspective” you have to
know what you are doing
do something that truly makes sense
have and display humility
have and use empathy
respect the knowledge and capability of stakeholders (and be able to leverage and reward)
have a process that isn’t just about filling in a timeline
get the first try, or at a least a try, right, to gain traction
and then do it again.
I will leave it up to you to decide who the orangutan is…(leader, project manager, change practitioner, stakeholder etc).
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.
High level change management has two or three spots in the timeline/process where I always feel it is essential to call a conference room late-morning-into-lunch meeting to wrap our arms around the big picture. I do not take forcing the invite lightly. One of the reasons I can be bold enough to take a chunk of first or second horizontal executive time is that an interesting thing always happens…something new, something potentially “viral” (in a good way), something specific to the client organization appears. It appears in the form of a new word (languaging at its core) a diagram, chart or picture.
One of those meetings (4 hours long) at a Fortune 50 firm created all of the above- a chart, a diagram and a picture. It was a picture that bore a striking resemblance to a camel. “It looks like we drew a camel”, I said on our sandwich break… that connection, that potential analogy, that unique to that organization picture, was all it took to begin creating a model. You might call that the second step of languaging.
The third step, now I hear a year later, after an all hands presentation by the client, was a wildfire spread of the analogy to different parts of the company around the world. Which has since morphed into functional and regional interpretations of the camel analogy, chart, picture and model.
It is nice that a camel can go a long time without water, can stand extremes of heat and has a face that takes a little time getting used to. All great languaging leverage points. Those up and down humps are also helpful to illustrate passage of time, levels of effort and participation. Carry that a little farther and you could say certain parts of the camel are better at carrying a heavy load (and certain camels are stronger).
This type of analogy languaging has happened a couple of time with clients… Maybe we should count them as deliverables…
The practice of Change Management (this is the “what I have seen” view) is missing a clear perspective of root causes. Admittedly finding the core of organizational difficulties, not just the work of CM practitioners but also day to day operations, is not easy, takes time and requires insight and empathy- a tall order. An order that should be filled though, because symptom chasing solves little, lays a bad path for the next go around and diminishes the ability of CM overall.
Here is an example-
A method focuses on resistance of stakeholders. It lays out a series of communications, surveys, assessments (readiness which strikes me as the silliest of terms if you are automatically expecting resistance) and pretty pictures to represent the data. The data is “interpreted” and then the practitioners follow their pattern of educating on “the change process”, “gaps” (CM methods love to include gaps), transitions (ditto for this) and the five stages (or 8 steps or 10 boxes) that stakeholders must and will adhere to/pass through to accomplish the change. Everything that is gathered and collected illustrates symptoms, results of the change difficulty.
To get anywhere and to truly be successful at the end state causes need to be addressed.
Short of me (and it is truly an uphill battle) I have never seen a practitioner who takes that information gathered (because despite its poor perspective and damaging assumptions does gather some good data- I love data as much as the next practitioner) and uses it to address the root causes that have created the symptoms that produce the “resistance” that live in the house that Jack built…(I couldn’t resist).
Very often (here’s where I would like to have some good data) strategy-poor or lack thereof-is a root cause. Equally powerful is a performance system that runs counter to the objectives of the change. Culture that has not been molded to be innovative or at least receptive to enhancement can be another stifling root cause.
Therefore the first step of any major horizontal, “transformational” (if you like that synonym) change is to look with a magnifying glass (at the first horizontal I might add- might as well start the real change from the get go) at strategy, the performance reward equation and the good and not so of the organizations culture. That view through the looking glass will illuminate symptoms before they even appear sans expensive, time consuming and often detrimental data gathering.
I have touched on this before. The revisit is because one it is hitting me personally (stakeholders I feel your angst) and two it just hits home for what I think is the core problem in a lot of change initiatives- Assumptions.
There are so many things in life that to understand, follow through with or participate in require shared understanding. With the need for speed in shared understanding comes assumptions. If we start “from the same spot” we can move forward faster. If you already know something at a certain level I can then teach you the next step. The person or entity represented by that person that delivers must gauge the assumptive area. Two problems with that- One you must be aware of the fact that you have to gauge and two you must be good at it. Watch a good change practitioner and you will see expert in action in this area. I would venture to say it is THE core competency (I say competency because it usually requires a mix of specific skills) of a change management consultant.
So I will use CSS as my example.
I will not even try to explain this. Search “web design, float, relative, absolute” or “box model CSS” or “normal document flow” if you want to play with this example yourself. Normal Document Flow (in caps because it is apparently something really important and lets use NDF and make it something official) is our assumption. It has a lot to do with where something is supposed to be, things taking the place of that thing when you tell it to be somewhere else and people (and browsers) constantly changing the display parameters with their individual preference, software and hardware. Read that last sentence again. ‘Sound like a generic sentence for most business change?
If I am on the receiving end of this, the user, your NDF means absolutely nothing to me- by definition or importance.
If you have asked me to create this and I have always been quick with a pencil and napkin (or design software in this specific case) then not only is it hard to understand your NDF it seems a ridiculously slow way to get things done.
If the “you” person has helped in the design of this CSS thing- for many good reasons like SEO, cleaner code and that compatibility thing mentioned above- NDF is pretty important. It is the basis for a lot of the reasons the web is used. You get that.
Let’s say you are the leader in this grand NDF initiative, multiple year because it is complicated. If you do not clear the assumptions about flow (linear) and use (tactical) and creation (spatial and visual) George Washington, Lincoln and yes, many Wilson bills are going to change hands needlessly (for you, maybe not them- depending on who you chose as your consultants). You must be aware, or made aware, from the beginning ,that this assumption will be important. You must find a quiet place alone or with others to figure out how to gauge and then address knowledge, perspective and interest to learn (which then translates into participate and engage).
Here is an interesting tie to our analogy- When a demo online or a training video shows examples of “ways to position things” for CSS and somehow avoids the use of NDF as a term or assumption I get close to getting it. For the CSS person it has been “dumbed down”. For me it is using my languaging and learning style. Constantly refer to NDF and where something “would normally be” and you lose me. Another post right in this paragraph about how you move forward after you tackle the assumptions…
During the last year of difficulties, process focus and belt tightening I have encouraged those around me to take advantage of this opportunity to find all of the things you can do in business and life that cost nothing. In your personal life it is easier than you think and the list is long. As with change management it will have to do with people- both spending time with them and choosing alone time.
But how could the business side possibly have any free opportunities?
Here it may be more effective use of resources which is not necessarily free (although it could create more time or savings which is actually better than free), but it is also how you interact and connect with others.
Overlapping change with operations
Always going to the last few stakeholders at the beginning of initiatives
Leveraging humility (especially if following failed efforts- doubly if they were your own)
Raise everything up one level
Get rid of levels
Feed moral support (and visible executive support) down into initiatives during the project work
Connect horizontally between initiatives
Acknowledge other functions for their operational efforts and skills
The list is longer, much longer. It boils down to people (them not you), paying attention, preparing with others in mind, acknowledging gaps in resources and encouraging ideas that fill the gaps and connecting (earlier rather than in the moment).
Did I mention Humility?
I have been doing some web work redesign and am officially feeling the pain that many of the stakeholders I work with go through. Web pages are now designed around CSS which is a linear process. I do mockups and graphic design work with Fireworks which works on a spatial/visual platform. I can mock up a web site in a couple of hours. I have spent days (Ok actually more than that) trying to figure out and understand CSS. System oriented focus that I have I wonder why the process can not be WSIWYG. And I feel for you stakeholders. My feet are dug in the sand for this new learning which is making getting to my end state exceedingly difficult.
Lets look at this like a mini behavior change problem.
Because of a “new” technology I am forced to do things differently which slows me down and eventually frustrates me. The new technology approaches work in a linear way. I am a visual spatial learner so even if an expert were to help me I would have serious difficulties understanding and using the needed approach. To get to what I do well and enjoy more (writing and making that available through the website) I must pass this gate. Just like many of the stakeholders out there passing through their own gates of change.
Here is the connection though. The ultimate end state, visibility and availability for my knowledge and prose, is crucial to my future and my work. The change facilitator in me must find a way to place significance on the CSS phase in relation to my end state. That is the context to Big Picture loop I constantly reinforce here. The connection is search optimization. CSS works much better than the image versions I create in Fireworks.
So perhaps the change facilitator in me finds a way to see the reasoning behind SEO to loop back to CSS. The “got you to participate” link for me with behavioral change is the Why of my 5 W’s. The why now makes sense and might just be powerful enough to overcome my resistance.
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