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Change is always about action. Or for the historical, resistance approaches, inaction.
For action to happen there must be some stimulus that gets it started and keeps it going. The trigger/switch at the individual level is motivation. That foundation out of the way, who is in charge of the triggers?
The Individual
You would think it would start here. The individual most likely assumes it will start somewhere else. When an individual has chosen to do something on their own, say find a job, they are certainly responsible for motivation. They will feed that with the carrots and sticks of different opportunities. But when an individual is expected to do something they relinquish control of motivation.
The Boss
Which brings us to the first level leaders. They are the closest to core motivational action. They have the chance to effect action. Unfortunately they are the bosses- as my kids say, “stop bossing me around”. Doubly unfortunate is the fact that they are also individuals. They are saddled with the need to both act and be responsible for action. With so much action on the radar it is easy to forget that action requires motivation.
The Mid Level Manager
It is here that the carrots and sticks are stacked, measured, bargained for and grouped. Since carrots and sticks are a fairly weak motivator, force and coercion are often chosen as alternatives. So now we have an individual who is also a boss delivering blows and wishing they could somehow satisfy everyone- which would probably increase motivation and therefore the right actions.
The Acronym Leaders
At this level you get your title shortened, from seven and eight letters (and more) to 2- VP. Not only must motivation at an individual level (which of course includes the VP) be considered, but there is now an invisible core energy centered around function (read skill, focus and a certain kind of specific motivation) that has a powerful action/inaction lever. Competing motivators and competing actions (or not) appear. The more this person takes charge of functional motivators the more they tend to run head-on into disparate organizational motivators- especially if they are wrapped up in a change package.
Enter the Figureheads
SVP’s.
Their idea of individual now means something completely different. Their understanding of motivators has been tarnished by the rise through the other levels. My favorite motivator- make this make sense- has lost its importance next to, “here is the list make it happen”. The SVP’s have a confusing list of competing interests, all of our categories, plus functions in general, sometimes the combination of functions (who do not always get along- think sales and marketing), the board (since many of them sit there), which means shareholders (a category of individuals that has a serious, often detrimental effect on motivation and action)…
Which leads to the Founder/CEO/Evangelist
It is just as easy to say they are in charge of motivation as it is to say the same of the individuals. For both you might just be right. While this individual (mixing categories again) has the weight of the world on their shoulders they also have all the potential for motivation that can create both action and the motivation to act. They can guide systems, processes, structure and rewards. They can acknowledge (hint- biggest motivator for action), stir collaboration, mediate disputes and discrepancies and bring in the tools and resources to motivate worthwhile action (another hint- see make sense above).
We might have to call it a tie.
In the hierarchical structure, horizontal/matrixed or not, the top person is ultimately, on paper, in charge of motivation. In a democratic, each-person-is-a-shining-light culture, the individual is in charge of every action (not necessarily responsible, just in charge). So it is a tie. Since each person is an individual tie broken.
Which creates a nasty circular looped argument for change management to focus on the individual in terms of action. Search “change management” and you will find approaches that slot right in.
Motivation requires an input, which creates energy to stimulate action. Skip the input (makes sense is one) and go straight to the energy (urgency?) and you get…an equal and opposite reaction.
Approaches to action/change that look at the organizations world from an individual stakeholder perspective back at all the sticks, all the carrots, all of our categories and all of the other angles that influence motivated action (the best kind for change, read “Champions”) …work.
Those approaches create Vision to Work… for a change.
(couldn’t resist a plug )
 Just the fact the there is a role for CM on any given initiative, program or project is a plus. It sends a signal to participants that the transition from one thing to another is complicated and difficult enough to warrant sheparding by a person rather than just through communication or project management.
As a Conduit
A CM resource external, internal or a designated leader will consider it their responsibility to make connections that are obvious, but for some reason are not happening. Leader to stakeholder and vice-versa, function to function, peer to peer across functions, internal to external resources to name a few.
As a Leadership Guide
This an extension of the conduit plus. It is difficult in organizations to get valuable feedback as a leader and to give the same as an employee/stakeholder. The CM often falls into the role of coach/mentor/advisor between the leading and the hands on work.
As a Communication Lever
In the same third party sense the communication for a change process can weave in operational interaction in a safer and more approachable manner than mandates and barked orders.
As an Organizational Assessment avenue
The process of gathering information for the end state descriptions reveals a wealth of data about the organization. Companies rarely have an avenue for objectively evaluating their people, structure and process. CM (with a good practitioner) shines a light in all three areas.
As an Operational Builder
If Change Management is an entity within the organization all of the above combined with the regular change management activities and expectations can address efficiency, collaboration, cross functional accountability and overall connection between strategy and implementation.
Good start. The primary competency of a change management consultant, I am beginning to think, is anticipation. Or ,so you do not confuse this with some fight or flight tendency (also well honed in CM practitioners) intuition might be a better word. We can tell you what will happen as each little action reverberates across the change web. We have probably seen something like this before, people are people and because of that, mistakes are consistently repeated from organization to organization and person to person.
Odds are you are not thinking of:
- How your assumptions effect your approach
- The true effect the change will have on operational efficiency
- The true effect operations will have on the path to the end state
- Importance of placement of change process- usually too low in organization
- Importance of timing of CM- usually too late
- The effect of leadership (different than the “importance of”)
- The power of one (how well is your approach going to acknowledge at the individual level)
- Context and big picture- will a stakeholder know where they fit and where you are in the process?
- Your performance system and its stranglehold on change
- Your leaders and their stranglehold on change (see previous bullet- not necessarily their fault)
- How you are dealing with assessment and measurement
- The difference between training and awareness
- Leveraging transformational initiatives for succession and professional development
- Accountability, responsibility and “ownership”
It is a much longer list, but you get the idea. Or do you?
If you really want to “transform” your organization looking at a much bigger picture is essential.
If your approach is the typical one of firing CM into the fray and hoping for little fall out this is an unnecessary list… until the next time you try to make a big change.
Yesterday’s post had me peeling bananas upside down with a nine year old. Now I am wondering how many things I can peel differently in my own life as well as within my client’s organizations. This little exercise says a lot about change management.
- Change must make sense
- Sensible change must improve something (which makes sense)
- There will always be a little (or a lot) of hesitation (I will cut slack and say the a lot could be “resistance”)
- Even bought into the change, we have to transition
- All of this needs to be understood and acknowledged for the next person to change
- Change does not necessarily take time, but it does take a different focus
- Things are different after the change, which is a good thing
- If the change does turn out to make sense there is no turning back
From the end state back (admittedly in this case I am doing it with hindsight)-
This backwards banana thing makes complete sense (it is faster, cleaner and just fun). I will never peel a banana the old way again. It has not happened yet, but I will see someone peel the old way soon. I will notice. CM guy that I am I will understand what I went through to change and acknowledge that process for the someone. In this case it should be a quick change (and it can be easily demonstrated and measured). It will take awhile for both of us to instinctively “go monkey” and flip that banana over.
Odds are I will have to, short of and including the demonstration, illustrate the sensibility of upside down banana peeling. And I will have to pause and be patient during the hesitation. The worst thing I can do is take the hesitation as a no (or assume a no from the start) and begin to strongly push the monkey thing.
This monkey peeling makes sense.
Change Management at its core is a process of describing something new and different and connecting it to time and work. People respond to explanations, descriptions and new learning in different ways. That may have to do with learning styles http://tinyurl.com/2fnseg2, with interest, with workload, with promise for the future, with selfishness or with altruism. Sometimes it just has to do with catching them at the right time or off guard.
As a change agent with a full tool belt you will need to be able to draw pictures, make sounds, fill in charts, collaborate, illustrate (in pictures and words) and interact. As a client I would not hire a change agent who did not have a respectable command of-
Adobe’s Master Collection or its equivalent. http://tinyurl.com/csn4sl
Microsoft Office or its equivalent. http://tinyurl.com/yexjp89
Captivate or other training design software.
A command of CSS and HTML (not tools, but skill)
A design sense and an understanding of how design influences, grabs attention and shows concepts and connection.
The above timeline is a simple example of drawing a picture to describe, show time, place and relationship. It could be stand alone, part of a training module, the basis for changing communications or a design piece to provide structure to a written description.
The line represents time, the colors passage of both time and task, brighter colors items of significance, larger dots to show current time and place, even a pallet of colors to show teams, functions or responsibility areas.
To put all this together as a framework for guiding change takes a surprising amount of technical and people skills…
and the right tools.
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…
Contracting between the actual owner of the change and the external CM practitioner is a crucial piece of the foundation for success. That contract- both the formal written version and the informal initial interaction- lays out expectations, introduces the client to a new and better understanding of the change process and glues the owner to the practitioner in a people and business relationship.
The insertion of anything in the middle of this business and person to person relationship is always detrimental.
Some reasons-
Third parties want to “own” the relationship- their definition of ownership is revenue based. Their way to protect that is to always insert themselves between the consultant and the client. And that helps Who?
Third parties skim the budget dollars. Direct contracts are at or less than those with a third party. Experienced consultants know that. So you can either save (by splitting the difference) or you can feel good about compensating the talent that is tied to your end states rather than burning dollars on overhead.
By using a third party you turn consulting into a commodity. Commodities have a direct tie to pricing. So the consultant gets a direct offer from another client at 50% and you assume they will stay? You, as a client, chose to use a third party so you have broken the ethical connection. As you can imagine consultants feel very little tie to the third party firms…
Third parties (no matter what they say) do not “know” your business. I have interacted with recruiters, staffing firms that think they are somehow consulting, consulting firms that somehow became staffing firms (unbeknown to them), internal contracted recruiters and internal recruiters. Except for the last one (and maybe the penultimate) they “knew” what they needed, but did not understand the whole picture (as in you within this initiative and the consultant and what they do and provide) . If I were a client paying upwards of 50% for this work I would have huge expectations for the “relationship”.
They do not find your talent faster. If a consultant has a LinkedIn profile you can find them with a phone call. And you get the added plus of relationship building right from the start.
They certainly do not find the best. Third party work for the best consultants is always fill-in. Because of the compensation difference between third party and direct they will be focusing how to fill in the missing revenue.
This is an important post because there is a trend to using more and more procurement type situations for true consulting. I have had to go through the dance (and waste a lot of precious change management time) a couple of times for high level roles because the client organization insisted on it. Judging by my own experience this is an area where there should be some loud shouting from clients and consultants.
The contracting relationship, the core of the process, is being sanded down and it is having an effect on implementation.
There are times that are pivotal opportunities for change.
Leaders must be just as aware of opportunities for change as they are for the need to change.
Let’s set aside the need to change, the desire to change and the management of change and look at opportunity.
First the obvious:
- a great idea that takes off (usually in a garage environment)
- growth- of revenue, size and number of employees
- a merger
- a very cool product, service or technology
- a new, respected leader
The not so obvious:
- crises
- employee resistance
- layoffs
- bringing on a high level external consultant
- retirement of a senior leader
- a corporate move
- a bad economy
And the questionable:
- new software enterprise wide
- new processed based solely on that software
- change based solely on a model (or worse a book)
- organic movements within functions
- a new, not so respected leader
As a leader pay attention to the opportunities around you to encourage, define and refine change innovation and process. If a light is shining on a spot or a place in your organization whether that light is glaring or pleasing take advantage of the illumination.
If there is “resistance” that is an opportunity to look at root causes. If there is a leadership move that is an opportunity to educate, make aware, question, strategize and dialogue. If the economy is tough use the fight together mentality to reinforce strength. If you have layoffs use it as a starting point and a chance for transparency and connection to work effort. If you have been smart enough to bring in an external consultant to shine a light on change itself leverage that visibility to make horizontal and circular communication and action loops.
Every change big or small is guided by or has a built in opportunity.
Change tends to draw people into creating fortifications- walls, forts, moats and fences. Are they for keeping things out or protection? Do they create hilltop fortresses of safety or islands of isolation? Of course the answers depend on which side of the fortress you are on, inside or outside. On whether you stand to gain or lose by being on either side.
Change management practitioners must be adept at gaining entrance to the fortifications, introducing something of value and leveraging that to agreed upon relaxation of the barrier- maybe a time when the gate is open, maybe an elimination of the guard on the tower and in a perfect world open doors and a symbol left to illustrate possibility.
I get the wall thing.
But from my external perspective, especially when I have gained access in both directions, that wall is a daunting thing. Look at this post picture. Look at your organization. Are your walls this intimidating? As a leader with, I hope, the ability to have this view, think of the resources needed just to manage the fortification.
Or better, think of the resources you would have if you could prevent the building of the fortification in the first place.
This gets to the core of what I see as the problem with change management and organizational operation and strategy- wrong perspectives, wrong approaches. In our analogy what typically happens is that the walls get stormed (the core of the resistance perspective) or they get strategically breached. The first wears everyone out (by endlessly addressing symptoms) and the second creates an insidious kind of fear (spies are everywhere).
What to do then if you are a leader faced with existing or about to be built fortifications?
Well you might want to create an opening to your own fort as a start…
- Find out why there seems to be a need for protection and separation and address that need.
- Use an external resource who can move freely through the gates, in both directions.
- Use a sentry who is responsible to both tribes (potentially fraught with problems, but also a good succession builder).
- Evaluate resource needs and efficiency and balance the two (you will find a lot of the fear under the heading, “resource”).
- Be careful of creating the fortifications before they think about it- think committees, “hub and spoke”, functions etc.
Know always that fortifications are obstacles and barriers not protection and security.
Be conscious that fortifications are effective (in a bad way) barriers to the growth and development of people.
Get the gates to open. The walls and the forts can still be there to contain and corral energy and resources.
Adopting the beliefs, perspective and behaviors of the tribe is of questionable advantage for an external consultant. Advantage is a carefully chosen word because I think integrating into a clients culture- at the level of member of the tribe- is chosen for a gain different than the one the consultant was hired for (Think revenue and the next engagement). Going native effects two things-
Objectivity and the People side of the change equation.
What is doesn’t do, IMHO, is strengthen the business side of the equation- the one that satisfies objectives and guides the path to the end state.
Objectivity
The closer an external gets to the patterns of the tribe (connecting to people and individuals is, I think, different and more helpful) the more decisions and recommendations are going to be based on people and patterns that may have been root problems to start with. Subjective (which builds with tribal membership) is gray, indecisive and non-committal (great for dialogue, not so great for accomplishing business objectives).
The People side of Change
Addressing the human element of change is crucial. But remember the goal of change management is the end state. Becoming one with the customs of the people in the organization may extend that goal. On the people side there is an intricate balance between acknowledgment and realistic “playing by the rules” (both formal and informal) and addressing root causes to bypass symptoms on the way to effect.
The higher the horizontal and spread of the change the more detrimental going native can be to results. I find myself in a constant negotiation process in my head between the needs of multiple tribes, human nature and symptoms versus core behaviors. I basically deal equally with the Chief Tribe and the Indian Tribe. Participating as a guest preserves the right balance.
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