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I cozied up under a big blanket with my family and watched an awesome fireworks show. From my spot, my frozen moment in time, I could hear four languages. Before it got dark I could see grunge, full Indian attire, shorts, jeans, silk and denim. There were footballs, Frisbees, baseballs, soccer balls and plastic bags made into balls. People were barbequing, eating from coolers, opening pizza boxes, scooping up with chopsticks.
What exactly were each of these people celebrating?
I can think of a list- freedom, independence, history, America, opportunity, overcoming adversity, the power of the individual, the sense of community (there is nothing better than the communal gasps when a really big fireworks spread hits), awe, beauty, just being outside with family. From bluebloods (my family goes back to well before independence so I get to imagine what it was like then) to newly arrived immigrants the Fourth of July means something. Of course it means something different to each person.
If you were tasked to gather those different perspectives and tie them in to a shared understanding of what the fourth represents you would have to ask a lot of questions and you would get a big range. But the behavior and the feeling and the connection you heard in the answers would have consistency. You could label it; you could language around it. And later you could celebrate in a shared, but different way.
With change management it is important to know that each person sees, acts and celebrates from their own set of eyes and their own connections. Behaviors can be consistent with change, reactions can be put into a list, timing can even be measured, but perspective (which guides action and participation) must be drawn out and understood. Create events and celebrations that give the opportunity for the full range of connection. Draw out perspective with the knowledge that each will be a little different and you can have successful change and the chance to honor the success with celebration.
Because it creates a chance for congregation, for display of achievement, for shining a light on talent, for the noise of a communal group, for laughter, for conversation and for acknowledgement. A parade is a good analogy for understanding Change Management.
We have a Fourth of July parade here in Danville that attracts 40,000 people (almost the same as our population). It is a typical local parade. Lawn chairs are lined up the night before 2 and 3 deep for over a mile. Proof positive that everyone loves a parade.
Change benefits (and moves along smoother and faster) when tradition and people are recognized in the process of changing. A parade happens at the same time each year. Some participants are there for years at a stretch. Some go in and out. Some show up just once. In long standing parades there is an order to the procession. But who’s to say there is not a better sequence?
There will be whispered comments about this year versus last year, the parade not being the same as it used to etc. This is the continual conversation that goes on with the tradition/change interaction.
Within the parade are displays of achievement, participation and accomplishments. An annual meeting can do the same with the last years change. When called out as change and included in a change entities process the displays can become more of a cultural acknowledgment and less of a display of feathers.
Celebration is important in the change process. Tying that celebration into the fabric of an organizations culture can help with transitions from yesterdays tradition to tomorrows change.
“What are you going to do with the leaders who will not change, that we have not done”, is a paraphrase of a comment that comes from almost all mid level early in the engagement conversations. Of course the reverse from senior leaders replaces leader with person.
Problems here; pay attention.
Change management is not a coercive process to convert individuals. The focus does not need to be on resistance. To direct energy to those who someone assumes will dig in is insulting to that person and should be embarrassing to the person who asked. When someone displays a resistive behavior there is a reason. If you expect to get any change to happen you must plan on addressing those reasons, which, by the way, is the answer to the question, because reasons are never really addressed-it is too painful.
Addressing those reasons open up a spiders web of connections to structure, process, performance measures and internal politics. It is amazing how quickly CM becomes transformational. Or, as is typically the case, more coercive.
My response to the question/comment is something to the effect of “what is your access to senior leadership”. It usually appears tenuous at best. My version of access is influence; theirs if often more about emails answered. If you do not have a collaborative link to leadership then not only will the empathetic approach not work, but neither will the coercive.
As an external the link to the leadership is usually the first move to address their concerns. If they are talking about the same people/person then I see an invitation for a three way collaboration rather than an unscalable wall.
Not the best of situations, but common, especially for smaller technology implementations. Don’t despair, change management can always be weaved in to project work. Here are some general areas to address-
Awareness
Of two types- illustrating the connection of individual work, task and effort to the overall goals (best end state) of the project and showing an understanding of the difficulties of change. What is the true intent of this project? Starting with effect on you, what are the things that will happen that slow your regular work down, bother you or force you to look at things differently? As the “overlapped” CM, address those in your interaction and communication.
Skills and Competencies
Put extra effort into making sure that the work for the project is given to the person best suited for the role. Each time you get a precise fit acknowledge that expertise in the individual. You can do that personally and/or include kudos in your communications.
The effect of the organization
Your company will have guidelines, measurement and processes that will inevitably get in the way of change. Each of those will be owned, have been designed by (or both) a person. They will be a stumbling block for you unless the change can make sense to them in some way. Take the time to connect and find that sensibility.
The effect of the culture
As with organizational processes there will be certain ways to get things done. Those “ways” will not be written down. If you are an employee they will be engrained in your approach to work. If you are an employee they could be invisible to you or you might acknowledge them and think they are no big deal. They are.
When it comes to culture you have to walk a fine line between getting things done (if it is change it is new and it probably does not fit into the old mold) and honoring. You will have to show how to do things differently thus skirting cultural issues. Or you will have to call out those patterns and get consensus on trying things differently. Or you will simply have to honor them and double your time frames.
If you are puzzled by this change management thing, but placed in a position to either be responsible for it or feel the need to layer it in keep this in mind in your approach-
Change means something new; new means doing things differently; guide stakeholders through that. Use yourself as a model and you will make a difference in the transition for the people involved and your business.
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.
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.
Change can flow like water.
While the practitioners and internal leaders I meet are focusing on addressing the difficulties and specifics of change I find myself illustrating how change should work in organizations.
It should flow like water.
That “water” carries the change itself forward as well as communication, collaboration, compromise, structural and procedural adjustment and business relations based on skill and responsibility. When something needs to happen to move toward the end state I make the connections to, in effect, clear the path for the flow.
Taking the analogy further-
The flow will redirect around the rocks if it is powerful enough.
In fact it can cover and inundate the rock when participation is high and the change makes sense.
It will carve new routes forward.
While touching one spot others will be touched since water (and positive sensible, responsible change) is always connected; always moves in patterns.
Does your change act more like a waterfall? Perhaps beautiful and refreshing at first sight, but crushing, devastating and forceful in a single direction upon further inspection…
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?
The chief energizer and “bouncer off of ideas” in my life Alan Schnur woke me up and reaffirmed some beliefs I have about the last year, smiles and laughter (or lack thereof) with his blog post for today-
http://tinyurl.com/ygj9dbz
Yes of course, smiles and laughter have everything to do with change management.
The ones at end when you can be happy about success
The ones in the middle that are a result of camaraderie and shared sacrifice/difficulty
The ones during the project track that have to do with humility and self-deprecation
The ones at the beginning when mapping out dreams and visions
The smile from a compliment along the way
The laughter of a team bouncing ideas
The quick smiles between team members locked up in day long working sessions
The smile you get when you hand over an unordered coffee
If I could package up the smiles and laughter as actual tools in the Change Management Tool set, I would. In your initiatives make time for banter and low key exchange to get the release of laughter and the warmth of smiles.
Especially after the last year or two.
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