The longer a consultant is external and the more client environments they experience the less each seems different. Or let’s be fair and say the more they are the same. From the change management viewfinder that is a function of “Human Nature” (in quotes so you can decide if it exists).
Here are a few examples-
Expecting multiple years in a “lower” position before a promotion. Things like this put smiles on the faces of the successful 25 year old entrepreneurs.
Assuming time is needed to, “get used to our culture”. (in order to find the roadblocks?). As an external I could give you a sum up of your culture in a couple of days (with the roadblocks).
Pretending to be matrixed and collaborative with meetings between functions, and walking away empty handed in terms of shared business goals and cooperation.
Thinking the tool, whether technology or method, is a solution. A hammer is a solution to nothing until it is used to drive a nail or pry a board (and I am faster than my eight year old).
Relying on “best practices”. This one is my favorite. As soon as you call it that it is antiquated. And whose best practices? There is a whole company focused on change management that was created from a survey of “best practices” (since it was based on those who responded to the survey it was instantly flawed).
These may seem scattered examples but they illustrate different versions of the status quo, group think and the insular nature of large organizations. The next time an external influence tries (hopefully in a nice way) to show you that some of your reasoning or dare I say- resistance- may not hold water give them a chance to explain. If they can help you see from a different angle you have found a solid change agent and/or a trusted advisor.
Sorry a tease I am not ready to tackle this yet. But suffice it to say if you are an executive and a consultant mentions Kotter you would do well to get a second opinion. And look closely at any current program or certification (I will leave out the name but do a change management search and they will rank high-later post) that has Kotter as its foundation.
Any method or approach that bases itself on “best practices” is first a few years behind and second grabbing data from one group to answer questions phrased from a different group. Data for one thing that is not the study focus. And run away fast as an executive from anyone who gained their expertise from a study…
I said I would be contrary.
See Glossary for definition http://blog.visiontowork.com/?p=49 but basically any change that uses money from an executive who either is the CEO or reports to the CEO (although in Fortune 50 it could be the next horizontal). Any title below SVP means they are the project manager.
I know a harsh definition because there can be multi million dollar initiatives run (key word here) by Directors.
A call to C level executives (and board members)- there is a huge, expensive gap in every organization I have seen in the last 15 years in terms of effectively tying people to business objectives for grand ideas and huge corporate initiatives.
By now it is pretty much a given that HR does not have the competency, capacity or capability to guide huge change. IT initiatives run within the IT vertical are almost doomed from the start. And the political capital needed from any one executive is just too steep to expect (especially given rewards are almost always short term and functional- a later post I promise).
What you need is Corporate Change Management.
A white paper is on the way to describe this further, but in short it is an entity in your organization comprised of a mix of internal Change Management Consultants (hopefully one will have at least a Director title, VP would make more sense), an external practical/knowledgeable and business smart consultant with a direct relationship to the economic buyer (as in the exact person who owns the budget for the initiative[s} and not the previously mentioned Director that is a working relationship not contractual) and a handful of external/internal junior and/or project focused consultants.
The size of the virtual entity would expand and contract given the plate of corporate level programs. If you are truly bold you eliminate your PMO or have it contract (not partner but contract as if they were being hired externally) with this new CCM entity.
In doing so, yes, you flip the status quo upside down. Organizations run by project and list. People however run by relationship and connection. And we all know now that organizations, projects and lists can never be accomplished without people.
Grab this as a leader and you will be the true visionary that everyone writes about. Or you could just follow the status quo assumptions and refuse to change…
There is a laundry list (which will be a fun post-stay tuned) of things that cause Change Management initiatives to fail. The number one problem and the answer I always give to the question, “Why do you think change management fails?, is that stakeholders never get the understanding of how their work will fit in to the Big Picture.
In fact set aside Change initiatives this might be the number one reason for lack of employee motivation in general.
So why does this happen?
It takes empathy and time (=$). Both of which are in short supply.
What if you as an owner of a change initiative spent money to create time to develop empathy? Knowing, of course, that if this truly is the way to enhance your change process the money will come right back in operational effectiveness.
You would first improve your ability to draw the Big Picture, then you would be empathetic and define that for different individuals which would help you to see connections from stakeholder perspectives. The test of your new found secret ability would be to ask a random employee why they are doing the work they are doing and what effect it will have on the outcome. If they give you a description of the outcome (End State) you get a “B”. If they can explain how that would not happen without their work effort then you have become a very rare leader.