Change Management

If It Ain’t Broke …😉You Still Have to Fix It
One of the most often uttered comments I hear at the end of my public workshops is, “It sounds all great… but… how do we implement all these practices?” and that’s a good question. Trying to move an organization into the realm of Management 3.0 will require a lot of change and implementing any form of change is hard, very hard. In fact, according to a McKinsey study, nearly 70% of all change management efforts fail.
Change management is so difficult because one of the most persistent cognitive biases that plagues all of us is the status quo bias aka the “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” frame of mind. In other words it’s simply in our DNA to resist change and that’s not so strange because, to be honest, far too often managers implement change and/or reinvent the wheel to fix things that ain’t broke. Therefore, before looking into how to successfully implement organizational change, it would probably be a good idea to look at the main causes why the preference for the status quo so often beats the actual need for change and leaves managers standing aside, pulling their hair out.
The main reason why staff will prefer the status quo over change is that they simply don’t see the point; there’s no sense of urgency. Unless there’s a clear need for change, why would they get onboard? Most of the time, the reason why they don’t feel this sense of urgency is because nobody has clearly pointed it out to them. There’s a lack of communication and this is often because there’s no dedicated team to lead the change in the organization.
Another reason why people don’t see the point of change is that there’s no clear vision. The pathway of change is dark and convoluted. Without a guiding light at the end of the tunnel, it’s hard to take the first step and even harder to keep going. Unless a clear picture of the end goal can be painted in the minds of the employees, managers will have a hard time leading the change effort. Moreover, even if a vision has been formulated, oftentimes it will have ended up as a fluffy hollow phrase which hardly capable of inspiring even the most willing employee to take action.
Speaking of which, for employees to take action and implement the required changes, they need to be actually able to do so. Another thing often overlooked by change managers is that they need to empower their teams to act on the vision laid out before them. Also, properly empowered employees will need clear milestones or short-term wins to guide them through the darkness into the light.
Then if, as a dedicated leader, you did make your staff feel the urgency, painted a clear picture of the end goal, empowered the team and gave them measurable milestones, then still there’s another serious obstacle ahead. Even though it’s already over a decade ago, I’m sure you’ll still remember president George W. Bush standing on the deck of a US Aircraft Carrier back in May 2003 and declaring victory in Iraq… too soon. This tendency of declaring victory too soon is one of the final pitfalls when it comes to implementing change. The path to change is long and uncompromising, there are no shortcuts.
A final mistake when it comes to implementing change in an organization is that the changes achieved aren’t anchored into the organization’s culture. Unless the milestones achieved along the way become part of the culture, they won’t last. As the legendary management consultant Peter Drucker once put it, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.”
Why Does Change Management Fail?
No clear sense of urgency ― No dedicated change management team― No clear vision ― No clear communication of the vision ― Not empowering teams to act on the vision ― No clear milestones ― Declaring victory too soon ― Not anchoring the changes in the corporate culture
As you can see, implementing change in an organization is difficult and often fails, yet it is also imperative. Think about it, Nokia, which once dominated the mobile phone market, has now all but disappeared because its managers failed to implement the changes required to maintain the top position. With about half of the mobile phones sold globally being a Nokia, there was no sense of urgency!
To avoid this pitfall, the key is to implement changes through a thought out process. Understanding how to do this will be the first step toward the shift to a more creative management style for your own organization. But how? Actually, it’s quite simple:
“Just Do It”
Last time we looked at the reasons why change management often fails. In itself an interesting topic, but the real question is, of course, how to get change management to succeed? Simply put, to successfully implement change and make those changes stick is an eight-step process which can be divided into three distinct phases. It all begins with creating a climate of shared understanding of the difficulties lying ahead, followed by engaging and enabling the employees and finally implementing and sustaining the change achieved.
Phase I: Creating a Climate of Shared Understanding
As mentioned earlier, the main reason why the implementation of organizational change fails is resistance. This is not always resistance on the workfloor where any change is felt the most, but it could also be the intransigence of middle managers or even C-suite executives. Most often this inflexibility is caused by a lacking sense of urgency combined with a lack of leadership and vision.
Therefore, the first step for successful change management is to establish a sense of urgency. It would probably be wise to point out here that a sense of urgency doesn’t equate to a state of emergency. The latter is an after-the-fact response to an action or consequence, while urgency is a proactive state of performance created by management in which they alert the organization that change must occur. To create this sense of urgency managers should clearly identify the affected stakeholders and sell to them the dangers of the status quo. In effect, managers should create a compelling narrative that tells the stakeholders why it is not in their best interest for the organization to stay in its current state. It is critical here that this narrative contains both a compelling picture of a desired future and the danger of accepting the status quo to avoid the creation of a sense of doom rather than a sense of urgency. This should be done through sharing relevant information with all stakeholders, and openly discussing the opportunities and threats the organization might face. Clear communication in this phase is critical and must be honest. An obviously manufactured sense of urgency will soon be seen for what it is and will lead to failure. An effective sense of urgency has been established when all stakeholders understand that change is, in fact, unavoidable.
The next step in this phase is to form a dedicated creative change management team. Successfully guiding an organization through a change process cannot be done as a side-hustle, it needs complete attention. For this reason, a team fully dedicated to the task is essential. Creative in this context means diverse. An effective change management team should be made up of senior managers but also stakeholders from every level of the organization. This diversity is necessary because all stakeholders are affected differently by the change process the organization will go through, so only if all of them will have a voice in the team leading the change, the process can be completed successfully. To paint a picture, race horses wear blinders so that they stay focused and won’t veer off course, however, change management isn’t a race, it’s a steady process. The required changes will only be accepted if all the different viewpoints are taken into consideration. This team diversity is even more important for the third step in phase one, formulating a clear and relevant vision.
Too often corporate visions end up as fluffy hollow phrases which are unable to inspire even the most willing employee to take action. The key to a clear and relevant vision is that it should contain a transformative story with a consistent what with a why resonating with the different stakeholders. What this means is that the vision should be a descriptive tale outlining the journey of change the organization will embark on, justifying it with expected outcomes and examples relevant to the different stakeholders. In other words, an effective change vision expresses an understanding of the past, explains the present and shares the desirable future by appealing to the long-term interests of all the stakeholders. Once a clear and relevant vision has been defined, the change management process can proceed to its second phase.
Phase II: Engaging and Enabling the Employees
Formulating a vision is one thing, but avoiding it to go stale another all together. The key here, once again, is communication. Printing out a long-winded fluffy vision statement and hanging it on an office wall won’t do! To begin, the vision needs to be boiled down to a simple catchy phrase for everyday use. It should be free from any buzzwords and jargon. My personal favourite of all time, although not related to change management, is Nike’s iconic “Just Do It.”
This catchphrase should be everywhere, the consistent what in stories, metaphors, analogies, and examples used to paint a compelling picture of the envisioned future for the employees and managers who need to be sold on the change. Another crucial step in communicating the vision is that the change management team needs to lead by example and “walk the talk.” This means that, in order to win the hearts and minds of the stakeholders, they need to continue the discussions opened up in phase one and address any issues that come up to ensure the successful implementation of the change vision. If the change management team communicates the change vision with simplicity and repetition, engages all stakeholders in two-way communication and diligently addresses emerging issues, organizational change is difficult but not impossible.
The next step in phase two is to engage and enable the employees. Over time, organizational procedures, reward systems, performance measurements etc. will have been formed to support the status quo. Given these dynamics, the change management team’s communication efforts alone will be insufficient to make significant lasting change in the organization. To make change happen, the change management team will have to evaluate existing systems and remove or adjust those hindering the change effort. In other words, there needs to be a breakdown before the breakthrough. In addition to this, the organization needs to invest in training and development of employees at all levels. This is essential to enable the employees to embrace the change. Think of this step as going on a cross country road trip with an old car. The car might still be fine for short distances, but to take it on a long trip it needs to be checked out, minor repairs need to be made and certain parts might have to be replaced. Omit this and you’ll likely find yourself stranded on a dark desert highway at some point, but with the right preparation it might just be the trip of a lifetime.
Phase two’s final step is to set clear milestones. The road to successful change is long and full of obstacles, it can be hard to keep the momentum going. Setting clear milestones will help with this. To continue the road trip analogy, milestones are like highway rest areas, they aren’t your destination, but they are necessary if you plan to arrive at the destination in good shape. A clear milestone will have to be unambiguously achievable, visible throughout the organization and related to the change effort.
Phase III: Implementing and sustaining change
To avoid losing momentum, the change management team must consolidate the gains from achieved milestones and implement more change. This should prevent the organization from reverting back to the old way of doing things and counter any continuing resistance to change. Change management fails when the organization slows down before the change effort is completed! To avoid running out of steam, the change management team must maintain the sense of urgency throughout the process. They should not get too comfortable with early successes as organizations easily revert back to the old way of doing things.
The last, often overlooked, step for successful change management is to institutionalize the change into the organization. Few outcomes are worse than having devoted significant resources and time to organizational change effort only to have the organization revert to its old way of doing things. This will seriously hurt employee morale and breed cynicism. Change won’t last unless senior management adjusts the organization to align its culture with the changes that have been implemented. It also requires everybody to stay engaged until the end. Senior management must anchor change into the organization if they want the change effort to become a lasting part of the organizational culture.
The 8 Steps for Successful Change Management
Establish a sense of urgency;
Form a dedicated creative change management team;
Formulate a clear relevant vision;
“Walk & Talk” the vision;
Empower teams to act on the vision;
Set clear milestones ;
Consolidate improvements;
Institutionalize new approaches;
Leading change in an organization is not quick or easy, it requires preparation and perseverance. But with a systematic approach managed by a dedicated team it can most definitely be done. Just in case you hadn’t noticed, the process outlined above is my condensed interpretation of John Kotter’s 8 steps leading to change method.
[T]here you are.
Resources:
Kotter, J.P. (1996) Leading Change. Brighton, MA, Harvard Business Review Press
Flixabout.com (2018) Kotters 8 steps leading change (video) Retrieved 6 July 2019, from Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QWiMkXyTP4
Tanner, R. (2019) Kotter’s Eight Step Leading Change Model. Retrieved 11 July 2019, from https://managementisajourney.com