Posts tagged change readiness

Change Readiness

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Was your company ready for this current change or is it reacting and thus managing the change?

Cigar Talk with Crosscutter Enterprises is back.

If you are managing #change in today’s business world, you are probably behind the times and late to the party.

In today’s business world, changes are hitting companies in such a way that they simply can’t keep up.

The old world of managing change is long gone.

But being ready for change is a lot more of up front work — much like planning — and many companies don’t take that time to make it happen.

Change readiness is like growing grass. If you have a plot of weed-filled dirt, simply throwing grass seed on the ground and watering it probably won’t be too successful.

You need to remove the weeds, till the dirt, fertilize the ground, and then spread your seeds for best results.

What are you doing now to ensure you business is ready for the changes after the coronavirus crisis is over?

Change Readiness starts with building awareness, desire, knowledge, and ability early.

#success #incubator #business #coaching #consultants

Ready, Set, Change

Change Management

Recently, someone asked on LinkedIn, “How do you build change readiness.”

In today’s business world if you are managing the change, you really are too late. A successful business in today’s market must be able to change quickly and change often. They need to view change as part of their daily lives.

If you are still focusing on managing every change that impacts your company, you are probably complaining about things like change overload and saturation. More than likely, you are prioritizing change efforts based on available resources and prioritizing the changes where possible.

If this is you, more than likely, your communication channels are overloaded with change and your employees and customers are numb to your constant change efforts to the point that they’re tuning you out.

This is because the world is changing too fast for the old way of doing business–managing change.

In today’s world, you need to put the change managers out of business by building a constant state of change readiness.

It’s too hard…

I don’t know how to do that…

No one is ready for that…

Those re just some of the arguments I would expect. The fact is, change readiness is a change in itself and it’s led by the change managers themselves. This is one of the reasons it is so difficult–the ones who lead the change now have to change their approach and they are having trouble changing themselves.

It really is pretty simple. For those that understand the ADKAR approach, I will use that model to explain. You can apply any model here to he the same effect–no need to relearn anything yourself.

First, your case for change needs to evolve from the project-focused case for change to the strategic-focused case for change. Instead of developing a new case for change for every change effort, take a look at the last several reasons for your change and you will probably find a higher set of the same reasons.

Perhaps your company is growing too fast or it’s bleeding money? Perhaps technology is changing quickly and your company needs to constantly keep up. Maybe regulatory compliance is constantly changing and it has been driving your need for change. These are the strategic reasons that your company needs to change so often. The project reasons are simply tactical responses to these change drivers.

Define these strategic reasons for change and then share them constantly with your employees. Instead of constantly creating new cases for change, develop one and make employees and customers aware of why you must enter a level of constant change. To be able to change on a dime.

Now that you have your burning platform, as they say, talk to you audiences about this need. Listen to them, encourage them, show them how being ready to change is better than the constant start and stop methods of the past. Build management and communication routines into the daily operations that actually make change the norm instead of something you do when change comes along. Everyone will eventually move to the new operating model because this is the way you do business now.

If you build the awareness for the need, but don’t change the way you operate every day, then your audience will see the need as just words. Also, the stakeholders for this change are all employees and all customers. You are not targeting a group of just those affected like in a tactical change. No, you are making ready everyone I your company–even your supply chain needs to be ready to change.

This new operating model designed for constant retooling caused by incremental change will build the desire for the employees.

Last, comes the skills of those who work for the company–employees and suppliers. You need to focus on ups killing in areas that they may not normally work today. Building skills in analysis, change, process, and relationships can help them be more nimble and agile. Teaching project management and process improvement basics to everyone, not just the select cadre of leads in these areas gives them the tools they need to make changes themselves and constantly improve what they do everyday.

You also need to engage your learning systems to be more resilient to provide quicker training delivery on new processes and tools. Almost moving to a just in time training development and delivery model.

This give the company that knowledge edge that they need to implement the immediate changes at a rapid pace.

If you have the employees this ready all the time, then change can happen much faster and in tighter circles than ever before. You can relax communication around specific changes and simply beat the strategic change drum to a constant pace and weave in the tactical activities as a constant stream of examples of how effective you are at meeting the new demand.

This is an organization that is ready for change.

Are you ready?

Change Agents need to learn to Embrace Change

Change Management Meandering Genius

I have been dealing with major changes most of my life. This blog is dedicated to those who work in the world of change and are not themselves ready to accept and implement changes happening to them. Yes, they exist.

When I was in elementary school (my second to last year) my parents moved from Berkley, MI, to Beverly Hills, MI. That moved me from one school district to another. The new school was further ahead in studies, which significantly put me behind my last year of school. One of the things the new school had already adopted that my old school had not was New Math.

The next year I went to Junior High and then to High School, but of course, the changes affecting were now starting to occurring with frequency.

My parents also traveled/camped a lot when I was a kid and I travelled all over the United States in everything from popup campers to truck campers to fifth wheels to motor homes.

I went to college for a year to Northern Michigan University and then moved back home and went to work. I wasn’t very dedicated in college. I went to a few classes at night with Oakland Community College. These were my first two colleges that I attended up to this point. All total, I attended 11 colleges since graduating high school.

At home, for about three years, I worked seven different jobs. After jumping around from job to job, I finally decided to join the Air Force at the age of 22. Basic Training was only four weeks then and I was over to technical training for another four weeks. At least those two trainings were at Lackland AFB in San Antonio, TX. Then I was in a month of pipeline training at Fort Dix, NJ–Ground Combat Skills Training.

My first real Air Force assignment was in Ft Worth, TX, at Carswell AFB. There I worked the longest in one job–three years. Even though I spent six years at Carswell, I had five separate jobs, to include being one of the last 30 active duty members that closed the active duty portion of that base. In the two years I was at my next assignment in the states, Vandenberg AFB, CA, I worked on the flight line for six months and then as the Staff NCO for a year and a half.

It was then off to an undisclosed location in Turkey for a year–at least there I only did one job, although I did try to get on the staff while I was there, which would have been two different jobs in one year.

After Turkey, I ended up in Germany in the USAFE Elite Guard at Ramstein AB, but I was only there for eight months and retrained from Security Forces to Manpower and Quality and moved from the headquarters to the wing staff. In another less than three years, I was up at headquarters staff again, but not after having two very distinctly different jobs on the wing staff (running the wing’s quality training program to being a dedicated manpower and quality consultant to four units). In the two years I was at the headquarters, I also did a year in two jobs…one running competitive sourcing and privatization and the other managing the major command’s strategic planning activities.

My last assignment was here in San Antonio, TX, at Lackland AFB–specifically Security Hill and Air Intelligence Agency. In my six years there, until I retired, I did two years in plans and programs as the senior war planner for Air Force Intel, two years as the superintendent of a speech writing and special projects staff for the general, and two years running their premier enlisted awards program.

Even after retirement, I was only in Booz Allen Hamilton for three years before I ended up at USAA, where I have been for two years and I’m now working a totally different job there then I started.

All total, I attended 11 different colleges, lived in 8 different cities, visited to 14 countries and 43 states, and I’ve lost count of the number of jobs I have held.

That’s a lot of change. When I was really young, I wouldn’t say I handled or embraced the change, but by the time I was in the Air Force, I actually started to look forward to the change. Today, I find myself uniquely suited for my job as a change agent.

Now I know my experiences are not typical, but if you have chosen a role in work as a change agent–you work in strategy, change, process, performance, project managent, or the like–you should be expected to not just accept change, but champion it.

When change affects you…how do you handle it?

As a change agent, let me apply a little Prosci ADKAR questioning to you:

Are you currently aware of what is going on in your organization strategically that has fully prepared you for possible change?

Do you recognize that in all change, there are great opportunities and have you built your desire to change by examining the positive aspects of any potential changes, versus dwelling on the negative?

Have you spent the time ensuring you have the knowledge, skills, and abilities to accept and embrace whatever change comes your way, giving you the ability to make the change quickly and step up to whatever opportunity is presented?

Do you recognize that all change is good if you focus on the positive and not the negative?

If you are a change agent–you exist in a line of work that drives changes to others and you should be able to answer yes to all of these questions.

If you cannot answer yes, or you are going through a change that you are negative about and other change agents have to do everything in their power to lead you through the change, you need to reconsider your role. It is your job to devise and implement change. You, more than anyone, should be fully prepared to accept and implement change that affects you.

I have seen people that are not ready, but are in the role of a change agent.

To those people–you know who you are because of how you answered the questions above–either change how you react to change or change jobs. It really is that simple. As a change agent, you need to always be ahead of and ready to implement any change that impacts you in the same way expect it from others. This will help you better understand how to help others implement change and become more change ready.

I know that many people out there might have not had such a change-filled life as I have. However, you have chosen a field that is built on change–embrace it or get off the bus.

We don’t need no stinking burning platforms

Change Management Meandering Genius Process Improvement

Burning PlatformThe first step in change management is to define the “burning platform.” If you’re waiting for the platform to catch fire, you’re too late.

We’ve become a nation of reactionists instead of a preventionists. We’re constantly looking to identify a burning platform so we can put it out instead of spending our time making sure the fires never start to begin with.  What’s worse is that if we can’t define the burning platform because the fire hasn’t reached our room, we tend to ignore the fact that the smoke alarms in the house are going off.

If you really want to be successful, you need to stop looking for the burning platform and start looking at what your company does good today and what you can do to make it even better.  They say that Good is the enemy of Great and I believe it has to do with the fact that we wait for something bad to happen and until that time it’s “good enough.”

On top of that we’ve become a nation of hero worshipers, recognizing the fire fighters who wait until the house is burning down and then jump in to put out the fire.  Instead, we should be focused on those that do well at preventive maintenance and never have a house fire in the first place.

What this amounts to is that we need to live in a world of constant change where readiness to change is how we exist–we thrive on change through constant improvement.  This doesn’t mean that something won’t go wrong from time to time, but the more preventive we’ve been, the better we’ll be to react to the issue.  More than likely, we simply won’t experience the issue in the first place.

The problem is that leaders are often too blind to prevention and its value.  When something goes wrong, they can see the tangible impact of the fix, the money that was saved, etc.  Prevention is hard to measure and thus leadership devalues it.  I have worked on several projects that were focused on measuring this unmeasurable item–prevention and preparedness.  I’ve done this because, all too often, those that are getting ahead of problems are often challenged by the hero worshiping leaders because they don’t see them adding any value and simply costing the company money.

The fact is that these leaders need to get a clue about leadership and vision.  Constantly managing to the problem breeds poor leadership discipline.  Leaders need a strong discipline to stay ahead of problems and they need the courage to recognize those people who prevent the fire versus those that put them out.

Recently I was sitting in an event where a team was getting recognized for solving a problem that they did nothing to prevent.  When the problem finally flared up, they reacted quickly and put the operation back on track.  This team was honored in front of everyone as the shining example for all to model themselves after.

The fact is, if we don’t change this nation of reactionary thinking and hero worshiping, we’re going to end up being full of a bunch or arsonists putting out the fires they create.  Because, in the end, what gets measured gets done and if you’re only going to recognize me if I solve a problem, then by God, I’m going to create the problems to solve.

So leaders, put away your fire extinguishers and pull out your pocketbooks, because you need to start paying for prevention versus recognizing reaction.  Stop looking for burning platforms and start preventing fires.

Organizational Report Card

Understanding the Different Assessment Tools

Strategic Planning Think Big 6 Comments

Organizational Report CardStrategic planning, as a structured and systematic process, is successful when it is leader-led and overcomes the five reasons 70% of all strategies fail. Learn how to see your plan through to success. The strategic planning process is where leaders of an organization establish the vision of the organization’s future and then develop and implement the actions necessary to achieve that future. This article expands on the strategic planning concepts addressed in Think Big, Take Small Steps and is designed to help you achieve success in your strategic planning process.

Knowing What Assessment Tools Exist is Half the Battle.

Last week, I highlighted several organizational assessment tools in my blog How to Conduct an Organizational Assessment. This will be a relatively short blog, compared to my others, because I just want to highlight some tools and in future articles, I will describe them in more detail. Please Follow My Blog to keep up with this running story. If you want to start at the beginning, check out the linked article in the first paragraph.

The most important thing to do, when conducting an assessment, is to structure your approach. I use an approach that I term DOTMLPF – FREE. This covered the areas of Doctrine, Organization, Training, Material, Leadership, Personnel, Facilities, Finances, Relationships, Efficiency, and Effectiveness. This is a fully rounded approach that allows you to score, evaluate, analyze, and report out an organizational assessment. I will fully cover this tool next in Assessing Your Organization Using the Military’s DOTMLPF – FREE Assessment.

When I conduct an organizational assessment, I always use three specific tools: a Stakeholder Assessment, a Change Readiness Assessment, the SWOT Assessment.

  • The Stakeholder Assessment is great for any change-related activity to determine who will be supportive and who will not of the change. It helps to outline what actions you need to take to gain their involve or mitigate their negative influence. Being a certified Prosci practicitioner, I use the ADKAR model for my assessment. All strategic plans, if implemented, result in change, so this is a very helpful tool to prepare for the development and eventual implementation.
  • Additionally, I like to use a Change Readiness Assessment to determine how ready the actual organization is for the upcoming strategic change. This is different than the Stakeholder Assessment, because it looks at change readiness from the organizational point of view. It is very helpful and a relatively short assessment that is easy to perform with a small team.
  • The SWOT assessment, if generally how I report out everything I find from my interviews following the DOTMLPF-FREE format. If you didn’t know, SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. As a general rule, I change the word Weaknesses to Challenges–it just goes over better. Most leaders have heard of the term SWOT Analysis from some business class or in the course of their work–seldom do you find anyone who can conduct one. The trick is, that I don’t “conduct” a SWOT Assessment–I assess what I learn about the organization using a SWOT grid and present the results in that manner.

SWOT, in my mind, is a high-level assessment and report. I also assess what I’ve learned from the DOTMLPF-FREE approach through a TIPS Assessment–Trends, Issues, and Problem Statements. What I do, is, using Affinity Diagramming, I build the major TIPS that the organization is faced with. These are also called “Emerging Insights,” which I’ve used in Army Campaign Planning. Under each major issue (defined through the Affinity Diagramming), I provide this general view:

Emerging Insight, Focus Area, or TIP Title
Assessment Observations: Things learned from the research and interviews aligned to this specific area.
Initial Recommendations: Specific recommendations I have, based on the observations, that they need to do to overcome this issue.

When I collect information from my research and interviews, I normally start organizing it in Microsoft Excel under buckets. The beauty of this type of analysis is that it provides the leadership with key areas that they need to work on to make their strategy successful. In many ways, these formulate at least some of the objectives during the facilitated session. Everything else builds to these key items.

You may find use for several other types of assessment and I would love to hear about ones you’ve used, especially if you can share links in the comments below. I love using maturity models for assessing organizations. I’ve even created a specific maturity model when none existed. These models provide a very organized view of the organization’s or domain’s maturity, benchmarks them against industry, and provides a roadmap for them to follow to get better.

Additionally, there are a number of industry specific assessment tools–like a specific assessment to look at non-profits, or assessments to look at finance, information technology, innovation, etc. When you discover a specific (major) challenge with a company, I suggest you research possible assessment tools, or don’t be afraid to create your own. A key point is, normally an assessment tool is nothing more than a structured survey method. All of these assessment tools ask specific questions and the results (answers) formulate the assessment of the organization.

A good example of a powerful assessment tool would be Gallup’s Employee Engagement Survey. This is a widely-use industry standard assessment tool to determine how engaged (or committed) an organization’s employees are. This can be a very helpful assessment and I’ve worked with the results for a couple years now.

Another example, would be ISO 14001–Environmental Management System. For several years, I worked for several EPA and DoD clients in the world of Environmental Management. I used this ISO standard as a key assessment tool for these engagements. This brought a level of professionalism and validity to my work with them, but also gave them something to use year-after-year, much like the Gallup Survey.

The summary of this article, which I expected to be shorter, is that you need to develop a stable of key assessment approaches and tools to analyze and present your analysis in the next phase of the strategic planning effort. You also should be aware of other possible tools for the industry you’re dealing with or tools that can help the organization focus on a specific area. A key factor is that you can overanalyze a situation by bringing in too many tools. Make sure the ones you use are effective and you keep overlap to a minimum. For an example, I use a Stakeholder Assessment and Change Readiness Assessment with every organizational assessment. They both deal with change capability, but they are focused differently and together complement each other.

Stay tuned to future weeks where I will explain some of these specific assessment tools and demonstrate more about how I use them for analysis and for reporting. I will also try to provide at least one example of the tool for your use.

So, 70% of all plans fail to some level; however, by following these guidelines you can help ensure your strategic plan will be one of the 30% successes that everyone reads about.

Related Links (find three links related to the topic of the article):

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SWOT_analysis
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DOTMLPF
3. http://www.gallup.com/

Signaling a Change

Change Management Meandering Genius

Turn Signal SignSomething that really bothers me is people that never signal before changing lanes or turning. Suddenly they are changing lanes, exiting the highway, or slowing down for a turn you didn’t anticipate.

As I was driving behind someone like this yesterday, it made me think about how we change things at work and if many of us are driving around without using turn signals.

When you are planning a change, how early to you start signaling that change? Are you signaling to everyone or just keeping to a select group?

I have been part of many changes–strategic, process, mergers, you name it. I always try to get the change communicated early and often. Signaling early to everyone impacted allows them to be prepared.

Simply making the change that you’ve know about for weeks, months, or years, without even signaling is like those who never use their turn signals. This is simply dangerous in business.

Change causes disruption. The less people are prepared the more disruptive the change will be. Significant changes that are not communicated early and often cause massive disruption and stand the clear risk of failure because so many people will rally against the change when it happens. Basically you’ll cause an accident–maybe a multi-car pileup?

When faced with making a change. Start communicating the “Need for Change” early and solicit input and feedback. Define the reason or “Burning Platform” that is driving the need. As the details are forming of what must change, engage everyone and get their thoughts–this improves buy in.

When the change details are formulating, determine a way to close the gaps between the knowledge, skills, and abilities of those impacted so that when it happens, they are prepared. Nothing worse than not being capable of making the change because it requires KSAs that you don’t have.

Signaling a change in business is as important as signally a change when driving. Those turn signals are not optional equipment, use them.