Posts tagged change

Moving forward in change–maintaining the 51%

Change Management Meandering Genius April 2, 2014

Change is our way of life these days and the speed of change is compressing the time changes need to occur and increasing our change saturation in organizations.

In basic terms, changes need to happen faster because we are in a state of constant change.

I think, for the more established organizations, this is even truer. The reason is that they have been so entrenched in the way they do things today that they are finding themselves with many legacy things that need to change as well as the things that need to change to keep them competitive.

How do you speed up change?

I will call this the 51% rule–we are using it in a change effort right now.

This change effort is happening much faster than other changes typically take in my organization. Especially one of this magnitude. Now, the initial phase of this change is being done through a pilot, so it’s not like everything is changing at once; we plan to make the proposed changes and then adjust for future roll out in 2015 and 2016.

That being said, the changes for the pilot are still moving very fast.

There are many that are involved that like things to not change…we all have them. They would slow this change down to a crawl by constantly discussing and not deciding. Last week I actually talked about these type of people and had a lot of great feedback.

However, we have a rule in this change–it’s called the 51% rule. The leaders of this change, and we have several, hold the 51% decision-making authority. What this means is that when it comes to make a decision, based on our schedule, they will make it based on all the input from the teams putting the change aspects together.

So, if people want to discuss something to death, simply stick to the milestone schedule and then provide all the discussion to the leader with the 51% for a final decision. Then, move on to the next milestone.

This, however frustrating the disrupters, is proving to help tremendously to move the change along at the pace expected.

What this is causing is that the teams as a whole don’t get to fully decide on something because a few selfish individuals hold everyone back on points that are important to them. However, if the organization is going to be decisive in business, then they need to be able to stick to a schedule and make changes based on that schedule. If the disrupters can’t figure it out, what I’m finding is that the others who want to help lead the change will work around them.

So, when you start your next change effort, or if you are in one now, consider discussing the 51% rule with your change sponsors and leaders. Get them to agree to the concept and the milestone schedule. When the milestone is up, bring your proposals to the decision authority and have them make a decision. Then you don’t discuss that item again…move on to the next milestone. If the disrupters continue to stick to the past decision and can’t move on, that is fine, work around them with those that will and get a decision at the next milestone. The holdouts will get frustrated, but the only other way is to acquiesce to their actions and stall the change.

These people will eventually see that the team is passing them by with discussion and decisions and they will eventually join where the effort is or they will simply leave. If they choose the latter, find someone else and continue to move forward–that person has decided not to be part of the change that will improve your company and perhaps they have no role in the company anymore?

I know this is tough talk, but reinforcing the negative behaviors of people who try to disrupt and derail change efforts to suit their personal needs and agendas is not focusing on your company’s mission, vision, or customers. They are only focused on themselves. This forces a Service Before Self core value and sends them a message that they are either working to move the company forward or they belong with the competition.

Give this a shot. Of course it depends on steadfast change leadership, but it is a good rule of thumb for change that a leader can set in the beginning and employ with every activity.

Change Management Pet Peeves

Change Management Meandering Genius March 26, 2014

Let’s face it, change management is hard enough as is. Some actions of professional adults can really make my head spin. I’m talking about the person that works so hard to derail the project, but in many ways often has so much to gain from it. If they would just put in the same level of effort to make it happen, it would get done twice as fast.

You know the type…

They demand to be included in the change management effort, but refuse to come to any of the meetings or read any of the minutes and materials being created by those working hard to make the change a success. Then they come in several weeks later and they completely want to derail the effort by taking you back to the beginning and tell you that you what they think you haven’t done and what they think needs to be done.

Then there are those that simply want to revisit the very first points or relive how we got here at every meeting. They simply can’t move past that. They want everyone to endure hours of explanation of why it is the way it is today. Just when you think you have enough as-is, they want to add more the next meeting. They are stuck in the way it’s being done now.

There are those that use others as their excuse for slowing up progress. They say they are 100% behind the effort! but they need to protect their people. They use their bosses as scapegoats for their question, “Well, my boss has concerns and I’m just trying to get them out in the open.” All the while, you have socialized the change with leadership, who are 100% on board and their people are excited about the change. This is a typical middle management stance.

Then you have those that participate in the change effort, but take every opportunity to grandstand on topics that just prove how unsupportive they are of the entire organization. My recent example of this person was someone who passes themselves off as an expert, but isn’t even certified. Then he blames his lack of certification on the organization, not himself. Then states, he refuses to wear company logo items because the company doesn’t pay him to advertise for them. None of these things have anything to do with the project, but clearly demonstrate the need to remove someone from their current job.

Then you have the “I’ve already solved that,” group. These are the ones that get me the most. Everyone has spent hours defining what is wrong that needs to get changed. Suddenly, as you get down the road, someone who should have fixed the problem long ago, starts chiming in that they’ve already solved the problems that are being addressed. It’s almost always those that should have solved the problem in the first place. They have put some bandaid on the item or put a un-resourced plan in place to fix something and suddenly that isn’t a problem anymore. Basically, these people simply want you to move past these issues, because you’re highlighting their ineffectiveness up to this point.

Then you have the cheerleaders for the negative. These are the people that one-on-one are supportive and behind the effort. Then, you get in a meeting and one person speaks out against an idea and suddenly there they are cheering them on. What’s worse is when you have a room of cheerleaders, who individually tell you to your face they are behind you and then the first chance they get, they’re on you like a pack of starved dogs.

Nothing can be more frustrating than the inclusive disagreement. You bring certain people in on a change effort because you know they are going to be a problem and you really want their buy in. They come up with ideas and approaches that are pretty good. However, every time you adopt their idea or approach they turn around later and try to shoot it down. You make them inclusive to the solution, you accept their approach, and then they disagree. Here’s your cigarette and blindfold, let’s step out back.

Over the last six years I have been involved in many major change management efforts. These same people show up in every effort. I’m sure you’ve seen them. Dealing with the ones that simply flat out refuse to change, in my mind, are easy. These people above frustrate me to no end. These are the ones that pretend to your face that they are supportive and team players and then prove themselves wrong at every turn.

What’s worse is that I don’t think they even realize what they’re doing half the time. I recently had someone tell me how much they needed to be involved in the effort, but they hadn’t been to one meeting that we’ve had and never sent a delegate. I asked if the minutes and material were detailed enough to demonstrate what we we’re doing and if they’re keeping them informed and they simply said, “Oh, I haven’t read the minutes.” Then, after totally tearing down the meeting and the whole effort, they say that I need to add another person to the meeting in their place as a delegate and, half way through the meeting, they take a phone call and have to run off to another important meeting. Note: the meeting we were having was specifically set up for that person.

In all of these cases, this is where strong change leadership is key. When you have these type of people, you need your change leadership to step in and have a talk with these people. Like I said, in many ways, they are simply acting the way they have always acted. I’m sure that you can understand how the person in the above example could cause significant problems throughout an organization with that type of behavior. You know that is the way they operate every day and you’re project is just experiencing it for the first time.

Who do you work for anyway?

Meandering Genius March 13, 2014

Often times I have to stop and ask myself this question when working for others in some kind of change situation.

There they are, across from me, complaining about the “impact” of the change and how it will affect their people, the program, or even themselves.

All I can think about is, “Who do you work for anyway?”

Not once do they ask the question, or pose the argument, “How will this change impact the customer?”

If…really IF…they would think about the customer first, these questions would melt away. We–all of us to include me–exist in a business to serve a customer. Without a customer, there is no business!

For my Thoughtful Thursday, and relatively short blog, when you are thinking about how something is impacting you, your team, or your process, stop and ask yourself first, how will this impact the customer.

Maybe you will find that the first three questions no longer matter.

We don’t need no stinking burning platforms

Change Management Meandering Genius Process Improvement February 23, 2014

The 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.

Implementation of strategy is barely visible by the naked eye.

Change Management Meandering Genius Strategic Planning February 16, 2014

I think that one of the reasons most people see strategies as a failure is because they don’t ‘see’ them unfold when implemented.

Strategy is not about massive change, it’s about strategic change. Massive changes are tactical activities that slowly bring about the vision over many years.

Honestly, the best vision is a lasting one that you don’t have to change every three to five years. The Air Force Sergeants Association’ purpose is to fight for Air Force enlisted benefits on Capitol Hill. Their vision is simple, To be the professional organization of choice to Air Force and the families. This is a measurable long term vision that AFSA will strive to, but may never achieve.

So, why do I say that strategy is invisible?

Strategy is about placement and preparedness. To implement a strategy, normally, you are (to use a military term) prepping the battle space for operations. The strategic actions in themselves are seldom that noticeable, but what they do is prepare you for opportunities that are sure to reveal themselves–opportunities that probably would not have shown themselves if you were not prepared.

Recently, I had a senior leader tell me that all the successes the group I’ve been working with was happenstance (i.e., luck). I disagreed. The strategic activities that we were intertwining over the last two years allowed for the successes to occur.

This is why people who are implementing strategic plans seldom see the forest through the trees. They have to go on faith that what they’re doing will have impact. Even to the employees, they seldom see the subtle changes taking place in the organization.

It is the leader and the strategy experts job to watch for these changes and to stand on the mountaintop and scream out these changes so everyone will know what has happened.

Strategic programs being put in place, strategic organizational changes, strategic development of employees… These things happen over time and when something happens over time, it is often. Viewed as ‘normal operations’ — just part of the daily routine.

This is so far from the truth. In my current role, we started two years ago to “improve document management.” Today, everyone in the document management space meet once a week under a developed governance structure. Today their is a six-person team that matures the do unenthusiastic domain slowly every day. Today there is a 26-page document strategy that highlights how we got here and where we’re going. Today there is an end-to-end understanding of the document life cycle. Today there is a robust document metrics program with accompanying metrics collection strategy.

Those things were strategic in nature and have produced tactical actions, which will lead to us moving closer to our vision of being the leader in document management.

Strangely enough, after two years of discussing and working with ten to twenty industry consultants, we are beginning to think that we are already a leader in this space. The beauty of our strategic effort is that we see how far we have to go and if we can achieve that over the next several years, we will not only be a leader, but ‘the leader!’

A year ago, we researched the only book written on document strategy–written by Kevin Craine. Kevin is a nice guy, who wrote his book based on a Master’s program. Today, he has a blog and regular pod casts about document management and strategy. That’s the authoritative leader in this space.

The harder you look at your strategic implementation the clearer it will become that you are improving. Take the time to understand why you are doing the things your are doing and look for the subtle outcomes. You just might find out you’re well on your way to your vision already and you just can’t see it.

The Importance of a Stakeholder Assessment

Change Management Strategic Planning Think Big February 15, 2014 2 Comments

Strategic 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.

Conducting a Stakeholder Assessment When Developing a Strategic Plan is Crucial

I see a “strategy” being made up of three things: A mission, a vision, and goals on how to get from where you are now to where you are going. Those goals represent CHANGE in an organization–strategic change.

Anytime there is a change, there will be people who are for it and against it. The rest are the movable middle. Anytime you are planning a change, you need to analyze the audience that will be impacted by that change and continually manage that audience through the change.

Case in point: One of my clients had the words, “Meet customer’s expectations through product delivery,” in one of their goal statements. The strategy had been in place for several months, and the head of their operations was not supportive of the strategy–he wanted to create it himself versus as a leadership team. He also liked living in the realm of strategy because then he really wasn’t accountable for doing anything. Note that ‘accountable’ is a key word here. I was in a meeting with the head of the strategic planning department and the operations director and he said, quote, “I will not hold my people accountable for meeting customer expectations.”

Who, in the right mind as a leader, can say something as ludicrous as that? By this time, the strategy was really rolling out–plans were in place and changes were occurring. All this went on regardless of how much he tried to stop it. This was the cry of a desperate man. As a result of the shadow he cast, one of his directs was responsible for deploying part of the plan–specifically under this goal. We were attempting to establish actions and dates, when he broke down in a whiney voice almost on the edge of tears, and cried, “But, I don’t want to be held accountable to this.”

These situations are real. Strategy–good strategy–means change. If you are not prepared for this type of behavior from people that have influence and you require to make the strategy reality, then you will get stopped by this type of behavior.

I know in Good to Great, you are supposed to get people on the bus and off the bus to make things work, but in the real world, some organizations don’t have that luxury. Then you have to determine how to deal with them.

In a strategic change, there are four potential groups that you have to consider. Obviously, first are the stakeholders–those who have a vested interest in the change and impact of the change. Second are the customers–those who direct your organization to deliver goods and/or services. All customers are stakeholders, but not all stakeholders are customers. Two other potential groups are Partners and Suppliers. Partners and Suppliers are those you work with to deliver your goods and services to the Customer. Sometimes they can be everything, or sometimes, not. Understanding who they are and who of them are key–make a difference and can impact the change–is important. Note this Venn diagram and how these audiences interact.

Once you know who they are, list them out and try to determine what you know about then and what you don’t know about them. List out what stake they have in the change–what will be impacted and how they feel. On a scale of 1-5, rate their level of support of the change and on the same scale rate the level of influence that can have to impact it–1 being lowest. This tells you where you potentially could have your most difficult problems. As you can imagine, the Operations Director in my above example was low in support and high in influence–not a good combination. Those that are high in both can also become your greatest champions. Those who are low in both probably can be ignored–best to spend precious resources on the most important stuff.

With those that are important to this effort, plot them each on this continuum:

If they are low, or not even on the continuum, then, strategic activities designed to raise them on the continuum might help their acceptance and assistance. Sometimes they fully understand what is going on, but, getting them higher is impossible. In the case of the Operations Director, we basically forced him to retire and the next director that was hired supported the strategy. The bus activity; however, this took time. Obviously, if someone is simply aware of the strategy and doesn’t understand why it’s being done and what its impact is, then desiring advocacy and ownership is impossible. So, if you have someone at awareness, but you need them as an advocate, then you need to first get them to understanding, and then next to acceptance. Makes sense, right?

This is also helpful to determine if you already have someone at advocacy and that’s where you want them, then you don’t need to do anything. If someone has little influence on the strategy and change, then maybe awareness or understanding is fine. These decisions again allow you to focus your efforts in strategic areas.

Another way to map your audience is through this tool:

It’s a bit simpler in its approach, but can be effective. For a strategic plan, which takes years to implement, I like a much more detailed assessment and action plan than this, but you can choose. I also am Prosci certified in ADKAR, so I like to use that approach, but I am not free to share their proprietary process on this blog. You can read about it in books from Amazon and their certification is very effective. The approaches I’ve shared here are based on my Master’s-level Change Management certification from Georgetown University and are not proprietary.

So, you can see how important a Stakeholder Assessment is to develop during the Organizational Assessment. This, like any change effort, when done early, helps to prep the space and get people on board quickly or identify those you need to work around. This tool, is a lasting assessment that you may revisit regularly to see how things are progressing.

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.

2. http://www.amazon.com/Change-Management-The-People-Side/dp/193088561X/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1392477543&sr=8-2

3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stakeholder_analysis

Signaling a Change

Change Management Meandering Genius January 29, 2014

Something 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.