Category Archives: Organizational Change

Are we addicted to “different”?

Posted on by
Reply

Right now, there is a never-ending supply of organizations that are trying to reinvent themselves. Right now.  Everywhere I go, I hear people talking about the changes they want to make.  My clients talk about the transformation they’re embarking on.  My colleagues talk about the adjustments we need to make to… “get to the next level.”  Everything I read is about the dynamic world we live in and how those organizations who can innovate fastest, smartest, and for the least cost, will “win” in the next decade (I’m not sure how different that concept is today than, say, 50 or 100 years ago).

And this addiction began long before the recent financial meltdown.  It has been going on for at least as long as my career.  In earnest, it probably began in the early 90s with the advent of IT as an enabler of our businesses.

I do not use the word addiction lightly though… I believe we are addicted to change.  I think we are obsessed with tossing out the other guy’s model in favor of implementing our own… with very little regard to the fundamentals of good decision-making and sound investment.  And that’s a huge problem… for your employees, your customers, your partners, the communities you serve and support, and your shareholders.

Why is that a huge problem?  Because most of us suck at implementing change.  Yeah, I said it.  We, collectively, are horrible at it.  Don’t believe me?  Look around… How many articles are out there talking about the percentage of projects that fail?  It’s in the order of 2/3 to 3/4.  That is a staggering number.  And it should worry all of us… as shareholders, customers, employees, … even as taxpayers.

Don’t believe the hype?  It’s all propaganda right?  I don’t think so but fine.  Take a look around your own company.  How many changes have been attempted and either shelved, completely failed, or simply ended up like so many – in an ocean of mediocrity?  That’s all the evidence you should need to care.

The fact is… we’re addicted to ‘different.’  We don’t always know what we want or where we want to be… but we know it’s somewhere or something else.  And our addiction leads us down dark paths that often don’t end well (or don’t end at all).  So let’s do ourselves, our colleagues, our customers and our investors a favor.  If being ‘something’ or ‘somewhere’ else is important, then make it happen.  But make sure it sticks.  Because change that sticks creates value.  And change that doesn’t stick… well… I think you already know the answer.

Insomnia is wonderful…

Posted on by
3

It’s 5am on the Atlantic coast of Canada and I’ve basically been up all night.  Maybe it was the two espressos after dinner.  Or maybe I just have too many things on my mind for sleep to take hold.  Consuming my thoughts tonight and this morning has been social media and how I can leverage it in my world.

[Back story…]

In early 2007, I finally joined the Facebook band-wagon.  At the time, I did it as a lark to see how quickly I could amass 100 friends.  It didn’t take that long and it was kind of fun.  Today, I’m just shy of 400 friends (yes, they’re all people I know) and while I can’t say I use FB a lot, I do find it interesting to connect with people I’ve known but whom are now scattered around the globe.  And I’m not the only one… isn’t it the most popular social media venue on the planet?

Fast forward to mid-2008… one of my best friends joins a local firm called Radian6 (I know you’ve heard of them)… They’ve developed a tool that crawls through the web, mining data from social media sites for its clients (apologies for my lay explanation of your business, folks).  I think Radian6 has a lot of potential and I hope they do well.  Anyway, my friend (not a social media type at the time) says I need to get on Twitter.  My first question?  What the hell is Twitter.  He tries to explain but it’s no use.  I really don’t get it.  Who cares what I’m doing?

I continue to be intrigued by this Twitter thing…

Then, this summer (2009), I see a webcast featuring Guy Kawasaki, founder of Alltop.  He’s explaining how he uses Twitter as a means of sharing what he believes to be valuable or interesting information.  The lightbulb went on… I read a ton… I can use this…  I can become a purveyor of information too.  So, I started tweeting… Then, I decide to start this  blog.  Admittedly, I still haven’t found a comfort zone.  Neither have yet become part of my being… YET.  But I’m learning and I’m enjoying the learning so that’s good.

[End of back story]

So how can I use social media to help my clients?  Let’s start with what I do.  I can most simply be described as a management consultant.  Specifically, I’m an expert in leading change.  Change?  That’s a pretty generic term – what the hell does that mean?  Great question.  Here goes (proceed with caution – a consultant is about to describe what he does)…

Every day, organizations initiate change… it could be the introduction of a new product, the pursuit of a new market, the restructuring of roles and responsibilities, a merger or acquisition, the implementation of a new business process, or the deployment of a new system.  Just a few examples.

You may not know this (although intuitively you probably do)… Most organizations are horrible at implementing change because it is hard.  It’s hard on the people who have to change.  And the typical result is a lot of wasted time, money, and energy because the benefits do not come, the competitive advantage does not materialize, and the customer satisfaction does not improve.  These are why you set out on a path to change in the first place… So if you aren’t getting the payoff, why did you do it?

What I do is help clients get it right…  I see it as a piece of their investment management or risk management. I work with them to design strategies and tactics to properly deploy change and, most importantly, make it stick!

So back to my original question – how can I leverage social media in my world… to facilitate the “stickiness” of change?  While social networks are quickly transforming the way friends interact, they are and will continue to evolve the way colleagues interact as well.  While some people (even in “older” industries) are embracing social media, I think many (my gut says most actually) organizations and their leaders are lagging way behind their employees.  Traditional (or more aptly dated) forms of communication and engagement – emails, web sites, newsletters, face-to-face meetings for example – are becoming less effective with each passing day.

To try and get ahead of the curve… I’m trying to become more savvy about social media so I can help clients adapt their engagement practices in a way that captures their employees’ interest, imagination and enthusiasm.  Engagement is perhaps the most critical success factor not only for leading change but also for fostering and sustaining high performance.  And as we adapt our ways of interacting, we also need to adapt the way we engage each other.

Hmmm… it’s late (or rather early)… I hope I haven’t rambled too much.

If you have any advice, I’d welcome some thoughts on this… And thanks “Gus”, from Radian6, for pointing me toward Twitter… Although I’m still a novice, it has started me on the path to understanding social media, how it’s changing our world, and how I can leverage it to create value for my clients.

“When we get closer to deployment, we definitely need to start managing the change.”

Posted on by
Reply

I have heard this time and time again… And I’m sure you have too.  For many, this probably seems like a plausible approach.  After all, isn’t “change management” mostly about training as a means for being “ready” for the change?

The short answer is “are you kidding me?”.

This is one of the project world’s most common and perilous traps.  I tell all my clients that the process of managing change  actually starts before the project even kicks off.

Huh?  That’s right…

As soon as “change” is a sparkle in your eye, you better start managing it… the vision, the message, the context, the learning, the implementation itself, the transition, and the measurement…

Some think I’m cracked… but I’m right.  I would love to hear your opinions – what do you think?

Do you have a sense of urgency?

Posted on by
Reply

Creating a sense of urgency is a necessity if you are to implement successful change in your business. Why? Well, for starters, a sense of urgency from a C-level sponsor creates the initial boost needed to give birth to a new initiative. That boost can help ensure the project kicks off on the right foot (strong sponsorship and commitment, proper funding, and the right resources dedicated to the project). It can also provide a kick in the pants where needed.

But most of all, in my experience, a sense of urgency creates energy. It creates an atmosphere that motivates people. It brings excitement. It creates something to connect to and gather around. A sense of urgency also inspires us to do something, to do it better, to do it smarter, to do it now!

Great — so how do you create a sense of urgency? I like to use business cases or cost-benefit analyses. Business leaders like, no scratch that, they need to understand the analytical rationale for agreeing to pursue something new — a new product, a new market, a new system, a new process… A business case helps you to articulate what’s happening in your business, what needs to change, how it ought to be changed, the benefits of doing it, and the costs to get there (giving you some semblance of an ROI). Granted, high-level estimates often leave much to be desired but a business case can get people excited… create belief in the story and form the basis for a sense of urgency to do something about it.

John Kotter, author of Leading Change and a pre-eminent authority on organizational transformation, believes (and I happen to agree) creating a sense of urgency is critical to successful change. The video below is a 2008 interview with Kotter in which he gives his insights on urgency and how to create it… Take a look.

Common sense… but not so common

Posted on by
Reply

A few weeks ago, I was making a presentation to a group of colleagues… the topic was Change Leadership.

[Back story – I lead my consulting firm’s Change Practice. We implement strategies and tactics that help our clients realize the benefits of the changes (new systems, processes, structures, policies, etc.) they are making… You better underline benefits too because an awful lot of organizations forget about that. I know it sounds crazy but it’s true.

Many “change consultants” are psychology types that place emphasis on ensuring people are comfortable and empowered throughout major change because it can be so painful and disruptive. I agree it’s important to facilitate the change for the people impacted by it… but not because they feel pain and disruption… because if they are successful, you will achieve the benefits of the change. And if your people don’t succeed through a change, your organization and its performance won’t either.

It really isn’t so much about “managing change” but about “making change stick.” If it doesn’t stick, it’s a wasted investment… My practice is in the business of helping you do the right things in the right ways to ensure you don’t waste your investment. End of back story].

As we were nearing the conclusion of the session, I was reviewing some of the major building blocks of most change methodologies: vision, communication, education & training, operational transition. I put up a slide that said “Sounds like common sense… and that’s the problem.”

Communications and training sound so simple. And in many ways they can be, in concept, but they require a great deal of focus, skill and energy to do really well. And few organizations do these well. In fact, these are the most often cited areas that project teams and organizations would say they had a shortfall or underestimated the effort required. Yeah – no kidding!!

One of the fundamental reasons so many transformation (very overused term by the way, so my apologies) and change initiatives fail is because project sponsors and team leaders underestimate the work needed to properly engage and enable stakeholders (i.e. users, staff, workers or whatever word best describes the people who need to change).

So the next time you are considering change for your organization… don’t pay lip service to the building block activities I mentioned about – vision, communication, training, and operational transition. Really do them. And do them well. They are an investment. And they will pay off. Better yet – contact an expert who can help you do this (I could recommend someone!). Yes – this is totally self-serving… but look around… there are very few people who do this kind of work for a living.

Success is what you want… it’s what you need. Benefits are what you want to achieve. They’re what you need to achieve.

It seems like common sense, eh? (that’s Canadian for “right?”)… Well, it’s not that common. And that’s unfortunate for the organizations that represent the 2/3 of all change initiatives that fail to deliver their desired benefits. In fact, it’s a shame.

“You can’t play Jenga with a house of cards…”

Posted on by
Reply

It was a Friday in July of 2006; it was about 1pm on a hot and humid day in greater Boston.  I was just finishing my 12th consecutive month of weekly travel (and feeling a little irritable).  I was the change leader for a very large CRM implementation.  Bill was the Program Director, Bob was the Business Lead and Tony was the Partner from our integration partner.  “You can’t play Jenga with a house of cards,” remarked Bob… (reminder below)

Jenga

The back story… We were in month 16 of an 18-month odyssey to bring a new CRM system to 5000 professionals located in every corner of the world.  In many ways, the project was a success story.  We had strong sponsorship.  We had (mostly) adequate funding.  We had (moderately) a solid team.  We had excellent engagement and commitment from stakeholders, especially from our field organization (probably the best I’ve ever been involved with).  System development, on the other hand, had been bumpy; forever behind schedule.

On the Friday morning before we’re scheduled to kick-off end-user training in London and Munich… we’re notified that our training environment (shoddily built by the way) has crashed.  They’re confident they can get it back online in time for training on Monday.  What do you do?  (note: this was not the first environment issue this project had experienced).

The discussion we’re having is (A) what to do about next week and (B) what to do… period… about training.  Our training program was developed on a model of direct practice in the system.

“You can’t play Jenga with a house of cards.”

The system and its instability was the house of cards…

I was extremely “bearish” on this system.  Had been for some time.  There was always something problematic with it… And we’d gotten a big black eye during our train-the-trainer program when we reluctantly used the development environment to conduct hands-on training. I had the pleasure of being in a classroom full of senior folks in Paris when our system crapped out.  Sorry doesn’t really cut it.

As the leader of the change team, the front line to the users, my team and I were feeling the wrath of anxious users who’d been burned by IT projects before.

So what did we do?…We cancelled the next week’s training… another mis-step would have erased what little confidence our users had in the system.  As I said, they’d been burned before by past projects.  That would have been a disaster for the $30M program.

Early the next week, after 72-hours of work by our tech team, we made what would turn out to be the best under pressure decision we made on the project.  While our tech guys were saying “everything should now be fine,” we weren’t convinced.  We scrapped the entire 5-week training program and set out on a plan “B”.  In short — 2 words: do over.

We replaced an instructor-led, classroom-based model with a completely web-based program.  In the span of a few days, we developed a “good enough” product to bring to the masses.  And build a new support model to provide coaching and assistance — user-led training isn’t as rich in content so we expected more support would be needed by our users.

It was a tremendous collaborative effort between business people, subject matter experts, IT folks, our trainers, extended project team, power users and our core team.  And, to paraphrase my now “former” brother-in-law… “it all worked out.” (it didn’t for him… hence the “former“).

Reasons for success:  (1) we gathered as much information as we could in the short time we had, (2) we were rational about what “could” be done – we did not try to be heroic (like many project teams do when faced with a critical issue), (3) we were honest with our stakeholders about what happened and how we would fix it (and we apologized to them for the inconvenience our issues had caused them and their teams), (4) we worked day and night to make it right, and (5) we thanked and rewarded the team of people who made it happen.  I had a lot of thank yous to our process leads, their teams, our consultants, and my team…

As with anything related to change – you have to put people first.  If you do that, and always do it, a lot of good things fall into place.  And while you still have a lot of work to do, you’ve got people working together toward the goal.