Transcending Leadership

The ABC's of Managing Change

The ABC's of Managing Change

What Management Can do in Support of Change Efforts

By Beth Feild Pisculli, Theories in Practice, LLC

www.theoriesinpractice.com

 The survival of the fittest is the ageless law of nature, but the fittest are rarely the strong. The fittest are those endowed with the qualifications for adaptation, the ability to accept the inevitable and conform to the unavoidable, to harmonize with existing or changing conditions. - Dave E. Smalley

 The first article in this change management series, From Change Chump to Change Champion, focuses on individual resistance to change.  The ABC’s of Managing Change is written especially for managers and team leaders to assist you in understanding your role during changing times.  As a leader, you have a critical part to play. You and your organization’s ability to respond to a changing environment is a key factor to being viable and successful in the short and the long term.

 The ABC’s of Managing Change provides a simple model for understanding the key principles for helping your organization adapt during changing times.  “A” stands for anticipate – anticipate approaching change and how it will impact your specific organization.  “B” stands for believe – believe that your employees will come up with the best solutions for addressing change.  Finally, “C” stands for coach – coach your employees through resistance, and to action.

 Anticipate

Anticipating approaching change requires two things.  It means first understanding the environmental factors that can impact your industry, organization, and more specifically your department or team.  Secondly, it requires that you visualize what impending change means to your organization from a product, process, and services perspective.  Typically, this type of thinking is part of a strategic planning process – something that occurs periodically.  Being successful in a changing environment requires incorporating strategic planning into your every day responsibilities.

In order to better understand the environmental factors impacting your organization, you need to become an “information sleuth”.  First and foremost, you need to understand what your customers are saying – what are their needs, what issues are they facing, what are their impending strategies.  Secondly, you need to understand what your Board of Directors is saying, and, get your hands on any and all strategic information that is available.  Ask for information that you think is not available.  Have you seen your manager’s performance objectives?  What about his/her manager’s plan?  Also, take a good look at the problems occurring in your organization (Have you strolled through the customer service department lately?  Have you googled your company name for news articles?).   These are typically symptoms that some change must occur.  Finally, seek beyond the walls of your organization.  Developing an understanding of  technological, government, political, and global trends, although they often seem out of reach, can help you to have the ultimate long-term view for your organization.

Your visionary skills are extremely important when managing an organization through change.  Helping employees to gain a vision of what the change will mean to them, makes it a reality.  Paint a picture that is as specific as possible – this doesn’t mean to create all of the details your self.  It means to present the strategic information to your organization, and do some dreaming together.  Identify what people will be doing, how things will be managed, how new processes will work – create a vision that helps employees to see specifically “how” they will fit in.  If you are a manager, you probably know how visions work.  They act as an elastic band between the present and the future.  A vision propels organizations forward, aligns decisions and actions, and helps to resolve systemic problems. 

 Believe

Believing that your employees will identify the best solutions for implementing change is easier said than done.  As managers, we often believe that our ideas “should be” the best – after all, we have been promoted to management because of our ability to solve problems and implement solutions.  Additionally, we feel “responsible” for knowing the answers – otherwise we would not be worthy of our positions.  My recommendation is to ignore what your ego is whispering in your ear, and realize that once you involve employees in the creation of the solution, their resistance will go down and their buy in will go up.  You can involve your employees with two easy steps.  The first is to communicate, communicate, and then communicate some more; the second is to have your employees to join you as you develop solutions for change.

 Many of the organizations that have experienced failed change initiatives identify communication as one of the top areas that with improvement could have increased their chances for success.  Employees cannot successfully partner with you unless you believe that they can understand and make more effective decisions by being exposed to the same information that you receive.  Communicate everything that is relevant – (and in a changing environment, almost everything is relevant!) strategic information; customer input; customer strategies; outcomes from executive meetings; stockholder perceptions; industry, technological, and political trends.  Additionally, utilize many different opportunities and mediums by which to communicate – general information sessions, staff meetings, conferences, memorandums, the organization’s intranet, e-mail, posters, and informal discussions.  The key here is to manage information overload – a method for helping with this is to keep your messages straightforward, focused, and without all of the commentary associated with decision making.  Finally, listen to your employees and let them ask questions.  Let them vent and communicate frustration – it is a part of the process.  If you don’t know the answer to a question, don’t avoid the discussion.  The more dialogues you facilitate with your employees, the more the trust increases in your organization – another factor to creating buy in.

Involving employees in identifying solutions for change is perhaps the most important key to a successful change initiative.  After all, by human nature we are less likely to resist change when we identify and commit to the actions required of us.  We are, in fact, changed our selves as we become involved in the process.  We begin to understand the problems that our organization faces, the risks associated with not changing, and how we fit into the big picture.  Additionally, who better to identify a solution that will work, than the folks who already know the details of the business today?  Visioning is the first step, creating detailed implementation plans is the second.  By becoming involved in the creation of implementation plans, employees begin to see what specific part they can play in the change initiative.  But let me take this a step further as the concept of participative management has been around for years, and you may very well believe that you involve employees already.  Do you set up “special project groups” when a problem needs resolution?  Do you have “re-engineering teams” floating around?  Unfortunately, engaging small groups of employees will not resolve the problem of resistance in your organization.  These employees will no longer be resistant, but the rest of the organization will!  You need to find more inclusive ways to get the entire organization involved in the planning process.

Getting the entire organization involved may sound like an impossible feat – but it is not!  There are many Large Group Intervention processes available today which use the whole system to produce accelerated change in real time.  Some of the more common ones are Open Space, Future Search, Participative Design, and Real Time Strategic Change.  What do they all have in common?  They bring all facets of the organization in the room at once and they shift the responsibility for change from the “top only” to “across the board”.  There is a high degree of information sharing, they are focused on real time issues, and they produce system wide change.  They create a high degree of “buy in” from the entire organization, and they use the knowledge of the room in an immediate way.  The awesome thing about these processes is that typically everyone walks away with actions that can be implemented immediately to start the momentum in the organization.  A simple internet search will yield a great deal of information about these types of processes and they are yielding fascinating results across the world!

Coach

The final component of our model involves coaching your employees through resistance and to action.   It is important to understand resistance to change in relation to the status quo.  The status quo that we perceive at any given time is the result of a dynamic process.  There are always factors that work both for and against the status quo.  As a manager, it is your job to reduce the resistance to change (factors for the status quo) and increase the factors driving toward change (factors against the status quo).  Examining these factors and crafting an action plan to deal with them is called force field analysis.

 When it comes to reducing resistance, there are typically two aspects that you will have to deal with - individual resistance and organizational barriers and roadblocks.  Research indicates that there are four primary reasons why individuals resist change:  powerlessness, habit, excess ambiguity, and concerns over capability.  The first article in this series discusses these reasons in detail.  It is important to understand the details of individual resistance, however; it is even more important to understand that most individual resistance can be reduced significantly through direct communication, listening and answering questions, and involving employees in change efforts.  The things we have already discussed!

 Organizational roadblocks are a little trickier.  They involve ensuring that other managers and departments are in alignment with the change strategies so that agreements can be reached.  Participating in a Large Group Intervention provides a huge advantage because the entire organization is represented and gets quickly onto the same page.  Other ways to accomplish this include partnering with other parts of the organization, customers, and suppliers in visioning and implementation planning activities, and networking throughout the organization on an on-going basis.  Get yourself invited to other departmental planning meetings to determine how you can more effective work throughout the system.  Additionally, ensuring that top management is supportive of change initiatives, and that they are actively demonstrating that support is imperative.

 In addition to reducing resistance, you must also increase the factors that are driving your organization toward change.  We have already talked about the importance of creating a vision for your organization.  Additionally, by involving employees in the development of an implementation plan, roles will begin to clarify and they will begin to understand what part they will play during the transition and after.  Both of these will increase the momentum toward change.  But let’s discuss the fundamentals – although people react differently to change, one commonality they share is that they all want to know what is in it for them.  Will the change be positive or negative for them?

 As a manger, helping your employees to discover the gain in change is an important task.  To do this you must get down in the details!  Make sure that you have discussions about people’s career aspirations, facilitate visioning and planning exercises and ensure that you address the specifics such as what roles people would like to play, meet one-on-one with employees on a regular basis to discuss the impact to them individually and encourage them to identify how they can gain from the change, identify mentors in the organization and do some informal pairing.  Additionally, look at your budget and find some extra funding to support employee development opportunities.  There may be someone who does not have a role in your new organization, but you can always pay to send them back to school.  Just remember that change is stressful – good and bad change.  If you find that you have an employee that will truly be impacted negatively, or someone who just cannot get through the transition, don’t hesitate – get them some help.  There are plenty of professionals including career counselors, grief counselors, personal coaches, and mental health professionals who can step in if you are unable.

 The final aspect of your responsibilities involves coaching your employees to action.  By this we mean two things.  The first is to identify clear, measurable goals and objectives as a part of your implementation planning.  The second is to take action.  Go for it.  Put one foot in front of the other. You have probably heard that you need to pick the low hanging fruits in any change initiative?  What does this mean and why is it recommended?  It means that you should identify some easy actions that can be taken immediately.  This is recommended because we know that getting out of the planning stage and to the action stage is hard – and scarey – but if your employees start moving (even if they are not sure what direction to move in) and see some immediate progress, the momentum will begin to build.  There may be setbacks, and there will be obstacles to overcome along the way, but I can guarantee that action feels much better than standing still and doing nothing while everything is changing around you.     

 

From Change Chump to Change Champion

From Change Chump to Change Champion

Why we resist change: real-world strategies to help you cope

By Beth Feild Pisculli, Theories in Practice, LLC

www.theoriesinpractice.com

“We live in a moment of history where change is so speeded up that we begin to see the present only when it is disappearing.” -- R. D. Laing

Let’s face it. We live in a world of change. We can’t watch the evening news or walk through the hallways of our office buildings without hearing about the latest merger, layoff, bankruptcy, or global partnership. And what about words like faster, better and cheaper? How often have you heard them lately? Let me guess. They’re included in your performance plans right now, aren’t they? Now let’s consider your impressions of all this change. Are you afraid of it? Do you think other people are afraid of change? In my change management workshops, over 90% of all participants answer “No” to the first question, but “Yes” to the second. What does this tell us? That most people are more afraid of change than they realize. Change is scary – not to mention uncomfortable, risky, and confusing. Of course, change can also be exhilarating. So, let’s examine how you react to change and explore some ways to help you embrace it. Nearly all of us resist changes in our work environment.

One extremely helpful way to deal with our resistance is to try and understand why we react to change the way we do. Research shows that there are four primary reasons: 1) Powerlessness 2) Excess Ambiguity 3) Habit 4) Concerns Over Capabilit

Reason #1: Powerlessness. “I can’t make a difference, so why bother"

Change is exciting when we participate, but threatening when forced upon us. Our reactions have a lot to do with whether or not we feel involved in the change process. And even if we’re involved, “surprises” can still uproot our tenuous sense of power. When deadlines are moved, decisions made, and problems “solved” without our input, we begin to feel out of control. We often react by throwing in the anchor and holding on for dear life. Everyone wants to be successful, so when a process we created or a project we implemented is deemed unnecessary, we fear losing face. We may even become petty and territorial. But there’s hope, because powerlessness is often an illusion. We tend to point to someone else as “the person who can make a difference,” but the ironic truth is that that person is usually pointing right back at us. What, then, is the key to regaining a sense of power when faced with change? Seize every opportunity to get involved with change efforts. Sure, this is easier when management encourages participation and gives employees decision-making power. But ultimately it’s up to each of us to take the initiative. Start with a discussion in your staff meeting regarding the potential impact of change to your department. Create an Intranet discussion board for your peers to provide suggestions for dealing with change. These are just a couple of examples, but I’ve seen them go a long way towards making people feel more positive and influential in the process of organizational chang

Action Steps:

1. Identify three areas where your input could influence your organization’s success with a special project or process (Hint: think of your role as a team or department member, meeting participant, or task force leader.) Make a plan to initiate a conversation about how organizational change is impacting that group and how the group can get involved.

2. Brainstorm all the ways you could get involved with change in your organization. Identify one colleague who is already involved with change efforts. Meet with him or her and ask for additional input on how you might implement some of the ideas that you brainstorm.

Reason #2: Excess Ambiguity. “I like order and control. Change is too unpredictable"

Change involves a lack of clarity and a great feeling of risk. Typically the only clear impression is that “we need to be headed in THAT direction instead of THIS direction.” I’m no stranger to this lack of clarity myself. When I started my own business, my mentor said, “You need to become comfortable with a feeling of discomfort.” I thought, “Thanks. What the heck does that mean? And can you recommend something more specific?” She meant I had to learn how to deal with uncertainty and the feelings that come with it. Too much uncertainty also makes us feel as though we could be in a risky situation. Will we walk to the bank – or off the gangplank?

Great leaders understand the benefits of change and have the initiative to communicate these benefits to all levels of employees. As a rule, management should communicate as much information as possible about the environment, organizational strategy, and what’s next, to every person and by every vehicle available. They know that information is power, and if their employees are informed and believe that change will be positive for everyone, then ambiguity becomes less threatening and much more manageable. But what’s your responsibility as an employee? Recognize that change is unavoidable, and help the organization define its end result. Listen and gather additional information so that you can seek to understand. Be bold. Ask for strategic data and invite yourself to management reviews. Ask for or develop a plan of specific steps required to implement the change. No specific plan often means little or no accountability (and even less progress). If your manager hasn’t already done so, break large-scale initiatives into smaller chunks. Identify timetables, milestones, primes and measurement tools. Such planning doesn’t guarantee the project direction won’t change or re-work won’t be required. However, as you better understand the plan, the fog will begin to clear. Before you know it, you’ll be building momentum and making excellent progress.

Action Steps:

1. Identify the three best sources of for learning about change in your organization (i.e. your manager, company newsletter, or the intranet). Take the initiative to read everything you can get your hands on. Ask as many questions as possible to clarify issues that may be confusing.

2. Viewing change positively will work to your advantage, I promise! Identify three ways you might gain from the changes occurring in your organization. Some examples may be an exciting new position, a promotion or increased responsibility, or an opportunity to learn a new skill. Tell others that you are looking forward to the change! You help those around you feel more positive, and in turn, you feel more positive yourself.

Reason #3: Habit. “But I’ve always done it this way"

Have you ever tried to change the order of your morning routine or the route you drive to work? Obviously, you can’t change these while you’re reading this article, so try this example instead. Holding your arms out in front of you, fan your fingers, then clasp your hands together. (Go ahead, I’ll wait.) Either your right thumb will be over your left, or vice versa. This has nothing to do with hand preference. It’s habit. Now try to clasp your hands together with the opposite thumb on top. Weird, isn’t it? Simply put, we’re creatures of habit. In order to break old habits, we must first identify them. Unless we’re conscious of and learn to question familiar routines, we won’t progress. This is true for individuals, and particularly true for organizations. Even after we identify changes, we have a natural tendency to slip back into routines. It takes energy and action to change old habits and reprogram an organization. It is precisely this extra initiative that causes mental fatigue and resistance when faced with change.

Great organizations create “champions of change.” These are people who facilitate the transition from old to new, and who monitor the new to ensure that the organization continues progressing. Even if your company doesn’t recognize the need for an “official” position, you can volunteer to become an informal champion for change. Propose to your manager that you take on these responsibilities, and you could be recognized as a major contributor to your company’s positive growth. Believe me, I’ve seen this happen in a variety of organizations. A word of caution is in order here. Don’t just trash the old for the fun of it. Often, the creation of something new builds on the strengths of the old. Make sure to maintain some familiar routines and surroundings in the process of change.

Action Steps:

1. Identify two things “you’ve always done that way” (i.e. a policy, process, standard operating procedure, etc.). Think about the changes occurring in your organization and document how each of these items may be impacted.

2. Identify three actions that you can take immediately as a change champion. Some examples may include pointing others to sources of information on change, helping others understand how their projects may be impacted by change, and being an advocate for change at every opportunity – whether formal or informal.

Reason #4: Concerns Over Capability.

“I’m sure I can, I just don’t want to.” The last and probably scariest of all issues associated with change is that we all have concerns regarding our desire and ability to perform in the new, “changed” environment. Will I want to work in the new organization? Do I have the skills to be successful? Do I know enough to implement the new process? Change consultants call this “the elephant under the table".  Everyone knows that the concern exists, but no one really discusses it. Due to lack of communication, we begin to fear failure or develop feelings of apathy (or even resistance) toward the organization. In today’s rapidly changing environment, it’s more important than ever to confront change head-on. We have to reach down, grab on tight, and address the *#@! elephant under the table! The best managers support employee development and provide opportunities to practice new skills. If yours does, then take advantage of it! Many organizations will pay for additional education or allow employees to take on short-term assignments to improve their skill sets. Some companies have set up programs where more experienced employees can mentor less experienced colleagues. If your employer hasn’t implemented such a program, then look to set up an informal arrangement on your own. Although it may not appear so at first, change typically means growth, development, and opportunity.

Action Steps:

1. Identify three new skills that will benefit you in the changed organizational environment.

2. Identify at least one opportunity to develop each new skill identified. Some examples may be to attend training, receive mentoring from another employee, take on a new project, or coordinate a temporary job swap with someone else. Meet with your manager to gain support for your development plan. It all comes down to a matter of choice You may still be asking, “What if I just don’t like the changes or the effects that the changes have had on me?"

The truth is: Everyone always has a choice. Eleanor Roosevelt said, “ In the long run, we shape our lives, and we shape ourselves. The process never ends until we die. And the choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility.

Take responsibility and take advantage of the opportunities that come your way. If you don’t believe this, you may benefit from this quip attributed to an anonymous sage: “If you get hit by a donut truck today, the organization will still post your job next week.” Your organization may care about you, but they still have to meet their bottom line. So there you have it. Become a change champion, not a change chump. Conquer any fears you have about powerlessness, habit, ambiguity and capability. Seize the opportunities that are presented by change … and reap the benefits. After all, if you were making the organizational decisions, who would you keep on board? The change champions, or the change chumps? I think you know the answer.

I do not want to leave this article without a dose of reality, especially regarding the last point about "capability" without being very realistic.  Organizations do utilize downsizing opportunities to eliminate poor performers.  That is no surprise to anyone.  And the reason is that during difficult economic times, they need the best leaders in the organization to ensure that goals and objectives are met, costs are maintained, the best problem solvers are at their disposal, and employees with high integrity and values are on staff.   Are you one of those employees?  Most of us think we are because our ego tells us that "we are better than so and so" and therefore we must be!  As your friend, let me say that if your company is undergoing siginificant change and you are on a performance improvement plan, you have received some subtle (or overt) feedback that you are not performing, OR you do not believe that your peers would rate you as a top performer, be realistic about your standing with the company.  Realistically, performance improvement plans are typically set up so that someone can succeed, but reality is that if you are on one/have been on one recently, it takes TIME to move from PIP to an exceeds performer.  And the company is looking at the EXCEEDS performers to take the roles after the re-org is done.  Once again, you have a choice.  You can hold out to "see" whether or not you will be impacted in a negative way from the change, or you can take some responsibility to start working on your "Leadership Reputation".  Go through a 360 process, ask others for feedback, start marketing yourself, and by all means look at other opportunities within and outside the company.  If you have a feeling that you might be let go....you might.  Just be prepared.  Once again, we all have choices, and althought it feels terrible to be layed off, I can't tell you how many of my clients say, "I am so much better off" afterwards.