A deeply ingrained habit is to go fast — but let’s slow things down.
Ever since I can remember, Mum encouraged me to be independent and to get a good education. I’ve also had the role model of a father from a family of go getters, always achieving, always coming up with new ideas and incessant thinkers. Add to that being brought up in a fast world and out comes a very driven and constantly achieving young woman living life like it’s a race.
Purpose: ‘the reason for which something exists’
‘Many persons have a wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification but through fidelity to a worthy purpose’ Helen Keller
Are you a CEO, CFO or HR Director? Are you questioning if your operating model is still fit for purpose? Have you expanded quickly, inherited misaligned teams, seen inefficiencies creep in or have you adjusted your strategy and found your people are no longer aligned structurally to match the new requirements. Wherever you are, The Change Place works with you to review your strategy and business model and to determine if a change to your operating model is required. We will then work with you to prioritise the areas that need to be addressed, design what is required and then support you in making the changes.
We use the framework below to guide us in our thought process:
Here are some of the questions we will seek to answer in helping you get it right:
Once we get a steer from you and can develop the overarching operating framework we will help you determine how much change is required to your organisation structures, roles, accountabilities, KPIs, talent and/or processes to deliver on the requirements. The skills we bring include a commercial and process-based approach to the problem, an ability to co-design a solution with you that meets your strategic and cultural requirements and then, bringing our change and HR expertise, we will help you develop a pragmatic and easy approach to implementing the changes. Our approach is very much to break the implementation down into bite-sized chunks in order to limit levels of distraction and productivity risks as you move through the change.
If you would like a discussion about where you may need help, please call Jayne Parker at The Change Place for a confidential discussion on 03 9010 5434.
In one of my previous posts, I talked about breaking the change down. I’m a really strong believer in the role that leaders play in making change happen but consider how tough that role can be when the change has been packaged in a big way. Leaders can in fact give themselves a helping hand by breaking every change they are making down into smaller chunks – little and often. This might seem a little counter intuitive ie. how do can you make a step change if you break the change down into smaller less noticeable lumps, do you end up actually achieving anything? Well the answer is yes. The very fact that you approach it that way can stand you in good stead in delivering lasting benefits.
The issue with step change is that people find it difficult to switch overnight, they may get caught up in the enormity of what you have asked of them or may become overwhelmed by new expectations and more often than not will resist it making the role of leading it even harder. Consider instead a solid program of incremental change that happens under people’s “change radar” and easily within what they believe their capabilities are. You might just achieve that step change you are looking for without anyone realising what’s happened. This is not change by stealth since the objective here is not to be mysterious or underhand about what is changing but rather just to enact it piece by piece. You can still paint the vision but you can communicate the implementation parts of it in digestible chunks and start to build that culture of agility you need.
For example, it can be really tempting to think of a project/program you are delivering as one big implementation or release and therefore to do everything at once. Completely overhauling work processes alone with new systems and procedures can be quite a feat. Add to that some org and role change and you have a recipe for lots of potential emotion, resistance and distraction. The larger the change, the more chance people will get caught up in what is unfolding, become overwhelmed and perhaps not be supported enough by managers or a project team too thinly spread. Not a great place to be if your team’s performance is already going south.
Consider instead looking at all the people components of the change and working through what elements could be broken down into smaller chunks. What can be delivered early or sequenced over a few more months? For example, if you need to set up a new team or realign roles to manage a new system, consider doing it a few months before implementation and getting them focused on their new roles and KPIs before the new system gets implemented. If an org change is required but really isn’t central to the new systems being implemented, consider leaving everyone as they are, designing the processes with the future in mind and getting the new systems in first (perhaps doing so team by team). Any required reorganization could follow once the new system is in and performing how it should. Make the change a series of quick wins rather than a big bang.
Breaking the change down not only helps the people change seem less big it could also decouple many interdependencies and could give you more delivery agility full stop. I recognize it’s not always possible to decouple things. For example, systems projects have much interconnectedness which can make breaking them down challenging. However imagine if you took the change view up front in planning your systems development approach, would you break the technical design and delivery down differently as a result?The test is to think about it from a roll out and people impact perspective to see if you could sequence things in a lower noise and more simple way. Restructures are a classic example of something that can be broken into smaller pieces. Changes can be made team by team in smaller, quicker, defined steps that may not even need that big communication you were planning. You don’t always have to communicate that you are eating the elephant all at once.
In summary, if an adaptive culture is central to your future success or, as a leader, you want to be successful in change you are implementing whilst keeping all the business-as-usual balls in the air, try to break all those large programs of work you have into smaller delivery chunks. Not only are you causing less distraction and impact on the day-to-day each time you make those changes but you are also helping to build change agility for next time. Might be a quicker strategy versus what you’ve been trying to date?
By Jayne Bailey, Director, The Change Place
Copyright © 2015 The Change Place. All rights reserved.
Over the years, I have had the benefit of being part of some great change experiences and also some not so great ones too! Out of those experiences come a set of lessons or insights that I thought might be useful for others in managing change.
It’s all about behaviours. People do not deliberately turn back and run the opposite direction but if they see no reason to change and they can work their way back to what they know, they will. We are, after all, creatures of habit. Are you being realistic about how easily your end users can change? You could be on a losing streak if you have under-estimated the skills required of the team taking it on and you haven’t planned enough for a step up in the capability required. One off training won’t cut it where you are fundamentally changing how people work. In which case what’s your post-implementation support plan look like? How will end users be supported in the months afterwards? Do you have enough resources built in to the plan so you can be sure people are supported? How many large projects don’t budget very much beyond the implementation date? It takes time to change behaviours.
Measure it. What’s the old saying what gets measured gets improved. Same for change. How can you know how it’s going if you don’t measure the adoption and let people know how they’re doing (good and bad). Some might view this as the stick approach but in my opinion it’s necessary.
Get the ownership right. Who is driving the need to change? Is your sponsorship of the project being driven out of the area most impacted by the change? Are your leaders leading the change or standing by the sidelines? What ownership levers can you use to ensure there is enough skin in the game? For example, where is your process, change and training delivery sitting – in your project office or with the business – how well do the business know what is really changing and are they really ready for it? Think about realigning the reporting lines of some project roles to drive greater ownership and accountability where it counts.
Break the change down. Structural change often brings the most distraction. Rather than distract the masses from the day-to-day with a big restructure communication, look at breaking the change down into smaller chunks. Low noise change might take you longer but the transition can be more successful simply because the distraction is less. This strategy, which applies equally to systems and process change, can also help build change agility for next time.
Make the time to think about the change. Is your project team able to do enough big picture thinking about what’s changing or have they become too swamped in the detail because of the timeline and budget being worked to. Whatever the change and wherever it is in the project lifecycle, pause for thought, do you have a solid strategy for the impacts the change will have and what are your comfort levels that the project will be a success? If the answer is no or not sure then it would be a good opportunity and sometimes a gutsy move to stop and review what you are really doing.
By Jayne Bailey, Director, The Change Place
Copyright © 2015 The Change Place. All rights reserved.
