Creating Successful Organizational Change
It has been said "the only person entirely comfortable with change is a wet baby." Change, no matter how desirable, disrupts expectations. And most people are resistant to having their expectations disrupted. It is a natural part of our human condition to be most comfortable when we know what to expect -- from our jobs, our relationships and our environment.
It stands to reason that people's expectations need to be managed in order for a change to move forward smoothly. When people in an organization understand the purpose and benefits of a change, and can anticipate the training and support that will take place to help them through the change, they will accept change far more readily.
Organizations who jumped onto the Reengineering bandwagon in the 80's learned some hard lessons. More than 85% of those surveyed following a large-scale reengineering effort reported that the goals were not reached and the reengineering could not be considered successful. Most often, the reasons were attributed - not to a problem in the technical process - but to failing to take the human factor into account!
In today's organizational climate, change is happening on many fronts: cultural change, technology implementation, and department or process redesign to mention a few. The purpose of this paper is to outline the eight key factors in implementing a successful change in an organization. No matter what kind of change is taking place - be it more in the human side or the technical side, these factors should be present for success.
Planning your communications
A communications plan is often the first step, and should be imbedded in every part of the change process. This plan need not be complicated or cumbersome, but it does need to take into account all the stakeholders. Consider everyone who will be expected to participate in the change: management, employees and, perhaps, customers. Think about the best way to communicate with them to manage their expectations. This might require a special meeting, or taking advantage of regular staff meetings. You might use bulletins or email. You'll want a basic plan of what you'll want to communicate, to whom, by whom, when and how.
1. The Business Rationale
Presenting the business reasons for a change is the first step towards achieving organization buy-in. If the people in the organization who are expected to go along with a change do not understand the reason for it, they are not very likely to want to participate - especially if a shift in thinking and behavior is required on their part. So, before asking expecting people to change, communicate the rationale and the benefits.
2. Communicating the Vision
Every change effort has a purpose and goal. In reaching towards that goal, every person in the organization affected by the change should share the same vision, and be able to "see" what the new state will look like. And everyone should be able to communicate that vision to others.
A vision statement is a picture in words that is inspiring and challenging, yet attainable. It should be able to answer the unspoken questions:
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What will the future look like?
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What's in it for me?
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What's in it for the organization?
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What's in it for our customers and stakeholders?
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How will we make this vision possible?
3. Developing Change Agents
The term "Change Agents" refers to people in the organization who can be counted on to champion the change to their departments and peers. They serve as the liaisons between the organization and the project team. It is recommended that people asked to be change agents are those who are influential among their peers, whose opinion is respected, and who are good at communicating. In a large, long-term change effort, change agents play a critical role in many phases of the project. The responsibilities of their role should be well thought out and communicated to them in advance. They might be asked to assess aspects of the project before it is rolled out to give feedback. They will probably play a key part in the communications plan. It is important to get the buy-in of these individuals; their opinion counts!
Change agents need some degree of training to fully understand their role in the change management process, so they can have positive impact. A Change Management Workshop designed for change agents is very helpful in preparing.
4. The Leadership Role in Change
Leaders' influence in an organizational change cannot be overestimated. Your change management consultant should also work as coach and trainer to Change Leaders, serving as their sounding board through each phase of the process. Based on my experience with typical workforce resistance to change, I've found it critical to coach managers to anticipate typical obstacles and work out strategies to overcome them. I also coach management individuals and teams on the most effective leadership style, given their organizational situations.
Leadership Styles
The result that is needed in most organizational change is commitment, rather than reluctant compliance. The style of leadership that is most effective in bringing about commitment is one that is more persuasive than autocratic. Although the workforce needs to be clear about organizational reality, they also need to feel some reason for going along with the change, and some reassurance that their efforts during the learning curve will be supported. A leader who is seen as a role model rather than a dictator will bring about this commitment. When people are simply told to "do it because you have to," they may go along for the present, but will likely start circulating their resume!
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Change Sponsors - Leaders are needed, first of all, as sponsors of change. The sponsor(s) are the ones who drive the change forward, create the pathways in the organization to make it happen, remove obstacles. The sponsor must be perceived as 100% committed to the change, "walking the talk" and doing what is reasonably necessary to make it happen as smoothly as possible.
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Change Leaders - Below the sponsors are the change leaders. These are the people charged with "making it happen." They might be asked to lead the project, managing the day-to-day aspects of moving the change forward. Change leaders should communicate closely with the sponsor to report progress and advise on any obstacles as soon as they arise.
5. Attaining Workplace Commitment
Getting the people in your organization to feel real commitment to a change effort requires managing people's natural resistance to changing the status quo. Resistance is the natural, inevitable consequence to a disruption of people's expectations. It cannot be eliminated, but it can be managed effectively.
What causes resistance?
People resist change for two primary reasons: lack of willingness and lack of ability.
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Unwilling - If people are unwilling to accept a change, this is often because the steps to achieve buy-in were not fully realized. Buy-in can be achieved through communicating the business rationale and vision, having peer change agents to surface issues, and supportive leaders who show commitment and credibility.
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Unable - If people can accept the business rationale and vision behind a change, yet still resist, they are probably feeling concerns of lack of ability to assimilate the change. They may fear they will not be able to learn the new system, or that their productivity will suffer. This makes it very important for leaders to communicate about the kinds of training and support people will get as they move to the new way of doing things. The organization must realize that there will probably be a "learning curve" where people, for a time, will be less productive as they adjust. This is to be expected. A common failing of technology implementations is over-optimism on the part of Technology Departments to realize how much training and support users will need on a new system.
Willingness and Ability can be considered two key components to achieving employee performance. The third is Consequences. People need to feel there are positive / negative consequences to exhibiting a new behavior. If there are none, the change appears optional, and people may drift back to the old ways.
6. Aligning the Organization
A change effort cannot be sustained in a non-supportive environment. The various systems of the organization need to be in sync, all working towards the same vision regarding the change.
Example - Cultural Change:
An example of where this alignment was commonly lacking was in the concept of work teams. As organizations flattened their hierarchies, more work was done in teams. Employees were urged to develop team competencies and work together on projects as teams rather than individuals. The compensation and performance appraisal systems, however, did not reflect this new competency. People continued to be rewarded for their individual performance. Therefore, the benefits expected from teamwork were never fully realized as people continued to put their greatest effort behind their own individual achievement. The cultural goal (team-based performance) and the compensation system (individual achievement) were not aligned.
Example - Technology Change:
With the pressure to compete in the technology realm, many traditional companies are implementing large-scale technical systems that require many workers to learn very new skills. These organizations sometimes do not have adequate technical training facilities to teach these skills in an effective manner. If this matter isn't addressed, the training component suffers, workers don't learn the system properly, and they will continue to resist using it. This can lead to the technology change project itself being judged a failure - all because the technology system and the training system were not in alignment around the change goal.
7. Tracking Progress
In order to determine the success of a change effort, the various components that would make up that success need to be determined, with goals set for each. Ideally, these goals would be quantifiable so that they can be measured. This way, progress can be monitored throughout the process so that areas of concern are addressed right away.
Examples of progress goals to be tracked could be:
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Every supervisor holding staff meetings every week
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Noting how many people completed training by target dates
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Keeping records of production: service calls completed, number of call-back complaints, number of errors in customer correspondence
8. Leveraging Knowledge and Learning
No one in your organization wants to reinvent the wheel. The lessons learned in one change implementation can be put to good use in the next change project. But this is only possible if the knowledge gained is somehow tracked and communicated. It is useful to set up in advance a means of noting and communicating what is learned at each major step, and filing this information in a way that can be accessed and passed on to other change leaders. This might be a series of simple reports for each stage, stating:
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Identification of the change step
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Purpose / Goal
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Results
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Adjustments to be made
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Lessons Learned
For example:
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