How to successfully implement change to your PDS process

So here’s a question, how long do you think prospectuses have been around for? Well, the answer is 420 years! The first IPO (and therefore prospectus) was issued in 1602 by the Dutch East India Company. So it’s shouldn’t be a surprise that it can be REALLY hard to get people to change the way they think about the production and management of offer documents.

Here are my top tips for successful change implementation.

Get a plan

First, you need a plan. Even a really basic one. As I like to say, you don’t HAVE to do a plan upfront, but if you don’t, you’ll end up half way through your project with things going wrong left right and centre, and then you’ll have to sit down and do the plan you should have done upfront. At which point you’ll also have to figure out how to fix what you’ve broken (usually relationships) as well as acknowledge all the activity that probably wasn’t required at all. Fun times. So, to avoid that, get a plan up front!

Your plan needs to cover:

• What you are trying to achieve
• Who’s involved
• How you are going to get from current state to future state, aka the actual activities like training, comms, reporting up the line etc.
• Risk management – mostly so you think about it up front and don’t build in any problems that will bite you in the butt later.

Framing

Once you know who’s going to be affected, you need to set expectations up front. And you do this by ‘framing’. Here’s what you need to explain to the people who are going to be affected by your new process/technology/approach:

1. Set context - Why are we here? What’s the purpose of this change?
2. Build relevance - What will they get out of this change? Why is it relevant to them?
3. Pace out objections - What could their negative pre-dispositions be? Make sure you acknowledge that there might be contrary opinions.
4. Directionalise thinking - What do you want them to do next? What decisions do you want them to make?

Even just answering those questions yourself will help you to see where there are gaps in your thinking and/or your plan.

Slow down

You need to give people time to get used to your fantastic new idea. No-one enjoys change when it’s sudden or unexpected. As my boss at Asgard, Bettina Pidcock, wisely told me “Sarah, when they say ‘this is SO obvious’ then smile, you’ve done your job well”. I don’t know how many times I’ve repeated this over the years, but it’s fantastic advice.

Expect the Satir curve

The what? There are lots of other names for this – the valley of despair being one of them. Here’s a diagram that explains it (and you can read lots more about it here ). Basically, you introduce your fabulous new idea and everything goes south as everyone tries to get the hang of it. Eventually you come out the other side stronger, but it’s generally pretty painful on the way!

Which leads straight into my next point, you need…

Reasonable expectations

Not everyone is going to be keen. And when you’re in the chaos phase, no-one is going to be keen, including you! You’ll probably be wondering why you ever thought this was a good idea in the first place. All change takes energy, so you need to be prepared to have to expend quite a bit of it.

Plus, watch for the people who are most keen initially, they might just be the ones who least enjoy the change when it gets tough. They’ll probably come out OK on the other side though, so don’t take it personally if they suddenly slide from supporter to detractor.

Celebrate at key milestones as well as when you see the benefits

As per above, there’s lots of energy required to get a change through. And if you’ve got at least a basic plan in place, then you can celebrate (even if it’s just an email to the people involved) as you reach each milestone. A bit of ‘rah rah’ really helps keep up the momentum.

If you’ve got lots of stakeholders, use the secret squirrel approach.

Many years ago, when I was at Asgard, we did a full rebrand… over a single weekend. This included new website, new intranet, new foyers in 5 offices, swag on everyone’s desks. We had 500 staff (I know, seems so tiny now!). How did we do it? I organised a team of secret squirrels (people in each state) to help make it real. They enjoyed being on the inside, and the impact on the Monday morning was really quite something.

What’s my point? If you’ve got a big group of stakeholders to manage, make sure you have change champions to support you. You can’t do everything yourself and they can help keep up morale, answer questions, feed issues back to you etc.

Support for yourself

Lastly, speaking of support, make sure you have some for yourself. Yes, we’re just talking about PDS changes, it’s not a life and death situation, but it can be extremely stressful if you feel that you’re on your own. Make sure that you have a few ideas that you can call on when you’re completely stuck. And by ideas I mean things like go for a walk around the block, phone a friend, you know the drill.

In summary

All of the above is really to say, change is all about people. Knowing which button to press on the new software is just a small part of what’s required. Making sure your people feel good about pressing the button, that’s the real game. Honestly, I was probably about 30 when I finally understood that it’s all about people. So my knowledge is hard won to say the least. Hopefully some of the ideas above help you (and your people!) to get better results, faster for your business and yourselves.

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