Initiating Change: Some Pretty Good Ps

Need to start a major change effort? Want to improve your margin? Put your company on the right track? Become a market leader? Survive the economic downturn? Keep in mind that a successful change effort starts with two critical requirements. You must

1. Be very clear on the change itself: what, why, when, who, and how; and
2. Communicate that to all members of your organization as soon as you can and as often as possible.

These two requirements are critical regardless of what kind of change you make, or whether it's targeted toward Agile implementation, process or quality improvement, market leadership, survival, positioning for sale, or some combination. If you do these things well, you have a good chance of beating the 3:1 odds of failure in change efforts. If you don't, then join those who contribute to the 75% failure statistic.

It's sad that so many change efforts start and end in a back room, with senior managers and "implementation" teams doing all the planning--and then bringing the rest of the organization into the picture only when it's time for them to go, or move, or change jobs, or comply, or whatever the operational expectation is. This approach is an effective way to build resistance into an organization and drive it underground where it can do the most damage in implementation.

There are other ways to implement, and they can be characterized by good planning and good communication throughout a change effort, from the very beginning. And there's a checklist of considerations that you should think about to guide the design and implementation of your change initiative. I call them the "Pretty Good Ps", and they start with four basic categories that define initial planning: Purpose/Problem, Picture, Plan, and Part to Play. Let's look at them one by one.

Purpose or Problem

It's essential to be clear about and communicate the purpose for any major change. Most of the time most of us think things are going along pretty well. Or conversely, we're used to the current rotten situation, but would rather continue as we are than do something different that could be worse.

If you're going to change that perception, you'd better have a compelling story that tells why. That's why the most effective change efforts start with a clear description of the problem you're trying to solve. Otherwise, people will view this as "just another management ploy" that makes a lot of noise, but doesn't really make anything better.

To characterize the problem and make your purpose clear, answer these questions:

• Why change?
• What's wrong with the current situation?
• What's the real problem? How do you know?
• What's driving change? Why?
• How bad is the situation?
• What would happen if you didn't make the change?
• How immediate is it?
• Why can't you put it off until the organization feels more ready?
• Who does it affect?

The answers to these questions, positioned appropriately, can be used to build a compelling case for change and start to "unhook" people from their current perceptions. Getting employees to start moving away from their current perception of how things are going in the organization is the first step toward building an ongoing momentum that characterizes effective change efforts.

When you start that shift, your employees will start to wonder what you have in mind for the future. Perhaps the most effective answer to that is a...

Picture

By "picture" here, I mean a concrete description of your vision for the organization at the end of the change effort. Not some pie-in-the-sky image, but a concrete, real, and accurate portrayal of the organization you're shooting for. Here are some questions people will be asking, at least in their minds:

• What will be different?? (Structure, culture, people, processes, systems, mission, etc.)
• How will those things be different? Contrast now and when.
• What--as an organization, as teams, and as individuals--will be different in our behavior, attitudes, business focus, collaboration, decision-making, etc. as appropriate? In other words, what does the change look like, feel like?
• Will there be new ground rules for how we behave? What do they look like now, even though they're not fully fleshed out? Who will they apply to?
• What's the outcome here that makes the change worthwhile? What's the cost-benefit equation (for the company, the organization, the team, and the individual)?

Remember that with these two Ps you're trying to change your employees' perception away from a focus on the past toward the future you're defining for them. Changing that perception--highlighting the downside of the past and current organization while emphasizing the upside of the future one--isn't an easy task, and you may have to tell those stories many times to get a noticeable shift in perception. However, it's important because even though perception isn't actually reality, it does drive behavior and attitude. And the beginnings of a perceptual shift are all you need at the beginning of a change effort.

Once your people--staff, team, employees--have an idea of why the organization is changing and where it's going, they'll want to know who's involved, particularly since you've mentioned who is affected a couple of times so far. Specifically, they'll want to know if they have a…

Part to Play

Most of us, most of the time, would be perfectly happy if change went on all around us and generally left us alone. Failing that, we most want to know the answers to the following:

• Who is leading this effort?
• Who is on the team?
• Does this affect me? How much?
• Do I have any say in what happens, when, and how?
• If I can influence, how do I do that? Will I be heard?
• If I'm asked to make a sacrifice, who else will be asked as well?
• Is there a vehicle for feedback? What is it?

These questions are all about "What parts is this drama are being played by others, do I have a part, and how can I best play it"? Knowing that the players on the implementation team are respected, accessible, and reasonable can go a long way toward building support for a major change effort. Knowing that there's a way employees can voice their concerns, ideas, hopes, and plans helps move things forward.

It's essential to provide parts to play for all those affected by any major change. That doesn't mean they get to decide, but it does mean that they get to speak, be acknowledged,?and be heard. Otherwise, you?increase resistance to your effort.? That's like working uphill and building hills in front of your initiative as you go. Poor two-way communication is one of the reasons why so many change efforts fail, but that's a future topic.

Now that you've told folks why we're changing, what it will look like, and who's involved, it's time to address how and when.? And that's where you talk about the…

Plan

The idea of plan will take different forms, depending on the level at which you sit and where the change will take place. At the top level, and during the initial communication activities, the "plan" is likely to be more strategy than plan. And that's what you should share:

• The strategic activities that are to take place.
• The general order in which they will happen.
• How they will be monitored and adjusted as needed (metrics).
• How the strategic activities fit in with overall corporate strategy.
• How we will know when we're done?.

Initiating Change: Some Pretty Good Ps

At lower levels--and as real implementation planning gets under way--the activities get more specific and more targeted toward particular organizational units and groups. They take on the characteristics of more formal plans: tasks, resources, duration, due dates, dependencies, etc.

When planning,?keep these things in mind:

• Stick with one plan. Drive strategy down to action. Nest lower-level plans under a master plan, so you can see dependencies.
• Include management reinforcement and communications tracks in your plan. Define how progress will be communicated and reinforced along the way to ensure success.
• Don't stop with developing the things you have to implement. Include implementation tasks as well: meetings, reviews, pilots/trials, feedback sessions, etc. Too many plans have an empty box called "Implement". Not enough.
• Include an Early Warning System--Risk Management Plan--to identify and prevent risks, and manage issues when risk prevention fails.
• Review the plan at several levels. Identify things the implementation team had not thought about, get useful feedback, and communicate that you're serious about communicating and listening (part to play).

Problem/Purpose, Picture, Plan, and Part to Play. If you make a good-faith effort to follow these four Pretty Good Ps in initiating your change, you have a better-than-even shot at success. Engaging your people in developing and implementing these from the outset can take you the rest of the way in your change effort.