Making a decision isn't making a change

One of the things I’ve learned to see much more clearly in recent years is the difference between making a decision and making a change. That might sound like stating the obvious.? But my experience of change at Hymans over the past two and a half years is that we, or at least I, don’t always see this distinction as clearly .

?Thank you to Gary Wilson Sorcha Derkx-Mullan Chris Varley James Sheehan for the ongoing discussions that helped this particular penny drop and gave me a topic for this month. As we reach October, month 10 of the calendar year, my promise to write one a month is taking more perseverance!

I’m sure anyone with direct experience would argue that communication is so important in facilitating change. Its only through my own experience of leading a change programme that I’ve really internalised how important it is, and how much time and energy it takes to get enough communication happening.?

It's not merely about disseminating information; it’s about helping people understand why something is relevant to them. As set out in the excellent book Emotional Capitalists by @Martyn Newman, there are fundamental human needs: to be understood and to be admired.? To catalyse change, it’s essential to address these needs effectively.? And if you talk about change without explaining why it’s relevant to someone and their life, they’re unlikely to feel understood.

From a distance, it’s normally pretty obvious when something’s not working well. ?Typically everyone knows, and lots of people are talking about it.? A very human instinct is to try and make ourselves feel better by deciding what to do. However, deciding on a solution before we really understand the problem or the options can be a mugs game. So maybe we need to decide to dig deeper, or conduct a root cause analysis for those who like the business terminology.? And often, even with digital, it’s the social side rather than the technical side that is the bigger challenge, which is often less amenable to a simple “decision” that fixes things.

Whatever the root cause of an issue, going from identification to improving things through ?tangible change is not easy. ?Sometimes, reframing the situation can be more helpful. Instead of asking, "What should we do?" it’s more productive to ask, "What change are we trying to achieve?" This involves envisioning a future state, crafting a broad plan, and ensuring that people are emotionally invested in the vision.

Change is a journey that requires time, often taking 12 months or more to really reap rewards. In part that’s about taking people with you on the journey so they want to change, and buy into a future vision that they’ve helped create.? That’s far more likely to be successful and stand the test of time.? Some of the knottier problems have been around finding the right multi-disciplinary touchpoints for our product teams and consulting propositions to interact.? Which is particularly tricky in our biggest and most complex business units.??

Conway’s law applies – our consulting teams at Hymans are structured to deliver high quality propositions to clients.? We’ve evolved our product teams to fit into that, reflecting the complex and evolving needs of our clients, and don’t doubt this is the direction our overall systems architecture will evolve into too.

One critical aspect of this process is understanding that a decision alone isn’t enough if there aren’t at least one or two viable options to explore. Whether due to people reasons, or technical reasons, finding a viable solution is tricky.? And asking people to get behind an option that is obviously far from optimal is (rightly!) hard in an open culture.? But when you frame things in the right way, you can find small acts of leadership, dispersed throughout the organization, empowering teams to find their path. By the end of the journey, these teams often progress at a remarkable pace, having internalized what’s needed for success.

In conclusion, making a decision isn’t making a change. It’s the starting point (deciding to explore) or a process that involves vision, leadership, communication, and continuous improvement and so many small decisions along the way. There is rarely one big band decision that rules them all with change, beyond the decision to start.? But all the little ones can add up to some great leaps forward.

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