Making Transformational Change Stick

Successfully navigating through transformational change is one thing. Making the new behaviors necessary to sustain those change efforts a permanent part of the organization is another.

The essay, “Transforming Performance Management: And Making It Stick,” by Deb Seidmann describes how organizations can sustain successful transformational change by embedding business-driven people practices and tools. In her essay, which appears in the book, The Secret Sauce for Leading Transformational Change, Deb recounts how a global commercial bank adopted a set of performance management practices and tools used by professional services firms to sustain its new business strategy.

As Founder and President of Green Silk Associates, LLC, a consulting firm that specializes in organization effectiveness, and with 30+ years as a corporate HR practitioner and external consultant, Deb has extensive experience with change management, organization design, and HR talent practices. Its’ this experience and breadth of knowledge which makes her essay a compelling read.

Here are some of the main takeaways from it:

Tools for the Job

At every level of the 25,000-employee organization, the company decided to deploy performance management practices and tools used by professional services firms. These included:

• Role/Skill grids specifying the key skills needed for roles at all levels and descriptions of unsatisfactory, satisfactory, and outstanding performance of those skills
• Team review mechanisms for managers to collect performance feedback
• Evaluation committees to rate and rank performance as it related to pay-for-performance incentive compensation decisions.

Changing the “Why”

Recognizing that this initiative would require shifting behaviors and mindsets, the organization established that effectively managing performance was the objective of its transformational change efforts.

While performance management tools would support this process, they were not an end in themselves. Therefore, messaging made it clear that the company was making a deliberate shift from an administrative, time-consuming, non-value-added process to one that was business driven and critical for achieving business objectives.

Role/Skill Competency Models

Going beyond the role/skill performance levels being described as “unsatisfactory,” “good,” “outstanding,” and “ready for promotion,” the company created competency models to highlight the key competencies necessary for each role. This included behaviorally anchored scales that distinguished the behaviors of top performers, satisfactory performers, and poor performers.

These efforts were organization wide. Business leaders interested in being early adopters and anxious to understand what differentiated top performance from average performance, partnered with HR to develop role/skill competency models for various parts of the company. Importantly, the people who would be using the tools in their development were engaged in the process. In addition, working sessions with managers and interviews with employees in various roles about how they approached their work helped to identify performance differentiating behaviors.

Following the introduction of the role/skill competency models, managers reported that the descriptions gave them the language they needed for meaningful performance conversations with their direct reports, whether setting performance expectations or giving constructive feedback.

Following the positive experience of early adopters and a call to action from senior leadership that all businesses and functions were to create similar role/skill competency models, there was a “pull” from business users for the new tools, rather than a push from HR.

Facilitating Adoption

In addition to deploying new tools, the organization actively sought ways to make the process and the tools as user-friendly as possible to facilitate adoption. Working with its IT department, the organization facilitated a new workflow for capturing performance feedback and creating performance evaluations. Also, the company provided online help for users to reference as they moved through the process.

Shifting Behaviors

Skill-building was identified as being critical to success, so the company trained people in giving and receiving feedback.

An ongoing performance feedback process was developed to supplant the traditional, year-end evaluative process. This new approach meant feedback could be provided in real time directly from the source, which allowed managers, peers, and direct reports to review goals and expectations as situations evolved. This allowed everyone involved to have ongoing feedback conversations and be thoughtful and deliberate about professional development.

Lasting Value

Following this successful transformational change initiative, the company continued to evolve, ultimately merging with another. Much of what was put in place continued post-merger, such as the collection of performance feedback and performance calibration sessions to inform pay-for-performance compensation decisions.

Further, leaders who went to new companies brought with them the performance management mindsets, practices, and tools they had been using. The value of these tools was evident to them and now they were using them to drive and sustain change in their new companies.

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The Secret Sauce for Leading Transformational Change, from lead author Ian Ziskin and with contributions from dozens of senior business leaders, HR leaders, experts, coaches, and consultants, shares insight, vivid stories, lessons learned, and best practices for what it takes to lead, survive, and thrive in periods of transformational change. Available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats, you can learn more at https://www.transformationalchangebook.com.