What Am I Talking About, When I Talk About Leading Change

CHNAGE by definition is a shift from an old way to a new way of experiencing the World within and around us. But as an engineer, I always have a preference for mathematical definitions to feed my mind. One of my favorite change equations is the following which I owe it to recent "Dissolving Them Vs Us Paradigm" workshop, offered generously by Mark Hollingworth, at John Molson School of Business:

According to this simple equation, the success of a change is a byproduct of two elements. A well-taken decision and a successful buy-in from those who will be impacted the most by the decision. No doubt that our best bet is not only taking the most thoughtful decision, given available knowledge, experience and wisdom in the social field of the decision makers, but also being successful to get people, who will be impacted, fully onboarded. However, the reality on the ground is by far more difficult than the equation on a paper. The influence of individuals impacted by the change if not more, is equal to the value of the quality of the decision itself. High quality decision can turned to be a failure if those people involved would not embrace the change. Though, "Buy-in" is a complex concept with a wide range of definition, from manipulation to conviction and further to co-creation.

The change curve which is widely referred in change management, attributed to Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, is a result of her work on personal transition which is expandable to any other form of change, from immigration to business acquisitions. The change curve can be applied to different emotional phases of a "buy-in"process when leading a change. What might differ from one type of change to the other, is the duration of each phase which is heavily dependent on how deeply the change will impact individuals. Starting from denial, change seems easy at the beginning. Realization phase is where frustration and disengagements (depressions) are emerging and the highest level of resistance will be experienced The lowest point of the curve is when the society field of the change will show the highest tendency to abandon the change or the relationship with circumstances which caused them such a mental or emotional pressure. If the lowest point is surmounted successfully, the time of acceptance will arise and change will be carried over the shoulder of early adaptors and early majorities and will ultimately be embraced by late majorities and laggards.

Being a change agent for years, I am a fan of simplifying complexity. Let me make it simple for you. The change curve has two main phases. The Body and Soul of the change. The body of the change is actions taken based on the given decision. It is about implementing the decision the way it has been pictured and planned. The body of the change is about decision making process, planning and procedure to ensure obedience to a decision.

On the other hand, the soul of the change is about empathizing with emotional and mental impacts of the change on us and people around us. The soul of a change is about hearing and properly responding to all those feelings behind the words that are acting as invisible resistive forces going against a change: denial, anger, bargaining and depressions (disengagements). Ignoring or underestimating these feeling and emotions will nip the change in the bud, will seed a failure or disloyalty to the change in long term, during or after transition. The soul of the change is born when you are not the only one moving the change forward but there are more partners who are owning your vision even more than your initial faith in the decision. The soul of the change is when people started fully and deeply see the value of the change, accept it and moreover solve the problems in using this new way.

Years ago, when I was leading a Project Management Office, I have noticed a very common syndrome which I called "Early Change Delusion" syndrome. My role was leading a team of 5-10 people for the duration of a project, which was normally 6-12 months, implementing an end-to-end application to streamline business processes and proactively address improvement with a variety of customers from ministries and chemical factory sites to different bodies of the government and private sections. Halfway through most of the projects, I was used to get a call from customer representatives claiming that the project was about failing! After hours of investigation, talking to different stakeholders, I came to a realization that this is just a misalignment of definition of done for the huge cultural change we were leading. In fact, our customers were suffering from "Early Change Delusion" and as soon as the application was figured on the server and been successfully accessed by the users and as soon as all the users, who have been well trained, were working on the new application and business went to paperless mode, they would call it DONE! They were right! the body of the change has been came into sight even early in the project, usually at the denial phase but there was no soul! They expected a success after the very early and small wins without noticing that the lowest point of the curve is still to come! For us thought, that was just a beginning to make a real change. We were the ones responsible to give birth to the soul of the change! Visiting those people who were impacted the most on a regular basis, addressing their fears, reducing their overheads by teaching them how to use the tool more effectively, working on improving the current processes by leveraging the new tools, collecting our users hopes and expectations to form our future product backlogs for any possible improvement in user experience.

According to this definition, leading a change is forming the body of a change (Decision and Implementation) and giving birth to the soul (Buy-in), making sure that they are well integrated and aligned. Likelihood of the success in leading a change is higher when you, as change agents will:

• STAY CURIOUS to hear voices which might be different from yours and align the definition of success with people impacting by a change .If possible, do it sooner than later in the process and even before you lock down the decision! After that it would come across nothing more than an inclusion gesture.
• STAY FLEXIBLE to adjust your decision whenever needed to get higher buy-in
• STAY HUMAN To hear fears and hopes and not only acknowledge and validate them but also take sincere actions towards easing them
• STAY INTUITIVE To hear untold stories and read behind the words

Leading a change, in fact, is hosting a conversation among those who can influence the change instead of coming up with solid answers for them.

U-turning from a wrong decision which has been collectively made and owned is much easier and quicker than selling a perfect decision to those who already felt being neglected by their leaders. Do not forget, 10*0=0! So if you make the wisest decision but turning back, you find no followers who are owning your decision or at least are willing to try it, no change has occurred!

Last but not least, although the time is a key factor in change management and decisions might become obsolete sooner than the curve would be completed, fast forwarding the change curve is also a myth. Be aware of and avoid "Early Change Delusion" syndrome. Think about the last time you have considered a change being a success and short after you had to spend much more time and resources, translatable to cost($), to manage disengagements and dissatisfactions and ended up dealing with another curve of change with a lower impact as starting point or higher cost and longer time to implement. Dehumanizing change management process is the main root cause of prolonging and failure of a n organizational transformation. The more time spent on people rather than plan and processes, although might have less visible impact at the beginning but will accelerate the change moving forward. A well-managed change is not necessarily what has the most impact at the beginning but what will take a change with a healthy body and satisfied soul to the end line in a shorter time span.

All been said to emphasize that change management is not about making thoughtful decisions in confidentiality and plan well to implement them but a result of co-creating even a mediocre decision followed by a successful "buy-in" process and a successful buy-in process is an absolute result of humanizing the change! Holding a body is NOT called hugging! Unless there is a soul living in another body who is willing to hug you back!