change management

QUESTION:

We've been hearing the term "change management" for years now. Haven't organizations already adapted to their restructuring and organizational changes yet?

ANSWER:

Far from being a one time, past-tense event, enlightened companies are realizing that external forces, like increased competition, constantly changing customer needs and thinner margins, are requiring that they constantly question, adapt and innovate. It's a circular model, in which
you're never satisfied with the status quo.

If change is a continuous state and organizations are faced with so much of it, why aren't senior managers more experienced in dealing with change in their organizations?

I think we're only now beginning to understand how organizations adapt effectively and how to influence sustainable behavioral change.

The current top-down approach isn't working. According to the Harvard Business Review, "70% of all corporate change initiatives fail." While many businesses espouse the view that change is a continuous state of being, many of their prescriptions for action are still based on a definition of change as an event, involving a movement from one static state to a new static
state.

So what must management do differently?

To date, senior management has generally focused its efforts on designing a plan to support a change initiative, such as a reorganization or the introduction of new technology or the streamlining of processes . Most likely, that plan would have addressed a series of transactions.

Well a valiant effort, top down plans provide little opportunity for middle management and the front line to have input on decisions that directly affect their work. Change is imposed and employees' solutions or concerns go unheeded. On top of this, they are blamed for not being "team-players". Resistance boils which can sabotage the effort.

To motivate a workforce to embrace long-term strategic changes, management must be willing to share some of the power more democratically.

What makes a successful change management process?

It's like a tag team approach -- senior management defines the context for change that will redirect people's beliefs and assumptions about change and mid-management and staff create the actual plan. This role differentiation allows your workforce to become active, vital participants in the changes around them.

What do you mean by "context for change"?

Since you want the change to be deeply and fully integrated across the organization, management must look at the variables that will lead to greater support. What elements of the culture, structure, processes and networks need to be adjusted to fully support the effort? Do the existing people need to be reconfigured into other teams so the effort is properly
resourced? Do the company's value systems or methods of collaboration need to be changed to facilitate better change management? And, how will the organization deal with the inevitable distress that adaptive work creates?

Is stress inevitable with change?

Yes, there will always be some degree of stress -- since change requires that we renegotiate our terms of reference. These transactions are often fraught with strong emotion.

We need to do a much better job helping to regulate that workplace stress -- by providing training on negotiation skills, conflict resolution and communications and, by recognizing that managing emotional connections are essential for successful transformation. Too often, emotions have been suppressed or banned from the workplace. Instead, management can empower workers to seek solutions in the face of potential conflict.

What other factors may come into play when adopting a change initiative?

Communication is terribly important. Great ideas need a way feed back up through an organization. As well, when front line workers says something won't work, we need to take time to really listen. Dissension provides invaluable information and ignoring it puts an organization at peril.

As well, management needs to close the gap between what they say vs. what they do. Mixed messages significantly undermine the change effort. We've introduced the concept of "cultural artifacts" to clients as a way to pinpoint those observable symbols and signs of an organization's culture that can be strengthened to reinforce the change. For example, if the CEO announces that better teamwork is the goal, and yet declines to attend the annual company picnic, continues to park in her specially reserved parking spot and blames others for company failures, employees soon realize that that teamwork is an empty promise.

You want your role models for change to model the desired behaviours otherwise, it won't stick.

What is the latest thinking regarding workforce motivation?

To power motivation, leading companies are replacing outdated extrinsic rewards (e.g. salaries, titles, bonuses, promotions and other perks) with intrinsic ones (e.g. stimulating work, new skill acquisition, satisfying team work, enriching collaborations, better work/life balance practices,
etc.). These rewards can excite and stretch individuals while encouraging them to put their passions in the service of business objectives. Having said that, motivational incentives can vary from one individual (or group) to another and require some degree of customization.

Guest Author - Ginny Jones
President
Acuity Options