Advice for aspiring change agents
March 31, 2009
I had lunch today with a woman who is interested in a career in organizational development or change management. She is currently in sales development and getting her MBA.
My advice? Start right now.
Don’t wait until you have a job with “change” in the description.
Don’t wait until you have a title that gives you the power to change things.
Don’t wait for permission.
Assume the role that you’re itching to play, no matter where you are in the organization.
Take action to change something for the better. Today.
I had another conversation today with a man who wished he had done just that. In the last few years, he saw that things were being poorly managed, that processes needed to improve, that silos needed to be broken down. Unfortunately, at the time he thought that he was not in a position to say or do anything to make a difference. Now, the company is being sold, and he doesn’t work there any more.
If you see a problem, you might be the only one who can start to fix it.
Inquiry: What will you change today?
To better clarify what needs changing, check out the Change Starts Here workbook.
Blue Ocean change strategy
March 25, 2009
At a recent meeting of the Atlanta chapter of the Association for Strategic Planning (ASP), I heard a presentation on the basics of Blue Ocean Strategy, and thought the concept might be interesting when focused inward on an organization.
The premise behind Blue Ocean Strategy is that your current market of customers is only a subset of the customers who potentially need or want your product or service. The current market is called a Red Ocean because of all the competition tearing each other apart. The Blue Ocean represents all the potential customers who are not currently buying because they don’t have any idea what your product or service does or why they might need it.
The solution presented for engaging the Blue Ocean was through Value Innovation. The simplified method included finding the answers to these questions:
- What causes people not to buy this product?
- What can we do to overcome it? (What can we reduce, raise, eliminate or create?)
When you look at your organizational change initiative, you might see a similar pattern. There is a subset of the organization who “gets it,” pays attention, and is involved in making progress. And then there is everyone else, who is not buying what you’re selling. Not only that, but it’s not even on their radar.
Inquiry: What causes people to not to “buy” your change?
There are a number of other tools in the Blue Ocean Strategy framework that might be helpful to expand your thinking along these lines. Visit the official Blue Ocean Strategy site for some useful diagrams and more detailed concepts.
Three types of change management methods
March 17, 2009
I was putting together examples of change management methods for a potential client and realized that there are really three types that have different applications:
The first type is the large scale change process. For example, Lewin’s Unfreeze > Change > Refreeze concept, or John Kotter’s eight-stage method in his book Leading Change. The large scale change process tells the global organizational steps to take, such as building a sense of urgency, developing a vision, or creating small wins to gain momentum. They provide guidance and set expectations for how change unfolds effectively in an organization.
The second type is the analysis tool, which helps you decide what needs changing. Force-field analysis, in which you examine the forces pushing for and against change, is one example. Gap analysis is another. The Change Starts Here workbook is an example of an analysis tool that helps you determine what to change. In general, these tools help you identify or diagnose the barriers you need to overcome, or the strengths on which you should build.
The third type of change management method helps you overcome the barriers to change. They are situation specific or topical. For example, using the principles in Patrick Lencioni’s Five Dysfunctions of a Team might help fix an ineffective leadership team. The Beyond Buy-in workbook provides steps to raise leadership support for your initiative. These methods are more prescriptive in nature and help you determine how to make specific improvements. Once you have identified the problem, use these tools to create the small (and not so small) wins.
What tools are you using to manage change?
Please use add a comment to chime in.
If you enjoyed this post, you might also like:
- Eight Fundamental Ingredients of a Successful Change Initiative
- Tips for Leading a Successful Transformation
Podcast #3: The indispensible change agent
March 10, 2009
The Enclaria podcast series features interviews with change agents. Hear how others overcome obstacles while they pass along lessons learned from their organizational change experiences.
As the Senior Manager of Strategy Management Performance Excellence in a large IT department within a much larger corporation, Pamela Santiago has built a team that has become a center of excellence in change management and strategy execution within the larger organization. Her story also shows how change can start within a support unit as a proving ground, then branch out into the rest of the company. Listen for insights on what makes a successful change agent and change management team.
Book Recommendation: The VITAL Core
March 9, 2009
In the last few days, I gobbled up the information in a wisdom-packed book called The VITAL Core, by Audrey Dorsey. In her work as a Fortune 500 executive coach, the author has identified five core focus areas of successful leaders:
Vision – Know your ultimate pursuit
Intention – Focus on clear goals and have a plan of action
Telling Your Story – Engage people and build relationships
Attitude – Hold beliefs and values that support you
Leverage – Use your resources wisely
The book contains stories that demonstrate each key point, then each chapter zeroes in on the specific steps you can take to make progress on your own toward being a more successful leader.
One new insight that is particularly useful for change agents is the value of learning to Tell Your Story. When you talk about your change initiative, do you make it compelling and draw people into the story? One of seven tips for generating impactful stories is to “convert information into impressions” – that is, win people over not only with logic but with how they should feel about the project. If you want the other six tips, plus numerous others, you’ll have to read the book: www.thevitalcore.com.
Spring forward: simple change is not easy
March 8, 2009
As we participate in the annual ritual of moving our clocks ahead one hour for daylight savings time, I’m reminded that even simple change is not so easy. A few observations:
Change itself is less complicated than the tasks required to align people to it. Time itself (or at least as we measure it) changed once. But in my house, that required adjusting four analog clocks, four digital clocks, three watches and two car radios.
Change results in a temporary efficiency loss. The parking lot at church was a little thin today, and I bet morning traffic will be lighter than usual at times when it was previously light. People are sluggish as they acclimate to waking earlier. No matter how well planned, anticipated or small, change requires an adjustment period.
People change on their own schedule. Although the time change is instantaneous, people will make the change when it is most convenient for them. I don’t know anyone who would set an alarm for 2:00 a.m. so they can wake up and move their clocks forward. Some people set their clocks before they go to bed, and others complete the task in the morning. My husband changed his watch on Saturday morning because he had to wake up early on Sunday morning, and wanted to have more time to adjust.
Not everyone receives the message, remembers it or understands it. Some people will show up late to work on Monday morning, having spent all day Sunday thinking it was the wrong time. Either they didn’t hear about it, heard it but forgot about it, or rearranged the slogan “Spring forward, fall back.”
Even after hearing the benefits and seeing that everyone else is on board, some people will still choose not to participate. Most of the State of Indiana stays on Eastern Standard Time year-round, preferring to change their time zone instead of their clocks. During Daylight Savings Time, they are on Central time.
Inquiry: How is your organizational change more complicated than it seems?
Feel free to chime in by adding a comment below.
Case Study: A Fizzled Balanced Scorecard Implementation
March 5, 2009
In the history of Balanced Scorecard implementations and organizational change in general, stories of projects falling by the wayside are numerous. Even organizations that have had great success and demonstrated breakthrough results have fallen away from the methodology, either due to a change in leadership or from the initiative growing stale. In the case of The Jel Sert Company, a mid-size food manufacturer based in West Chicago, Illinois, the project never quite gained the traction it needed to sustain itself, and the leadership team made the conscious decision to end it. Read more
How to deal with a clueless boss
March 2, 2009
I recently answered the following question on LinkedIn:
How do you (convincingly pretend) to listen and respect your Pointy Haired Boss? How do you hide the fact that you are thinking “my God, you are so clueless yet so oblivious to it”?
Name-calling aside, it is easy to identify with the author’s plight. Who among us has not had the same thought at one time or another (or for years at a time!)?
Most answers up to that point advised him to either quit as soon as possible or just grin and bear it. The following was my brief response:
Consider that you are contributing to his cluelessness if you are not providing constructive feedback. Instead of asking how you hide it, perhaps the question to ask is “How do you respectfully inform your boss that s/he is negatively affecting your or your company’s performance?”
I’m guessing that’s not the response he was looking for when he asked the question, but he probably wasn’t satisfied with the other two options either.
Sure, he could quit, but what if he really enjoys his work and his coworkers, and doesn’t want to leave the company? Besides, what happens next time he finds himself in the same situation?
The “grin and bear it” solution creates a pressure-cooker scenario. Accepting the situation as-is does nothing to solve what is most likely a real problem. It is not going to fix itself.
So, if addressing the issue is the best solution, how do you respectfully inform your boss that he is negatively affecting your or the company’s performance? Follow these steps:
- Stop the name-calling and talking behind his back about it (and griping on public forums!). It only serves to destroy your own integrity, and it fuels your rage.
- Realize that the “clueless” leader is the norm, not the outlier. The higher up in the organization you are, the less people tell you what you don’t want to hear. And you don’t notice the change.
- Get clear about what the real issue is. If you’ve been working with this boss for a while, chances are that everything he says is annoying. Take a step back to understand what really needs to be addressed. If it still seems like a lot of things, choose the most important. You don’t want to generate a laundry list or it will seem like an attack.
- Make sure you are in the right frame of mind for an effective conversation. Approach it with a genuine perspective that you are trying to help your boss, or at least doing the best thing for the company. If you go into the conversation seeking to right a wrong or to exact some kind of revenge, not only will your boss be more defensive during the conversation, but it will be more awkward afterward.
- Plan when you will have the conversation. You don’t necessarily have to schedule it with your boss, but know ahead of time for yourself when and where you will talk.
- At the beginning of the conversation, ask permission to give the feedback. It is unlikely that he will say “no,” and after saying “yes” he at least needs to hear what you have to say.
- Unless you have permission to represent a group, don’t drag other people into it. It might be comfortable to make yourself seem like one of many, but from the boss’s point of view, that’s a mutiny.
- Be honest and direct. Tell your boss the experience from your perspective, and what the implications are. Use specific examples.
- Expect your boss to be defensive. He may deny it or even turn it around to be your own fault. Don’t become defensive yourself. If you feel that you’ve made your case, thank him for letting you share your perspective and politely end the conversation.
- Thank him for listening (even if it seems like he didn’t). If the conversation went well, ask how you can best follow up.
Perhaps it’s not your boss who needs his mirror polished. As an organizational change agent, you know the leaders who need to change their own behavior to make the initiative successful. If you are not having these conversations, who is?
If you need to have a conversation like this, but you struggle with the best approach, please contact me and we’ll talk through it.
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