If you want to know why your internal change communication doesn’t seem to be landing, listen to this show!

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The Ten Essential Tools include personal influence and structural influence methods, plus a focused foundation that every change agent needs to start with.  If your change initiative is stalled, use the Ten Tools as a checklist to see what areas might be in need of a boost.

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If you prefer to read a small synopsis of the list, see the previous post Ten Essential Tools for Change Agents.  However, you will miss out on a special offer that is presented at the end of the show!

Janet shared the components of an effective performance management design and the tips she learned as an employee implementing a performance management system to 55,000 associates at the State of Georgia.  She also warned of some of the pitfalls to avoid when designing and implementing a performance management system.

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A similar phenomenon happens in organizations.  Consider that the equivalent to verbal communication in organizations are the formal words that come to employees in the form of official documents:  values and mission statements, strategy, policies, newsletters, websites, announcements, press releases, and other communication devices. The rest of internal communication comes from everything else employees experience.  Similar to a conversation, the vast majority of meaning and understanding is generated by “non-verbal” communication.

The following are examples of “non-verbal” communication in organizations that speak louder than words:

Accountability

Employees assess which policies count and which ones are merely guidelines based on how consistently they are enforced.  Processes and procedures are generally followed to the extent that they are required.

“Everyone must contact the IT helpdesk to resolve computer issues”
(unless you know who to call to avoid waiting).

Rewards

Rewards in all their forms tell employees how to be successful.  Traditional incentive programs signal expectations but may conflict with stated values or even inadvertently motivate a different behavior than what is desired.  Furthermore, who gets promoted and what behaviors elicit praise send powerful messages about what is expected.

“Safety first!”
(Here’s your efficiency bonus.)

Decisions

How managers spend resources speaks volumes about what they truly value and prioritize.  The decisions they make about how to allocate funds and how they spend their own time demonstrates what they believe will lead to success.

“Strategic initiatives are important”
(until we need to cut something out of the budget).

Management behavior

More than anything, employees look at the behavior modeled by management to see if it matches what is officially communicated.  The most influential person in this regard is an employee’s own boss.  The attitudes and behaviors displayed by people in authority tell the real story of what is expected.

“We value employees’ ideas”
(but not the terrible one you just shared).

Employees will rely on “non-verbal” communication to understand what is expected and to decide appropriate action in the midst of uncertainty. When introduced to news of change, many employees will take the stance, “I’ll believe it when I see it.”  It is not enough for them to hear it or read it.   It is imperative to monitor your organization’s “non-verbal” communication to ensure that actions and behaviors are consistent with your official change message.

1.  Change Knowledge

Change agents are the people in their organizations who understand how change works – or at least how it is supposed to work.  Your own change knowledge helps you know what to expect and understand what is really happening.  When the initiative is stuck in a rut, your knowledge helps you generate ideas for what to do next.

2.  Clarity

A lot is said about the importance of a clear vision.  In addition to making sure leadership has a vision and that it is clear, change agents also assess current reality and identify the barriers that stand in the way of achieving the vision.

3.  Your Role

When used correctly, your role as change agent can be a powerful tool.  As trusted advisor, you help leaders fill in the gaps to ensure that change happens.  It is necessary to strike a balance of ownership of the initiative and to manage relationships.

4.  Power

People who have power are able to take action, make decisions that affect other people, model behavior and open minds.  Since change agents don’t have direct authority, they need to build up indirect authority to influence others.

5.  Leadership Support

Also, since you don’t have direct authority as a change agent, you need to gain a partner who does have it.  When you have leadership support, you need to make sure it manifests as behaviors and activities that drive the change forward.  If you don’t have support, you will eventually need to get it.

6.  Conversations

The one-on-one conversations you have as a change agent will help get beyond fear and develop mutual understanding.  Conversations are a means of providing feedback and preserving relationships.  The most important conversations are the ones you don’t really want to have.

7.  Meetings

Most meetings are seen as drudgery, or necessary evils; however, when effective they can be a key means of moving a change initiative forward.  Whether you are meeting with a project team, a leadership team, or a work group or a steering committee, your job as the change agent is to make sure people are collaborating for results.

8.  Accountability

Without having direct authority, you will most likely not hold people accountable yourself.  As a change agent, your responsibility is to make sure a system of accountability is in place.

9.  Incentives

Although incentives can be tricky because they frequently have unintended consequences, effective change agents find ways to motivate desired behaviors or results.  The best motivation techniques are not external rewards but psychology-based nudges in the right direction.

10.  Communication

Some say the first law of change is communicate, communicate, communicate.  To be more specific, the key activity for change agents is to get the appropriate message to the right person and to have them do something about it.

Whether you are executing strategy, implementing technology, designing process improvements, or transforming culture, your role as change agent is fraught with challenges.  Use these ten tools to help navigate them successfully.

For a more in-depth look at the 10 Essential Tools, check out:

• The 10 Essential Tools webinar
• The INflux Change Agent Network

Myth #1:  The goal is change.

Perhaps we are victims of language.  Organizational change practitioners commonly talk as though the end goal is change itself.  It is common to say “implement change” as if the change itself is the goal.  It’s not!  Change is the process of bringing about the desired future state.

One of the first to study organization development, Kurt Lewin described the change process as Unfreeze > Change > Freeze.  It is commonly misinterpreted that the thing you are freezing is the change itself.  That is, you permanently affix the initiative you are implementing.  In fact, it means that the state you freeze is the true desired future that continues as “normal” after the initiative ends.

To see this myth in action, ask yourself this:  How does what you really want to happen differ from how you are accomplishing it?

Myth #2:  Change must start at the top.

No one will deny the importance of leadership driving and reinforcing the change process throughout the organization.

But does change need to start with leadership?  The answer is a definite “no.”  There are numerous examples of large-scale organizational changes that started as either grass-roots efforts or small trials without much leadership involvement.  Plus, ideas for change initiatives frequently come from people lower on the org chart who are more directly affected by the problems and challenges of the organization.

When we believe that change only starts at the top, any lack of leadership commitment can make us feel like our efforts are fruitless.  The truth is that change can start with you.  Your job is to help the leaders to drive and reinforce the change process.

Myth #3:  People behave rationally.

You knew this was a myth already, didn’t you?  And yet as change agents we frequently assume that we can predict what the reaction will be to our initiative based on what we think a rational human being would do.

We believe that if we provide a monetary incentive to accomplish something, it will motivate people to do it.  We assume that if we list all the benefits of the initiative, people will get on board.  We think that if we put a group in a room together with a goal they will work as a team to get it done.

The good news is that although people do not always behave rationally, their irrational behavior is actually fairly predictable.  When you think through the impact of your initiative, consider whether your plan is based on the assumption that people will behave the way you want them to behave or that people will behave as they will actually behave.

If you feel like your change initiative is getting stuck, challenge these myths and look at change from a new perspective.

Except the bonus was paid on the accuracy of the total number of cases projected.  It didn’t matter what category, or what SKU.  If the sales manager said he was going to sell 100,000 cases, it didn’t matter what was in the cases.  This makes determining an accurate forecast as easy as mathematically possible.  Good for the sales managers, bad for anyone who needed to use the information.

One customer of the forecast was the production planning department, which needed an accurate forecast at least by product group (e.g. a 24ct package vs. a 48ct package of widgets), and ideally by SKU (e.g. 24ct red vs. 24ct blue).  Since the sales managers were not expected to be accurate to that degree, the forecast accuracy incentive was essentially worthless to those who actually needed the forecast to be accurate.

The actual desired behavior was not designed into the incentive program.

Ultimately, the forecast accuracy incentive was ignored anyway.  Sales managers were paid even more when they sold more.  In fact the prevailing attitude in the sales department was not to meet forecast but to beat it.  Anyone who did so was celebrated.

Competing incentives – both money and adulation – drowned out the forecast accuracy incentive.

Bad incentive!

Please share your own examples of bad incentives.

I would like to talk about the difference between fair and equal.

Fair:  Getting something of equal value to the effort expended, relative to everyone else.

Equal:  Getting the same reward as everyone else regardless of input.

Equal incentives are frequently used for team rewards – a group of people working toward a common goal, and everyone will receive the same reward if the team succeeds.  Equal rewards often seem unfair, since every person contributes individually to the effort – especially if the target is missed.  On the other hand, equal rewards do engender mutual accountability and collaboration, if the culture allows.

Fair incentives can be tricky, because not everyone associates the same value with the same reward.  Besides money, rewards for individual performance might be promotions, time off, more responsibility, parking spaces and other perks.  Not only is perceived value different, but the criteria for determining who gets what is often subjective, or at least apples and oranges.  At the same time, people like being recognized for their own contributions.

When possible, it’s best to use intrinsic motivation and exclude incentive programs altogether.  The recent McKinsey article, “The Irrational Side of Change Management,” lists five different forms of motivation, in terms of impact of the change initiative:

• Impact on Society
• Impact on the Customer
• Impact on the Company
• Impact on the Team
• Impact on Me

If the company and your change initiative can tap into each of these sources of motivation, then each person will select which one is most fulfilling to them.  Now that would be fair and equal!

I still have it.  Here are a few excerpts:

CULTURE

Lack of follow through.  We are good at identifying problems but frequently push them aside to focus on other things.  Sometimes we even know the solution and don’t follow through.

INCENTIVES

Sales managers are given a bonus based on accuracy of the total number of cases.  The customer of the forecast is the planning department.  Total number of cases does not help them plan better.  Reward the desired behavior – some measure of SKU or category forecast accuracy.

LEADERSHIP

No one can say anything in front of [name].  He should not be the end of the line final decision maker.  Does he know people are closed-mouthed around him?  His decisions sometimes are reversed at meetings he doesn’t attend.

STRATEGY

What is our strategy?  To sell to anyone who will buy?  Why are we not more discriminating in what we sell?  What is the process that makes us continue to try to sell every combination of goods?

The notebook served a few purposes.

1. A record – it’s easy to lose sight of things that need to be fixed when you either get used to them or move on to something else.  Writing it down preserves the memory, and you can go back and count the number of instances something is mentioned to measure its importance (forecast accuracy was a big deal).
2. An outlet – you can tell by the tone of some of the comments that I was mad or annoyed.  Writing was a way to vent the negative emotion.  It can also help clarify what is the crux of the problem.
3. An integrity-keeper – writing down your thoughts privately can help you refrain from complaining to others.  According to The Transparency Edge, one of the books in my reading list, one way to destroy your integrity is with unproductive criticism or complaining.  (Of course, if someone had found the little blue notebook, that would have been another story.)

Granted, I was not able to fix everything on the list, but I was able to take a stab at some of it.  And that’s really my point.  Don’t keep a journal like this just to document the list of everything you don’t like about your company.  Write with the best intentions to take action and improve the important things.

Inquiry:  What’s in your little blue notebook?  What are you going to do about it?