Living with the Change
Throughout the transition, you can expect implementation problems. Mistakes are part of the learning process, after all. But they may arouse resistance to the change all over again. Tell your employees that the only failure you’re concerned about is the failure to try anything at all. You should explain that solving some problems may generate other problems, which will cause further problems. That is just the nature of change. “All we can do is to address each problem calmly as it occurs.”
You may also want to organize your change effort to begin where you are less likely to encounter problems. Build on one success after another until you have completed the change effort.
Plan Your Change Process
Detailed, step-by-step plans are essential for change projects. Many change programs fall by the wayside simply because insufficient thought was given to the plan and likely problems. Make sure that you give due consideration to all of the most likely problems, such as technical bugs, delays caused by suppliers, or unanticipated costs—don’t wait to formulate plans for such contingencies halfway through the change effort.
Although you may think you have a clear idea of the end result, put in writing what you hope to accomplish from the change—not sweeping generalizations but easy-to-understand, easy-to-measure, task-related statements.
Write down the start and completion dates for the entire project, as well as milestone dates for completing each stage. Now define the various areas of responsibility and who will be held accountable for each part, what resources you will need, and how you will make assignments. If you need support from other parts of your organization, include that information in the plan.
To make sure that the plan is complete, ask yourself the following questions:
- Why is the change being introduced?
- What results do we expect?
- How will we achieve those results?
- What resources—people, money, and time—will we have to commit to the plan?
- How will we monitor results as we go along?
- What can go wrong with Plan A? If a problem occurs, do we have a Plan B?
You may be in charge of the project. On the other hand, you may want to choose one of your staff members to oversee the work. If you decide to do the latter, don’t rely solely on past performance appraisals in making your selection. Past work isn’t necessarily a good assessment of an individual’s change capacity— the ability to plan, lead, manage, and implement a change. Technical competency may be a consideration, but so may dedication to the idea. Look for someone who has played a key role in a change effort in the past—someone who has demonstrated an innovative spirit.
If the change involves the entire organization, and you must work with peers, maintain a professional attitude. Don’t get in a flap about what other managers are or aren’t doing. Focus on completing your responsibilities effectively and efficiently. Don’t share your fears about other managers’ efforts with peers or, worse, employees. During periods of organizationwide change, stress is high. Take positive action to manage your stress (see Living with Stress), and don’t contribute to others’ feelings of anxiety.
If the change initiative is limited to you and your staff, make an effort to celebrate their accomplishments as you experience success. Reinforce the positive behaviors that led to the success. Initiating a major change is an uphill battle, and employees can become depressed in the midst of the effort unless they see progress. If there is real concern among employees—even you may have doubts about the change—consider a pilot program to test the idea. If the pilot effort is successful, you can expand the change to the entire department.
Final Steps
Reward and recognize those behind the success.
To make the change the new status quo, you and your staff may need to master new skills and abilities. Until your employees feel comfortable about their ability to do their work, they may still feel threatened by the change.
As soon as you know about a change, ask yourself, “What skills and abilities will my staff need? Which of these do they already possess? Where are the gaps?” Estimate how much time you will need to close these gaps and incorporate this into the change plan. Explain the need for a learning curve to senior management so that it doesn’t have unrealistic expectations.
If the change affects the entire department, then group training is the perfect means for closing information gaps and building new competencies. Hold such sessions in any environment that encourages a free exchange of questions and ideas. Skill training, however, should be done on-site, in the workplace.
Be sure that staff members receive feedback as they master new skills and abilities. Don’t expect perfection—be patient about mistakes. Support the training with your own coaching, focusing not on the errors but rather on what your staff members are doing right. Help your employees identify any problems they are encountering, why these are causing them difficulty, and how they can over- come shortcomings.
Selecting Essential Changes
Once you have completed the project, it is time to look to other opportunities to improve operations in your unit. Don’t let your enthusiasm prompt you to initiate other change efforts before this one is completed. It is unwise to start another change program before the previous one has had a chance to prove itself. But once it is a success, propose to your staff that you meet once a month to identify problem areas and initiate smaller improvements. Use past successful change efforts as a stimulus to harness enthusiasm for the successful implementation of other ideas.
In some departments, employees send a flood of ideas to their manager. These ideas enable the unit’s work to be done less expensively, more efficiently, and more profitably. In other companies, the bottoms of suggestion boxes are coated with dust. What’s the difference? It’s not in the quality of the employees but in the quality of the managers to whom they report. Some managers know how to encourage employees to share their ideas better than others.
Take Don, for example. The vice president of his organization’s IT division, Don is responsible for both the firm’s management systems and its Web site.
Marketing had asked Don to have the Web site redesigned to reflect the firm’s new line of products. Marketing needed it done by the end of May, to coincide with a marketing campaign that would include the firm’s Web site address for online orders. Don gave his team the instructions, but he asked his people to complete the work by May 15—it was May 3.
The team got to work immediately, but only a day or so into the work, Don stopped by to ask the team to put aside the work for marketing and redo the design of the homepage. The group had just completed that work and were beginning work once again on marketing’s request when Don was back. He had this great idea for redoing the search function on the site. He wanted work to begin on it immediately.
Needless to say, the team missed the May 15 deadline and came very close to missing the May 31 deadline. The team worked late into the night to finish the design in time. But the chaos that Don created nearly did in the effort—almost sinking the marketing division’s ad campaign.
Don was complimented on the fine job his team had done. On his way back to his office, he stopped by the creative department. Did he want to thank and congratulate the team? No. He had another idea he wanted the team to begin working on immediately, a major revamping of the site’s contact pages. Ellen offered a suggestion, but Don cut her off, “Sure, Ellen, we might try that some time, but I’d like you to focus on this for now. And,” he paused as he left, “I want you to know that marketing likes the design for its new pages. I wish you had completed it sooner so I could have fine-tuned it. But we can do that after the campaign.” He walked away.
I don’t need to tell you the team’s response as they saw Don walking jauntily away. No one would argue that Don is not a hard worker, but at the same time they would point to his tendency to make change for change’s sake, without any purpose other than gaining senior management’s attention for himself. His creative team has numerous ideas for making the site more attractive to customers, but Don has never shut up long enough to hear them. Ellen will try sometimes to get his attention, but she is the only one of the team of seven who still makes an effort. The others do as they are told, burnt out from change overload.
You might say that Don is a change master, and he is, in that he makes change happen. But change management is more than that, as I mentioned. It is building a culture that encourages employees to achieve change through their own efforts and be eager to generate more change.
Don needs to learn to listen to his employees’ suggestions. Because he has done so much to discourage input in the past, he will need to make an effort to get employees to start sharing their ideas. Toward that, he should do the following:
Share his vision with his employees. Employee ideas will increase in value when they’re on the same wavelength as their manager’s. His efforts to empower his workers will be taken more seriously if he lets them in on his hopes for tomorrow, and they will offer plans that will have value in light of that information.
Hold better-faster-different meetings. He can ask staff members for ideas on ways to perform work better to improve quality, faster to save money and please customers, and differently to distinguish the company from the competition. At the meeting, he can also try a zero-based approach, which essentially asks the question, “If we did not have any systems, structures, policies, and procedures in place, how would we create them from scratch to support our vision?”
Stifle his mouth. Don may have a keen mind and be quick to identify both opportunities and obstacles, but he needs to hold back on his feedback when brainstorming with his employees.
Thank employees. He should do this even before he says what he plans to do with his workers’ ideas. Ideally, he will convene a group to evaluate each employee’s suggestion. Further, Don should respond quickly, even if it is to tell the submitter that the group needs a little more time to decide what to do.
Reject ideas gently and tactfully. He should say something like, “Thank you for your idea on. . . . The only thing that keeps us from using it is. . . .If you think of a way to get around this constraint, let me know.”
Involve staff members in crossfunctional teams. The best innovators prove to be those who spend some time working in areas peripheral to theirs and listen to others’ ideas on how their areas can be improved, then come up with ways to make change happen in their unit.
Delegate more responsibility. The more meaningful the work that people do, the more significant their good ideas will be. They are also likely to come up with fresh ideas about the work when it is new to them.
Tips
If you have cause for concern about a proposed change, speak up. Bring facts and figures with you to support your concerns about the plan. Your concerns may not be new to the change group, and your solutions may be very welcome.
Be prepared with answers to questions such as “Why us?”, “Why now?” and, “Do we have a choice whether we do this?”
Make plans but adjust them—radically if necessary—if circumstances change.
Because change can indirectly affect people in other departments, discuss your plans with these people and work with them to assess the projected plan’s effect on them and what you can do to provide for their needs, including amending the basic plan.
Identify opportunities for change by asking customers and employees for ways to operate more efficiently and effectively. Ask customers not only what they think about your performance but also that of your competitors, then compare their opinions. Ask your employees, too, how you can improve your operations. Seeking input will raise morale and improve corporate performance.
These ideas will work for any manager who wants to continuously improve the operation, be a change driver, and make the work unit eager to take on the next opportunity for change. Try them! Challenge your people to think about tomorrow and the next day, not just yesterday and today.
Did You Know . . . ?
Cultural differences affect our responses to change. For instance, the Japanese tend to monitor the need for change and change accordingly, whereas Continental Europeans are traditionally reactive. The British, once conservative, have become more proactive, as have Americans.
How Do You Rate?
If you find yourself going through the four stages mentioned in this chapter, you are no less receptive to change than the average person. To further analyze your attitude toward change, here are some statements. Do they reflect your attitude toward change or not?
“I like to look for more efficient or effective ways of getting the work done.”
“I have an open mind to new ideas and possibilities.”
“I am known for anticipating and leading change within my department.”
“I seize opportunities to reward, celebrate, and encourage successful change.”
“I like to work closely with people who are eager to improve the organization’s policies, procedures, and other shortcomings.”
The more statements that reflect your behavior, the less change resistant you are.
Quotable Quote
“It isn’t the changes that do you in, it’s the transitions. . . . Change is situational: the new site, the new boss, the new team roles, the new policy. Transition is the psychological process people go through to come to terms with the new situation.”—William Bridges