Archive for the “Leadership” Category

Monday’s post was about the types of change occurring in large companies. Today’s is about what stands in the way of organizations implementing large-scale change.

PriceWaterhouseCoopers’ 11^th Annual CEO Survey asked: “Which of the following people challenges were critical barriers for your organization in terms of achieving the desired benefits?” Frankly, the answers are fairly depressing.

The depressing part is that all five of these barriers are within the CEO’s control. The CEOs are talking about their own people.

Some observations:

• As Bill Gates said, “We always overestimate the change that will occur in the next two years and underestimate the change that will occur in the next ten.” He was likely not referring to the pace of change within a company, but the quote is still appropriate. The C-Suite is typically looking for transformational change to occur much more quickly than it actually takes. What might be seen as a two-year project is usually a three-year project. Sometimes the factors above play a role, but sometimes it is just plain old, overly optimistic, bad estimating.
• The Human Resources function has a responsibility to address. If speed, flexibility and agility equal competitive advantage, and senior management skill sets are a significant barrier, HR should be forcing change management skill development.
• The CEOs never mention that they themselves may be part of the issue. They aren’t saying, “Failure to hire appropriately skilled senior managers,” or, “Inadequate time spent on leading change initiative.” The cure for some of these issues could very well be the personal demonstration of change management skills.

Based on casual conversations with just about anybody in the business world today, large-scale change is commonplace. The Society for Human Resources (SHRM) published the Change Management Survey in 2007 and quantified those types of change. Over the two years leading up to the survey, companies with more than 500 employees had the following types of change: 

The key takeaway: change is occurring for any and all reasons. In the words of Benjamin Disraeli, “Change is inevitable. Change is constant.”

The question invariably comes.  “How long will this ‘transformation’ take?”

The client is thinking that, like the children of Lake Wobegon, the employees of this company are above average, so it won’t take long. But whether it is a merger integration, a change in direction or a large-scale reorganization, it almost always takes longer to achieve the vision than the client would like. The reason is simple: it takes time to move a group of people to do anything, and moving a group of people takes work.

Take this example from my vacation: seven people deciding on lunch. The conversation started at 11:30 and covered the following topics: choice of food, best place to obtain, who would drive, relevant allergies, how the choice would mesh with the dinner choice, what would be for dinner, confirmation of location, take out or pick up, getting a menu, what the kids would eat, the need to make a quick phone call, the need to change shoes, cleaning the back seat of the car, forgetting the cell phone, and who would sit in the front seat. The cars left the driveway at 12:10. It took 40 minutes to accomplish the simplest of tasks.

Granted, part of this debacle was the effects of Parkinson’s Law: work expands to fill available time. Given that it was vacation, time was aplenty, the adults weren’t truly hungry, and the kids weren’t screaming. The debate stretched on because it could. Unfortunately, decisions at work can drag on as well – and so does the transformation.

So what is a change leader to do? The answer is simple: cut the available time. When establishing goals for a transformation, a leader cannot just set the long-term, visionary goal. A leader also must set milestones along the path, and hold people accountable for achieving the interim goals along the way. The change leader must create a sense of urgency by helping people move from milestone to milestone as quickly as possible. The leader must break the long visionary journey into a series of discrete, focused trips.

I continue to work on material for several speaking engagements and am currently focused on “what is on the mind of the C-Suite.” The methodology is highly informal, but some clear trends begin to emerge:

• Economics – Today’s economy has made it all the harder to continue prior trends. Credit is challenging, commodities have sky-rocketed, inflation has awoken, the housing bubble is deflating, the dollar has slid greatly, confidence is weak, and the tax code likely will be changing next year. Good news is limited and some potential risks have turned into realities.
• Agility and Innovation - Companies that can move quickly win. How does a business create new products and services and implement more productive ways of working quickly and effectively? How does an organization spark and nurture collaboration and flexibility?
• People – The data is clear. Engaged people create superior results. How does a C-Suite attract, identify, hire and motivate the highest quality talent? Millennials have different expectations of their employer. Long-term employees are leaving with years of knowledge. Engagement is a here-and-now challenge. Tapping the supply of talented people that can lead and execute well in the new world will only get harder. How can they make people a competitive advantage? How can they effectively manage the employment brand proposition?
• Community Responsibility - Whether the issue is climate change, sustainability or corporate social responsibility, there is an expectation that employers contribute positively to the communities in which they do business. It isn’t just nice-to-do anymore.
• Corporate Governance - Enron and Sarbanes-Oxley may be distant memories for you, but you probably don’t sign and certify your company’s governance structure. More than one C-Suite member has voiced a worry about “their signature,” and “on my watch.” It may not be sexy, but it does take time.
• Constituency Management - Will there ever be enough time to pay attention to shareholders, regulators, customers, suppliers and employees while staying at the forefront of personal and professional development? Don’t forget – the C-Suite also must demonstrate – occasionally – the merits of work-life balance as well.

Even if the list is not perfect, the reality is that there is a lot to worry about before looking at today’s sales, tomorrow’s advertising, or next year’s business plan. Today’s CXO needs people who can execute well so that they can address long-term opportunities for the business.

Measurable outcomes – on macro and micro levels – are vital to an effective change initiative. So, too, are rewards and consequences for individuals whose behaviors either support or prevent success. This takes us to the fifth step in The Brookside Group’s ASPIRE Change Leadership Model^TM, “Recognize Results.”

You’ll recall that in step three – Plan Programs – you began to outline your strategies, timelines, tactics and measurements to reach the goals you set in an earlier step. It’s during the “Recognize Results” step that those measurements begin to come into play.

Let’s use a simple analogy: a long car ride with a bunch of young children. When you reach your destination, you should celebrate the accomplishment. Whether it is ice cream, a swim in the pool or some other form of reward, it is time to celebrate. Importantly, however, you also should recognize the behavior during the journey. The rule about nine carrots and one stick is probably about right. “I like the way you played with your sister, and I also liked the way you invented the game with the trucks. Next time, I would appreciate it if you didn’t throw the fries at your brother, however.”

It is the same in a change initiative. You will be surprised how far you will actually travel. Celebrate the milestones. Importantly, tell everybody what they are doing well – and do so publicly. Nurture the momentum you’ve started.

The first three steps of The Brookside Group’s ASPIRE Change Leadership Model^TM tell you where you are, where you will go and how you are going to get there. The fourth step is the journey itself. “Implement Initiatives” encourages a deliberate, cautious, metrics-based approach to executing the change program. At its core is a set of approaches to overcome resistance.

Regardless of whether your proposed change is significant or relatively minor, you can anticipate resistance from some or all employees impacted by the effort. In fact, SHRM’s 2007 study on Change Management shows that about 70% of major organizational changes encounter employee resistance.

Your employee’s resistance can have many origins – such as differing on why change is needed, what change is needed or how to go about the change – and take many forms. They may show obvious signs of resistance, as when they strongly object to, or refuse to cooperate with, the change. Sometimes their resistance takes on a more subtle appearance, as when they show apathy. 

It is vital that you, as a change sponsor, not only anticipate resistance from your employees, but have a plan to detect, diagnose and eliminate it. You also must understand why they resist change so that, from the very beginning of your initiative, you can undertake preventative measures to minimize its potential effect on your success.

As discussed in our post about setting goals, gaining input on goals enables people to become aware, understand and participate in the change process. At one client, we used a three-step implementation approach for most tactics. It wasn’t the three steps that were important, it was the fact that people got to participate in the rollout of every tactic that was important. The approach consists of:

• The Laboratory – the laboratory was essentially a focus group. Beyond providing the project team the input on how to adjust messages and timing, it gave the project team the confidence that they would be able to rollout the tactics.
• The Pilot – the pilot was a internally visible test marketing of various concepts. The project team used the pilot to use new presentation material, validate training material and test new support tools. The pilot participants became change agents and ambassadors of the new ways of working. “I was part of the pilot, and it mostly worked. We recommended a few changes, but it can work for you too.”
• The Rollout – the third and final stage, the rollout is the large scale implementation of the change. By this point, confidence is high and resistance is significantly lowered.

Resistance to change isn’t necessarily all bad, as it sometimes can serve a constructive purpose. Allowing employees to express their beliefs and feelings will help you identify where their concerns lie and how to address those concerns to achieve the needed commitment to your change program.

Now that you know what your destination is, you need a roadmap to get there.

The third step in The Brookside Group’s ASPIRE Change Leadership Model^TM gets you that roadmap. During the “Plan Programs” step, you define milestone goals, strategies and tactics to reach your end goals as defined in the previous step in the model. (See “Setting Goals).  

Again, this might seem easier than it truly is. It is easy if you stick to general, directional plans. If you are very specific, measurable and time-bound, it isn’t nearly as easy – but your plan will be better by orders of magnitude. Stating, “Train key employees in the fourth quarter” is easy.  Stating, “Train 85% of all managers and 100% of directors and above in the first two weeks of December” makes the expectations clear for all. You might not get the 85%, but your result will be far better than the first example would provide.

Likewise, your strategies, which are the basic action items to be undertaken in support of the objectives, need to be specific. For instance, just saying that you’ll use communication as a strategy during the initiative isn’t enough. You need to dig deep down to what you’ll communicate, how, when and why.

As might be obvious, measures are the standards by which the success of the strategies is quantified. The key mistake we see is tracking activities, like counting intranet articles. Your measures need to be outcome focused, allowing you to track the degree of behavioral change that’s been achieved. And if the behavioral change isn’t great enough, then your measures also need to tell you why.

One final thought on planning your program, you must establish a system of governance over the program and a method for managing the program. A governance program will provide you and your change team with information and understanding about:

• Who the program’s stakeholders are
• The roles and responsibilities of all parties
• The process for escalating issues

Some form of program management will give you the ability to:

• Track and report program milestone status, resource plans, budget, interdependencies
• Provide transparency to risks, issues, etc.
• Make unbiased, final calls on status
• Ensure actions are executed, issues assigned and addressed and key decisions made; ensuring issues, resolutions and key decisions are communicated
• Ensure consistency of ways of working, team protocols, reporting, in an effort to improve effectiveness and efficiency

A college student researching change management asked us for information on how our company works, and this inspired us to update some documentation on The Brookside Group’s ASPIRE Change Leadership Model^TM. Yesterday, we began posting some of that work – specifically, the assessing steps required to kick-off a successful change initiative.

Rarely do people embark on a journey without knowing the destination. Well it’s the same with a change initiative. According to the Harvard Business School, a compelling view of the future is critical. However, this compelling future view is more than just a vision statement. It’s a shared vision that is desirable, compelling, realistic, focused and flexible, and more importantly, capable of motivating employees to participate fully in the change.

This need for a shared vision takes us to the second step in the model, Set Goals. This might seem deceptively easy. But in fact, it’s arguably the most challenging component of the model because it requires a very deep and clear understanding of all the issues surrounding your change program.

On the surface, it might appear that developing a vision might be a process that requires you, as a change sponsor, to fly solo. In reality, the exact opposite is true. The more you reach out to change participants to help develop the vision, the more likely you will get their assistance in carrying it forward. Involving others often results in gaining their commitment and willingness to help you implement the change ahead.

For that reason, the development of a shared vision is an important activity to undertake at the beginning of an initiative. It can serve as a catalyst to draw change participants together and share the common bond of being able to see – and own – the future success of the effort.

Therefore, once you have “assessed the as-is,” your focus should turn to creating a shared vision for the change program by establishing:

• The way participants will know they have reached the desired end state or the definition of the desired end state
• The scope and parameters of the change
• The reason – or case – for the change
• The risk if the change is not undertaken
• The relationship of the change to the company, industry and/or competitive environment
• The various workplace factors – such as processes, practices, systems and facilities – that will not be affected by the change

However, in designing the shared vision, you should not simply confine yourself to the consensus of change participants’ opinions. To give the effort meaning and scope, the vision must challenge employees to imagine, seek and achieve new heights of excellence. As Albert Einstein once said, “Imagination is more powerful than knowledge.” When change participants become aware of what is possible, they begin to realize that challenges can be surmounted, problems can be resolved, and a target can be achieved.

Why does a shared vision need to have the abovementioned characteristics? Because, it:

• Paints a picture of a future that is both desirable and attainable. It motivates participants to focus and achieve their goals to accomplish an end that – in many cases – differentiates their company from competitors.
• Has credibility with employees as it is tethered to the business’s needs and, hence, to a clear target.
• Focuses employees on the activities that have the most value – and discourages them from pursuing more opportunities than they can handle.
• Encourages employees to work toward new levels of achievement as the organization continuously improves its capabilities.  

I’m working on a presentation for a human resources conference, and as part of the presentation, I’ll be covering why transformation efforts fail. Covering the topic, however, presents me with an interesting dilemma. Should I talk about the failures I have seen? What would this say about me? “Presenting the world’s best speaker on the subject of failure….”

After careful consideration, I’ve decided to reference others.

Perhaps the best work on why transformation efforts failure comes from John Kotter of Harvard. His 1995 article in the Harvard Business Review, entitled “Why Transformation Efforts Fail,” qualifies as an oldie but goodie. If you haven’t read the article, it is worth the $6.50 to download.

His major point is that successful transformation efforts happen because leaders do eight things right, and they do them in the right order. Here are Kotter’s perspectives on the eight mistakes leaders make:

1. Not establishing a large enough sense of urgency
2. Not creating a powerful enough guiding coalition
3. Lacking a vision
4. Under-communicating the vision by a factor of ten
5. Not removing obstacles to the new vision
6. Not systematically planning for, and creating, short-term wins
7. Declaring victory too soon
8. Not anchoring changes in the corporation’s culture

My thoughts:

• A consultant is sometimes hired to help with Nos. 1-3, and political delicacy is frequently required. The consultant may need to say, “The emperor has no clothes.” He or she also may need to follow that up with, “and doesn’t listen well either.”
• Nos. 4-6 are the gory hand-to-hand combat steps of change, and the consultant must be in the background. If the consultant is highly visible during this phase, unintended morale issues will likely result. A consultant can help with tactics and execution, but the leaders of change must be the employees themselves.
• Consultants are usually not around for Nos. 7 and 8. The engagement has ended. Consultants usually see #7 and #8 when they are reviewing the shortcomings of previous changes.

In an earlier post, we talked about the need for companies to use modern communication methods – such as blogs, RSS feeds and text messages – along with traditional methods – such as e-mails, posters, and newsletters – to effectively reach different generations in the workplace. Based on a new study by Randstad, communication styles are just one of the many generational differences affecting companies today.

The study claims the four different generations in the workforce: Matures, Baby Boomers, Gen X, Gen Y – have very little interaction with one another. Gen Ys, in particular, are not interacting with older generations. 

This lack of interaction feeds dysfunctionality:

• A new generation has entered the workforce. Those Gen Yers are associating most readily with those of the same age. They don’t associate with older generations.
• As Gen Yers gain experience and mature, they look to take on more responsibility.
• Although some in the older generations willingly share the knowledge necessary to help the younger generations, others view their growth as a threat.
• Information is withheld to protect individual positions of power and organizational performance suffers.

Unlike money, you can take knowledge when you go. Matures and Baby Boomers are retiring and taking knowledge out the door. If the Gen Yers had been interacting up the generational ladder (and vice versa), much of the critical knowledge would have been passed.

The coming retirement wave and near-term economically-driven reductions in workforces are combining to create a clear burning platform for businesses to act upon. To help plug the brain drain:

• Company leaders must understand there are real differences in how the different generations view leadership, respect authority, view work, relate to each other, and put simply, come to work.
• Lead by doing. Anybody who has supervisory duties has a responsibility to inspire top performance from their team, and to do so means understanding that team members will have very different drivers and definitions of success. With that understanding, strategies can be built to best inspire each generation. As an example, give Baby Boomers the recognition they desire for their contributions, while offering Gen Y employees “passion, humor and straight talk.”
• Senior managers have always needed to ensure junior managers had the right workplace sensitivities. Generational awareness must be added to that list of workplace sensitivities.

Connecting the generations will help change their perceptions, encouraging awareness and understanding about the strengths each group brings to the company. Without this awareness and understanding, employees will continue to work within their comfort zones and companies will miss opportunities to build long-term competitive advantage.