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CHANGE SUCCESS IS DETERMINED LONG BEFORE ROLL OUT BEGINS

Todd Dewett, Ph.D.

Change is the only constant, right?  No.  Based on what I’ve seen, bad change is the only constant.  Research – and I’ll bet a bunch of your personal experiences – tells us that most planned change initiatives fail.  By fail, I mean they do not live up to expectations – they don’t generate enough revenue, improve quality enough, save enough time or money as expected, etc.  Why?  Three main reasons.  In short, most projects are thrust into an ill defined execution phase without a proper assessment and planning effort.  In essence, most teams and organizations choose this model:  Ready, Fire!, Aim.  Not terribly useful.  A more logical approach is:  Ready (Assess), Aim (Plan), Fire! (Execute).  It sounds a little cheesy, but it’s true – you have to go APE for change!

The Assess phase is all about motivation and capacity.  Forget to check these and you will lower your likelihood of success sharply.  There is only one motivation for initiating a change initiative at work:  merit.  Thoughtful analysis and consideration ending in a defensible decision to move forward in a particular fashion.  Unfortunately, this is a minority explanation for most change initiatives in organizations.  Most common ones include:  doing favors for business partners, cronyism, “keeping up with the Joneses,” politics, etc.  None of which trump merit – ever.  Next, consider your capacity for change.  All organizations have a finite amount.  Most organizations regularly exceed their capacity and thus many changes fail.  Believe it or not, you must change less to change more.  It seems counterintuitive, but the logic is undeniable.  Assuming your motivation is correct and you have the capacity, proceed.

The planning phase is concerned with nailing the project vision, building the initial team and nailing all of the detailed plans for the roll-out during the execution phase.  The vision:  bold, long-term statement of a future state to be achieved upon completing the project.  It is the main reference point to consider as decisions are made and questions arise.  The initial team:  for now, you need a small core of highly skilled, respected and connected colleagues.  The smaller the better.  You can always add, but taking members away is infinitely more difficult.  The team then writes the script for roll out – all tasks, personnel, timing, etc. (don’t forget to start predicting who will resist the change and why).  Having completed an honest assessment and planning phase, you are ready for execution.

The execution phase has several steps and it is vital to note that they are not completely linear and sequential.  Most overlap a little or a lot depending on the project.  First, create urgency.  This is positive heightened emotion, but it is not “fear.”  You and the team use examples, stories or facts to arouse attention to the issue and begin selling the vision you crafted in the prior stage.  Expand the team.  Within the areas of the firm targeted for change, find new colleagues to informally participate on a limited basis (this gives you a link to the “troops” for information to flow upward and a sales representative in the field).  Communicate – sounds easy but it’s not.  You and the team must have positive, energetic, consistent, repetitive messages to those affected.  When in doubt, use more communication channels, not less.  Punch the bully:  actively find and aggressively manage any resistance.  Make adjustments if needed, take their advice seriously, etc. – but do not allow resisters to derail an otherwise worthy change.  In fact it is often wise to find the biggest bully quickly and loudly get them in line or out of the organization.  Have a party:  look quickly for low hanging fruit so that you can publicly begin celebrating progress.  Finally, pour the cement:  as major wins pile up and the end of the project is in sight, address any personnel or structural issues needed to institutionalize the change.

Never forget that the devil is in the details.  A great decision about which change to pursue can be utterly wasted if we fail to go APE for change!