How to Build Support for Change During the 11^th Hour

You may find yourself months into a project and realize that this major change is slowing to a halt. And if you don’t do something to turn things around, the project will fail. Sometimes there are good reasons why you couldn’t build support earlier. For instance, news of the merger may have had to be kept under wraps until the final agreement was signed. Or perhaps a fully-formed project was given to you from someone on high, and now it’s your job to bring it to life.

Or, perhaps things aren’t working due to something that you could have done differently. For example, let’s say you assumed that gaining support of stakeholders would never be an issue. You thought the idea was so good that everyone would rejoice when they learned about it. And you were wrong.

Whatever the reason, you are where you are, and you’ve got to build or rekindle support for this project right away.

There are a three 11^th hour problems I’ve seen:

We Rolled Out the Change and Nobody Noticed. We went live on April 1 and nothing happened. Two weeks later, and still nothing is happening.

The Project Just Vanished.  Everything seemed to be going fine, and then talk of it moved further and further down the agenda. And today it is hardly ever mentioned.

Ugly – Really Ugly – Resistance is Bringing Everything to a Stop. People are actively opposing this project. They may be doing things to sabotage it.

No matter which scenario fits, you need to sit down with people you trust and who have a handle on what’s really going on, and discuss a few important questions. And then, make sure you know what’s on “the list.”

Ask the Big Questions

What do we think will happen if we continue on the path we are on? How likely is it that we will be successful? And, why do we think that?

You probably said, “We’re going to fail.” “The project will go way over time and budget” “We’ll only get some low hanging fruit from all this work.”  And then, very quietly, you may have added, “And this will be a serious blot on my own reputation and the reputation of my group.” This is serious stuff.

Is the problem technical, financial, priorities, or people?

• If it is a technical problem – the wrong IT platform or equipment, buggy software, and so forth – it probably calls for a technical solution. People may not support the project because it gives them headaches to work on it.
• If it is financial – this usually means that budget has been pulled away from this project or this change never did have an adequate budget in the first place. If that’s the case, you need to find the money. You’ll either have to get more money or take money from some other beloved projects.
• If it is priorities – for instance, people are expected to work on this project while still treating everything else as a top priority – then you’ve got a leadership problem. You need to be willing to put other projects and routine tasks on the back burner for now. That is an act of courage in many organizations. But that’s why you are a leader, right?
• If the problem is that people are not engaged or they are actively resistant then you need to address those common human issues. (The remainder of this paper offers some suggestions to help you do just that.)

Asking the big questions out loud makes you and other leaders acknowledge that this is a crisis and must be dealt with like any crisis. And it will take lots of attention immediately. You can’t postpone work on the problem and expect it to wait until you have time to address it.

Answers to the big questions could be the wake-up call you need in order to get thing project back on track.

If you know the problem is technical, financial, or priorities — put this paper down right now and go fix the problem.

Of course, some 11^th hour problems may be a combination of technical, financial, priories, and people. If so, you need to address all four. So, simply getting people reinvested in the project without providing software to do the job, budget to pay for what they need, or relief from too much work and too little time, then you’re still going to fail.

Sometimes you don’t know if the problem is financial, technical, priorities, or people. If so, then determine what’s on the list.

 Find Out What’s on the List

Now that you know what you and your peers think, you need to find out what stakeholders are thinking and feeling regarding this change.  The list is a key tool in my own work with clients. I’ve got to know what’s on the list before I can offer any advice on how to build support for change. Often the things that appear on the list are difficult for people to say out loud. Chris Argyris (Organizational Traps 2002) refers to these items as undiscussibles.

The information on that so-called list is critical. Without that information, you’ll be trying to fix an 11^th hour problem without knowing why the project is in trouble. It will be like trying to fly through a storm without radar. But with that information you can plan.

If you’d like to know how to find out what people involved in the change think and feel about the change itself and the people leading them, please read The Magic List. It is quick read and should give you the tools you need to start finding out people’s unspoken reactions to this change.

Once you know what’s on the list, you’ll need to figure out what it all means. (The Magic List can give you some pointers on how to do this.) But I think you’ll find that most of the responses will be in Level 1, 2, or 3:

• Level 1: I don’t get it
• Level 2: I don’t like it
• Level 3: I don’t like you (or a little more accurately, I don’t trust you.

Your support – and resistance – comes from those three areas. In other words, people either understand what you are talking about or they don’t. They either are excited, committed, engaged in the change – or they are scared out of their wits. Either they trust the people leading them on this project or they fear that the clowns are running the circus.

Once you know what’s on the list, you can begin to apply what you know.

We Rolled Out the Change and Nobody Noticed.

The problem could be that no one was really on board and they were just placating you by going through the motions. They had hoped that the project would just vanish, but alas you went ahead and rolled it out.

Here’s where the list can come in handy. The fix could be simple. People may not know why the change is needed or what the project itself is all about (Level 1). It could be that new people have joined the team since this project began, or perhaps older employees may have forgotten why this project ever mattered. (Many of the old TQM quality improvement efforts died simply because it took too long to get things moving.)

As you look at the data on the list, see if people see (and feel) why a change is needed. If they don’t seem to know why this project is important, then you need to make a Compelling Case for Change. If you feel like you’ve already done that, you may be right, but you’ll need to do it again. Here is a link to an article Making a Compelling Case for Change.

If the list shows that people don’t know what they are supposed to do or how to do it, then listen to that advice, and provide direction or training or whatever else you think will help people roll-up-their-sleeves and get to work. It may sound simple, but just ask people what they need in order to do the job. You don’t have to be Solomon and have all the right answers. Good questions work too.

If the list reveals lots of fear (Level 2), then you need to actively engage people in addressing those issues. You don’t need to have the answers, but you do need to be open and curious. One very good question to ask: “Is there a way that we can move ahead with this project that will increase job security?” So the issue might not be job security, it might be safety, or fear that this change will just add lots of paperwork to their jobs, or something else. This simple questioning gets people involved in changes that affect them. They get a chance to influence parts of the change that matter most to them.

To learn more about dealing with Level 2 issues, read How to Work Effectively with Level 2 Resistance.

But, what if they don’t trust you (Level 3)? Lick your wounds and then read the list carefully. What is it they don’t like about your leadership on this project. Maybe they see you (and/or the executive team) as flavor-of-the-month leaders, or duplicitous, or out-of-touch, or too concerned about currying political favor from above while sacrificing those who report to you.

You don’t have to agree with your own assessment of your leadership qualities, but you do need to take their Level 3 concerns seriously. You cannot preach to them or say, “Trust me, I’m not a crook.” The only game in town is to begin to demonstrate that this time you are acting differently. You might even say, “I know the world on the street is that I am to quick to move onto some other project. I want to demonstrate to you that this time is different.  In fact, within the next two weeks here is what you can expect from me. And for the next two months, you can expect to see A, B, and C. “ And them after you make those promises, deliver so that you confound people’s expectations. You want them to say to themselves, “Whoa. Maybe she is serious this time.”

Level 3 does not turn around easily. Sad to say that trust is difficult to build and easy to destroy. To learn more about working with Level 3, read How to Work with Level 3 Resistance.

The Project Just Vanished.

The suggestions for We Rolled Out the Change and Nobody Noticed apply here as well.

In addition, there are some basic things that leaders of successful changes do to keep projects alive so they achieve real results. Read How to Sustain Commitment to Change. It covers seven vital, but often neglected, tasks that you must perform. Those seven items are:

• Leadership (that is, people know that you are 100% behind this change)
• Clear Contract (so that leaders all down the line know what’s expected)
• Beware of scope creep – so that the project doesn’t keep growing like a blob of goo from 1950s sci-fi movie
• Speed. There is no magic correct speed, but the leader needs to sense how fast this project can move safely
• Ownership. People need to feel ownership.
• Resources. People have the tools they need to do the job.
• Rewards. The rewards are linked to actions that support the new goals.

23 Great ideas to Help Keep Change Alive is a rather long article that includes tips from people like you who worked on changes that actually succeeded. The article is filled with real examples of what they did to keep the change moving.

 Ugly – Really Ugly – Resistance is Bringing Everything to a Stop.

This is a big deal. Read the list carefully. There are probably many strong Level 2 fears and Level 3 issues of distrust. You have no choice: these issues must be addressed.

Tips for Getting Back on Track. This article covers some of things I’ve addressed in this white paper, but includes a few more tips as well.

Unless you are experienced working in situations in which people are wildly resistant – don’t go there alone. There are too many pitfalls and too many places where you can inadvertently make matters worse. My strong suggestion is get help. Here are some places you might look:

• It might be time to reconnect with a mentor or leader in a position like yours who just seems to handle resistance well. Ask him or her for advice and counsel. One meeting will not be sufficient. Arrange regular conversations. If you let more than a week elapse between calls, you may be waiting too long.
• Your coach. If you’ve got a good executive coach, see if this person can advise you on working with widespread resistance.
•  A consultant you know is savvy about how to rebuild trust and support.
• A cross-functional and cross-level group of no more than a dozen people who can advise you on getting things back on track.

Whatever you do, expect that some things will work and others won’t. Learn from all these experiences and improve your game.

This blog is a great placed to post your own ideas that you’ve seen build support for change even in the 11^th hour.

Acknowledgements: A special thanks to members of my change group on Facebook. Your support and ideas helped me frame this article and move in some directions I might not have thought of. I appreciate your help. Kathy Bennett, Woody Berzins, Lon Blumenthal, Joe Brodnicki, Alex Brandt, Catalyst Consulting, Michael Chirichello, William Jackson, Laurie Mendelow, Leo Reid, Sharon Richmond, Heather Stagle, and Tom Stratton. And my apologies if I inadvertently left someone off this list.

If you are interested in being part of the Facebook group, please visit and consider “liking” the page. www.Facebook.com/rickmaureronchange

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I switched my phone line to digital. What a mistake that was. I was without phone service for a full business day. But that day waiting and the talking with phone company representatives gave me a lot of time to think about customer service. Here is what I wrote in my newsletter this morning.

That saga with the phone company got me thinking about customer service. Over the course of the day I talked to ten (count ‘em 10) people at the phone company. Some told me the number I had just called wasn’t the right one. Others looked into the problem. One person even said she knew what the problem was and that my service would be restored in an hour. That’s the last I heard from her. A few hours later I finally talked to a guy who actually got my phone working. He worked on this for about an hour. He discovered that because we had switched to digital lines at about the same time that we cancelled one of our numbers, the system got confused, and the work order was in limbo. He cancelled both orders, reentered them, and my phone worked.

I am sending a letter to his supervisor to express my appreciation for his work. (And the fact that his name is Rick has no bearing on this story.)

As much as I truly appreciate Rick’s work, I wondered why others couldn’t do what he did. All the others were friendly and expressed their concern that my phone line was dead.  That was great. Nice people. But what stopped them from fixing the problem? I think organizations miss the customer service mark by a wide margin when they focus on individual performance and exclude underlying systems issues.  If I were advising that company, I’d certainly recognize Rick’s fine work, but then I would urge them to look deeply at three things: 1. Why was there a glitch in what seemed to be a relatively simple order? 2. Why was Rick able to solve my problem when no one else could? And 3. Why, even with long voice mail menu options, was it so hard to find someone who could solve this problem?

P.S. (This new development occurred after the newsletter went out.)

11:30 AM The new system seems to have wiped my voice mail clean, so any messages that may have come in are gone. OK, I can live with that. I thought, “I’ll just set up the voice mail account again. How hard can that be?” I can be so naive. Problem is that my Google searches never resulted in finding instructions on how to set up voice mail, nor could I find a direct number to call for help.

11:40 AM I finally got someone who is trying to help me. But, once again, I am on hold while this guy – a very friendly guy, by the way – tries to find out why my phone number isn’t linking to the voice mail system . Systems I tell ya’, they need to look at their systems.

12:05 PM Nice guy just told me that he needed to elevate the call to another level. He told me that the other group would probably be back in touch within a couple of hours. And, no he couldn’t give me their direct line. (I am close to going back to two Dixie Cups and a thread. That system worked fine when I was seven.)

12:35 PM Got a call much quicker than I expect. He told me what to do. And we agreed that he’d call me back in ten minutes just to make sure everything is working. He kept his word. I truly like the people who work for this company. My phone is working, you could give me a call!

- Rick Maurer

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Very good blog post from Management Issues blog on research in the UK branch of Towers Watson.

Here was my comment to them:

Thanks for a very good post. When I started writing about change in organizations (Beyond the Wall of Resistance) in 1996, some 70% of changes failed. As I was updating the book two years ago, I was surprised (and stunned) to learn that the failure rate was still at about 70%. The research you cite offers good reasons why the failure rate still remains high. But the good news is that if organizations could change those statistics easily and increase their chances of success.

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I love articles that make me think and react.I encourage you to read the article “Marketing is dead” in The Drum. The article covers a speech made by Kevin Roberts, CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi.

(I don’t know if what he says about strategy being dead is true, although tidy five-year plans seem downright dangerous during these times. And I can’t imagine organizations of any size operating without managers. And, where I live, we sure had a recession.)

Aside from that, I very much like Roberts’ argument that we need to add emotion and “dreams” into the work. Provocative, yes, but look at all the comments he is receiving. He got our attention.

He focuses on the market. My own work focuses on why people support change – and why they resist it – inside the organization. So I started to think about his ideas and what it would take inside an organization to bring his dream to life.

1. In order to inspire people inside the organization, people at all levels must know what’s going on. Sounds obvious, I know, but I am constantly amazed at how far out of the loop people are. No one provides the big picture in ways that they can see it. Or quickly enough so they can do something with the dream and the Strengths Weaknesses Opportunities and Threats.

2. Insist that people at all levels focus on - and measure their performance - on how well they move the organization toward the dream. (This is not a terribly hard thing to do. Read any of the books on Open Book Management especially those by John Case or Jack Stack. They tell you how to connect the dots so that people are aligned and working toward goals that matter.)

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Sarah Murray’s fine article Get the Boss to Embrace Your Innovation in 4/23/12 Financial Times got me thinking about the question implied in that title. Here is my comment on that site.

Breaking through barriers is extremely difficult, and made even more difficult when we fail to understand why people might not be as wild about our ideas as we are. Back in 2002 I wrote Why Don’t You Want What I Want? (Bard Press). In it, I identified three reasons why people resist our “brilliant” ideas.

1. They don’t get it. They simply don’t understand what we are talking about.  I have seen people try to make their pitches using their own professional jargon and going right over the heads of their audiences. I recall the head of a research lab refusing to use simple words to describe what they were doing, for fear that their peers in the field would think they were dumbing things down. Fail enough, except that they were trying to influence the US Congress and other potential funders who were not technical experts in their field. Same thing goes when you are trying to influence a boss
who is not as well-versed on things as you are.

2. They don’t like it. Something about our idea scares them. This could cost me my job. I am an old dog, I could never learn that new software. I will lose face. Power. Control. These deep-seated emotional responses often are ignored. I found that people who influence well (good salespeople for example) know how to engage people so that these reptilian responses don’t get activated. When we try to influence up, we risk coming across as threatening. I once read a study (long since lost in mounds of paper I am afraid) that found that managers who might be considered A students or leaders tended to hire other A’s to work for them. However B managers, didn’t hire A’s or B’s, they hired C’s. So let’s assume you are an A who somehow is working for a B or C, then you and your ideas could be downright scary.

And 3, They don’t like us. If they don’t like us – or don’t trust us – they simply aren’t listening. So we may think we are doing well with 1 (information) and 2 (fear), but fail to gain the support we need because our audience doesn’t trust us. I find that clients I work with who are able to build support for their ideas enjoy the trust of the people they are trying to influence. In other words, people give them the benefit of their doubts.

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Media Training for Politicians

I’m hooked on all the news and opinion shows about politics. I’ve noticed several media training tips that politicians seem to use. Could they help you? I hope not!

That’s right.

Not.

These answers are probably the least-classy way to respond to media – and they do it all the time.

1. Deny you said it.

2. Say the media misinterpreted your comments.

3. Apologize for the media misinterpreting your comments.

4. Say the other side twisted your comments.

5. Say the other side does the same thing.

6. Say the other side does the same thing even worse.

7. Say the media doesn’t call out the other side for doing the sam e thing. (The media gave them a free ride.)

8. Blame the media for reporting this. Say it isn’t a story.

9. Change the subject.

A typical response sounds like this:

“I never said that. But if you heard it that way, I’m sorry you didn’t understand what I really meant. They are taking what I said out of context. Besides, they’ve been doing the same thing for years and they do it even more than they admit. I’m surprised you aren’t calling them out for it. Of course, you always give them a free pass because you are aligned with their agenda. I don’t even know why you are reporting on this. It isn’t even a real story. By the way, why aren’t you writing about …”

Doesn’t that sound like a five-year old trying to answer the question, “Who stole the cookie from the cookie jar?” The only thing missing from this rebuttal is, “I’m going to tell Daddy.”

If you want good media relations, don’t listen to politicians.

Here’s some info on Dan. he’s a great guy, by the way.
Dan Janal helps small businesses get publicity so they can sell more products. My clients get terrific results from my coaching, consulting, done-for-you services and do-it-yourself tools. For info, go to www.prleadsplus.com or call me at 952-380-1554. http://www.mediatrainingforpoliticians.com/

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Very good list on the Forbes blog that addresses: Top Ten Reasons Why Large Companies Fail To Keep Their Best Talent

Here was my suggestion to readers of that post:

I think you’ve put together a valuable list. my suggestions to any leaders in organizations that are concerned about losing talent.
1.  Make copies of this post (with permission, of course) and pull together a few people from different levels of your organization. These need to be men and women who aren’t afraid to speak the truth as they see it. (A group of no more than a dozen will work best.) Go through the list. Find out which of these items are alive in your organization. Ask for advice on how to change those issues into positives.
2. Talk with another group to see how they respond. (sometimes a group can create its own reality and people don’t want to differ from their more vocal members. A second or third group gives you a but of a reality check.)
3. Start making changes based on what you learned.
4. Create a feedback loop so that you know if your strategy is making a difference. You don’t need to wait for reports on turnover. Find out if people feel engaged. You could turn those ten questions into a 10-point survey and give it to a random group every few months.
5, Revise your plans as needed.

Do you agree with his choices? If not, what would your list look like? And, what would you do?

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I began this post on my new Facebook site, www.facebook.com/rickmaureronchange. Here is a longer version. (BTW, I hope you will join me there at this new site.)

A fine NY Times article (3/30/12) on how arguments were shaped on the health care debate this week. Although it is impossible to tell how the case will be decided, it is a widely-held belief that Justice Kennedy is the swing vote. That means that four are like to vote one way, the other four are likely to vote the other. According to the Times writer, liberty is Justice Kennedy’s “touchstone and guiding principle.” Both sides were quite explicit in connecting the dots to demonstrate to Kennedy how their argument related to liberty.

Often efforts to influence others on the value of an organizational change are painted with such very broad brush that people miss how all this relates to what’s important to them. Let’s say a stakeholder group cared about liberty, in a corporate presentation liberty would be the fifteen bullet point on a crowded slide. Something for everyone, and no much for anyone.

These approaches often fail to address the what’s in it for me question for various stakeholders. We could learn from the ways in which successful lawyers argue big cases.

1. These lawyers know the Supreme Court well so they know what’s like to be important to each member. Those who argue before appellate courts (one level down in the US system) know a lot about the panel of judges well before they make the argument.

2. Good lawyers hold moot courts. These are simulated arguments where colleagues blast and bolster their arguments. These may not be pretty, but they can be very helpful.

3. They craft their arguments so that the people can easy see how this change relates to what they care about.

4. They provide the depth that supports their arguments in written briefs. This can help keep spin to a minimum.

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The Point (a blog) posted an interesting piece that lists the number of mergers in big pharma over the past few years. It’a a big number. The post discusses the risks of merger integration. it is worth reading.    M&A in Big Pharma: Holy Grail or Buying Time

Here is the comment I added to the post:

The long list of fairly recent mergers in pharma is a sobering reminder of the failure rate of these well-intended marriages.  I just wonder how many of these will end up being good for owners over the coming years. As you suggest, it is too soon to tell. Mergers often take a long time to work — or not.

I agree with the points you make about the challenges of merger integration. And, that on the day the merger is announced, people begin to worry about their jobs.

The focus of my work rests on two questions: Why do people support change? Why do they resist it? Merger integration could be a poster child for a conversation on those two questions.

I look at three levels of questions: Level 1: Do people understand what’s going on? Level 2: Do they get energized by the possibility of this merger?, and Level 3: Do they believe that the leaders of the two organizations can work together in ways that do add up to 1+1 = 2.

If the answer to any of those questions is “no” or “maybe” then leaders are putting their merger at risk. They risk three types of resistance: I don’t get it (Level 1), I don’t like it (2), and/or I don’t like you (3).

A lot of mergers focus on what might be good for the company (positive Level 1 and 2) but fail to look at the situation through the eyes of those who will need to make this merger work. Too often, leaders pile on lots of data (Level 1) just assuming that’s what people need to hear. And, of course, they needs facts and figures, but these slide-heavy presentations often miss the Level 2 emotional component – fear or excitement. And they certainly do little to build trust in the leaders of this new entity (Level 3.

My suggestions to leaders who are considering a merger are:

After you’ve done the due diligence, ask yourselves:

Do we know how to explain the reasons for the merger so that both organizations see why we want to bring these two companies together? (Warning: if communication is one-way, and way too heavy on details, people will tune out.)

Do we know how to engage people from both companies in the integration process? (It’s inevitable that some will be afraid no matter what you do, so focus on building a critical mass.)

Do people trust us (and our counterparts) to tell them the truth and handle this merger in ways that are good for the companies and the people?

My suggestion to leaders who are in the midst of a merger that is not taking hold:

Find out what the Level 1 (information), Level 2 (emotional reaction), and Level 3 (trust) issues are. What seems to be working well at all three levels, and what isn’t.

Since you probably won’t be able to work on all the issues, identify those that you believe have the most leverage potential. For example, let’s say people from the acquired company are afraid that they will be out of work. Assuming that downsizing will be minimal, do whatever it takes to assure people that you truly want to complete the integration process in a way that that actually increases job security. Invite people into open conversation about ways to accomplish this. Allow people to be part of the change that affects them. The value of addressing a leverage issue is that it often dissipates some other concerns and it builds trust in the process.

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In 2009, I started the Change Management Open Source Project, a place where people could come together to talk about change in organizations. As of this morning there are 1001 members from well over 30 countries around the world.

In the meantime, LinkedIn upped the number and quality of discussion groups on change. There simply is no shortage of places to go online to learn about and talk about change. It is impressive.

So I decided to make two big changes to this site. 1. I switched the platform to Facebook since the old platform started to charge way too much to host videos and audios. 2. Although imported all the discussions, videos, e-book, Podcasts, and articles, I decided to focus this new site on my approach to change. While there are plenty of places to talk about change, this is the only place where you can learn and talk about Change without Migraines ™.

I hope you will take a look at this new open source site. If you click “like” you will be able to access all the resources inside the site.

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Robert Tanner posted Ten Organizational Practices That Limit Innovation. I like the list. Here is my comment to him.

Robert – I like the list of ten things to avoid. I found myself nodding my head in agreement. I work with resistance to change in organizations, and as I look at the list, I see potentially very strong resistance from leaders to changing those things. It seems to me that your list describes a command and control culture. Those types of cultures don’t happen by accident. My guess is that those cultures reflect some pretty deep seated beliefs about people. For instance, leaders can’t trust others to make good decisions, therefore they feel that they need rigid hierarchy to “ensure” that decisions get made and that people do what they are supposed to do.
If I were working with a client and they were interested in changing the list, I would invite them to look deeply at what the values are behind that list and identify what they would lose if they changed their culture. For example, loss of power, loss of control, loss of certainly. Without addressing those fundamental immunities to change (to borrow a phrase from Kegan and Lahey) they are not likely to foster an innovative culture.

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I am tired of hearing Kubler-Ross’ stages of grieving (or stages of death and dying) used to explain why people resist large organizational changes. The model just doesn’t fit and it promotes poor leadership. The model can allow leaders to shrug their shoulders and proclaim, “What can I do? They’ve got to work through the stages.” Kubler-Ross wrote about these stages in her book, Death and Dying to explain what most people go through when they face terminal illness or catastrophic loss. And it probably is a helpful framework when talking about actual death.

But if people believe that your organizational change is the same as a terminal illness or a catastrophic loss, then (with a few exceptions like a company about to close its doors) you are doing something seriously wrong.

People don’t have to experience anger, denial, and so forth if the change is handled well. By the way, her research on these stages is focused on individuals. As far as I can tell there has been no research on the frequency of these stages occurring in organizational change. But her work gets mentioned so often that the stages of death and dying are now taken as just the way things are. I doesn’t have to be that way.

In spite of the popularity of Jim Collins’ fine landmark book, Good to Great (2002), readers seem to miss a point that he makes. When his researchers asked people in great companies how they managed change, they didn’t know. On deeper examination, his team found that the great companies did such a good job of keeping people informed, that otherwise “catastrophic” change never took hold. For example, people could see why a major new enterprise-wide software system made sense given their organization’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.

The people who devised the notion of Open Book Management got it right. Give people the numbers that drive the business and make sure they can see how their specific contribution can affect those numbers every day and then watch productivity zoom.

Many of the large-systems change approaches that put anywhere from 100 to 500 people in a room to plan change, focus on improving things – and not dwelling on issues like denial, anger and the like.

There is plenty of evidence that people do not need to experience denial, anger, rationalization, or dealing during organizational change. Trotting out the stages of death and dying is just an excuse for leading in ways that fail to engage people’s hearts and minds.

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He talks about the type of communication needed in order to communicate change. I think he wisely included a photo of Star Trek’s Data (a sentient android for those who care) who loved data.

In my comment to this post, I thought that Data could become the patron saint of organizational change. Think about it, most influence strategies are heavy on one-way communication filled with lots of data, timelines, and so forth. And when our stunning PowerPoint presentation doesn’t work, we add clip art and do it all over again.

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I just saw a wonderful Charles Barsotti cartoon in an old New Yorker.

Two ducks, a pig, a fish, and a cat sit at a conference table. Each, in turn says “woof.” The dog at the head of the table says, “Everybody gets a raise.”

I’ve been in meetings where everybody says woof. When it’s your meeting, it’s a really nice sound, all those woofs. Makes you feel good, like you’ve done it again, and come up with yet another brilliant idea. But there is a danger in hearing all those woofs. Maybe the people at the table don’t really want to say woof. And maybe hearing other sounds might serve you better.

So, once you get over yourself, here are three that might help you get some real responses.

Prime the Pump. It was common to pour a little water down old backyard pumps to encourage the water in the well to come up to the surface. (I don’t know why that works either.) You could try the same thing. If you get a chorus of woofs and you really don’t think you can trust that universal show of support, you could just ask, “So what do you really think?” In a culture where people protect themselves by hiding the truth, that straightforward approach probably won’t work. So, you can prime the pump by asking, “I’m glad you like this idea, but could we look at the impact that this will have on staffing?” Or, could say “the budget?”, or “the impact on staffing of other current projects?”.

<p>Woof!</p>

Coffee with Joe. (Jo can be either gender, by the way.) Joe is the type of person who will tell you how he or she sees it. The Jo’s of the world don’t understand the phrase “career limiting move.” I recommend having just a cup of coffee, because you probably don’t want to hear their rants for much more than ten minutes.

Go Into the Belly of the Beast.  Tell people, “Glad you like my idea. Now, here’s what I want each of you to do. Take out a sheet of paper and write down all the things that could go wrong with it.” And then shut up and give people time to write. Write all the responses on a flip chart or white board and then get curious. Ask questions. Learn – don’t defend.

And if you still get woofs after trying any of those ideas, then your problem is a lot bigger than just running an effective meeting.

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As I waited for my dental appointment this morning, another patient had a seizure which resulted in a local EMT team taking him to a hospital. My dentist told me that something like this had never happened in his 27 years of practice, but his training served him well. He recognized the signs and knew exactly what to do.

It was a good reminder about the importance and power of good training. He and his team knew exactly what to do in the moment. They may have saved that man’s life.

As you might imagine, I thought about change management. (I mean, what else do I think about?) Even though executives and managers face change – and lots of it – all the time, they often don’t have the instincts to know what to do in the moment when a problem occurs. They don’t see the early warning signs or know to call the local EMT unit. Although most leaders have attended some program on change and read a book or two on the subject, that “book learnin’” doesn’t translate into behavioral change. It’s what Pfeffer and Sutton refer to as the knowing-doing gap.

Here are two things that you might consider to help you turn knowledge about change management into action:

Debrief past changes. The US military routinely conducts after action reports: what worked, what didn’t, what should we do next time. And members of the service tell me they take this discipline seriously. A great way to learn is to dissect our past actions so we can build on successes and find alternatives for the things that didn’t work.

Experiment. One of my colleagues at The Gestalt Institute of Cleveland (where I teach a few weeks a year) describes these as safe emergencies. Safe enough that if the activity goes bust you don’t put your career or the project at risk, but risky enough that it gets your juices going. Too safe and there is no learning. Too risky and there is no learning either because it is often too hard to step back and learn from what just happened.

Here’s how you might create an experiment. Let’s say that you do want to hear people’s opinions and reactions to a proposed change but you are afraid of the meeting getting out of control. To make it safer you could:

• Ask a select small group to comment, or. . .
• You could ask just one person for his or her reactions, or. . .
• You could conduct a short anonymous survey and sit with someone you trust to go over the results, or. . .
• You could ask your team just one question, or. . .
• You could put a time limit on the conversation. “”Let’s spend the next X minutes talking about. . . “

In addition to learning about reactions to this new project, you want to step back and ask yourself: what did I learn about my skills and reactions when I ask for this type of feedback? Was this easy or hard? How come? Any surprises? What served me well? What didn’t? Is there a way in which I could try a little bit riskier experiment that might increase my ability to get this type of information?

This type of thoughtful practice allows us to learn from mistakes.

As I write this, professional baseball players are in Spring training going over things they learned when they were children. Spring training gives them the luxury of trying out new things, refining problem areas, and getting feedback. Once the season begins and they start to face stiff competition, it becomes harder to step back and reflect. Too bad our organizations don’t offer Spring training.

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I just came across a thoughtful blog post on the risks inherent in outsourcing SAP (or any other ERP software implementation).  The points he raises are worth considering as you consider outsourcing or as you create an internal support team.

How Good an Idea is Outsourcing SAP Support?

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Just read a blog post in favor of employee surveys. Mega World blog  I agree, but they are often so bloated and forgotten. Here are my comments.

I like employee surveys too if a few things are in place:
1. The leaders know why they are conducting a survey and what they plan to do with the results before they ever send anything out. Without that keen interest on their part, it will be way too easy for them to blow off the results.
2. Encourage the leaders to include questions that are important to them. It needs to be their survey and not HR’s or the consultants’.
2. In addition to the 1 to 5 scale provide space for people to comment. Numerical  results only give a gross understanding of what’s going on. Narrative comments allow you to hear the stories. That’s where the value often lies.
3. Keep it short. I suggest no more than 20 questions. (I usually ask just four or five questions.) Response rate goes way up when people know that this won’t take them a long time to complete. And the narrative comments are a lot richer.

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1. The chair, Rep. Mike Robers (R) and ranking Democratic member, C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger work together. When Rogers was appointed chair he approached his colleague and suggested a truce.

2. They made a commitment to each other to “work together and not sandbag each other.”

3. They made some changes in committee staff.

4. They instructed their aides to brief members jointly. I suspect this eliminated the rumor mill and suspicion that others might be getting preferred treatment.

5. They held seminars for new members to get their buy-in.

6. They worked on ways to balance the desires of of very liberal and very conservative members.

7. They wanted “less partisan sniping – but also more aggressive oversight.” Not content with mere cooperation which could have results in weak decisions, they set the bar high – more aggressive oversight.

Ignatius suggests that this could be a model for the rest of our gridlocked Congress. I agree, and think this could be a model for removing trying to remove polarized thinking in organizations of all types.

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“. . .one noted voice cries, “It Doesn’t Work.” Lyndsey Layton wrote a fine article in this morning’s The Washington Post about Daniel Pink’s view on merit pay for teachers. (he is the author of Drive and other books.) The article is worth reading. Maybe it is worth reading because I agree with him. Merit pay for teachers does not appear to improve performance.

Photo of Daniel Pink (Linda Davidson)

While visiting the Post’s site I found a blog, The Answer Sheet written by Valeria Strauss. She provides an article rich in actual data about pay for performance. In an age of opinions then being justified by snippets of data, her writing is refreshing. I highly recommend both articles.

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I am preparing to work with a couple of teams that are facing a year full of challenging and some very risky changes. Here are some the key things I am going to say to them to get them thinking.

Let your team know what’s going on. May sound obvious, but it is amazing how often people below the top level are out of the loop. Those folks need to feel the same sense of urgency that you do. If things are keeping you awake at night, they need to feel that restlessness as well.

Assess how good you really are at change. Take a look at how well you’ve led and managed changes in the past. Many organizations don’t debrief how major projects worked. No sports team would go into the next game without looking at what was working for them and what was not. If you want to keep the debrief simple (and simple is far better than a lengthy report with lots of slides that no one will read), try this tried-and-true framework. What worked? What didn’t? What needs to be changed next time? And make it a conversation, not a report. Too many places to hide in a report.

Give people a common language for change. There are many good frameworks for leading change out there. If you’ve got one you like – use it. Don’t go looking for something new. But if you are searching for a way to talk about change, then consider my Change without Migraines™ approach. I suggest you start with the free e-book, Introduction to Change without Migraines™.

Engage your team in thinking. Let them help create the direction and the plans for the changes. Don’t wait to pull them in. Recently I was working with an organization that was trying unsuccessfully to implement major enterprise resource planning (ERP). Trouble was, this new ERP system felt like a missive from corporate. Some had no idea why this was critical. And many questioned why senior leaders expected ERP to work this time. And they bristled knowing that they were expected to salute and go along. Avoid all that hassle, and let people be part of the process. I have friends who routinely conduct active hands-on planning meeting for 300 to 500 people, who are all in the same room at the same time.

Be sloppy. Getting people involved and engaged won’t be tidy. it will be difficult to predict how long a portion of a meeting should last. You can never tell how much enthusiasm — or revulsion – people will have. Planning  meetings that ask people to sit quietly and watch endless slides presented by an endless array of speakers is not involvement. I’m rusty on this, but I think those death by PowerPoint meetings may have been in Dante’s sixth circle of hell. . . And if people are engaged they will let you know what’s needed next.

I welcome your comments and additions. Good luck with major change this year.

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Here is a sample of her work from Volume 1 of Musing Along the Way

Watching the Process

Day One

Today

I found two parts of me sparring. “I don’t want to live,” was challenging.

“I do want to live.”

No one was winning.

Day Two

I called a friend. She let me cry. No more fighting,” she said.

Relax into living.

Day Three

In human beings

Doubts arise.

Allowing them is essential.

Choosing anew is available.

Friends are indispensable.

Martha Johnson

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With seconds to play in the 2012 Super Bowl, the New England Patriots decided to allow the NY Giants to score which would give them a 21 to 17 lead. But this would give New England the ball with enough time to run a few plays and perhaps win the game. However, if the Giants didn’t take the bait and just held onto the ball without attempting to score, they would eat up previous seconds making it almost impossible for New England to win.

NY Giants’ Ahmad Bradshaw got the ball, ran toward the goal line, turned around, and then just couldn’t stop himself. He flopped over the goal line. He had to make the touchdown. (See video of Bradshaw’s winning touchdown)

I was working with a client last week that has the opposite problem. They start a lot of projects, but then never get anywhere near the end zone. There were no Ahmad Bradshaw’s to take the ball over.

I think Bradshaw’s instinct was to score and it seemed like he just couldn’t stop himself. And I thought how great it would be if my client were able to create such momentum that people had to get the project across the goal line.Their projects tended to fade away well before they could even see the end zone, let along enter it.

Some years ago, I asked readers of my e-mail newsletter, Tools for a Change to tell me about times when they were able to keep change alive. 23 Great Ideas to Keep Change Alive is a collection of what they told me. Perhaps these ideas lack the excitement of the final minute of the Super Bowl, but I think these people offer some great advice.

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Last weekend, I called into a planning meeting of a non-profit where I volunteer. Although I appreciated being invited to this important meeting, I was dreading spending 3 1/2 hours on the phone. If my experience was a guide, this was going to be long and boring. I expected to drift in and out of attentiveness. I even placed a stack of “to do” items on my desk and had Angry Birds at the ready just in case. . .

It didn’t start well. The meeting started late, so the handful of us who had called in sat in limbo waiting for people to arrive. Then there were the obligatory technical glitches with the conference line – an echo when someone spoke, someone couldn’t hear, we couldn’t hear them, etc. – and partially overhearing informal chatter as people settled in. I felt like Woody Allen in Stardust Memories. He sits alone on an old and dirty passenger train.  He glances across the tracks and sees another train where an elegant party is taking place. Fun people having fun.  I wanted to be there.

But, then the meeting changed — just like that. Suddenly I was on the cool train. The chairperson went over the agenda. It looked good  and it  seemed like it was going to cover the issues that were essential for us to address. A board member posed a set of questions that grabbed me. These were important and, for my money, the right questions to be asking. I wanted to be talking about these things. We were told that we would be spending a good part of the meeting addressing those questions in smaller work groups. I was engaged. I even volunteered to take on some extra tasks. It was a great meeting.

I was amazed at how quickly my inertia turned into excitement. There was nothing fancy about the technology. No video hook-up. We easily could have used a traditional old-school conference call line and it would have worked just as well. We didn’t need glitz, we needed conversation. And I think there were only three slides for the entire meeting: the agenda, and the lists of questions. So simple.

I think three things made this a productive meeting:

1. The topic was critically important. And everyone in the meeting knew that before they entered the meeting.
2. We were expected to contribute to help create solutions.
3. And the format allowed us to talk. We were in small groups with clear tasks.

Since I expect that you probably have been the prisoner of mind-numbing conference calls, perhaps you might consider using this approach. And if I am ever in one of your meetings, I hope you do take these ideas to heart. I’ll try to return the favor.

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Making a compelling case for change is the most important point in the life of a change — and the most neglected. Making a case is not just an intellectual exercise. People also need to feel the importance in their bones, and they need to trust the people delivering the information. When any of those are absent, people are likely to mutter:

Here are a few of the resources you can use today to make a more compelling case for change.

How to Build Institutional Muscle This short article deals with ways to help expand the pool of leadership thinking throughout your organization.

Open Book Management This approach is exactly what it says it is. Open Book Management invites you to open the books so that people not only see the numbers that drive the business, but see how those numbers connect to their own work.

Making a Case for Change is a list of lots of options for letting people know that something new is needed.

Many other resources  A couple of podcasts, more articles, and related blog posts.

Hope these ideas help.

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Interesting post in the ASSIEM blog of 20 signs that signal unhappy workers. I wouldn’t take the list at face value (see my reply to that post below) but it sure is a good starting point for looking at your organization.

• Increase in conflict amongst team members
• Increase in conflict between manager and employees
• Rudeness or unruliness
• Lack of enthusiasm
• Lack of engagement
• De-motivation
• Avoidance of work and/or making decisions
• Emotional distress
• Disorganised work environment
• Decreased productivity
• Not reaching expected targets or project/task delays
• Customer complaints
• Manager morale is low
• Bullying (whether obvious or subtle) – between employees or manager to employee
• Complaints about boredom
• Constantly working through lunch or long hours in the office
• Gossip and grapevine discussions re redundancy, reduced hours, lack of promotion/remuneration etc
• Communication shut down towards the manager
• Negative attitude to new projects or any change required of them
• Increased staff turnover

Here was my reply to that post:

Thanks for a fine list of things to consider. But I do hope that your readers don’t assume that the presence of any of of these items signals unhappy workers. I am quite happy (I work for myself) but I am wildly disorganized and postpone some decisions. You could argue that I am not as organized as I would like, but I am happy and pretty productive. (i.e. in business since 1978, had a few books published, and clients still call me.) Nevertheless, I think the list is well worth our attention. Any one of the items could be the tip of a very big iceberg.

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You sticky note story reminded of when I attempted to learn to Telemark (it is a technique that allows cross-country skiers to sort of replicate the downhill moves of “real” skiers.)

When I saw that the cross country center taught lessons, I signed up for the next morning. And then I had a sleepless night. I wasn’t a skier. I was getting older. I’ll make a fool out of myself. And the list of things that kept me awake kept getting longer.

Morning came and I drove over to the ski center. I was told my teacher’s name was Chip. So I immediately pictured a rugged Olympian who had no time for beginners. That didn’t help.

It turns out he was a really nice guy and a fine teacher. For instance, he gave clear performance feedback. His performance coaching would make ASTD members drool with envy.

Whenever he wanted to give me feedback, he’s ski over to where I was lying down and tell me what I had done wrong.

But the first time I did it right, he yelled out, “Yea.” I wanted more “yeas.” And as the morning went on i started getting more yeas. I felt great and my skiing improved. That was my sticky.

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I was taking part in a conversation on LEAN. Someone posed the question about what incentives people needed in order to support LEAN (a waste reduction process). As I read through the thoughtful responses, I noticed there was little about why people might be motivated to support LEAN in the first place. The responses spoke of incentives, providing good direction, and so forth. Nothing alluding to the importance of understanding why a change was even needed. Basic, but often overlooked. here is how I responded.

like a lot of what’s been said especially those comments that encourage people to be part of the process and see the value of what LEAN can offer.  I agree with the comments that most people come to work wanting to do a good job.

One thing seems to be missing though, and I think it is missing in a lot of organizational change projects.  Leaders fail to make a compelling case that a change is needed. (Kotter refers to this as sense of urgency). I describe it as Why before How. People need to see WHY a change is needed before they are interested in what and HOW they are going to do it.

The WHY has nothing to do with LEAN itself, but everything to do with the conditions and pressures facing the organization today. WHY should get people to say, “Wow! How are we going to tackle that?”

In an effort to get the work started, well-meaning leaders often take WHY for granted and move right to HOW. I believe people need to see and feel the need to change.  PowerPoint usually does not put fire into people’s bellies. PowerPoint (the influence tool of choice in many organizations) is good at providing data, but falls short when it comes to the emotional wallop that lets people feel that a change is needed. I recall a company that lost a major contract that resulted in their losing over half of their revenues. Instead of the usual presentations and executive pronouncements, they started the planning meeting off with someone from the contracting office of their former customer. I was told that you could hear a pin drop as this person told them why they lost. The speaker didn’t need to be dynamic or have good stories. People in that company wanted to hear what she had to say.

Once a critical mass of stakeholders see WHY change is needed, then most can’t wait to 1. work with leaders to find a way to tackle the problem or seize the opportunity, and 2. do what it takes to make the change a success.

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My prediction for the new year: Your organization will initiate many major changes with considerable hope and fanfare. But, by the end of the year, most will have failed, gone way over time and budget, or only given you some low hanging fruit. Statistics show us that year after year only about 30 percent of changes in organizations are successful.

There is one thing you could do that just might increase your success rate tremendously.  (I know you may be thinking that I am going to suggest an expensive consulting intervention or complex technical solution, but my suggestion is actually quite simple.)

Set a single compelling goal. That’s it.

First, allow me to tell you a story about some stunning positive changes occurring in inner-cities.

In Don’t Shoot, researcher David Kennedy wondered why our approaches to dealing with gang violence were so ineffective. With some 25 years of research on the streets, he found that our assumptions about gang members and violence were wrong, consequently our approaches to improving conditions didn’t work. He found that the criminal justice system couldn’t just take a “massive one-size-fits-all” approach to problems. The strategy had to be highly focused.

“It was narrow – don’t shoot. The normal frame said, don’t be in gangs, don’t commit crimes, don’t sell drugs, don’t carry weapons, don’t violate your probation, don’t drink and drug. Turn your life around. . . . This cut to the chase: Don’t hurt people. Say any more – don’t carry guns, don’t sell drugs, don’t recruit kids into your gang – you couldn’t back it up. There was just too much of it, and too little of us.” (Don’t Shoot: One Man, A Street Fellowship, and the End of Violence in Inner-City America (David Kennedy. Bloomsbury USA. 2011)

Here’s what they did. Most of the offenders were either on parole or probation, so they had to come to meetings when asked. Leaders picked a gang leader. When he walked in (and it was almost always a he), the gang leader saw his family, church leaders, and neighbors. These people told him that they needed him – his family and his community needed him. The authorities said that they would put away their file on him provided that he and his gang didn’t kill anyone. If there was even a single fatal shooting, police and the justice system would come down hard and most likely send him and others away for a long time.

Kennedy said that the programs that worked used “focused deterrence” – focus on one problem and on the group of core offenders.  (The statistics suggest that this highly focused approach which includes law enforcement, family, community leaders and key offenders approach is amazingly effective.)  Some cities have seen violence decrease by as much as sixty-six percent.

I think the implications from Don’t Shoot could be profound for our work in organizations as well. Here are the connections that jump off the page at me. I imagine that you can think of others.

Effective programs focus on a single thing. Too many organizational changes bundle all manner of grandiose goals. This may sound good and touch on all the issues that various groups think are important, but these goals lack focus. It’s hard, maybe even impossible, to set priorities and develop plans when everything is considered a top priority.

In dealing with gang violence the focus was don’t shoot. If you do, the world will come crashing down around you. Instead of trying to tackle everything that needed to be corrected, they chose one big thing. And, they found that by reducing shootings, it made communities safer and other problems began to dissipate.

Often when people tried to reduce violence in their cities, they assumed that they needed to fix all of the things that they believed created it: racism, residents’ dislike of police, no jobs, crumbling schools, and so forth. When gang members (and others in the community) realized that law enforcement and social programs couldn’t possibly deliver, they continued business as usual.  And others in the community felt they had been lied to about the grand promises of a better community. Don’t shoot tells you what is expected in just two words. Don’t shoot tells everyone that this is where we are going to focus our attention.

Pick one thing to focus on that everyone can see is important. And that everyone can easily see if you are making progress. As Jack Stack says in The Great Game of Business, you need to identify the critical number. When Stack and a couple of business partners bought Springfield ReManufacturing, the debt to equity ratio was 89:1. They knew that paying interest on that massive debt every month was their critical number. If they didn’t meet it, the banks could take their company away from them.

Too often, our scorecards are filled with too much data and this dilutes the message. That’s why don’t shoot and Stack’s bring in $X to pay the interest this month are so clear and compelling.

The people with a stake in the outcome are engaged.  There’s lots of good research about the importance of engagement in the workplace. And yet, too many changes fail to involve people in planning or leading portions of the change. (By the way, a question and answer period at the end of a mind-numbing PowerPoint presentation is not engagement.) Efforts for better change  find ways to ensure that people are invited to roll-up-their-sleeves and make the changes successful.

Kennedy describes how all affected parties (police, the courts, social workers, educators, churches and the gang leaders) were working together to reduce violence. Jack Stack writes that everyone at Springfield ReManufacturing knew the critical and number and knew how their work contributed to servicing the debt.

Combine Reality, Hope, Support, and a Simple Plan

While the clear and simple goal is important, it rests within the context of reality and support.

Reality. Effective changes must address the status quo. People need to feel the need for change in their bones. That can be painful, sobering, or embarrassing, but it is essential. People need to face reality. In the Don’t Shoot approach, people in those communities desperately wanted the violence to end, and they realized that the usual way of trying to fix the problem didn’t work. And gang leaders needed to see why their behavior had to change. At Springfield ReManufacturing everyone was expected to act like an owner in finding ways to meet the critical number every month. (Once the company paid off its debt, the critical number changed. But, they always had a critical number.)

Hope. Reality without hope leads to depression. Hope comes from an inspiring goal that people believe can be attained. Focusing on reduction in violence seemed difficult but possible.

Support. People in organizations need all types of support (e.g. money, time, access to other key players) and they need to feel like people are rooting for them or maybe even have their backs. By asking family, clergy, and community leaders to speak about what they need from the gang leader is saying in effect, “We believe in you. We believe you are a leader. We want you to succeed so that our community can succeed.” That’s the makings of a lot of support.  When the owners of a small company said, “we want you to act like owners” they were demonstrating their belief in the people who worked with them.

As you start planning  for the new year, I hope that you’ll consider the simplicity and wisdom of Don’t Shoot. I wish you well. (And, as always, I welcome your comments.)

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In spite of my aversion to resolutions that must begin on January 1, I love this list written by Woody Guthrie in 1942. “Wash teeth, if any” being my favorite.

I just completed a survey asking about my experience buying a new car. I think I hated filling it out worse than I hated actually buying the car. The salesperson was very good. No complaints. But there were a few things about the dealership that I would have rated a little lower. But, the salesperson asked a favor. He said that I would be getting a survey from the manufacturer. “Would I please rate everything a 10?” He explained that his pay was directly linked to top scores.

I happen to believe in the potential value of feedback (I even wrote a book on the subject), but this process was a parody of good feedback. The only person to benefit was the salesperson. The company will learn nothing about the quality of this dealership. The dealership won’t learn anything about what this customer really thought about the entire sales process.  And, while the salesperson will make his commission, he will learn nothing about areas in which he might improve.

P.S. As I was writing this blog post, the salesperson called to say thanks for completing the survey. I told him I was glad to help him, and then told him about this blog post and that I did have feedback for the dealership. His response: “Thanks for filling it out. If I can do anything to serve you in the future. . .” Ah, feedback.

I am not big on resolutions. Exercise facilities will be jammed from January 2 until February 15 or thereabouts, and then only the regulars will remain. For most the resolutions to lose weight, etc. etc. will be forgotten. I figure if I need to do something different, I ought to try to start making a change whenever it occurs to me that some change might be a good idea. Nevertheless, I am always eager to find a planning/organizing system that can make following my plans a little bit easier.

Kaihan Krippendorff posted Hack Your Productivity: A Time Management Geek’s 10-Minute Solution on the Fast Company page. I like what he has to say. Here’s what hooked me: “First, let me tell you what it’s not. This is not a visioning method. In other words, this method does not imply that by envisioning an outcome–a new job, a successful fundraising meeting, winning a sale–you will realize the outcome. My first roommate, and first officemate when I joined McKinsey, was the coach of the U.S. National Rugby Team in a prior life. He shared with me that he, and many elite athletes, envision a game in minute detail before they get on the field. But just envisioning victory is not enough. You have to get on the field. This simple process stimulates both–the vision and turf, the dream and the action.”

He created a planning tool. Simple, huh? I hope you’ll take a look.  I’ve only been using for a few days, but I do seem to be getting more productive work done. And that’s unusual for me over the holidays. . . . Also, I think the tool might be very helpful on change management projects. I’ll let you know.

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Majdi Alhman posed a fascinating question in the Lean Six Sigma Forum on LinkedIn: what is the ninth waste (in lean Six Sigma)? You might have thought that he would have received a few comments. But he received many. He summarized the list and I thought I’d share it with you.

While I like the simplicity of a list of eight, with so many contenders for 9th on the list, perhaps we should consider a longer list. At the very least, I think those of us who work in support of Lean Six Sigma ought to pull out Majdi’s list and seriously consider these items when periodically just to make sure we are on track. And we might pull out the list on any major change management project. Thanks, Majdi and Lean Six Sigma Forum.

Here is his list:

Thanks all for the overwhelming and interesting response on this question. I have summarized all comments chronologically so new readers can easily join this thread. Hope I didn’t miss any information.

1. Unused competence/Underutilized resources(Christer Wahlberg, Jim Pruitt, Vinod Kumar, Germán Gosalbez,diedria Preston, Bruce Dellaposta, Roosevelt Ratliff III , Kaye Woodard,Gerald Matson
2. Unused space – from a workshop perspective (Majdi Alhmah, Nirupama Palyam)
3. Unused Space – from a global perspective (Liviu Ibanescu)
4. Government (Steven Bonacorsi, chaitanya chowdary koduru)
5. Meetings (Eric Gemunder, Majdi Alhmah, Andrea Evans, David Xu Dong, Dan Willis, Cuneyt Harputluoglu, Navjot Singh Boparai)
6. Creating an additional waste (Alex MacPhie)
7. Unemployment (Ted Weiler, Paul Gundersen)
8. Complexity (Fred Levko)
9. Poor communication (Mutahir Hasan Khan)
10. Safety & Accidents (Mutahir Hasan Khan, David Reno, Fabio Verdinelli)
11. Inadequate methods/equipment (Mutahir Hasan Khan)
12. Poor planning (Mutahir Hasan Khan, Steve Phillips, Leon Smith)
13. Low employee engagement (John Harrison, Carlos A. Sanchez)
14. Performance appraisal (Venkat K)
15. Things to appease your manager not the organization (Venkat K)
16. Excess use of resources (Arun K Mishra)
17. Entropy (Andrea evans, Fabio Verdinelli)
18. Too much communication (James Thottan)
19. Excess and unnecessary information (Majdi Alhmah)
20. Motivation (Antony P, Cuneyt Harputluoglu)
21. Decision taking time (Vishwanathan C)
22. Inspection (Scott Thor, Vinod Kumar)
23. Uncertainty (Alexander Glazkov)
24. Expectation (Sateesh Muggalla)
25. Controls (Cesar A. Cartagena)
26. To have too many No. 1 priorities (Rolf Nitsche)
27. Excess costs including too much overhead (Divyang Joshi)
28. Rework (Vinod Kumar )
29. Powerpoint (James Richardson)
30. unfulfilled jobs (Paul Gundersen)
31. Harming environment (Stijn Schretlen)
32. Over management (Kevin Baldwin)
33. Inefficient communication (Srivatsa R, David Xu Dong, Edward Malek, Pooja Gaddh)
34. Lack of creativity (Carlos Young)
35. Working on the wrong thing (Gay Kheun (YiQian) Tan)
36. Risk/Unsafe practices (O. C. P)
37. Leadership (Daniel Walker)
38. Industrial politic (Shivagouda Patil)
39. ENERGY & WATER (Rodolfo Sanchez, Cynthia Martinez, Fabio Verdinelli)
40. Over-regulations (Sonia Tardajos)
41. Poor Management (Carolina Nuñez)
42. Politics (Peter Reynolds, Stephan Bals)
43. Audits and Standards like ISO…etc (Majdi Alhmah, Rodolfo Sanchez)
44. Supply Chain Management (Majdi Alhmah)
45. Searching for answer to the questions that have no value.(Lutfi Apiliogullari)
46. Excess job roles (Kartik Balasubramanian)
47. Lost Opportunity (Priyaa Gurunathan)
48. The waste of looking for other wastes (Glen Knight)
49. Written complicated procedures (Massimo Cinotti)
50. Mismanagement of natural resources (Rika Visser)
51. Paper (Roosevelt Ratliff III)
52. A product or service that does not meet customer needs. (Gregg Van Citters)
53. Emails (Pooja Gaddh)
54. The waste of “Just-In-Case…..” (Larry Bartlett)
55. Just to point out that some above mentioned the waste of human skills which is actually the 8th Waste)
56. Inefficient use of technology (Varun Bhatia)
57. Congested space (Nirupama Palyam)
58. WRONGFUL EMPOWERMENT (Carlos Tenorio)

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I don’t think it is the consultant’s job to bring change to our clients’ organizations. It’s their organizations, so they get to decide. The decision to change or not change is a leadership function. Once we start making those calls for them, then we are acting in a management role. And I think that’s inappropriate.

But giving advice on what and how they ought to change can be pretty tempting since we often have experience with similar changes that allows us to see possible train wrecks in the making. And giving advice can be a tempting for our clients as well. First, they don’t have to grapple with their own reluctance to change because they can push back at us. (By the way, I believe that whenever there is a strong want, there is a strong resistance trying to protect the status quo.) When they resist us, they fail to own their own resistance to change. Or,2.  if they do accept our advice, they’ve got some to blame if it all goes wrong.  I recall some managers telling me that they would always hire premier consulting firms, so that the risk of failure was carried by those outsiders. “I know the project failed, but we brought in Acme Consulting, so we had the best working on this. Nothing else we could have done.”

I have been greatly influenced by The Paradoxical Theory of Change by gestalt psychologist Arnold Beisser. (1970) He writes that we can’t make anyone change. He suggests that the therapist or the consultant in this case, “. . . rejects the role of “changer,” for his strategy is to encourage, even insist, that the patient be where and what he is. He believes change does not take place by “trying,” coercion, or persuasion, or by insight, interpretation, or any other such means. Rather, change can occur when the patient abandons, at least for the moment, what he would like to become and attempts to be what he is. The premise is that one must stand in one place in order to have firm footing to move and that it is difficult or impossible to move without that footing.”

So, if I follow his advice, I respond to my clients’ requests. They called me for a reason. As reluctant as they may be, they do want something. I use that vision/concern/whatever to begin to help them see all the forces at play vividly. I especially want to help my clients see the forces that maintain the status quo. I may “insist” that my clients pay attention to the data in front of them. I encourage them to look closely at the survey data, financial analyses, trends, and so forth. I may even offer my opinion, but it’s not my job to try to make them change.

The paradox is that this approach often allows clients to get excited about possibilities. Resistance diminishes since no one is trying to tell them that their view of the world is wrong (don’t we get angry when someone tries to tell us that they know better than we do? I do, at any rate).

I find the Paradoxical Theory to be liberating for me and my clients. Instead my trying to get them to do something, I can work at helping them see the situation with greater depth and clarity. When this happens, it is common to see clients get excited and start taking action on whatever prompted this conversation in the first place.

Rick

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(Photo of Matthew Lesko. Gawker.com)

Probably no surprise, but employees that identify with their organizations make more money.  OI (organizational identification) stems from corporate character. Not what the organization says it will do in its values statements and marketing materials, but in what it really does. Researchers found that many employees pick up their OI from their managers. It seems there is a direct link from managers’ OI to employees’ OI to customer spending.  (From a blog post by Donald R. Lichtenstein, James G. Maxham III, and Richard G. Netemeyer)

“Stephen Brown and Son Lam, two professors from the University
of Houston analyzed over 28 studies of employee engagement
and customer service quality (Journal of Retailing, 2008). They
conclude that ‘Managers should realize that satisfied, motivated, and
committed front-line employees constitute a powerful engine for the
delivery of service quality and customer satisfaction.’ ” (From Employee Engagement to What End?)

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I’m glad you learned some things from your old boss, but there are some big things missing. First, your boss or you don’t mention the importance of clear goals. Edwin Locke’s research found clear goals were the top motivator. 4. And I strong disagree wiht never criticize or correct. I think your point is to engage people in conversations about performance. I like that, but if your boss really asked: “Was that the best way to approach the problem? Why not? Have any ideas on what you could have done differently?” – is condescending. People don’t want to be humiliated, insulted or have their intelligven insulted, but people who care about their performance usually want guidance on ways to make things better. . . One last thing that motivates people and that’s work that makes a difference. Without clear goals, work that matters, and honest productive feedback, everything else may be nice but merely fluff.

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I doubt that anyone would argue with your four points. I’d like to add something to point three. Creating a culture where change is the norm is rare and I find that my clients need help in addressing that challenging issue. Here are some that seem to work:
1. Open the books so that people see the financial situation, trends, opportunities and threats. Any of the books on Open Book Management  should help you get started. I liked Jack Stack and John Case’s writing.
2. Evaluate changes that worked in your organization, compare them to those that failed. Then create a template so that everyone in the organization has a common language for for change. This template should be just that — a 10,000′ guide, and not manuals filled with worksheets, etc.
3. Build evaluate into the process. Expect that every major  change gets evaluated so people can learn what worked, what didn’t, and what we would change next time. Without this requirement, people often allow changes to just die and no one learns. And there is no chance to learn from mistakes or repeat successes.

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I won’t repeat what they say in their post, but here’s what I like about the five questions. They are the type of critical questions that should be asked but are often just taken for granted. It’s easy to say, “Sure, we’re ready for change” without slowing things down enough to find out if we really are ready.

My suggestion: ask the executive (or planning) team  is look at Keller and Price’s five questions and tell them that purpose of the next meeting is to discuss our responses to those critical questions. If you are serious about doing change right, I believe attention to these questions could make a big difference in how you plan your next new initiaitve.

I wish you well.  – Rick

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I like Kotter’s eight steps. He deserves a lot of credit for coming up with a practical and logical set of steps. Many of my own clients use his model when they think about change. In reading Kotter’s classic book, Leading Change, there is one thing implied in his model, but not addressed as deeply as I would like. And that’s resistance. I advise my clients who use Kotter’s model, to ask a single question at every step along the way: To what extent are various stakeholders supporting this change  and to what extent are they resisting? Too often leaders (and their consultants) go through the stages as if they were steps in a recipe. (Just add 22 PowerPoint slides, let the points seep, and then bake until done.) It doesn’t work that way. (And I am pretty certain Kotter would agree with me.) Each stage demands a feedback loop. For example, his first step is creating a sense of urgency. I agree completely with that. But, it is too easy for us to look at what we do to create this urgency and not ask ourselves, were we successful? What’s the data that tells us people feel fire in their bellies.  It’s like using driving instructions from your GPS without making sure that you really were supposed to turn left into that corn field.

Another issue that I believe is implied in his writing, but deserves more attention is engaging lots of people in the process. A guiding coalition can be a critically important step, but that often isn’t enough. Get lots of people involved. When high involvement is handled well it can be a significant force in making all the stages work more effectively because it increases the number of people who care about making the change a success. You have higher engagement, less resistance, and more leaders scattered throughout the organization.

Of course, everything I just said applies to any model of change you use, it just happens that Kotter’s is the most widely quoted and discussed.

For a refresher on Kotter’s steps from the man himself: The 8-Step Process for Leading Change

- Rick

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Here’s what he said: “It was narrow – don’t shoot. The normal frame said, don’t be in gangs, don’t commit crimes, don’t sell drugs, don’t carry weapons, don’t violate your probation, don’t drink and drug. Turn your life around. . . . This cut to the chase: Don’t hurt people. Say any more – don’t carry guns, don’t sell drugs, don’t recruit kids into your gang – you couldn’t back it up. There was just too much of it, and too little of us.” Once gang members (and others in the community) realized that law enforcement couldn’t possibly  deliver, people felt they had been lied to. Kennedy said that programs that worked used “focused deterrence” – focus on one problem and on the group of core offenders.

The statistics suggest that this highly focused approach which includes law enforcement, family, community leaders and key offenders approach are amazingly effective.

What are the implications for those of us who work in organizations?

Plenty. (And I have only begun to read and think about the lessons in this fine book.)

Effective programs focus on a single thing. In gang violence it was – don’t shoot. If you do, the world will come crashing down around you. Instead of trying to tackle everything that needs to be corrected, they chose one big thing. And, they found that by reducing shootings, it made communities safer and other problems began to dissipate.

The community was deeply involved. They held meetings with key gang leaders and told them that they had a file on them and were prepared to prosecute them, but if they cooperated, law enforcement would put the file away. Then parents, church leaders, and others told the gang leader how important he was to their community. His leadership could make a difference. They said that the community counted on him. They needed him. Some organizations take a “who moved my cheese” approach that softly threatens people. Mice: either change or you’ll die.

Some organizations focus too much on appreciative creation of visions. The Don’t Shoot approach links the realities of the situation (i.e. unless we change our doors could close, just look at these trends and numbers) along with the  strong message that you (employees, supervisors, managers) are critical to our success. )

On the radio program Fresh Air, Kennedy was asked about the “broken windows” approach that some communities take. If broken windows etc. are fixed it sends a signal and other things are ignored. That seems to be true, but some communities not only fix windows, they stop cars for the least offense. In short, they turn the neighborhoods into police states. Violence and drug use does appear to go down, but it destroys the community in the process. The lesson for leaders: there is a big cost to a command and control approach to change.

What are your thoughts?

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