Why does change go wrong?
The soft stuff is the hard stuff
Ivan Overton, MD of ChangeWright Consulting (Pty) Ltd
After more than a decade of well researched studies and a host of books on the topic, organisations still tend to underestimate what it will take to get their employees to adopt change in an effective, sustainable manner.
This article is written from within a context where change initiatives are implemented through projects and project teams - however, the problems highlighted below that are commonly encountered in the project environment are also more generally applicable.
Positioning the change
Inadequate senior management support
It often happens that there is inadequate lobbying and alignment of senior leadership in the pre-execution stage of the change initiative. Management involvement cannot stop with budget approval. Managers need to understand their role in the change initiative right from the start so as to ensure that those impacted or those who may influence the outcomes are fully on board.
Even when there is full commitment and alignment of senior leadership, the assumption is frequently made that each leader will somehow “know” what they have to do to support the initiative. This assumption is based on 3 factors:
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They understand that much of the success of the change initiative is dependent on them as leaders
- They have a good grasp of the relevant change leadership roles they will be expected to fulfil
- They understand the initiative timeline and detail approach adequately to know where, when and how they should participate.
For many typical senior leaders, at least one of the points listed above would not be true, which means that they will not be able to fulfil their important change leadership role effectively unless they receive the appropriate guidance and support. This has major negative implications for the likelihood of success of any change initiative.
Losing sight of reality
Change initiatives are also put at risk because organisations often neglect to keep track of their “change load” over time and to take this into consideration when planning initiatives. Organisational capacity and time are finite. People can only absorb so much change within any given time period.
In trying to juggle very demanding jobs and an overload of initiatives, employees do not have adequate time for effective participation in change initiatives, for the required dialogue and interaction to help them deal with their reactions to change and to develop adequate levels of ownership, or for training and proper adoption.
Breaking the golden thread of logic and ownership
For every change initiative, there is a “golden thread”, woven together of logic and ownership.
The logic of a change initiative must extend back clearly to the origin of the initiative and its explicit relation to the organisational vision and strategy, and forward to inform every communication event, every interaction and every deliverable.
Ownership must flow unbroken from the most senior source down through the organisational structure, with full accountability for the success of the initiative at each level.
Incorrect positioning of the project team
Incorrectly positioning the project team as “doing it TO the organisation” rather than “doing it FOR the organisation” results in the project team, instead of management, taking ownership for the decision to change as well as the outcomes.
Executing the change
Inadequate management of the process
While it is a truism that change cannot be managed in the direct sense, an unmanaged change process introduces a significant risk of failure. There must be adequate planning, control and measurement of the process to ensure a consistent, systematic and effective focus on value-adding outcomes.
Poor communication
Communication is very easy to get wrong, and almost impossible to do perfectly. Some of the most common mistakes with regard to communication in support of a change initiative are:
· Treating communication as a one-way process rather than seeking as many opportunities as possible for dialogue and interaction.
· Thinking that once it’s been said once, it’s done. Messages can be filtered in too many ways to entrust an important message to one communication instance only. Communication should be repeated several times and in different formats and channels to have the desired effect.
· Trivial, insincere, inappropriate, or even downright dishonest communication. It takes just one such message that does not ring true to lose the trust of stakeholders for the duration of the change initiative, perhaps forever. The effect of this is cumulative; employee cynicism is likely to become one of the major obstacles to change in many organisations.
· Excessive dependence on mass communication channels. Such mass communication channels should at most form a pervasive but secondary background for a primary focus on more interactive and personal communication methods.
· Failure to ensure that the really important messages are delivered by leadership. Employees expect to hear about change from their leaders, and do not generally place much stock in messages that come from other sources.
Poor stakeholder management
Stakeholders should be identified, prioritised and engaged in a systematic process that includes ongoing feedback and assessment of progress. Where issues are surfaced, these should be recorded and resolved in a formal issue resolution process.
The stakeholder management process should be based on a clear understanding that people react differently to change. An approach that is sensitive to individual differences is therefore required.
Failure to manage stakeholders and related issues effectively will, at best, lead to crises of varying intensities that will soak up energy that could have better been used for delivery on the change initiative. At worst, such failure could translate into large-scale misalignment and snowballing stakeholder resistance that could derail the change initiative.
Poor enablement
When implementing significant organisational change, individual employees and the organisation should be enabled to deal with the change effectively. Such enablement may be “soft”, addressing less tangible aspects such as culture, leadership styles or attitudes, or “hard”, addressing tangible aspects such as pre-printed stationery, office furniture, or computer infrastructure. Shortcomings in enablement will greatly increase resistance to change and also contribute significantly to the risks of sub-optimal change outcomes, poor sustainability, delayed benefit realisation and even outright failure of the initiative.
Enablement extends far beyond the training that may be associated with the change initiative. A full and detailed analysis of change impacts and their implications is required, followed by equally detailed change enablement planning.
Sustaining the change
Giving up too soon
Project teams tend to be disbanded shortly after implementing change. This causes a loss of momentum and the drive required to sustain it.
It does not make financial sense to keep a project team running for any longer than necessary, yet it makes even less sense to spend a great deal of money on a change initiative, only to pull the rug from under it just when the change impact is at its greatest.
Often initiative overload also takes its toll in this regard. Employees can often be heard to complain that they never get to deal properly with one wave of change before the next is upon them.
Poor embedding
Newly implemented change requires the correct nurturing and care to allow it to grow strong enough to survive on its own. It is not enough that the project team (or at least part of the team) maintains a presence for some time after the implementation of change. They also need to be focused on the right things.
Doing change management well requires focus on so many different aspects and the commitment of many different role players. To secure your investment in any change effort, it is important to start change management efforts early, focus on the right things throughout and ensure that the change is sustained, all with the involvement of the right people.