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Leading Change

Revision 9

© Kwela Leadership and Talent Management Systems

All Rights Reserved. No part of this document may be photocopied, reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means whether, electronic, mechanical, or otherwise without the prior written permission of Kwela Leadership and Talent Management Systems.

Permission granted to Community Social Services Employers' Association to reproduce this document for the workshop facilitated on October 10th, 2018. These materials must be deleted from company’s servers after this date.

Table of Contents

Introduction .................................................................................................. 1

Learning objectives .................................................................................. 1

My additional learning objectives ............................................................. 1

Forces Driving Change ................................................................................ 2

Impact of Change ......................................................................................... 3

Targeting Both Minds and Hearts ................................................................. 4

A Model for Change ..................................................................................... 5

Endings .................................................................................................... 5

Neutral Zone ............................................................................................ 7

Beginnings ............................................................................................... 8

Applying The Change Management Practices ......................................... 9

Applying The Change Management Practices Continued ........................ 14

Leading Change Tools ................................................................................. 15

Overview of the change practices and related tools................................. 15

SWOT Analysis ........................................................................................ 16

Facts, Opinions and Guesses (FOG) ....................................................... 17

Meeting Rhythm ....................................................................................... 18

Vision Checklist........................................................................................ 20

(D x V) / F > R ......................................................................................... 25

Force-Field Analysis ................................................................................ 26

The Affinity Diagram ................................................................................ 28

Payoff Matrix ............................................................................................ 29

Targeting Both Minds and Hearts Continued ............................................... 30

Change Management Template ................................................................... 32

Endings .................................................................................................... 32

Neutral Zone ............................................................................................ 36

Beginnings ............................................................................................... 37

Appendix ...................................................................................................... 38

Case 1: Gloves on the Boardroom Table ................................................. 38

Case 2: The Plane Will Not Move! ........................................................... 39

Dealing With Resistance To Change Worksheet ..................................... 41

Job Aid ..................................................................................................... 44

INTRODUCTION Whatever the scope of the change, it places significant demands on the skills of leaders. This is particularly true when leading medium to large scale change efforts.

This workshop illustrates the single biggest challenge is leading change is changing people’s behaviour. The central challenge is not strategy, or systems or process or culture. These components are very important but at the core, working with people in a way that has them embrace the change initiative is the key. The workshop discusses a model for leading change that, when followed, increases the odds that the change project will succeed. The model is augmented by a handful of tools and techniques that have practical utility and application.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

The learning objectives of this course are:

• Learn a practical leading change model & method

• Deal better with resistance to change

• Identify opportunities for taking action on your change initiatives & projects

MY ADDITIONAL LEARNING OBJECTIVES

2

FORCES DRIVING CHANGE

TABLE GROUP ACTIVITY

Discuss the business environmental trends (both current and future) that you consider are and/or will have an impact on your organization’s future.

Impact of Change

3

IMPACT OF CHANGE1

William Bridges uses a very useful framework to explain the impact that change has on people. The model has three phases.

ENDINGS

• Denial

• May move from denial into resentment

• May fight to preserve the old system, or attempt to hold onto the old

• Stress can be high

• May affect both positive and perceived negative change equally

NEUTRAL ZONE

• Disorientation

• Confusion

• Lack of focus

• Beginning to let go

• Discomfort when starting to let go of the old but not yet embracing the new

• Testing new behaviors, procedure, processes

BEGINNINGS

• New energy and excitement emerges

• Some, limited risk taking

• Feel a bit more included in the change

• Some attachment to new processes and systems

• See new possibilities

1 Source: William Bridges, Managing Transitions, pg. 47-49

4

TARGETING BOTH MINDS AND

HEARTS People change what they do not because they are given analysis that shifts their thinking, but because they are shown a truth that influences their feelings. Both thinking and feelings are important and necessary, but we tend to be more comfortable and competent in using the former.

Identifying a problem all too often requires that it is analysed and quantified. Careful data gathering and presentation has a place. All too often it is a well analysed problem that opens stakeholder’s minds to the prospect that there is a problem that deserves their attention. And moving to the next step is essential. Work needs to be done to awaken feelings and emotions that facilitate useful change and ease feelings that are getting in the way. The aim is to evoke feelings related to urgency, optimism and faith; and to reduce anger, complacency, cynicism and fear.

Leading change in a way that targets both the minds (analysis) and the hearts (emotions) of those involved greatly enhances the probability that the change will be successful.

Behaviour

Hearts

Minds

A Model for Change

5

A MODEL FOR CHANGE

ENDINGS

BUILD THE CASE AND INCREASE URGENCY

Raise the feeling of urgency so that people say “let’s go” – making a change effort well positioned for launch

• Incorporate appropriate information about the organization’s market and competitive realities, weaknesses, threats, and/or opportunities in establishing the need for the change initiative

• Use data from customer satisfaction surveys, employee engagement measures, budget, productivity, process cycle time, etc. to explain the change

• Show people the need for change with a visually compelling, attention grabbing and memorable object or experience that they can ideally touch, see and feel

• Constantly and opportunistically look for cheap and easy ways to reduce complacency

• Never underestimate how much complacency, fear and anger exists, even in good organizations

SELECT THE TEAM TO LEAD AND INFLUENCE

Help form a group that has the capability – in membership and method of operating – to guide the change

• Pull people into a team that have the right blend of positional power and personal power to guide the change

• Spend time building trust and teamwork – model these behaviours

• Structure and facilitate meetings in a way that ensures great focus and alignment of people and resources around the key change priorities

• Note: Do not proceed to the subsequent steps if you know that you do not have the right guiding team in place. Rather, put all your energy into the first step, i.e. increasing urgency

6

CREATE A VISION

Build the right vision and strategies to guide action and decisions in all the remaining stages of the change

• Create a vision of the future that is so vivid and compelling that it appeals to both the hearts (emotions) and minds (logic) of those whom need to be influenced

• Formulate strategies bold enough to make bold visions a reality

• Pay careful attention to the strategic question of how quickly to introduce change (and err on the side of going faster)

COMMUNICATE FOR BUY-IN

• Keep communication simple and heartfelt, not complex and technocratic

• Do your homework before communicating, especially to understand what people are feeling

• Use metaphors and analogies to create images that will help the understanding and acceptance of the change

• Create mechanisms for two-way communication and dialogue

• Use multiple communication mechanisms and avenues, e.g. organization - wide voice mails, newsletters, one-to-one meetings, speeches or presentations, emails, question and answer sessions, posters and bulletin boards, videos, etc

• Communicate over and over again, as a way of improving retention

A Model for Change

7

NEUTRAL ZONE

EMPOWER ACTION

Deal effectively with obstacles that block action, especially disempowering managers, lack of information, the wrong performance measurement and reward systems, and lack of self-confidence

• Provide feedback and coaching that can help people make better vision-related decisions

• Confront people who continue to undercut the change

• Provide recognition (and if possible, reward) systems that inspire, promote optimism, and build self-confidence

• Find individuals with change experience who can bolster people’s confidence with “we won so can you” anecdotes

CREATE SHORT-TERM WINS

• Plan for early wins that come fast, easily and cheaply (even if they seem small compared to the grand vision)

• Make them as visible as possible to as many people as possible

• Make them meaningful to others – the more deeply meaningful the better

• Ensure that they are unambiguous, i.e. clearly and conclusively related to the change effort

• Tell all stakeholders of the achievements

DON’T GIVE UP

Continue with wave after wave of change, not stopping until the vision is a reality, despite seemingly intractable problems

• Rid yourself of work that wears you down – tasks that were relevant in the past but not now and tasks that can be delegated

• Look constantly for ways to keep urgency up

• Find opportunistic ways to continue the change (and not just relying on a rigid 2 or 3- year plan)

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BEGINNINGS

MAKE THE CHANGE STICK

Be sure the changes are embedded in the culture of organization so that the new way of operating will stick

• Tell vivid stories over and over about the new organization, what it does and why it succeeds

• Ensure that you have continuity of behaviour and results that help a new culture grow

• Use promotions to place people who act according to the new norms into

influential and visible positions

A Model for Change

9

APPLYING THE CHANGE MANAGEMENT PRACTICES


1. Brainstorm a list of five to six changes that have occurred within your organization over the last while

2. Place these into two categories: those changes that you consider to have been “successful” and “less successful”

3. Identify one change in each category that the table group has sufficient “collective memory” of

4. Using the Leading Change Worksheets (one worksheet per change) on the next pages, reach consensus on the extent that each change practice was prevalent

5. Apply a percentage for each change practice

6. Plot your assessment in a graph, similar to the one below

0

10

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40

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70

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Incre

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Team

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Cre

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Vis

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Co

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Do

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Giv

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Make C

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LEADING CHANGE PRACTICES WORKSHEET (1)

PROJECT:

Build The Case And Increase Urgency

• Incorporate appropriate information about the organization’s market and competitive realities weaknesses, threats, and/or opportunities in establishing the need for the change initiative

• Use data from customer satisfaction surveys, budget, productivity, process cycle time, etc. to explain the change




Select The Team To Lead And Influence





Create A Vision

• Create a vision of the future that is so vivid and compelling that it appeals to both the hearts (emotions) and minds (logic) of those that need to be influenced



Communicate For Buy-In





A Model for Change

11

• Use multiple communication mechanisms and avenues, e.g. organization-wide voice mails, newsletters, one-to-one meetings, speeches or presentations, emails, question and answer sessions, posters and bulletin boards, videos, etc


Empower Action





Create Short – Term Wins





• Tell all stakeholders in the change of the achievements

Don’t Give Up




Make The Changes Stick



• Use promotions to place people who act according to the new norms into influential and visible positions

12

LEADING CHANGE PRACTICES WORKSHEET (2)

PROJECT:


• Incorporate appropriate information about the organization’s market and competitive realities weaknesses, threats, and/or opportunities in establishing the need for the change initiative

• Use data from customer satisfaction surveys, budget, productivity, process cycle time, etc. to explain the change









Create A Vision

• Create a vision of the future that is so vivid and compelling that it appeals to both the hearts (emotions) and minds (logic) of those that need to be influenced








A Model for Change

13

• Use multiple communication mechanisms and avenues, e.g. organization-wide voice mails, newsletters, one-to-one meetings, speeches or presentations, emails, question and answer sessions, posters and bulletin boards, videos, etc


Empower Action










• Tell all stakeholders in the change of the achievements

Don’t Give Up







• Use promotions to place people who act according to the new norms into influential and visible positions

14

APPLYING THE CHANGE MANAGEMENT PRACTICES

CONTINUED


Discuss the question: when comparing the two graphs, what are our key insights and lessons learned?

INDIVIDUAL ACTIVITY

• Consider a change that you are leading and/or plan to lead in the future

• To what extent have you incorporated each of the leading change practices into your process?

• Where are the gaps? What actions do you need to take?

• Discuss with a partner

Leading Change Tools

15

LEADING CHANGE TOOLS

OVERVIEW OF THE CHANGE PRACTICES AND RELATED TOOLS

Leading Change Practices Tool


SWOT analysis and FOG


Meeting Rhythm

Create A Vision

Vision Checklist


Stakeholder Analysis

(D X V) / F > R

Empower Action

Force Field Analysis and Affinity Diagram


Payoff Matrix

Don’t Give Up


16

SWOT ANALYSIS

The SWOT Analysis can be used to evaluate the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats involved in an organization, project and/ or change being implemented. It involves specifying the change that is being focussed on and identifying the internal and external factors that are favourable and unfavourable to achieving the change project’s outcomes or objectives.

The SWOT Analysis can be used as input in formulating the business case and in raising the urgency need to drive the change initiative.

STRENGTHS

Aspects of the organization, from an internal and/or current perspective, which represent an asset or in which the organization performs particularly well

WEAKNESSES

Aspects of the organization, from an internal and/or current perspective, which represent a liability or in which the organization performs poorly

OPPORTUNITIES

External and/or future factors or situations which present an opening for the organization to leverage to its benefit

THREATS

External and/or future factors or situations which pose a challenge to the organization and will lead to a deterioration in performance if not dealt with appropriately

During the SWOT analysis, the most important priorities in each category should be identified.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project


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FACTS, OPINIONS AND GUESSES (FOG)

You may consider using FOG alongside the SWOT. An information piece raised during a SWOT analysis can be a fact, an opinion or a guess.

• Facts: can be proven true. They’re usually more useful, but are also harder to find or prove

• Opinions: are the considered thoughts of people

• Guesses: are acknowledged as uncertain ideas

You can write F, O or G in brackets next to an information piece to indicate whether it is a fact, an opinion or a guess.

The FOG tool has a number of benefits:

• Makes people realize that their opinions are not necessarily facts (opinions should be recognized as opinions and treated with caution)

• It legitimizes opinions, i.e. it suggests that expressing an opinion is a good thing

• When too many opinions are listed and just a few facts; it may be an indication that more facts need to be sought or gathered

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MEETING RHYTHM

When leading a change initiative much of your contact with key stakeholders will be in meetings. Designing a series of meetings that allows you to consistently focus and align people to the change vision and plan is critical. The quality of the meetings is equally important. Patrick Lenconi2, recommends that four meetings are held: the daily check-in, the weekly tactical, the monthly strategic, and the quarterly offsite review.

Meeting Type Time Required

Purpose and Format

Keys to Success

Daily Check-in 5 min Share daily schedule & activities

• Don’t sit down

• No agenda or problem solving

• Don’t cancel even when some cannot attend

Weekly Tactical 45 – 90 min Review weekly activities & metrics; resolve tactical obstacles & issues

• Initial reporting first (top 3 things per person: 2-3 min); then set agenda

• Note and postpone strategic discussion

Monthly Strategic (or ad hoc Strategic)

2 – 4 hours Discuss, analyse, brainstorm and decide upon critical issues affecting vision & strategy

• Limit to 1 or 2 topics

• Prepare, do research and get info that can be shared to people before

• Engage in good conflict

Quarterly Review 1 day Review vision, strategy, business trends, resourcing and key people & team development

• Don’t over structure

• Sometimes, get out of office

• Engage in good conflict

The daily check-in is just that, a quick huddle to find out what everybody is doing. There's no agenda and no problem solving, just a basic social check-in so people know what their team members are doing.

The second kind is a weekly tactical meeting, which is where people talk about how the team is doing against near-term goals. This is the place they can discuss the problems they need to resolve to accomplish those goals. It's not about strategy or brainstorming – it's about solving problems that are holding the team back.

2 The “four meetings” framework is drawn and adapted from Patrick Lenconi’s book: Death by Meetings


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The third kind is the monthly strategic meeting. You take one big topic that will have an impact on your future and spend two hours or more wrestling it to the ground. These meetings can be invigorating because they're focused on solving a big problem. People brainstorm, push each other, and really draw on their unique perspectives and various levels of experience.

The last kind of meeting is a quarterly review. These meetings allow people to step back from the business, take a breath, and re-assess where they stand. The topic can be anything – competitors, the market, what your best employees are doing – anything. The function is to help people regain perspective and view the business in a more holistic, long-term manner. It's about “slowing down to go fast."

CUSTOMIZING YOUR OWN

Given your set of circumstances and situation, what type of meetings do you need to structure and facilitate to ensure your change remains on track? Getting into a well thought through “meeting rhythm” greatly increases the odds that your change plan will be implemented.

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VISION CHECKLIST

Use the following tool can assist in formulating a vision for the change. Complete the statements that are most applicable.

It is July 31st 2017 (insert your end date) and …

• Our most significant accomplishments were…

• Our customers are saying …

• We have succeeded in…

• The one thing that impacted our success the most was…

• The biggest change in the past 15 months was…

• I am most proud that we…

CHARACTERISTICS OF AN EFFECTIVE VISION

• Imaginable: conveys a picture of what the future will look like

• Desirable: appeals to the long-term interests of employees, customers, and others who have a stake in the organization

• Feasible: comprises realistic, attainable goals

• Focused: is clear enough to provide guidance in decision-making

• Flexible: is general enough to allow individual initiative and alternative responses in light of changing conditions

• Communicable: is easy to communicate; can be successfully explained within five minutes


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EXAMPLE: KWELA’S VISION

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Stakeholder analysis

WHO IS A STAKEHOLDER?

Stakeholders are managers, leaders, members, clients or organizations with a vested interest in change initiative. A stakeholder is also anyone who can be positively or negatively impacted by, or cause an impact on the success of the project.

Wikipedia’s definition is: a person, group, organization, or system that affects or can be affected by an organization's actions.

WHAT IS STAKEHOLDER ANALYSIS?

A stakeholder analysis is a technique you can use to:

1. Identify people, groups, and institutions that will buy into, support or influence an initiative, either positively or negatively.

2. Anticipate the interests and concerns that these people will have with respect to the initiative. For some, their interests may be the same as yours (i.e. they are likely to be supportive), while for others, this may not be the case.

3. Consider the power that each stakeholder group has to influence the outcome. You need to pay the closest attention to people who have the most power with respect to getting your change implemented.

Based on the interests and power of each stakeholder, develop strategies to get the most effective support possible for the initiative.

UNDERSTANDING INTERESTS

Working effectively with your stakeholder groups requires you to understand their deeply held interests. As opposed to what they do or don’t want, their interests are their deeply held beliefs about why they hold certain positions on things, which could either enhance or inhibit your proposal. Interests are sometimes referred to as “hot buttons” or “priorities”.

Once you understand the interests of others you can adapt your message or the proposal itself to deal with those interests, and your chances of positively influencing the other party greatly increase.

Useful Tip: It is always good to ask yourself why you want what you want. This will help you get a better understanding of what your real goals are.3

3 http://web.mit.edu


23

USING THE POWER-INTEREST GRID TO PRIORITIZE STAKEHOLDERS

The power-interest grid allows you to classify stakeholders by their influence over your change project and by their interest in it. People with high power and interest are the people you must fully engage and make the greatest efforts to influence.

The grid helps answer the questions:

- Who are the approvers, who are the decision makers?

- Who should be consulted?

- Who should be kept informed of the outcome, but is not involved?

- Who is not involved in the outcome?

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STAKEHOLDER ANALYSIS TOOL

Stakeholder group or individual

What are their interests or concerns?

How much power do they have?

H/M/L

My strategy for working with them


25

(D X V) / F > R

A central theme is this workshop is that when we lead change, targeting both the minds (analysis) and the hearts (emotions) of those involved greatly enhances the probability that the change will be successful.

The three of the leading change best practices covered earlier (summarized by the formula below) can be used to advocate for change and achieve higher levels of buy-in:

D X V

> R

F

D Dissatisfaction with the status quo (or “build the case and increase urgency”)

People need to understand what is wrong and why it is a problem before they will do things differently.

V Vision People need to know where you want them to go, and more importantly, the benefits of getting there.

F First step The larger the first step, the more people resist change. However, if there is an initial step that they can do that is less effort or involves less risk/cost, they are more likely to go along with an idea.

R Resistance People have an intrinsic desire for stability, which is why they resist change. The amount of resistance tends to vary for different people, and in different situations. The other three factors must overcome this resistance.

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FORCE-FIELD ANALYSIS

Desired

situation -----------------------------------------

Restraining forces

Present

situation -------------------------------------------------

Driving Forces


27

NOTES ON FORCE FIELD ANALYSIS

The Force Field Analysis model depicts the dynamics at play in a change process. It ensures optimal involvement to implementing change and it increases commitment.

The Force Field Analysis model shows any current level of performance as a state of equilibrium between the driving forces that encourage upward movement (towards the desired situation), and the restraining forces that discourage it. Driving forces are generally positive, reasonable, logical, and conscious. In juxtaposition, restraining forces are sometimes negative, illogical and unconscious. Both sets of forces are very real and must be taken into account in dealing with change.

STEPS4:

1. Describe your change vision or the desired situation that you are aiming to achieve.

2. Next, ask the meeting participants to identify (individually) the current drivers that are enabling the achievement of the vision/the desired situation; and the current restraints that are discouraging or preventing the achievement of the vision.5

3. Using flip chart paper, create two columns. One with the heading: Driving Forces and the other with the heading: Restraining Forces.

4. Ask the group to gather around the flip chart paper and to convey the driving factors and restraints they identified. Write these down in the appropriate column.

5. Explain to the group that you will focus on the restraining forces. Say that the easiest approach is to increase the driving forces, because you usually have control over them. But what is more important, and more difficult to achieve, is to reduce the stumbling blocks, the problems, issues and concerns that we are faced with. By reducing the restraining forces, the driving forces will likely increase on their own.

6. Cluster the restraining forces into logical categories. Ask which of the restraints can be linked with others. Aim to have 5 or 6 categories and ask the group to provide a label or name for each category.

7. Note: There will be restraining forces that are outside the participant’s sphere of control. Ask the group to identify these “uncontrollables”, make a note of them (on the flip chart) and say that you will escalate these to the appropriate levels.

4 These steps assume that you’re using them in a facilitated meeting or discussion situation. 5 Consider using Post-it notes and the Affinity Diagram described on the next page.

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8. Consider prioritizing the categories. This enables you to work on the top three, and if time allows you can focus on the others. Alternatively, you can schedule another session to work on the others. Tell the group that they each have 3 votes (appropriate if you have 6 categories and you want 3 priorities), and they should make a mark, using a magic marker, next to the category that they feel you should work on. They are allowed to place their votes as they choose, i.e. all on one category or on separate categories.

9. Tell the participants that the next step is to brainstorm solutions, ideas, alternatives, or options that may enable you to overcome the restraining forces. You will brainstorm for each restraint category or cluster identified.

10. Point out the rules of brainstorming are the “3 P s”

• Positive: no judgment or evaluation of ideas permitted at this point; all ideas are valid and encouraged.

• Prolific: quantity breeds quality ... generate as many ideas as possible. (Also, encourage them to build on each other’s ideas.)

• Playful: wild and crazy is okay!

11. Prepare a sheet of flip chart paper for each restraint category. Begin the brain storming and capture the input on the flip chart.

THE AFFINITY DIAGRAM

Consider clustering ideas / actions / items into categories as a means of helping the meeting participants synthesize and assimilate information. This technique will help you to manage data better.

PROCESS:

1. Prepare a wall with flipchart paper on it.

2. Have the meeting participants write their ideas, actions, etc. on Post-it self-stick notes.

3. Hand out magic markers for writing and ask that the results are legible, understandable and readable by others.

4. Take the Post-its from the participants and place them on the prepared wall.

5. Find logical categories / clusters and provide each category with an overarching title or name. If you have more than four to five categories, draw the relationships between all clusters, determining which are subsets of larger ones until you have fewer categories left.


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PAYOFF MATRIX

The payoff matrix is a good way of helping a team / meeting visualize their options and then to make decisions on how to move forward. It helps you focus on the priorities that need to be integrated into your change management plan.

Post options and alternatives on this four-block grid:

Easy to accomplish

Difficult to accomplish

High impact on the organization

1

2

Low impact on the organization

3

4

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TARGETING BOTH MINDS AND

HEARTS CONTINUED

TARGETING MINDS / HEARTS REAL PLAY

This is an opportunity to use (D x V) / F > R on a real change you’re implementing.

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Identify a real change you’re implementing (or plan to lead in the future) and that you want to use for practicing.

2. Your objective is to build and then communicate a persuasive proposal related to your change

3. Use D, V and F to structure your proposal. Incorporate what you’ve learned in the workshop to appeal to both minds and hearts, for example, are you able to use a story and/or metaphor to make your point as compelling as possible?

4. Use the space on the next page to document your proposal. There is no need to write out your sentences, just use key words

5. Working in triads, each of you will advocate for your proposal. Before you begin, provide some context to your two partners

6. When you are done, get feedback from your partners. They will use these stem sentences to give feedback:

a. “This is what I saw that I liked …”

b. “One suggestion for next time is …”

7. Then rotate and repeat until everyone has had a turn.

Targeting Both Minds and Hearts Continued

31

NOTES:

32

CHANGE MANAGEMENT TEMPLATE

ENDINGS

Step: Build the case and increase urgency

Outcome: Raise the feeling of urgency so that people say “let’s go” – making a change effort well positioned for launch

What information can you use about the organization’s market and competitive realities, weaknesses, threats, and/or opportunities to establish the need for the change initiative? What data is available from customer satisfaction surveys, employee engagement measures, budget, productivity, process cycle time, etc. to explain the change?

What visually compelling, attention grabbing and memorable object or experience can you show people (ideally something they can touch, see and feel) that evokes emotions related to the change?

Remember:

− Constantly and opportunistically look for cheap and easy ways to reduce complacency

− Never underestimate how much complacency, fear and anger exists, even in good organizations

Tools:

− SWOT and FOG

Change Management Template

33

Step: Select the team to lead and influence

Outcome: Help form a group that has the capability – in membership and method of operating – to guide the change

Who needs to be on the team that can help guide the change? Consider positional and / or personal power as two of your selection criteria.

How will you structure and facilitate meetings in a way that ensures great focus and alignment of people and resources around the key change priorities?

Remember:

• Spend time building trust and teamwork – and model these behaviours

• If you’re struggling to achieve this step, it is likely that step 1 has not been done well. Do not proceed to the next step. Rather, put all your energy into increasing urgency as this will increase the odds of putting together the right team

Tool:

− Meeting Rhythm

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Step: Create a vision

Outcome: Build the right vision and strategies to guide action and decisions in all the remaining stages of the change

What is the vision for the change? How can you make it so vivid and compelling that it appeals to both the hearts (emotions) and minds (logic) of those whom need to be influenced?

What bold strategies and actions need to be formulated that will make the vision a reality? What are the timelines?

Remember:

− Pay careful attention to the strategic question of how quickly to introduce change (and err on the side of going faster)

Tool:

− Vision Checklist


35

Step: Communicate for buy-in

Outcome: Communicate the vision and strategies so well that they create both understanding and gut-level buy-in

How will you do some homework before communicating, especially to understand what people are feeling?

What communication is needed to ensure buy-in over time?

Remember:

− Keep communication simple and heartfelt, not complex and technocratic

− Use multiple communication mechanisms and avenues, e.g. organization-wide voice mails, newsletters, one-to-one meetings, speeches or presentations, emails, question and answer sessions, posters and bulletin boards, videos, etc

Tools:

− Stakeholder Analysis

− Ending, Neutral, Beginnings

− Force Field Analysis and Affinity Diagram

36

NEUTRAL ZONE

Step: Empower action

Outcome: Deal effectively with obstacles that block action, especially disempowering managers, lack of information, the wrong performance measurement and reward systems, and lack of self-confidence

What barriers do you anticipate and how will you overcome them?

Remember:

− Provide feedback and coaching that can help people make better vision-related decisions

− Confront people who continue to undercut the change

− Provide recognition (and if possible, reward) systems that inspire, promote optimism, and build self-confidence

Step: Create short-term wins

Outcome: Produce sufficient short-term wins, sufficiently fast, to energize the change helpers, enlighten the pessimists, defuse the cynics. And build momentum for the effort

What are early wins that will come fast, easily and cheaply, yet be visible and meaningful to others? (even if they seem small compared to the grand vision)?

Remember:

− Ensure that they are unambiguous, i.e. clearly and conclusively related to the change effort

Tool:

− Payoff Matrix


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Step: Don’t give up

Outcome: Continue with wave after wave of change, not stopping until the vision is a reality, despite seemingly intractable problems

What ways exist to constantly keep urgency up?

Remember:

− Rid yourself of work that wears you down – tasks that were relevant in the past but not now and tasks that can be delegated

− Find opportunistic ways to continue the change (as compared to just relying on the rigid and structured plan)

BEGINNINGS

Step: Make changes stick

Outcome: Be sure the changes are embedded in the culture of organization so that the new way of operating will stick

What vivid stories will you tell over and over about the new organization / team / product / etc., what it does and why it succeeds?

Remember:

− Use promotions to place people who act according to the new norms into influential and visible positions

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APPENDIX

CASE 1: GLOVES ON THE BOARDROOM TABLE

We had a problem with our whole purchasing process. I was convinced that a great deal of money was being wasted and would continue to be wasted into the future, and that we didn't even know how much money was being thrown away. I thought we had and opportunity to drive down purchasing costs not by 2 percent but by something in the order of $1 billion over the next five years. A change this big meant a big shift in the process. This would not be possible, however, unless many people, especially in top management, saw the opportunity, which for the most part they did not. So nothing was happening.

To get a sense of the magnitude of the problem, I asked one of our summer students to do a small study of how much we pay for the different kinds of gloves used in our factories and how many different gloves we buy. I chose one item to keep it simple, something all the plants use and something we can all easily relate to.

When the student completed the project, she reported that our factories were purchasing 424 different kinds of gloves! Four hundred and twentyfour. Every factory had their own supplier and their own negotiated price. The same glove could cost $5 at one factory and $17 at another. Five dollars or even $17 may not seem like much money, but we buy a lot of gloves, and this was just one example of our purchasing problem. When I examined what she had found, even I couldn't believe how bad it was.

The student was able to collect a sample of every one of the 424 gloves. She tagged each one with the price on it and the factory it was used in. Then she sorted the bags by division in the firm and type of glove. We gathered them all up and put them in our boardroom one day. Then we invited all the division presidents to come visit the room. What they saw was a large, expensive table, normally clean or with a few papers, now stacked high with gloves. Each of our executives stared at this display for a minute. Then each said something like, "We buy all these different kinds of gloves?" Well, as a matter of fact, yes we do. "Really?" Yes, really. Then they walked around the table. Most, I think, were looking for the gloves that their factories were using. They could see the prices. They looked at two gloves that seemed exactly alike, yet one was marked $3.22 and the other $10.55.

It's a rare event when these people don't have anything to say. But that day, they just stood with their mouths gaping. This demonstration quickly gained notoriety. The gloves became part of a traveling road show. They went to every division. They went to dozens of plants. Many, many people had the opportunity to look at the stacks of gloves. The road show reinforced at every level of the organization a sense of "this is how bad it is." Through more research, again done quickly and inexpensively by one of our students, we discovered what some of our competitors were doing. The "competitive benchmarking" was added to the road show. As a result, we were given a mandate for change. People would say, "We must act now," which of course we did, and saved a great deal of money that could be used in much more sensible ways. Even today, people still talk about the glove story.

Appendix

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CASE 2: THE PLANE WILL NOT MOVE!

A C-17 is a huge aircraft. Its tail rises six stories. Watching it being built is an incredible thing.

Aircraft are most typically assembled in a series of positions. You start work in one physical location, then when a set of tasks are completed, you move the plane to a second location, then another until you're done. In the case of the C-17, the main fuselage might be assembled in position a, the tail attached in a different place over in position b, the wings attached in position c, the cockpit electronics installed in position d and so on. For this, you have to have a hangar that's large enough for two or three 747-sized aircraft to be in production along with the equipment. This is a huge amount of square footage. 1500 of our employees would be in this giant hanger. They would be dealing with many, many thousands of parts. It's an incredible production process that requires complex scheduling and coordination.

The speed with which an airplane moves through the different positions is driven by the schedule. If work is not complete at one position when the schedule says it should move, the plane moves anyway and the rework is done at the end. If parts don't arrive on time, but the schedule says you need to move the airplane, you would move the plane and do out-of-position work at the end. As you can imagine, taking apart a plane at the end of the line that has been assembled in modules, adding parts and then reassembling, leads to quality problems and delays. But this was the way the whole industry did things. No one questioned it. It simply was the way we did things. I suppose it was like third grade children going to school 8:00 to 3:00 and sitting in rooms with teachers. Of course you do it that way.

As soon as Koz arrived, he made it clear that the priorities for the C-17 program were to excel in terms of quality, schedule, and cost, in that order. He really raised the bar. We weren't excelling. He set a clear vision of the significantly improved performance we needed. I bet he talked to everyone about this and got much head-nodding. 'Sure Boss'. And I bet most people wanted that vision and did try a little harder. But they accepted the basic production system as it existed as the only way to do things, and with that they accepted certain problems as inevitable. The mindset was-'Yea, it would be nice if we were never out of needed parts but that's impossible in this industry.' So people made small adjustments and this strategy did not come close to achieving Koz's raised-bar vision.

Then one day he stood up in one of our management meetings and said, 'we are not going to move an airplane until it is completely in position. Quality is number 1. So that's what we are going to focus on. Until the plane is done and done right, no movement. Period.'

Everyone thought he was off his rocker. You didn't do things this way. I think some of his direct reports, in particular, thought he was crazy. They were convinced that we would never be able to deliver on time if we did it this way. Never, wouldn't happen, anybody knows that. Something would always happen that would grind everything to a halt. You'd have employees twiddling their thumbs at great expense to the company. You might as well expect cars to be made by secretaries on the 59th floor of the Sears building in Chicago.

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We had all heard the quality speech before, but here was a guy telling us that nothing goes anywhere unless it's properly done. That was the right thing, the smart thing to do, and Koz showed complete conviction that this radical idea was right. And if his words did not win us over, all day long we had to look at a plane that was not moving until it was completely in position. All day long, there it was, not moving. Nope. Sitting there.

After Koz made his proclamation, things began to change faster. The fact that out-of-position work would not be tolerated meant that suddenly having parts arrive on time was critical. Our procurement guys got motivated like I'd never seen before. They started coming up with all kinds of new change strategies for their operation. And--- incredible since this couldn't be done---they started succeeding in getting our suppliers to operate in new ways. So we began getting the right parts at the right time!! Overall, people just didn't want to be the reason that a plane was held in position for longer than it was supposed to. They didn't want to be embarrassed, they didn't want to hurt the company, they didn't want to hurt their careers, they didn't want to let Koz down--- lot's of reasons. So they started breaking through walls. As evidence began to accumulate that this nutty idea might actually be working, more people got with the program. More started finding ways to punch through walls. When they couldn't do it by themselves, they would come to Koz with specific ideas, sometimes very clever ideas, for what was needed, for how problems could be solved. Koz would then work with them to remove the obstacles. So if it helped for Koz to talk to the President of a parts company, he'd do it.

Holding the planes in place eliminated all sorts of bad habits. So no longer could we say, 'of course some percentage of parts won't arrive on time. That's just life'. No, that's not life. That's life as we knew it.

To make a long story short, people got it, we transformed the place, and, as a result, quality has gone up and all of our aircraft have not only been on time, they have been early!! To this day people still tell this story, from the shop floor to the executive offices. 'He said the plane would not move. Period.'

Appendix

41

DEALING WITH RESISTANCE TO CHANGE WORKSHEET

STEP Notes – things I can do and say

1. Anticipate resistance

• Listen and observe.

• Expect there will likely be resistance, if not at first, then later.6

• Focus on the symptoms of the resistance – be aware when you are observing it. Don’t take it personally.

• Check out with others that your observations are accurate.

2. Tell the person what you’re seeing

• Respectfully articulate what you are observing to the person and invite a response. Examples:

o “I don’t know how to read your silence. Can you help me?”

o “You seem to be very concerned about how disruptive this change will be to your daily routine. Can you say more?”

o “I see that you’ve not placed your name next to any of the actions we’re generated during our meetings.” What is going on for you?”

• Explain the impact of the person’s behaviour, for example, “your silence makes me uncomfortable as I don’t know the extent to which you support the idea’s we’re trying to implement.”

6 Remember the “Ending; Neutral Zone and Beginnings” model.

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3. Understand the person’s perspective. Validate the resistance

• Ask questions to help you better understand the person’s concerns. Acknowledge and validate their concerns - even if you disagree with the resistance.

• Practice active listening. Occupy less than 25% of the air time. Ask lots of probing questions.

• Summarize your understanding of the problem; check that this understanding is correct. Really show the person that you get were they’re coming from.

• At this point, avoid making statements that sound like directives or advice.

• Invite the person to ask you questions.

4. Explain why the change is important / necessary7

• Although you may already have done so, again explain why the change is needed.

• Describe what the future goal / state will look like.

7 This step is relates to “Build the case and increase urgency” and “creating a vision” best practices we discussed earlier.

Appendix

43


5. Problem solving and follow-up

• Ask the person to actively problem solve with you. Focus on what can be done to overcome the issues and concerns generated the previous steps.

• Generate at least 3 to 5 ideas / solutions / options for the more significant concerns or issues raised.

• Then evaluate the options generated and explore the extent that they can be implemented.

• Discuss next steps – what you will do, what the person will do. Establish expectations which should be both task and behavioural in nature.

• Look for opportunities to affirm the person’s worth and importance. Find opportunities to recognise progress and changes.

• Persistently follow-up on the commitments made. Review them. Discuss progress (or lack there-of) and next steps.

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JOB AID

www.kwelaleadership.com

http://www.kwelaleadership.com/

leading change workbook - version 9 - copy change.pdf · raise the feeling of urgency so that...

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