Chapter 19
Change Issues
We are passing through an
official era of reinvention, reengineering, and transformation. And we hate it.
We hate change because no matter
which of three classic responses we make to it, it wins. If we don't embrace
change, it overtakes us and hurts like hell. If we do try to embrace it,
it still knocks us for a loop. If we try to anticipate it, and be ready
when it appears -- well, it doesn't make much difference, we still wind up on
our keesters. Change is pain, even when self-administered.
Change is to a team as the ocean
is to a sponge -- it is inside, outside, everywhere, the milieu in which
everything happens. Teams in most companies are a part of the change. Because
teams are geared toward flexibility, they should be better able to deal with
the difficulties of change than conventional work groups.
But it's still a drag, and many,
many teams have perished because they could not adapt to the changes engulfing
them. This chapter looks at the ways change can batter a team, and ways teams
can batter back.
There's not much we could tell an
acquaintance of ours, Steve. He and his team were hit hard by change, and it
extracted a terrible toll.
He had to move his product design
team from a remote location to headquarters (some 20 miles away) while the
manufacturing group they supported remained. This move didn't make sense to
most of the team. The fact that the decision came both as a surprise and with
short notice caused some anxiety and tension. Steve's challenge was fourfold:
to take the edge off his team's stress, to weave himself and the team into the
new surroundings, to not lose touch with manufacturing, 20 miles away, and to
maintain performance while all this was happening.
There were many decisions to make
and many people to contact in order to get stuff done. It meant setting up in a
very short time a functioning equivalent of work processes that took years to
get right at the old location. Considerations included supplies, copying, mail,
carpools, parking, communication strategies, policies, procedures, name badges,
space allocation -- and where did you say the bathrooms were?
It took Steve three months and
several economy size jars of Excedrin to overcome their initial resistance,
make the dreaded move, and settle down to business. Three months of pushing and
pulling with various headquarters staffers who pretended you had just arrived
from Mars ("And you are who, you're here to do what?") Three months
of tension, confusion, fidgetiness, frustration, hard feelings.
How did productivity fare through
this disaster? Superbly -- not.
By the end of their ordeal, which
they endured with fortitude and resilience, they were wrecks -- demoralized,
exhausted, and vulnerable. And of course there was no rest period for them,
because change never lets up. One wave engulfs you, and its big sister is
coming up behind.
If you are serious about helping
your team and its members increase their tolerance for change, there are seven
facts about people and change that you must understand.
When undergoing change:
1)
People feel awkward,
ill-at-ease, and self-conscious for some of the reasons above.
The people best adapted to change are those raised in an ever-changing
environment, like army brats who move every three or so years, or research
scientists seeking change with every breath. For the rest of us, change is
scary, painful, and unwanted.
2)
People will think first
about what they must give up.
It's a defense mechanism; the worst-case scenario. Team members will first
think about what they have to lose by being on a team rather than what they
have to gain. The job of an effective team leader, then, becomes one of
painting positive expectations of outcomes to overcome this natural defensive
behavior.
3)
People will feel alone.
Most people will not share their feelings of change anxiety with other team
members for fear of being seen as uncertain or uncommitted. As a result, little
communications occurs at the very moment (during change) when good
communications is most critical. During change, the tendency is to hunker down
and stiffen the upper lip, all the while feeling isolated and alone. When it
comes to change, feelings are facts. Now is the moment to have team members get
their feelings out on the table and resolved.
4)
People can handle only
so much change.
We've worked with several organizations during major change times -- some more
successful than others. One of the keys to successful change is timing.
Companies that dole out change in small doses over longer periods of time,
hoping to minimize negative impact, are surprised at the sudden dip in morale
after about the second or third dose. Even medicine given in small doses loses
impact in short order. Until team members can picture in their minds what their
task and their role will be like when this change is complete, they will
probably just nod their heads and not comply. Organizations that have had the
best success with change make major steps in short timeframes, with the
end-product carefully described upfront. With this information under their
belt, team members tolerate the short-term pain for the longer-term payoff. The
"dribble" or incremental change method only heightens the sense of
mistrust of management that many employees already have.
5)
People have different
readiness levels for change.
Any time a team is asked to change, some members will be excited and ready, and
others will appear to have anchors tied around their enthusiasm. As we saw in
Chapter 8 ("The People Problem"), people are way different from one
another -- how fast they can commit to change is just another way in which we
differ. The challenge for teams is to boost the readiness of their least ready
members, because these people determine the pace of the team as a whole. Any
attempt to push faster will meet with increased resistance and slow the
process. Following the steps laid out later in this chapter will help speed the
change process along even for the less enthusiastic.
6)
People will fret that
they don't have enough resources.
The first noise you hear from people in change pain is, "We could do
it if we only had more resources." Sure, we all would like additional
resources -- but we usually have not made much use of the resources already at
our disposal. Untapped, available, shared, borrowed, stolen, or heretofore
unknown resources are usually all a team needs to get it through a tough change
phase. Look around. Use the unused and underused. Make do. Or don't do. One
nifty trick, after you've exhausted your search, is to go to the persons
blocking the needed resources and ask for their input on alternative resources.
Those who block usually know the way around the block, if anyone bothers to
ask. They won't volunteer this information, but if asked, they'll usually tell.
7)
If you take the pressure
off, people will revert to their old behaviors.
Momentum is an amazing and wonderful force. Like a compass, it keeps you going
in the same direction. If the direction you're going, however, is the wrong one
and needs changing, momentum can kill you. Momentum, like a magnet, will pull
you back in the old direction, the old way of doing things. Change is a
temporary force that pulls you in a new direction; but only if its applied
continuously until the new behaviors become the norm, the new north. If you
take the pressure off too early in a change process, the team will revert to
the old way of doing business, old relationships, old behaviors, old processes,
old habits.
Personality type naturally plays a
role in one's ability to meet change head on.
You remember the grid showing
Analyticals, Drivers, Expressives, and Amiables.
The same grid, with a little
change, tells a story about change potentials:
|
(metamoron)
|
|
Analytical
|
Driver
|
(metaphile)
|
|
|
(metaphobe)
|
|
Amiable
|
Expressive
|
(metamaniac)
|
|
Each type is perfectly capable of
normal change. The center of the grid could be shaded in as "OK about
change." At their extreme edges, however like when a Driver is a very
strong Driver, or an Analytical is a super-Analytical -- pronounced differences
become apparent.
§
Drivers love
to lead, and true leading implies change, so it is logical that Drivers have a
special knack for changing. Pure Drivers are metaphiles, cheerful embracers of
the new and untested.
§
Expressives like
to play. Their natural mode is exploration, and that is an intrinsic useful part of change. Pure Expressives are metamaniacs, so enamored of change that
they have to be changing in order to
function.
§
Amiables are
the people everyone else loves to have around. They are the perfect antidode in
a marriage to a strong Driver they smiles, they shrug, they love, they
forgive. Not exactly hard chargers. Thus Amiables have a tendency to be metaphobes, people disinclined by nature
to enjoy change much.
§
Analyticals
are usually right, but they can be awfully tight about it. They are the
perfectionists of the world, dotting every i
and crossing every t. At the extreme,
they become metamorons, people to
whom change is completely unacceptable because change ruins their data, their
level thinking field.
What does it mean?
It means you dont load a change
initiative team with metamaniacs there will be hamburger all over the
highway. Neither do you assign a metamoron the task of leading a team in a
pilot change project.
Most teams contain people from
more than one group. This is actually not a bad thing. A team with a metaphile
on it will likely galvanize everyone else to follow her or him. A team with a
metamaniac on it will benefit from the reassuring foot-dragging effect of a
metaphobe.
As always, the beauty of teams
are their diversity. A team of all metamorons all people with strong
Analytical bent, like a lot of functional teams in finance, engineering, and
the other analytical arts is going to have a hell of a time moving off the
dime.
By the way, in our practice, we
have learned that not many people like being called metamorons. Just remember
that only extreme, off-the-chart double-dutch Analyticals qualify for this
august title. Chances are, you're much too balanced to deserve such an epithet.
Perhaps the most common factor in
each of our lives is change. At work, at home, at play, daily transitions occur
that make things different. Some variations are large and significant; most are
small and simply intrude upon our daily routine. In order to understand our reaction
to change, we first need to look at the speedbumps
which slow us down as we approach any change. These fall into three types: People,
Processes, and Structures.
Resistance to change is almost a
fundamental fact of human nature. We wish this were not true. Resistance to the
inevitable suggests there is something sort of stupid about us. But true it is.
The sequence goes like this:
1.
Unplanned change creates anxiety...
2. Anxiety
drags its feet in resistance...
3. Irresistible
force collides with immovable object...
4. Team
explodes in immense fireball.
It happens every time. Well, not
every time -- few lottery winners decline to take possession of their winnings,
to sidestep the changes that wealth brings. But most change stimulates
resistance.
Most resistance, we believe, comes from at least a two-step process.
First, human beings are creatures of habit, each one surrounded by an
individual comfort zone of behaviors
and interactions. Too much variation often means we must leave our comfort zone
and face unknown consequences, which we have to evaluate.
If we win the lottery, get a
promotion, or find a new friend, most of us react positively. It's where we
perceive negative consequences to change, or continued uncertainty, that we
resist.
Resistance can come from a number
of sources:
fear ... of failure; of loss (loss of
identity, belonging, control, meaning, security, etc.); of the unknown; and of
negative consequences such as criticism for mistakes.
laziness ... not wanting to put in the
effort to make the change happen. These are the people who only see the
short-term work required and become myopic to the big picture or future/long term gain.
previous momentum ... too much time and
effort expended in the "old ways." This is the opposite of laziness.
One is heading deliberately in a particular direction, has picked up speed, is
feeling OK -- then is asked to apply the brakes and turn in a brand new
direction. This takes a toll on renewed team commitment, not to mention brake
lining.
history ... dislike or distrust of the
initiators of change. This is where "getting even" sometimes takes
place. Either to settle an old score or just because you don't like the person
in charge, you resist -- actively or passively.
payoff ... no perceived return for your
change investment (a/k/a what's in it for me?). Not only are humans
creatures of habit, but we're a bit selfish too. If we do not see an advantage
for ourselves in the change effort, we tend to wait the change out or not
participate with enthusiasm. It becomes the task of leaders within the organization to clarify the payoff for each
individual team member, as appropriate.
There are process speedbumps we
keep an eye out for, so they don't bounce us off the road to effective change.
These include: poor planning and communication as well as poor follow-through
and follow-up.
Planning and communication run
hand in hand. You may have the best-thought-out plans around, but if no one
knows about and buys into them, they're useless. Similarly, communication
pipelines, either formal or informal, are just that -- pipe. Whether they are
used as sewers or rocket launchers is up to you.
Another potential process
speedbump involves poor (or lack of) follow-through and follow-up. To become
real a vision requires action. Just because you learned new skills in class, or
talked about changing something at work, won't make change happen unless there
is a built-in process for following
through on action plans and checking progress (follow-up) at predetermined
times down the road. This helps folks keep from falling back into their old habits of behavior and performance.
Has anyone ever said to you,
"You can't get there from here," or quoted policies, procedures,
rules, regulations as reasons why
something can't be changed? If so, you experienced a structural speedbump. Most
policies and procedures (Chapter 8) were created for specific reasons at a time
in the past. Very rarely are they re-examined in the light of either current
events or future goals and modify them as necessary. Instead of being cast in Jell-O as was their intent,
they're usually chiseled in stone. People come and people go, but stupid rules
are forever. Modifying or moving around these speedbumps requires a careful
admixture of Vaseline and dynamite.
We hereby decree twelve key rules
for reducing team resistance and clearing the way for effective team change:
1)
Plan for change.
2)
Involve others in the
change process/get stakeholder agreement and commitment.
3)
Communicate,
communicate, communicate.
4)
Generate expectations of
outcomes.
5)
Create influence/support
networks.
6)
Obtain adequate
resources.
7)
Generate critical mass
to create and maintain impetus/momentum.
8)
Follow-through and
follow-up.
9)
Persist and stand ready
to pay the price for change -- mistakes.
10)
Reinforce early and
often.
11)
Keep processes and
techniques simple.
12)
Lead the way.
Let's look at each rule in turn,
and explain why it warrants the imperial mandate:
v
Plan for change.
We plan for change in order to
have some measure of influence over it. We want to have a say in where we're going and what are we going to become.
These are the questions team
members must ask as they plan for change:
¨
What are our goals/objectives, strategies?
¨
How do they tie into the larger vision/mission?
¨
What resources do we anticipate needing -- human,
dollar, etc.?
¨
What is our implementation schedule?
¨
Who must/should be involved in formulating the change
plan? How? When?
¨
What is the desired consequence of each change step?
¨
How will we know we've been successful? Can we give
examples of desired outcomes?
¨
When will each change step be completed?
¨
What alternative strategies can we implement if
"Plan A" fails?
¨
How will we deal with unanticipated events?
¨
Who needs to be influenced?
¨
Who will be involved in the change/implementation plan?
How? When?
¨
Who might we use as blockers? How can we bring them on
board?
As you can see, planning requires
the gathering of a great deal of information from lots of people. The process
of this data gathering has three effects on your immediate team:
1)
it involves them;
2)
it builds up an expectation for change; and
3)
it enhances their trust in the process because they can see it
happening.
The problem is that once this
planning process has begun, so has the ticking of the clocks inside the heads
of team members who wait impatiently to see tangible change outcomes. Ticking
raises stress -- continuous communication becomes crucial at this point.
v
Get stakeholder agreement and commitment.
People don't
usually resist positive change. We like winning the Publisher's
Clearinghouse Sweepstakes. It's negative change -- having to fend off a band of
marauding baboons, or having to learn to speak Chinese in a plummeting elevator
-- that puts us off our feed.
To reduce
resistance, try moving the change out of the shadows of negativity and into the
light of day. Encourage team members to participate as partners in the change,
and reward them when they do. Resistance will drop and willingness/commitment
should increase.
Participation can
be active, directly involved in asking and answering the questions above. Or it
can be passive, simply receiving continuous communication and feedback on the
process. For example, bringing problems to the group and soliciting their
inputs to possible solutions tends to overcome many negative expectations of
change.
The most important
aspect of involvement, however, is getting
people oriented towards the future -- helping them anticipate and embrace
future outcomes. Determine all the stakeholders in any change and try to reach
an agreement on "what is a
desirable outcome?"
What will that
outcome look, feel, taste and smell like? Is it OK? The pathways of change
towards the future have many twists, turns, and offramps. Encouraging people to
help be the drivers of the change vehicle
(determining what maps to use, what offramps to take) builds a commitment to
the outcomes of change. It also allows them to move within their comfort zones -- to keep the process moving forward.
In other words, it makes the change their
change.
v
Communicate, communicate, communicate.
Because human beings are such
creatures of habit, taking them in a new direction or even improving their lot
by providing them with "better" processes or enhanced information
tends to make them a bit skittish.
Surprises especially build anxiety!
It's often not the content of change that people resist as
much as the process of providing it to
them. Even if the outcome of the change is eventually positive, people may
resist if they do not feel communicated with from the beginning. Effective
changework demands continuous
communication -- before, during, and after the change process. Anticipating and
answering questions like:
¨ If
this is our vision, how do we plan to get from here to there?
¨ What
is involved in this change process?
¨ Who
will be involved and how?
¨ When
can we expect to see results?
¨ How
can we be kept informed of progress?
¨ How
does all this affect me personally?
Use multiple channels of
communication to answer and update individuals so they feel less a victim of,
and more an active participant in, the change process. Examples of multiple
channels: internal newsletters, notes placed in pay envelopes, small and large
open discussion meetings, ad hoc committees, informal networks and grapevines.
One technique is to place large
hallway whiteboards where people can express their views and sentiments. This
provides a forum for folks to express their concerns and issues, to clarify
payoffs, and to provide inputs and alternative solutions and ideas. If it is
not practical to involve all those affected, involve a representative sample --
like a focus group -- and provide a means to explain the range and reason for changes to everyone else.
v
Generate expectations of outcomes.
People have an interesting
internal process that tries to match up what we actually see in our environment with what we expect to see. We pick out only those things that help us meet our
expectations, and screen out the rest.
If you can create a positive
expectation for change or help folks see what any change will look like after
it has taken place, they will feel safer and more secure when the change
actually happens. They will also push harder to make sure that:
1)
the change does take
place; and
2)
that it looks like
what it was expected to look like.
v
Create influence/support networks
Another element of successful
changework is influence/support networks. You cannot create a successful change
in a vacuum. Whether formal or informal, networks create both checkpoints and
anxiety relievers for any change.
¨ Are
we heading in the right direction?
¨ What
modifications, if any, do we need to make in terms of people, processes,
structures, resources, schedules, outcomes, commitment, etc.?
¨ Is
anyone feeling a pinch about the change progress or direction to date?
Change usually causes one's
comfort zone to shrink. But you can minimize shrinkage by expanding the support
network and encouraging frequent use of it. Support can come from multiple
sources (bosses, co-workers, mentors, subordinates, associates, cross-functional
support teams, etc.). The more, the merrier.
Support networks have broader
uses than just easing of personal anxiety. They can be used as points of influence to make change
happen. This is where strategically placed change
advocates can make a real difference. These "change agents" are
people of influence -- formal or informal -- who advocate for change within your organization. Selling the need for
and the rationale behind any change efforts to these people allows them to pave
the way within their circle of influence.
Also, getting opinion-makers on your side makes it
easier to sell any change to a larger group of people in a shorter period of
time. Ultimately, these folks will help make or break any significant change
effort anyway -- so why not get them actively involved in the process early?
v
Obtain adequate resources.
Ask for help
obtaining the amount of human and capital resources necessary to create and
sustain any positive change. You may not get it, but you'll have tried. The
research is very compelling on this point -- many more actual requisitions are
granted than non-requisitions. Another benefit of asking and being turned down
is that you may learn why the request was not granted -- good information to
have for the next request.
v
Generate critical mass necessary to create and maintain
momentum.
Be aware of the
number of people necessary to successfully carry off your change process. Two
out of ten won't cut it. You need a broad base -- unanimous within the team,
and a healthy number of advocates, champions and friends on the outside.
Once the change
effort achieves momentum, use this movement as impetus for longer lasting or
broader impact.
v
Follow-through and follow-up.
The best-laid plans
of mice and men can go down the tube in a hurry if you are not on top of any
change process. The process of follow-through and follow-up should be viewed
not as a policing function, but a
coaching one.
Many people have
habits or concerns which can get in the way of them making changes. This
coaching process allows you and them to identify both personal and work-related
barriers to change being experienced and talk about ways to address them.
Follow-up can take
place at either pre-determined times (once a week, month, quarter, etc.), or
when people reach pre-determined stages in the change process (as when the
phones are about to be installed).
v
Be ready to pay the price for change -- mistakes.
Change means risk. Risk means mistakes. Fear
of punishment for mistakes encourages "CYA" and reduces the willingness
to take the risks necessary to make change work.
Recently, a CEO of
a major international manufacturing company made this point to us by relating a
story within his organization. Several members of the engineering department
came to him with an idea for a "better" process for making a certain
component. It involved both new technology and a different process. It was a
bit costly, but they were sure it would pay off in the long haul.
Having been
delegated the responsibility and authority to make a decision, they did. It
failed miserably. Several weeks later the CEO called these engineers into his
office; they thought they were going to get punished for their failure. To
their surprise, the CEO had canned hams waiting for them. In astonishment, they
asked for an explanation.
He responded that
just because the outcome was less than expected, that did not mean their
decision was wrong. The only failure would have been not to try new and different approaches; for, as he noted,
innovation will be the hallmark of all their future success. He got the canned
hams idea from David Letterman.
The failure was a
short-term "hit" to the company, but a long-term payoff in terms of
unleashed creativity and willingness to change.
v
Reinforce early and often.
Being creatures of
habit, it is impossible for us to completely abandon the "old ways"
for the "new way" overnight. Change does move people and
organizations toward desired outcomes -- but slowly, in measurable steps.
The grease which
keeps the change process going in a consistent direction is positive reinforcement. A word of
acknowledgement, a formal recognition, a pat on the back all count as
reinforcement -- the ideal reinforcement is the one that motivates that
individual employee for the progress he or she is making.
Reinforcement need
not wait for completed outcomes. Ideally it is built into the process, and
awarded for progress towards outcomes.
Public reinforcement of small changes, especially early on, creates the
momentum necessary to reach the desired goals.
v
Keep the techniques simple.
The fashion is to
say that complex problems require complex solutions. Maybe. But solutions that
throw a team into an uproar, that take people too far out of their comfort
zones or are too technical, will result in great resistance. Like eating an
elephant, complex change must be accomplished one bite at a time.
v
Lead the way.
Finally, the importance of leadership to successful changework
can't be overemphasized. Effective leadership is a must for effective
organizational change. We already mentioned the coaching function of leadership. There are several other
requirements, two of which involve vision
and pathway. Vision provides a dream
of the future -- what your organization will look like down the road.
Pathway provides some sense of
how you expect to get from here to there as well as the impact on people,
processes, and structures involved. Providing a way of determining the pathway
to achieving your organization's future creates a lifeline for people to grasp
in accomplishing changework.
The leadership keys to positive
outcomes include attitude, analysis, and
action. One of the sharpest arrows in
your quiver for change is the attitude
toward innovation and change that starts with leaders as they set the stage and attempt to energize
others.
Creating an expectation for
change as the norm for all employees
(especially new hires) allows transition to be seen as part of the everyday
process of conducting business. For example, some companies have created a norm
of having a large percentage of their products produced from technologies that
are not more than five years old. This stipulation creates an atmosphere for
continuous innovation and change, and guards against the bad habits encouraged
by "cash cow" operations.
Next, ongoing analysis and
feedback of progress towards outcomes keeps people fired up and on the right track. Finally, when leaders take
personal responsibility to make small action steps happen, the entire
organization becomes sharper.
The emphasis on change in this
chapter may lull you into thinking that change itself is the goal of teams. It
isn't. Change, whether for good or for ill, is the environment teams work
within. Good change, or improvement in the goals, processes and output of the team,
is the result of competent change management. There are several tools we can
recommend for the effective leveraging of change:
v
Action forums
As part of the
increased communication required during periods of change, groups of
individuals impacted by any specific change suggestion are gathered into action forums. These groups go through a
discovery and bargaining process
where they discuss the impact of the change on each individual, how to minimize
any negative potential negative impact, what barriers need to be crossed and
how, and how they can help make the change a reality.
v
Pilot projects
The creation of a trial balloon -- a tryout -- is
sometimes necessary to see what the impact of any change will be. Using small
groups of enthusiastic people to discover real outcomes, before launching
widespread change, provides a low-cost, reduced-risk snapshot of what will
happen.
v
What-if
scenarios
We have made the point before
that the keys to successful change include persistent
analysis and action. Your pilot project may be on the success road, but how
are you going to monitor and adjust your change strategies as you encounter
unplanned variables?
We know of a football coach who
once created a training program called the "Burma Road." As a running
back, the task was to charge quickly up a field full of movable blocking
dummies. One never knew how the dummies would react to your approach -- some
would move towards you violently, some move to the side, some pull away, etc.
The effect of this drill was to build a sense of anticipation and agility.
Building a Burma Road in an
organization under change means creating an ongoing process of assessment --
monitoring, checking, analyzing your progress and your impact, anticipating the
unplanned, and remaining agile by dreaming up what-if scenarios.
The road to effective change is
strewn with potholes, any one of which can throw your efforts out of alignment
with your goals. In order for your organization and the people in it to have
positive outcomes and build an "edge," it is important to do change right.
Consider following the 12 rules
for change to achieve the commitment, momentum, and success your organization
deserves. Your team's underbody will thank you. v
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