Create Change

December 18, 2008

When I speak to employees who are not executives they always relate to these facts and ideas.  I am, after all, describing what they’ve experienced and how most of them feel. 

So it is not surprising that they always ask, Have you talked with our executives and upper level managers?  If you have, what was their reaction?  Are they even aware of what’s going on?  Are they concerned enough to do anything different now that they know how people feel?  What can I do to make change happen? 

<!--more-->

My answer begins with this caution:  don’t try to create major change unless you feel strongly that achieving change is of vital importance because the effort will be much harder and take much longer than you expect.  In other words, you have to really care.  And you mustn’t begin a change effort before you’re convinced that at least some success is possible.  In the majority of change efforts, the program is announced with great fanfare and then, as other things become more important, executives lose interest.  Repeated fizzles of change efforts are about as dispiriting as outright failure. 

The most visible leader in an organizational change effort is usually a top executive.  But core change does not happen until and unless an aligned leadership develops throughout the organization, at all levels.  Succeeding in creating major change has to ultimately involve the majority of people. 

Therefore, I’m answering the essential question of What can I do? in terms of you.  Your first task in trying to create basic change is to get the facts and master them.  Every person involved in creating change has to be able to describe the facts easily and more importantly, clearly and simply.  The majority of people in the organization have to believe that you are telling the truth and not manipulating them.  You must also convince them that you are guided by a deep sense of unease, the conviction that current practices are putting the organization’s and every person’s well being in jeopardy. 

The next task is to be able to describe the problem and the solution in the “elevator speech.”  That means you have less than a minute to get your views across.  To achieve this you need a great answer to the question, “What really matters?”  In some ways crafting this message is the hardest task of the entire effort.  It’s relatively easy to talk a lot; it’s very hard to be very brief, right on point, and be convincing.

Never forget that feelings are much more important than facts in getting a buy-in to change and core change is always unsettling.  You must create the fear that not changing is much more dangerous than changing.  Then, it is time to create hope.  Your message is, if we pull together and we all get on the train, while it won’t be easy, we can do it! Count me in! 
 

                                                         Making Change Happen
But generating the motivation for change and specific ideas about how to succeed is only the starting point.  Operationalizing anything, actually making things happen, is at least equally difficult.

The task is to regain the perspective that people are a major asset and we must behave in ways that tell employees they are valuable and important.  Ideas, attitudes and behaviors must be aligned and converge on the single idea that making commitments to our people and gaining commitment from them is the only way we can succeed.  When most people share that value and agree on that goal, lots of ways to reinforce commitment and engagement will be generated. 

Now that the economy is in serious difficulty, it is more important than ever for employees to be able to earn some forms of job security.  Some versions already exist:  time and funds for retraining; information about future areas of growth and investment; shared jobs; cutting salaries and bonuses before layoffs. 

The most effective and mutually fair policy to increase and sustain employees commitment, engagement and performance during hard and good times is Conditional Commitment.  That means employees are expected to perform at sustained high levels and keep their skills and knowledge cutting edge.  If that is the case and the organization needs what they know and can afford to pay them, employees have a job.  Conditional Commitment involves mutual responsibilities, obligations and respect.  It is, by far, the better path.

No one, not even the CEO, can make things happen by themselves.  To make things happen, you must gain power.  There are two relevant kinds of power:  one involves role power, people at the highest levels in the organization who are responsible for making decisions in the business of the business.  In corporations those are the people who have the major profit and loss responsibilities.  These positions have the greatest amount of authority and frequently, the highest levels of influence and political power.  Anyone who has access to these people is also seen as powerful simply because these people are accessible to him or her.

It is the responsibility of change agents to learn which of these decision makers is already in basic agreement with the view that people are a critical asset.  The task is to identify these people in order to gain powerful allies as quickly as possible.

The second kind of power lies in the power of numbers of people.  When many people in an organization clearly believe the same thing and are calling for change, the importance of their message is greater than that of even a few top decision makers.

Top executives’ responsibilities require they see the forest and not leaves.  As a result, they don’t and shouldn’t have frequent interactions with the many employees who are in the middle and lower rungs of the organizational pyramid.  But middle managers and supervisors are especially important in issues related to employee’s feelings and behaviors because they interact directly and daily with subordinates.  And, if employees listen to and trust anyone in the organization, it will be their boss. So the large number of supervisors and middle managers are a ripe source of allies as they are in a position to really know how their subordinates are feeling and behaving and how wide are the gaps that lead people to not give a damn. 

In terms of numbers, the middle and lower rungs of the organization are a potential source of the largest numbers.  There are leaders everywhere; they are simply people that others trust and respect, and want to listen to and follow.  Having less education is not a barrier to becoming a leader.  Change leaders must find these potential allies wherever they are:  at entry level, in blue and pink collar positions, in the collarless jobs of sole professionals, and in the different generations.

And now, with a firm understanding of the issues and a clear message of alarm and hope, with allies who are in fundamental agreement, how do you move to make change happen? Because complex plans diffuse focus and are, therefore, usually less effective in terms of really making things happen, you need a fundamental plan that is so direct and focused that it fits on a single page. 

A plan starts with some simple but very difficult questions:  Where are we and what is getting in the way of our succeeding?  What do we need to achieve in terms of our core business?  Who are our potential leaders, people who favor core change and who are models of the values, attitudes and behaviors we need?  Which people spew poison and need to go?

This is my recommended generic plan:

                                                              The Change process

1. Open the books.  Speak the unspeakable.  Step up to the real major problems.
2. Identify the core business and whether it is a cash cow or a high–risk, high-growth business.  Create the essential strategy based on competitive advantage.  If there is no clear competitive advantage, revisit the question of, What is the business of this business?
3. Identify the most important goals and those that are easiest to accomplish.  Balance the goals of importance and ease.  Limit the number of goals at one time to three and identify due dates.
4. Identify the organization’s few core values:  for the U.S. Marines they are honor, courage and commitment.  This is critical because it is values and not rules that are the true guides of behavior.
5. Create simple, honest and direct communications in order to gain understanding and buy-in.  Never assume your message is heard.  Go into the field and find out what people think is being said.
6. Organizational units and individuals create line-of-sight goals from the organization to their own with due dates.
7. Reward the angels and fire the snakes.  Identify thrivers – people who are eager to make and lead the changes; survivors – fence sitters and cynics; and strugglers or failures who oppose the changes.  Move thrivers into leadership roles.
8. Fire trouble-making strugglers.
9. Fire chronic non-performers.
10. Start again:  Murphy’s Law, if anything can go wrong, it will, is the bedrock truth.

The most poignant sound in the midst of major upheaval and basic change is the poignant question, What is going to happen to me?  While that question can’t honestly be answered absolutely, anxiety and fear can be reduced by opening the books and telling people the truth about what is known, and what might happen, by being clear and specific about what people are expected to do, and by making as many people as possible part of the change process.  And everyone must be working toward goals that are achievable and directly increase the possibilities for organizational success.  Never forget that nothing motivates people more than succeeding.

People who are free from strong negative feelings of fear, depression and hopelessness are able to feel committed to their organization and be engaged in their work.  As a result, they are the most motivated, productive and innovative employees and the organization’s success is a direct result of their sustained excellence.  It is patently clear, and factually true that it is in the organization’s best interest to act in ways that increase their numbers.