Today we can communicate with people easier and faster than ever before. Yet I consistently hear leaders and employees talking about feeling overwhelmed with information, but under informed about what is actually going on in their organization.

Most of the new communication tools are passive: they leave little opportunity for the conversations needed for change. A great example of this is email.

In most organizations email is the default way of communicating. However, as Rosabeth Moss Kanter from Harvard Business School noted in a recent blog post  our expectations of email may be too high. She states, “Managers of the 21st century send an email and they think they’ve taken care of everything”.

Email and other forms of passive communication can be effective ways of conveying your message, but not alone. They need to be used in conjunction with more active communication like conversation. During change it can be challenging to get your message heard and understood. By being prepared to communicate frequently, and repeat the message in a variety of ways you can increase the effectiveness of your communication.

1. Repeat the message.  A good rule of thumb is six times in six different ways.
2. Use email to reinforce key aspects of the change, or follow-up a previous communication, but avoid using email to announce a change initiative.
3. Introduce and enable more face-to-face and other forms of active communication to ensure that you are also getting information about how the change is being received.

Regards,

Dawn-Marie

Helping you launch, lead and live change more successfully.

Your email:

“I like change, but the people that work for me don’t”, that was comment a CEO recently made to me when we were talking about organizational change.  I have heard this comment or similar “people hate change”.   I understand why some leaders think their employees dislike change. Although most of us dislike the discomfort associated with change, I don’t think the problem is that leaders fundamentally like change and employees don’t. I think the reason it appears employees dislike change is because they are often not ready and excluded from its implementation. Involvement is key to increasing your employees’ readiness for change.

I notice a dramatic shift in the conversation when employees stop talking about change generally and start talking about specific organizational changes.  I will often hear employees (including leaders) say things like; “I don’t understand this change”, or “this change doesn’t make any sense, or “I don’t know where they came up with this brilliant idea” and eventually I will hear someone say, “people hate change”.  You can easily interpret these comments to mean your employees don’t like change.  However, that would be a mistake and you would be ignoring the real problem.

The real problem is that no one, not you, or me, or your employees likes change done to them. Unfortunately too many organizational change initiatives are simply done to the employees. When it comes to organizational change, there is a direct correlation between involvement and success. The more change recipients are involved the more change you have for success.

Several months ago I was talking with an employee who was trying to cope with a significant organizational transformation. He was angry, frustrated, tired and quite obviously not working to move the change forward. I would not have been a surprised if his manager had labeled him “resistant”.

When I asked him if he was opposed to the changes the organization was trying to make, he stated a categorical NO. On the contrary, he thought the changes made sense and were needed. The reason for his opposition was the way his organization was implementing the changes. From his perspective the employees most affected were being ignored and the changes were being pushed through without any regard for  the customer, employees or the organization.

Avoiding this problem and increasing your organizations’ change capacity requires you to actively involve  the people most affected (the change recipients). Stephen Covey said, “no involvement no commitment”.

Here are three things that you can do to increase employee involvement in your change initiatives:

1. Conduct a change recipient analysis to identify which areas and people will be most important to your success.
2. Define a framework that will enable maximum involvement. The framework should be based on the number of people   affected by the change, the available and needed resources, and your organizational structure. A good rule of thumb is at least 5% of the total change recipients should be involved in enabling the outcome.
3. Share the framework with the your employees. Let the change recipients know where, when, and how they will be involved in shaping their destiny and the destiny of the organization.

In January, at the 2012 HR Business Summit I will be conducting a Master class to help leaders address the growing problem of organizational change fatigue.  One of the strategies I will share is involvement.  Enabling active involvement of your employees, in a coordinated and sustained manner is a key strategy to reduce your organization’s risk of change fatigue.

Regards,

Dawn-Marie

Helping you launch, lead and live change more successfully.

Your email:

One of the most powerful things you can do to help yourself cope more effectively with change is to take the labels off. Too often, I hear people talk about change as either negative or positive. What they may not realize is that the label they have applied predetermines their reaction to the change.

This is one of the concepts we explore in the Increasing Personal Change Readiness component of our Living and Leading Change program. In it, I encourage participants to move away from looking at change as either “bad” or “good” and to simply see it as different or neutral.

This usually stimulates some lively discussion among the group, with one or two people being adamant that certain changes must be classified. But every change brings loss, uncertainty and gain:

• Loss - No matter what the change, you must let go of the current state before you can move forward.
• Uncertainty - There will always be periods of uncertainty as you move through the transition from old to new.
• Gain - Even a change you may want to label as “negative” will bring some new opportunity.

Just consider: job loss might be the catalyst that launches someone on a new career, while a longed-for promotion might mean leaving a home you love to move to an unfamiliar city with no friends or family nearby.

My thinking on the concept of change as neutral was further reinforced after I read Managing the Unexpected by Karl E. Weick and Kathleen M. Sutcliffe. In a section called The Hazards of Labels, the authors talk very articulately about how the labels we place on any activity or situation directly affect our approach.

Here’s the risk in labeling change as good or bad: Label it as bad and you close yourself off to the new opportunities it may present; label it as good and you risk feeling unprepared when there is an unexpected consequence or the transition requires more work than you had expected.

Labeling a change as neutral does not mean you do not explore and highlight the benefits. Nor does it mean ignoring the loss or uncertainty that comes with change. In fact, it means just the opposite.

The next time you are confronted with a change event, especially one you did not initiate, try this: instead of labeling it as good or bad, just say “this will be different.”

This simple but powerful phrase can help you:

• Reduce the stress associated with the change event
• Expand your view of the change event and your transition
• Increase your ability to respond to the event

Your email:

The the transition from teenager to adult is one of life’s most significant. This year I officially became the parent of an adult. Raising a teenager has definitely increased my change capacity. As I near the end of this transition, I share with you 10 of the most important lessons I learned.

Regards, Dawn-Marie

Helping you launch, lead and live change.

Speaking to the Certified Management Consultants of Manitoba Jeff Stoughton the 2011 World Curling Champion described the exhilaration as he made the winning shot and reach his goal of becoming the best curler in the world.  He credited his success to four key things, preparation, trust, belief and support.  These same keys are also important to remember when facilitating organizational change.

1. Prepare for every event regardless of its size. Jeff prepares for every curling event. One  part of his preparation includes throwing at least 50 curling rocks every day.

Successful organizational change requires people preparation. Most of the “resistance to change” that leaders tell me about is because people were unprepared, they lacked the information, knowledge or skills to move through the change process.  One of the simplest but most powerful things you can do to help people prepare for change is to give them the information, time and opportunity to recognize the need for the change, and understand what it means for them.

2. Trust yourself and your team.  As Jeff stated, “we all had the same goal, I trusted everyone to do their part to reach the goal”.  The team also trusted Jeff to assess each situation accurately, call the right plays, guide the team and make the shots.

Jeff Stoughton and Dawn-Marie Turner at CMC Management Consultants' Day

The ability to build and maintain trusting relationships during organizational change is critical to your success. However, before you can gain the trust of others you must demonstrate that you trust them. You demonstrate your trust or lack of trust, through the information you communicate, the nature of your relationships and the actions you take and don’t take. I will talk more about trust in upcoming blog posts.

3. Belief in your capability to achieve the outcome. Jeff didn’t win every curling match but his unwavering belief that they could be world champions enabled him to continue even during losses and other set backs.

Successful organizational change needs everyone affected by the change to believe in the need for change, the outcome and their own capacity to navigate the white space. These beliefs are the foundation of healthy organizational change. When these beliefs are present there is a willingness to persevere through the discomfort and achieve the intended outcome.

4. Support the team and accept and acknowledge the support from other people. Jeff talked about the many people that contributed to his success. His family, friends, team, fans and sponsors were all part of a large network that supported his journey.

Successful organizational change also requires a broad network of support. A network of people throughout all levels of the organization who believe in the change, trust in his own capability to make the changes required and are prepared to assist the organization to achieve its intended outcome. One of the first steps in ensuring support for your change is to identify and involve the change recipients (the people affected by the change) in creating their destiny.

Finally, Jeff had to balance his goal of becoming a world champion with a full time job, family and other commitments. He had to set priorities he had to let go of one thing in order to another that fit better with his priorities. You face the same challenge when attempting change in your organization, you must balance the need for change with your daily operational needs. To be successful you need to align every change with your strategic and operational goals, set priorities (strategically and operationally) including the necessary resources, and communicate these priorities to everyone involved.

Thanks to Jeff Stoughton for sharing his powerful story.  Congratulations Jeff and good luck in 2012.

Regards,

Dawn-Marie

Helping leaders successfully navigate the complexities of organizational change 

Your email:

This summer my daughter graduated from high school.  This was a highly anticipated change event. Like many parents, I had been looking forward to seeing her graduate for months, perhaps even years. Yet, as she walked across the stage to get her diploma, I felt a deep sense of loss. As I looked around the hall and saw all the mothers dabbing their eyes and the fathers fidgeting, I knew I was not alone.

In that moment I realized this single change event was both an ending and a beginning.

I also noticed my perception of the event determined whether I focused on the ending or the beginning. And this directly influenced my change readiness. When I perceived the change as the end (of her childhood), my focus was on the loss and I felt sadness. When I perceived the change as the beginning (of her adulthood), and the next phase of our lives, I became more aware and open to the opportunities.

Help People to Accept the End with the Beginning 

The concept of a change event containing both an ending and a beginning has implications for organizational change. Successful organizational change requires change recipients to accept the ending and focus on the new state. A simple shift in focus is not enough for organizational change success, but it is necessary. Without this shift, change will not happen.

Like the graduation, the change recipients’ perception of the event will define their response. Their perception of the change event directly influences whether their energy is focused on maintaining the current state or moving toward the new state. One important task of a change leader is to help the change recipients understand that change is not either an ending or a beginning, but that it is both an ending, and a beginning. Leaders that effectively balance the ending of the old system with the beginning of the new system can increase  the change recipients level of readiness. William Bridges author of Managing Transitions said, “It is the great paradox of change: to maintain continuity we must change”.

Here are three things change leaders can do to help people see the beginning with the ending and raise your organization’s change readiness:

1. Articulate the need for change and allow time for people to internalize this need. The need for the change should be clearly understood by everyone affected — it must be internalized. When people internalize the need for change it becomes meaningful, and tied to both their success and failure.  Without the parents, teachers, and most importantly the students internalizing the need to complete high school (almost a decade ago), graduation could not have happened.

2. Acknowledge the ending of the current state with respect. Remember that what the organization now considers old or in need of change was once the new idea. As my daughter and I move through our significant life transition, we do find ourselves looking back, not to wish for the past, but to acknowledge where it has brought us, to understand how it has shaped our relationship and to use it as a building block for an even better relationship.

3. State a clear an intended outcome that is meaningful to the change recipients and the organization.  It should be as clear as possible. To provide a picture of the new environment. This is essential for change readiness.  This year’s graduates couldn’t possibly know exactly what the future holds, but as they accepted their diplomas’ each one stated a clear intended outcome for the year ahead and were looking toward life after high school.

Every change requires people to let go of the current state and adopt a new state. In this respect every change is both an ending and a beginning. Organizational change leaders that help the change recipients balance the ending with the beginning can raise the level of change readiness in their organization.

Your email:

“Will you talk to him? He will listen if he hears it from you.”  That was a request from a client when planning a course of action that would require her manager’s approval. Sound familiar?  Think about how many times you have asked someone else to deliver a message because you thought it would be more effective.  When it comes to communication, the messenger matters.

You probably already know the difference the right person can make to the effectiveness of the message. If you are a parent, like me, you have probably had the experience of your child treating information they heard from a friend or teacher as ground breaking, after virtually ignoring the same information when it came from you (her parent).  I regularly talk to leaders who have this same experience when it comes to organizational change.

Research done by James Allen[1] and his colleagues in Australia found that the source of the communication was an important factor in reducing employees’ feelings of uncertainty during change.  In fact, it may be more important than the quality of the information.  This same study also suggested that the messenger played an important role in people’s attitudes toward and acceptance of the change.

• Will the audience relate to the person providing the information? This could be as their direct supervisor, peer or senior manager.
• Is the level of the person delivering the information matched to the level of the message?  For example, having the Project Manager talk about a new process that will directly affect front line workers when the the Project Manager won’t ever use the process, may actually have the opposite effect than was intended.
• Do I have enough people involved in the transition to enable the appropriate people to lead, facilitate and engage in the conversations of change?

When communicating during change, having the right messenger can be the difference between people receiving the information they need to prepare for the change, and people feeling overloaded with information but uninformed.

Your email:

[1] James Allen, Nerina Jimmieso, Prashant Bordia, & Bernd Irmer (2007).  Uncertainty during organizational change: Managing perceptions through communication. Journal of Change Management 7 (2),

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