The Paradox of Change Management

Save time and Resources: Build Readiness

(excerpt from Launch Lead Live: The Executive’s Guide to Preventing Resistance and Succeeding with Organizational Change)

By: Dr. Dawn-Marie Turner

Time is an issue in every organization. Initially, if you are used to working from a resistance perspective, it can feel like it takes longer to get people ready. It doesn’t. Consider the time and energy you must spend trying to enforce compliance when you use the traditional “resistance” approach.

By focusing on building readiness instead of managing resistance, and emphasizing the needs of the change-recipients, you can actually make better use of your time and resources. You can also get a greater return on your investment.

The traditional approach to organizational change (figure 1) looks to move quickly to training and implementation.

Figure 1 Common Approach to Organizational Change
Turner Change Management Inc.

It tries to minimize the amount of time spent in the early period; the majority of the effort is at the back end of the change. This approach gives the appearance of saving time, but it top loads issues so that they emerge right around the time of implementation– when time and resources are at a premium.

You expend more energy and resources, but the return on that energy decreases as people move through the Whitespace. It’s like heating your house in the winter while leaving the all the windows open.

This kind of back-end approach forces you to manage the resistance created when the change-recipients are pushed into taking action before they are ready. The approach gives the perception of speed, while actually taking more time. I call this the paradox of change management.

Figure 2 Change-Recipient Readiness Approach

Figure 2 Change-Recipient Readiness Approach

Building readiness shifts the effort to the front end of the Event. Time is allocated to ensure the change-recipients can internalize the need, raise perceived capability, prepare, and support people through the transition. The change is built on a stable foundation. This results in a more sustainable change (Figure 2).

Launch Lead Live: The Executive’s Guide to Preventing Resistance and Succeeding with Organizational Change p. 88-90

 

 

Strategic Plans: Turning Goals into Meaningful Change

Before you finalize your next strategic plan, ask yourself: Will it drive meaningful change? Or will it become another document that sits on the shelf, only to be looked at when it’s once again time to create a strategic plan? Too often, the strategic planning process is carried out in isolation by people who are too disconnected from daily operations. The result is a strategic plan that may look good on paper but fails to achieve the intended results. Don’t get me wrong. When done well, a strategic plan is a powerful tool. It provides a roadmap, aligns people with the organization, and can create momentum. However, in my work with executive teams, I have identified three fundamental flaws in strategic plans and planning processes that hinder organizations’ progress.

Why Pushback Isn’t Resistance

Does it sometimes feel like your best employees - the smart, capable people you depend on - are the ones who raise the biggest objections and create the greatest barriers to change? It’s easy to label this behaviour as resistance. But what if they’re not resisting anything? What if they’re doing exactly what their brains are designed to do, and you’ve been interpreting it completely wrong? Understanding why people appear to push back on change can help you eliminate this apparent resistance and leverage one of your most powerful tools for enabling change.

Three Steps to Prepare Leaders To Champion Change

What do we do when the change sponsor stops supporting your organizational change effort? I have been asked this or a similar question many times. You’re left frustrated, feeling abandoned, and wondering, Why am I even trying to implement this? This scenario serves as a reminder that committed executive change leaders are essential throughout the transition. There are actions you can take to ensure your changes don’t stall out and to build and maintain the leadership needed throughout the change process.

A Different Approach to New Year’s Resolutions

Happy New Year!

Have you made any New Year’s resolutions? I have. Research shows people who make New Year’s resolutions are 10 times more likely to meet their goals than people who don’t make resolutions.*

I used to write one or two goals statements because for me a New Year’s resolution was simply a goal I wanted to achieve for that year. Now I do it a little bit differently. Instead of writing one or two goal statements I think backwards and then create a four-word framework.

For several years I have been using a similar technique (the three words exercise) to help leaders understand the boundaries of the Whitespace when embarking on change. This (three-word) technique is a powerful tool for defining and understanding the full scope of any change initiative. However, until last year I had never thought about adapting the technique for my New Year’s Resolutions. The four-word framework provided a useful way of moving forward while accounting for the existing demands of my daily life and operational environment.

Using the framework gave me more flexibility. I was also able to respond better to new opportunities, and I could re-frame challenges more quickly to help me achieve my intended outcome.

One of the words in my 2015 framework was “learn”. The word represented professional and personal learning that I wanted to accomplish last year. It also guided the way I interacted with the world and reminded me to be open to new learning opportunities. I met my professional learning goals (e.g. WordPress), and opened up new learning opportunities for clients (e.g. The Executive Change Leader Course). I also learned in unexpected ways. For example, I learned and continue to learn different leadership skills as I work with a new (millennial) team member. I also learned more about writing, editing, and myself than I would have imagined when I published my first book.

Three Steps to Creating Your Four-Word New Year’s Resolution Framework

Just picking four words won’t give you a useful framework. Think about it like building a house, before you can frame the house you need to know what type of house you are building. Similarly, before you pick the four words that will define your framework you need an intended outcome. Here are three steps for using the four words technique to create or guide your New Year’s resolutions for 2016:

1. Allocate some time to reflect.  Ask, What does your life look and feel like on December 31, 2016? Be clear, concrete, and concise. Write down your responses. This is your intended outcome.

2. Work backwards from your outcome. Keeping your outcome in mind, ask, what activities, behaviours or other aspects of my life are different in the outcome I envision from where I am today?

3. Choose four words that best represent, for you, your intended outcome. Write them down and keep them somewhere you can see them. (I keep mine posted above my keyboard).

Again this year, I have chosen four words that will provide the framework for my 2016 intended outcome. I am looking forward to filling in the framework and achieving my 2016 outcome.

Have you made any New Year’s Resolutions?

Wishing you success and happiness in 2016.

Dr. Dawn-Marie Turner

Helping you turn change from a liability to an asset.