Keys to Successfully Implementing Change
William Dann, President, Professional Growth Systems
Introduction
Today’s business environment is unprecedented, in terms of the richness of its opportunities — and the scope of its challenges. In these troubled times, the need to make changes in organizations is vital.
But, troubling statistics involving efforts at fundamental change show that only 33 percent of them are successful. For more information on this statistic click on the following links:
- 70% of Change Initiatives ‘Doomed to Failure from the Start’ say Blanchard Experts
- Organizational change starts with individual employees
- Why Most Change Initiatives Go Thud
From nearly 30 years of experience (some of it painful) in helping organizations design and implement fundamental change, I offer the following proven considerations and keys to success.
From our experience with numerous projects involving the design and implementation of change for our clients, we have learned that there are a number of key elements that need be — or should be — present to maximize the probability of success. We have employed these keys, and we have been successful in virtually every change project that we’ve undertaken. These principles have proved their value in real-world organizations of all types: for-profit, non-profit, and governmental.
Keys to Success
- Gather and use customer data
Attempts to design and implement change will always meet with resistance. Human beings are often more comfortable with other conditions — even with a painful one — than with an unknown future, no matter how well it is “sold” to them.
The key to getting employees to embrace change is to provide them with a compelling reason for it: the “why” that everyone can relate to. That “why” is a dissatisfied customer.
At the end of the day, employees will pledge allegiance to the needs of a customer. This is true, whether the customer is external (a patient, for example), or internal (the provider whose efficiency is vital, and who is also an employee). Assumptions are often made about the customer’s level of satisfaction. Real data on customer satisfaction can effectively thaw resistance to change as it can help in the design of that change. - Sell, sell, sell the big “why”
The truism is: If given a big enough “why,” employees will find the how. The big “why” is the reason employees will go through the pains of:- Creating and implementing a new way of operating, — while simultaneously continuing to operate in the old way (essentially this means much more work in the short run).
- Tolerating the uncertainty of how one will fit into the new future; what it means, personally.
-
Understand the potential of the change and define its scope accurately
The potential for change includes both the hoped-for benefit of making the change (included in the “why”), as well as the readiness of the organization to undertake it. Change by fiat will not be successful. Attempting new change will not be successful when changes from the past are incomplete, or if there is widespread dissatisfaction with management.
You must assess the readiness of the organization for change before you proceed. If it is ready, then define — precisely — the scope of the change. What processes, systems, and physical space are within the scope? What is outside the scope? (perhaps this is a question to address at a later time?) Is there agreement? Does everyone see the same picture?
Often, the existing system or process is simply a patchwork of coping mechanisms used by individuals working in the system, and a common picture doesn’t really exist. Get a working group together to define the scope in general terms, and define the key players who should be involved, before you proceed. This will prevent you taking two steps forward, and one back, once you get in motion. -
Those doing the work should re-define the work
There are two reasons why those doing the work should be the ones to re-define it:- They know the work and the customer better than anyone else
- You need them to support the implementation if it is to go well.
-
Make sure everybody wins
It is well and good, and often enough, to sell the proposed change on what it will do for our customer, whether external or internal, but it is best to think through how the change can be a win for all.
At a minimum, if we are talking about a change that will make us more productive, management must give assurances that existing jobs and wage grades for existing employees will be protected (at least as long as the incumbent is in the position), even if jobs change.
Optimally, you want to make a tangible win for those being asked to go through the trauma of the change. In a profit-making environment, a profit-sharing incentive will work. In a non-profit environment, you will need more creative solutions. Examples: investment in continuing education; flex time; job expansion; paid time off for the overtime invested in designing and implementing the change; maybe a celebration. -
Be sure you have stakeholder support
Stakeholders could be a union, they might be board members with a keen operational interest, or they might be consultants. Regardless, you need to be sure that everyone whose cooperation you need, is on board. That includes those who can say no to your efforts, themselves, as well as those who can influence others from whom you need cooperation.
For example, several of our projects have been in healthcare organizations. In such organizations, the healthcare providers have a special role. Even if they are not directly involved in the change, they are affected by the change and they can have considerable influence over employees or board members whose support you will need. -
Get your design team “outside the box”
Unless you get your team thinking “outside the box,” it will likely design a change that, while it is an incremental improvement in what you are doing now, it won’t get you the 25 percent to 50 percent improvement in performance that we consistently see from innovative teams. To get that kind of innovation, the team must, literally, be in a different space and in a different frame of mind.
We use an exercise that exposes the barriers to thinking outside the box that we all have. We show examples of what is possible when you can get outside the box. This changes realities and creates excitement for fundamental change. Existing methods are thrown aside and innovative solutions almost magically appear. -
Gather and use existing performance data
To sell yourself, and everyone involved, on the investment of time and other resources to make the change, you must gather data on the performance of existing processes or systems. Cycle time, error rate, man-hours per cycle, customer complaints, are all examples of performance data that:- Will help make the case for why and where to change.
- When compared with target performance data for the new process design, will make the case for why you need to invest in technology-enablers, such as software and equipment that you will need to implement the new method.
-
Document the existing process and its problems before you innovate
We have never found a working group, no matter how small the organization, in which, if there are more than three people involved in using a process, there are not variations in how the work is done. Employees design and implement their own work-around for glitches in the system. They don’t tell anyone they’re doing this, for fear that they will be told to cease and desist. But you can’t re-design a process until the team has a common picture of how it works now, and an understanding of what the sources of friction and waste are. Although arduous, this step is crucial to building the teamwork and momentum needed when you are asking a group to innovate. -
Look for breakthrough strategies
Doing more with less usually means employing one or more of the following breakthrough strategies:- Empower the customer. This means getting the customer to do what you are now asking employees to do: execute the order themselves, and pay you at the time of purchase. Amazon.com and Apple iTunes are examples of aggressive approaches along these lines. Both now remind you of what you might want to purchase, according to what you have purchased in the past. We used this approach with an air freight carrier, to get customers to complete their airway bills before showing up with their freight. It saved the company personnel time at freight delivery (that is, the customer was instantly more productive), and it saved money. Well, what’s possible in your company, in this vein?
- Empower the front-end employee. This means having low cost employees take the burden from high cost, scarce employees. How can you better make use of schedulers, receptionists, assistants, others?
- Take advantage of technology. Get software and machines to do the work your employees are doing now. Examples: CRM software, automated reminders of appointments, and so forth. What else is possible? We used this with the right-of-way permitting process for a state government by putting the entire process on-line, including a customer application interface and a workflow management system. The latter had the work residing in cyberspace so that teams in multiple locations could work on a project.
-
Define and take advantage of the “low-hanging fruit”
A principal contributor to the failure rate for implementing change, which I alluded to at the beginning of this article, is that management loses patience and comes to doubt that the return on investment will be realized. Essentially, this means that the “ramp” that leads to any sort of meaningful reduction in cost or improvement in efficiency, is too long. The irony here is that, even though it was management’s idea to begin with, management is often the first to lose patience. The tendency of teams implementing change is to wait until everything is in place before going “live.” To remedy this, define some changes you can make now, before the equipment, or software, or renovation, is in place. Ask yourself what ideas have been defined that you can execute right now? Implement them now, and gather data on their effect. This will encourage management to continue to support the change. -
Define and execute a tight implementation plan
We employ a PERT chart and a proprietary process (Dynamic Planning™) create implementation plans. The process requires that we define weekly tasks, and that we hold accountability sessions on a weekly basis, in tightly structured, efficient, 30-minute meetings. Our teams are trained in how to manage in different ways to get different results. Effective planning and project management produce on-time and on-budget results, time and again. -
Manage the human side of the change process
In our experience, managing the human side of the change process has been the missing element that contributes to the 66+ percent failure rate of attempted change efforts. Bill Bridges captured the importance of this in his seminal book, Managing Transitions. Unless you understand, are sensitive to, and manage the personal journeys of each individual whose support you need to make the change, you will suffer:- Major casualties, in the form of resignations.
- Substantial reductions in productivity, due to the wear and tear of the change process.
-
Structure management support for the project
Structuring management support for your project requires a deft touch. Management defines and champions the need to change, initially. It then empowers working groups to define and plan implementation of the change. But, without ongoing management encouragement and support, teams will falter. We recommend that team leaders meet with the management team at least monthly, and preferably bi-weekly. This can be added to the agenda for regular management meetings (at the beginning often works best) and serves to:- Update management on implementation plan progress.
- Provide an opportunity for requesting needed decisions (new policies and resources, for example) for implementation.
Find a solution to this dilemma that you are comfortable with. It may, for example, take the form of a management team member sitting on the project team and acting as a liaison with top management.