How do you approach difficult situations requiring major change in strategy? Typically, military metaphors come to mind demanding a ‘commanding’ presence, ‘directive’ action, focus and urgency of activity. All this needs determined leadership to get the right results; right?
This was certainly my preferred approach as a task focussed manager — I got to work leading and planning and cajoling and arguing— on my way to ‘shake things up’.
With hindsight, and with much consideration, my view has significantly changed. Yes, the change programs tended to work more than not but often unravelled after I was no longer there .
To establish sustained change managers need to ask themselves some difficult questions before they set out to “shake things up.” And they must seriously listen to and analyse the resulting answers.
From experience, here are some of the questions I should have asked before i set out to “make things better”.
1. What are your people’s perspectives?
To mobilize a work force to transform itself, you and I must know what people in the organization are thinking, encourage them to articulate their views and their concerns and be ready to respond to them sincerely. I tended to rely on second-hand information or i made assumptions about what i thought employees should think. What I should have done was spent time going around and asking people and kept asking them until the answer became clear. Only then could I have begun to design a strategy that built on synergies and filled in team-members perception gaps.
2. Did i “set the stage” for change?
One of leaders most vital roles is to anticipate your businesses options for future successes and then to formulate strategies for surmounting potential challenges. In proactively responding to these challenges, businesses must continually reinvent themselves. The corollary of this is that we must encourage people to join a constant questioning of the prevailing business assumptions—and to be ready to identify ways to act upon new opportunities early in the game to maintain a competitive advantage.
3. Are you tracking people’s perceptions throughout the change?
As important as it is to find out what people are thinking before the change, I found it was just as crucial to have a system for assessing perceptions throughout the change process. I painfully discovered that when it comes to communicating change leaders must be especially careful not to suffer the illusion of communication; just because you’ve said something doesn’t mean it’s actually heard much less understood much less acted on. Strategies that include ongoing interaction and authentic feedback systems help organisations track the level of work force message comprehension. I found the greatest advantage came when organisational feedback was gathered immediately after the delivery of every important message. Here’s how you can assess your audiences comprehension before they leave the meeting room:
- What in your view are the three most important points we just covered?
- What didn’t you understand?
- With what do you disagree? With what do you agree?
- What else do you need to know to play your role?
4. Am I giving honest answers to tough questions?
In the light of an economy that offers little promise of lifetime job security, people must be able to rely on you to give them honest information that will allow them to make informed choices about their own jobs, careers and futures. I found that when I couldn’t answer a question, it was better to tell people that you understand their concern but don’t know the answer. Or, I replied that I didn’t have the information yet, but will get back to them as soon as decisions were made. It is even better to tell people that you have the information but can’t release it than to withhold or twist the truth.
5. Can you explain “what’s in it for them”?
The typical approach to business change is to give people a thorough briefing about change—the reasons behind the change, the timing of the change and exactly how it will be carried out. What we often forget to articulate is—“What’s in it for me?” If you clearly understand people’s concerns you are more easily able to articulate how they will personally and tangibly benefit from your strategy.
6. How behavioural is your communication?
Organisations typically send two concurrent sets of messages about change. One set of messages goes through formal channels of communication—speeches, newsletters, corporate videos, values statements and so forth. The other set of messages is delivered informally through a combination of “off the record” remarks, Manager priorities and daily activities. Thinkibg about your management team how about beginning implementation with two questions: “What do you currently do that already supports the change?” and “What do you have to do differently to align with the change?” For skeptical audiences, talk without action quickly disintegrates into empty slogans and propaganda. Now is the perfect time to perfect ‘walking the talk’ as your people believe what they see not what they hear
7. Can you explain the necessary detail?
sure leaders need to have vision and it is crucial to the success of your business. But along with the big picture, are you able to communicate people the necessary detail to help people implement the vision?
Presenting the concept of transformation AND examples of how exactly we are going to do that?
Setting long-term corporate goals AND where do we begin?
Developing the overall objectives of the transformation AND what are my priorities?
Creating the mission of the organization AND where does my contribution fit in?
Communicating organisational values AND what this meanS in my daily life?
8. Is it your vision or our vision?
Leaders understand the power of vision to imbue people with a sense of purpose, direction and energy. A compelling vision of the future pulls people out of the comfortable hold of the past and inspires them to set and reach ambitious goals. Vision creates a sense of meaning for jobs when leaders can tie people’s daily contributions to the fulfillment of a clear, compelling long -term vision. We must therefore be able to paint the big picture beyond the aggregation of detail. But if the vision solely belongs to top management, it will never be an effective force for transformation. The power of a motivating vision comes into play only when the people themselves have had some part in its creation. So the crucial question becomes, “Whose vision is it?” Sure, we must create a master narrative that coherently articulates the company’s identity and ideals but it needs to encapsulate the fears and hopes of (almost) every member of the company. If you want people to feel the same kind of connection to their work that you and your team do after your executive away-day session, then you have to get them involved.
9. Are you emotionally engaging?
I like logic, I like getting the right things done in the right way; I like facts and evidence … but logic is never enough. To be an effective change leader, it is not enough to engage people’s logic; you also have to appeal to their emotions. As leaders gain the insight that people skills (the “soft stuff” of business) hold the key to organizational change, human emotions take on a more important part. Large-scale organizational change almost invariably triggers the same sequence of reactions—denial, negativity, a choice point, tentative acceptance and commitment as a death in the family or a major catastrophe. Leadership can facilitate this emotional process or, ignored, it can block the transformation effort.
10. Do you know what shouldn’t change?
The greatest challenge for change leaders is to know the difference between what has to be preserved and what needs to be changed. The “genius” of leadership is being able to preserve an organization’s core values, and yet change and adapt as times require. The product of that kind of leadership is an organization that goes on for a very long time.
so here are ten questions to guide your next change effort. I’ve build this knowledgeable over three decades of helping change organisations and I seriously needed to have this earlier in my life… I would have more successful faster!