How To Manage Organisational Change
A process and tools for solving critical business issues
The biggest challenge facing every business is change. It confronts and challenges our ability to create value for customers and remain relevant. Walk any five year old through your home and point out everything that didn't exist when you were their age....a lot huh! And yet your business will probably change more in the next 3 years than it has in the last 5.
So it's imperative every manager understands how to engage their team, and lead the business, in collaborating around change. When it comes to effectively managing change 'nobody's as smart as everybody' because businesses must consistently identify and solve critical issues, innovate the way they work and find new ways to grow. And its a 'party that never ends!', a constant work-in-progress.
It not only requires innovation of products and services, but also work processes, communication protocols, work environment, culture and so on. Needless to say, at the core of every long-run successful business are managers who know how to lead and manage change effectively.
Of course, managing change in the workplace isn't as simple as implementing some seductively attractive turn-key change management model in your business. If it was that easy you could just hand the task to an academic or some biz-school students. At Fortune, we advocate and implement a change management process called STAG (which stands for Short Term Action Groups) that's owned and driven by line managers. Effective managers establish meaningful communication with their people (always easier to say than it is to do), well before rolling out change initiatives across a team or the entire company. In doing so, these managers understand the basic emotions that are experienced during any change process, such as how people react to change, why people resist change, what motivates people to change and what people need to know in order to embrace change. That's because leading and managing change in the workplace is not a matter to take lightly; it can and usually does have a profound impact on people, including both their ability and desire to perform.
For these reasons, the manager who forces change on their people can irreparably damage morale and productivity. The manager who knows how to sell change however will have much greater success in seamlessly introducing new initiatives and maintaining a workforce that's connected and committed, aka engaged, to helping the organisation achieve its goals.
Understanding how change affects people
The first thing managers must appreciate before considering any change management plan is how change affects employees – both how readily they will accept the change and the emotional "pain" that always accompanies change. By understanding the interplay of these psychological issues with the actual change, managers will ensure that they concentrate on the objectives of the change (not the problems) and increase their ability to effectively implement change.
Managers can gauge how readily their people will embrace change by viewing their people on one of the key dimensions of behaviour called "dominance". In our usage of the word here, those who are more dominant are risk takers, so they tend to embrace change more readily. This is partly due to a short attention span; they don't take the time to internalise information that others would fear. Conversely, less dominant people can exhibit more resistance to change, partly because of a longer attention span that compels them to take their time to analyse and digest information.
There's no "good" or "right" end of this spectrum. What's important for the manager to consider, however, is where each of their people lies on it so that they can address them accordingly. It's also important to note that the level of dominance is about people's tolerance for change, not their willingness to change; even the most dominant person in the world will have a tendency to resist change that impacts them. That's why all of your people need to be sold on any change initiative – managing resistance to change is an essential aspect of this framework – and it helps to understand who will need more selling than others.
Managers must also understand the emotional "pain points" associated with change, which we call the mindsets of change. Any of these may cause people to hesitate in embracing change initiatives, or resist them altogether. The mindsets of change include:
- Experience of discomfort
Change requires people to do something new, and that forces them outside their comfort zone. Everyone experiences discomfort to some degree, but the less dominant the person is, the more discomfort they'll feel.
- Feel we need to give something up
When change is initially introduced, people usually view it in the context of their current situation, meaning that they only consider what they must give up – not what they may gain. In order to balance this, managers must position the change as a vehicle that will help them grow and fulfill their goals.
- Feel alone
Oftentimes people feel as though change requires them to go through it alone, that they must be a pioneer and take a risk. But as humans, we want to be part of a winning group. Therefore, managers must ensure that their people never feel as though they're working in isolation. Instead, the change should be positioned as a team effort that will be supported 100% by management.
What motivates employees to change?
By understanding these three mindsets of change, managers will appreciate how they form the basic motivations of change.
First, action (change) is always preceded by dissatisfaction. That's because pain – any combination of the three mindsets of change – is always involved in change. So without a source of dissatisfaction, people will have no motivation to bear the pain. (And even sometimes when people are dissatisfied, if it's not too significant, they'll still bear the pain!)
Second, in order for people to embrace change, the benefits must outweigh the pain. Note that these are perceived benefits based on management's communication to their people. So just because the manager believes in the change, or because senior management believes in the change, your people won't commit to the change until they believe that the benefits outweigh the pain.
What do people need to know to embrace change?
Change is rarely easy to implement because people almost always think that their current situation is good... or at least good enough. Perhaps things at the moment aren't great, but as long as people think they're good or good enough, they won't have a tolerance for change. So how can managers implement change when their people think that things are good enough as they are? There are two options:
- Attack what they're doing now
In other words, managers can try to increase the perceived pain that their people currently feel. For example: "I know you think you've been doing well, but you're mistaken." We don't recommend this approach. When you attack what people are doing now, you're attacking their intelligence, their confidence, their professional skills and their abilities. You're attacking them personally, and people resist this very quickly.
- Offer an alternative that provides greater pleasure
In this case, managers increase the perception of benefits – the fulfillment of personal goals – that will come from the change. If people truly believe that the change can help them achieve their goals, then they'll embrace it.
How to implement change in the workplace – the three questions to answer
To properly lead change, managers must satisfactorily answer the three questions that people will ask themselves when it's introduced:
- What is the change?
- Why is the change being made?
- How is the change going to affect me?
All too often, we find that when managers introduce change, they only share the "what". When their people press for more information, such as when asked for the "why", managers answer with a "who" – for example, "Because they said so." But people will never fully embrace change when its dictated with little or no reasoning... let alone when a nonspecific answer such as this makes it sound as though you have no idea of the "why" yourself! If managers are to get their people to embrace and commit to change, they must ensure that they answer the "what", the "why" and the "how".
An important note on answering the "how": A manager's first instinct is usually to provide an advantage that relates to their people's work, such as "it will help you be more productive." But just as people want their jobs to be made easier, they also need to win personally. So be sure to not only give them that work-related win but also a personal win, something that will make them feel good about themselves.
Managing change effectively requires that you understand how people think
As we started, leading change management requires managers to juggle a host of psychological factors: How their people think, how they perceive their current situation, how they will perceive a new change, etc. In fact, one could argue that the actual process of communicating the change is the easiest part of all. To be sure, to truly ensure the success of any change initiative, the lion's share of a manager's effort should go first towards considering how your people will perceive the change, planning and structuring your communication (sales) strategy accordingly and practicing your plan. When you're confident in your rationale and delivery then you're in a position to present to your people.
How have your change initiatives gone to date? Can your management team do a better job of effectively selling and facilitating change? Do you feel as though you and your managers understand the motivations that affect people's inclination to embrace change? If you're not sure, we'd love to help. Request a complimentary consultation from a Fortune consultant and let's discuss how our management training program can help you learn how to sell change in your organisation.