Jeff Hiatt

Tim Creasey

Melissa Dutmers

Dr. James Johnson

Adrienne Boyd

Jeff Hiatt

In the first part of this debate on "What does it mean to manage change?" Tim, JJ and Melissa all cited the critical role of direct supervisors with employees. Melissa also supported strong communications and executive sponsorship. Adrienne pointed out the role of assessments. In fact, everyone picked their favorite strategy for managing change from Prosci's top-10 list as shown below.

1. Change readiness assessments (assessing employees and managers in areas such as culture and values, past changes, employee readiness and resistance)
2. Communications (includes communication planning and communication activities)
3. Training (education and training programs to build skills and knowledge)
4. Executive sponsorship (the visible actions by business leaders)
5. Incentive and reward programs (ranging from small incentive programs to compensation changes)
6. Employee feedback (enabling employees to openly share their thoughts and feelings about the change)
7. Supervisor's direct coaching to employees (helping individual employees through the change process)
8. Resistance management (tactics for systematically managing resistance)
9. Sacrificial lamb (visibly removing a key manager that is an obstacle to change)
10. Employee participation (involving employees in the design of the change)

The goal of that debate (Part 1) was to highlight each panelist's view of the most important strategy in this list. However, we all know that no one strategy is the answer. That is too simplistic a view of a what can be a very challenging task for businesses today. In Part 2, we take on the more difficult question of how these elements should be put together into an overall program for managing change.

I will lead off by putting a stake in the ground. No change should move forward without sponsorship at the right levels in the organization. Once this sponsorship is present, the second step for a project team is to complete an environmental scan that includes:

• What are the characteristics and scope of this change?
• What are the attributes and culture of the impacted organizations?
• What are the skills, knowledge and abilities of the change team and sponsors of the change?

 
Dr. James Johnson (JJ)

I would have to agree with Jeff that executive sponsorship is the foundation for change management - the first activity for change management teams. However, I am not a big fan of assessments given the time and effort.  A close second to sponsorship, in my opinion, is communication. Not once have I ever encountered a group of employees that said they were the recipients of too much communications on a project initiative. On the other hand, I have encountered employees who seemed resistant to change, but were in reality grasping for information; there wasn't enough communication. When employees ask for more information before they commit to the change, many supervisors and managers misconstrue that request as being resistant to the change. Prosci's research has shown that lack of awareness (information) was the principle reason for employee resistance.

Lack of information and "resistance", either real or perceived, go hand in hand. In my opinion, addressing the employees' lack of awareness is the easiest fix a supervisor and manager can do in these three simple steps, "1. communicate, 2. communicate, 3. communicate.

Adrienne Boyd

If you skip assessments, then you are missing a critical component of managing change. You will not know what you are up against if you simply jump in and start communicating about change. By advocating this "ready, fire, aim" approach, you are ignoring the history of the organization and their culture. You are also missing the chance to develop a true understanding of what the change is about.

Moreover, both of you failed to assign any resources to manage the change. If you would have completed the environmental scan and assessments, you would have understood the magnitude of the change and the organizations that will be impacted. This knowledge would have helped you select the right people to manage the change and you would have developed a better idea of the number of resources needed.

Communications can only come after:

1. You know what and who you are communicating to

2. You have resources to plan and execute a communications plan

Melissa Dutmers

I must concur with Adrienne, although I would describe it a bit differently.

We all agree that securing executive sponsorship is a must (you shouldn't be implementing change without the appropriate level of support - which doesn't always mean going to the top person). The reason I add this caveat is because I had an interesting experience this week. Someone contacted me about a proposal they were working on and they wanted my help in driving it through to completion. My initial response was that we need executive management's approval. After a discussion with this person's manager, I realized that the manager was accountable for making the decision about whether to proceed with the proposal, not our executive management team. In this case, our executive management had pushed accountability to lower levels in the organization and empowered the lower level management team to make the call. Very cool! I'm getting off track.

For me, securing resources to manage the change is part of securing executive sponsorship. You don't go to management and say we need to implement a change without a plan on how to achieve that - part of that plan is resource allocation.

I think the next step is to do the environmental scan to agree on roles during the change. Who's doing what and when? What are the strategies or actions to realize the change? Who's communicating what and when? What forums would be most effective to communicate the message to those we influence? Then, go forth and communicate, communicate, communicate.

Tim Creasey

I'm liking the picture we are starting to draw here. I have a couple of ideas.

First, is there anyway that we can show a dual track - one that is the five steps we are showing, and another parallel track that starts almost at the same time as environmental scan and is something like 'communicate awareness.' I agree with JJ on this point. My worry is that we've set up some pretty large tasks - assessments, role definitions, strategy and planning. The problem is, we are not operating in a vacuum. The employees that are going to be impacted will already know about the change before we ever get to them. As change agents, the planning is crucial, but I think it would be a mistake to not make any attempt at building awareness earlier through some targeted communications. When employees know a change is coming, the rumors and hypothesis that emerge around the water cooler are often a source of resistance, and this resistance will grow if we wait weeks or months until our planning is ready before we communicate.

At the end of the chain, I think we need a step called 'stay the course.' For the change to really take root and get long term results, you've got to make the commitment. This means reinforcement of the new way of doing things. It means keeping sponsors involved. It means celebrating small successes. And ultimately it means conveying complete authority for the new way of doing things over to line managers as the change becomes the new 'business as usual.' But that last part makes me think, where are the managers and supervisors in this whole process?

Jeff Hiatt

The role of supervisors and coaches during change is as important as management communications. In fact, when you view change from the perspective of the employee, other elements of the change process are clearly missing from this roadmap. Employees may or may not support the change. What then? Simply creating awareness that change is needed does not automatically create support among employees and managers. How are senior managers, mid-level managers and front-line supervisors equipped to manage resistance? What training and change management competency to these managers really have?

Next, once employees begin to support the change, how can they learn more about the new processes, systems and skills required? Training and education must be an integral part of the process. Employees will have feedback about the change. They will want to contribute to the solution and be part of the design process. Is that possible?

I see three tracks for this roadmap, not two. The first track is preparing and training change agents, managers and sponsors. The second track is assessment and planning. The third track is visible actions (implementing the plans).

Dr. James Johnson (JJ)

This overall approach is taking shape, but when I talked earlier about communications, I didn't mean to imply that the communications were one-way, i.e. top down. We need two-way communications; that's why I would add a feedback mechanism to our growing diagram. Each and every activity that we've added so far is a potential vehicle for feedback. Designing strategies, training, coaching, conducting scans, etc. are great opportunities to document feedback from the various stakeholders. The feedback is essential for customizing and adjusting the overall plan in real time. This reinforces why there can't be cookbook recipe for change management.

One other point. Sponsors cannot be active just at the beginning of a project. They must be visible and active throughout the project. Many business leaders may not understand what this "sponsorship" looks like. The project team will need to coach sponsors including providing them with checklists and reminders.

Tim Creasey

I'm not sure what else to add. It strikes me that 'ensure visible and active sponsor participation' was so far down the line. The research I've done shows that sponsorship is the most critical role for successful change. Maybe this should be moved farther up the roadmap - maybe after build awareness. Sponsors who start a change and then don't reappear until the change is almost finished put the initiative in danger. Is there some other way to show visible and active participation by sponsors throughout the change roadmap?

Melissa Dutmers

This roadmap that is emerging is beginning to shape up. We are planning or preparing for change by securing sponsorship, assigning roles, and training resources. We are then creating a strategy and plan, and executing that plan through active sponsorship, communications, coaching and resistance management. We are assessing feedback - checking in with employees, and we are responding to that feedback by acting and possibly beginning the cycle again.

I agree with Tim's point that some of these activities happen in parallel - this is not a sequential step by step process. The dynamic nature of change management may require change agents to cycle through the process many times. How do you know when you're done? When the change is so engrained in the culture that it's how the company the works.

Jeff Hiatt

This final figure is the result of the panel's virtual white board exercise. Although not intended to be a step-by-step process, this diagram illustrates how different strategies can be inter-related in the change management process.  A few steps were re-worded to include other comments by the panel members. A list of plans were included at the lower left corner based on Prosci's research results with project teams.

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