{TL:DR - see the more interesting content and pictures toward the bottom.}
Coast Guard Commandant Thad Allen once said the service needed to become ‘change-centric.’ He was speaking as a senior leader in the post-9/11 and post-Hurricane Katrina world, but many of the changes needed then had been known for decades. As a uniquely intellectual and transformative leader, he used his persona and position to drive valuable strategic changes to how Coast Guard operations and support were conducted. Subsequent executives largely aimed to implement, or imitate, (or impede) his approach but without the same clear nexus to need, Allan’s sense of urgency, and his forceful follow-through. In other words, how we change did change, but for the worse.
Where Admiral Allen wanted a change-centric organization that was proficient at adapting to a need (or ideally ahead of need), the Coast Guard became more of a change-constant organization. It now seemingly changes habitually, constantly, and often too poorly to catch-up to externalities it is reacting to - if an impetus is clear at all. A lot of energy, time, and money is spent on grand strategies and even starting strategic changes that are not followed-through to completion. So, how can an organization become change-centric as envisioned? How can it change well and achieve the end(s) in mind?
Three ways the Coast Guard does not change well can be summarized by saying:
1) Too many simultaneous but related changes in separate siloes of the organization…
2) …designed with great intention, but not integrated from need through implementation…
3) …because of executive turnover and immature program change management skills.
Conversely, when the scope of change was focused on a few integrated initiatives, even if they were complex, ambitious and crossed organizational boundaries, a lot of progress was still possible. This occurred when there was a strong integration of effort, with a team that employed organizational change management tools and commanded executive attention, because change project success was the measure of success for all involved.
One reflection expanded on those three summary items:
1) Scope: Large organizations will have many needs for strategic change, but not all of them can be tackled at once, or even at all. This is because strategic change is complex change that spans across multiple organizational functions and silos. These complex changes can grow too large and so the scope must be prioritized and focused. This focus ensures the changes receive enough attention and support needed to get done. Changes should also be authentic to the organization’s needs and ability. Large bureaucracies may not benefit from pursing changes befitting tech start-ups and vice versa. Finally, the scoped changes must also be achievable in 6 months ideally, or perhaps 2 years maximum for multiple related changes. After that the organization’s will for strategic change erodes and momentum will be lost.
2) Integration: Changes that impact just one part of an organization should not be delayed by that leader, but they should also not be confused with strategic change. Conversely, strategic change will impact many organizational elements and require integration and coordination. A master gantt schedule and status report templates are attractive and common but theses tools alone should not be confused with integration. Integration is human-centered. It is the open and honest conversations among change leaders that digests the complex forces supporting, synergizing, or impeding change. It is communication products that weave together both the strategic and front line needs for change and broadcast them across many channels. Finally, integration is revealed in the change leaders’ willingness to adapt if new information shows it will help maintain forward progress toward the strategic goals.
3) Accountability: Successful change requires the attention, support, and sometimes the intervention of leaders. In many large organizations these leaders will be executives although change leadership and influence in general can certainly come from a variety of sources. One reason to focus the scope and timeline of change is to ensure the leaders of change finish what they start and are available for accountability. Turnover of executives and leaders is a death blow to change. Outgoing executives get credit for great ideas and starting change without finishing it. New executives are hesitant to drive changes they don’t understand and so are reluctant to uphold accountability for schedules slips and scope erosions. This is part of the larger problem of change management and program management immaturity where the leadership needed drive progress is not kept engaged all the way through completion.
If these change management lessons seem too normal or too obvious to you then you are not alone. Change management lessons, like so many strategies and similar plans, are part of a proud tradition of thoughtfully produced and accurate documents that are unfortunately rarely followed.
In the hopes of offering a different perspective on change management, I will continue here with a few less-obvious and hard earned lessons that I assembled over the past 15 years
Strategy is fun, but it gets nothing done
If your organization is writing or updating strategic plans every year then you are probably not implementing anything written in them. It is far too easy and tempting to spend time polishing strategies and ideas into a high-gloss plan. The pages of fancy buzzwords and attractive goals makes you think something has been accomplished. Unfortunately, in the end, these lovely and well-intentioned documents do not implement themselves. Strategies need to be decomposed into tactics and tasks, and, most importantly, acted upon with the full support of the leader-authors.
To start, project management work is needed to help clarify and define an authentic and achievable scope for each initiative and then prioritize or sequence the necessary activities. Change management work is needed to focus on the human-level activities: communications, deconfliction, and resistance mitigation. Finally, leaders and executives must get behind their ideas by moving roadblocks and not just receiving status briefs. This is how Project Management rigor can complement Change Management methodologies to drive Progress Management in your change.
No schedule for change ever survives its first encounter with reality
World War II planners had a famously wrong schedule for the European mainland invasion that said Paris would be freed within weeks. Similarly, change initiatives often have ambitious schedules, plan of actions and milestones, timelines, or similar progress planning and measurement tools. However, those early military timelines to free Paris and change management plans are destined to be wrong. In fact, a completely accurate integrated master schedule for most complex endeavors is a myth. This does not make them useless, but it is a helpful reminder not to cling to old schedules and plans as realities unfold and new information is learned.
While Change Management benefits from Project Management rigor, beware of over-planning and over-measuring progress toward long-term goals. A lot of things will happen, especially in the early days of an initiative, that will challenge or outright refute many key planning assumptions. Resistance may be stiff in some areas and progress may be found in unexpected tactics or locations. Focus on short-term goals (keeping the spirit of change in mind) and communications (more “what’s in it for me"). Remaining agile in your tactics and timeline lets you build on early success and progress to keep you on track for the long-term goals. And achieving those goals is far more important than when you achieve them.
Climb every mountain, make every change, just do one at a time.
Priorities are like mountains, you cannot climb two at the same time, and changing mid-hike requires a lot more work than it may appear. Many change initiatives will start with a long list of desires, but having many priorities is like having none at all. Similarly, having multiple leaders can be like having none at and can actually slow change down. The chance of success improves when the number of priority initiatives and decision-makers are limited to a number that allows progress.
Turning the wishlist of changes into a prioritized scope is important. Focus on change initiatives that are authentic to organizational needs (not merely imitating other organizations) and ones that are integrated with sibling changes (not stand alone). Each change should be achievable during that initiative leader’s tenure. For large change initiatives impacting many executives, the first common boss of impacted executives must also be part of the change accountability plan. If not, then in-fighting and indecision can stall even the best scoped change. Change Management benefits from having priorities and executive leadership, but too many of either can make tackling any one impossible.
Climb every mountain, but only one at a time!
Be a Certified Progress Manager
The pioneer who spent too long thinking about and planning to the clear the virgin forest of trees in order to make a farm probably starved to death. The one who made immediate and daily progress by moving rocks, cutting trees, and burning stumps was able to survive off of the the first harvest made possible though their action. Each year, the pioneer would then build on that early success, incorporating what they learned, and increasing their field size and quality. Sometimes we must favor progress over planning and action over thinking.
In the world of the technocrat, planning is king. Planning usefully approximates work. It estimates future effort and can even look like progress itself. Planning demands certifications and enables an industry of consultants, but it does not always enable or turn into progress. Planning certainly has merit, but it should never be mistaken for the action that must follow if there is to be, in fact, any progress or production. Just ask anyone who planned to, but did not, run a marathon...write a book...travel the world...spend more time with family. Planning without progress or action is regret. Planning is fun but it gets nothing done.
No! More cowbell is not always the answer
The Wright brothers introduced the biggest change in locomotion since the wheel. Lost in reviews of their progress from bi-ped to bi-plane is that others were pursuing flight at the same time. Those contemporaries often focused on launching prototypes from higher places and with bigger engines, but they just crashed quickly. The Wright brothers, meanwhile, fined tuned their unpowered designs with an eye on balance and control first. Only after they achieved stable, controlled gliding did they add power and achieve history. Their key insight into the role of balance and control for flight also offers some great perspective on getting change initiatives off the ground.
While it can be tempting to throw resources (staff or contract support) at stubborn change initiatives, there is reason to approach some problems differently. Change management teams must first understand and establishing control over the forces at play, and then scale up by adding power or resources. Early work should focus on getting the right change agents, core management group, and executive champions in place before adding more power, (and more cowbell!). Otherwise, the too heavily resourced change may just end up crashing.
Love Thy Change
The Bible is not only the most read book in history, it is also the most argued about book in history. Many change initiatives have thick blueprints that are treated as, or even called, a bible. Like the Bible, authors of the change initiative plans will use many words but will often not be around to explain the nuance behind them. Vague paragraphs, and even crystal clear sentences, will be the subject to analysis, second guesses, biased interpretation, and progress-defeating arguments. Without the authors present, others infer interpretations and intents, quoting sections that conveniently meet their own need.
One helpful practice to keep a change initiative or set of initiatives aligned is to define a simple and unifying “spirit” of the change. A variant on the Ten Commandments or, better yet, a simple “love thy neighbor” that can serve as a single guide star during implementation. While this is a communications tool, the target of the communication is actually the change leaders and change agents themselves. People are remarkable at finding sentences and words to justify anything so the “spirit” aims at the higher calling. This reminder of the most-compelling ‘whys' and ‘what’s in it for everyone’ is an effective way to stay on course when disagreements and deviations arise. The spirit of the change can be more useful than a book full of verse to guide your work.
The resistor to my change’s resistance, is my friend
Everyone knows the trope of the change resistant employee. The one who has been with the organization a long time and likes to do things the way they have always been done. (Perhaps they want their red stapler back.) It can be easy to write-off their opinion or consider them merely an impediment to your project’s success, but that could be a missed opportunity. Consider asking them what they think, and then ask why. Change resistance takes many forms, but outsiders and naysayers are not always the resistors you need to address. They could even be a key ally in a more important fight.
First, many change resistant employees have seen failed changes already and may be more skeptical than resistant. Their experience could provide valuable feedback and perspective on your planned changes and tactics. Second, solving a change resistant employee’s pain point (WIIFM) or engaging them to help design the solution may easily convert them into an ally. Finally, as an ally, they may help you mitigate more sophisticated change resistors. Savvy resistors sometimes try to hijack and manipulate change (for their own purpose) or rush the change (so it fails). Having the known ‘resistant employee’ in your corner can help counter them. After all, who wants to hold-up any change project that finally convinced *that* guy. (They may burn down the office if you cross them.)
Ping pong tables do not cause a Silicon Valley start-up’s success
The rise of jargon and imposter cultures is a fascinating phenomenon. First certain buzzwords and activities abound in one industry. Then, after that industry (say finance or tech start-ups) becomes successful, others imitate the cultural hallmarks hoping to cause similar success. They fake it ‘till they make it’, or they just fake it. A great example of this is when bureaucratic organizations claim to be innovative or agile. As you can imagine, pursuing outcomes viewed as successful elsewhere can be problematic because it ignores contributing underlying factors and confuses correlation with causation.
Some change initiatives start because an organization wants to imitate goals and practices seen elsewhere hoping for similar outcomes. As if ping-pong tables cause a start-up’s success and not wild creativity and risk tolerance. As if an innovation lab’s sharpies and white boards magically overcome bureaucratic barriers to innovation. Ignoring underlying factors ignores causality. Still worse, this approach also ignores the authentic needs and abilities of a target organization as it covets the outcomes of another. A successful change initiative will build from those authentic needs and abilities. It will seek to leverage and even retain key organizational differences as advantages. After all, imitating success is not the same as succeeding.
One person’s governance is another person’s red tape.
It can be tempting to rail against red tape and lengthy processes while assuming they are wrong or wasteful. Nobody loves building codes or the inspectors who slow down projects by enforcing them. People hate lengthy organizational procurement processes needed even for basic items. But on the other hand, nobody loves losing their house in a preventable fire and each extra procurement rule can probably be traced back to some noble cause or nefarious misdeed. Not all processes and controls are necessary, but many have reasons they were instituted in the first place.
Before change managers are set loose streamlining processes or organizations, it is worthwhile learning why they exist. One person’s red tape begging to be trimmed may be another person’s governance with legitimate need. Likewise, complex processes are usually called chaos by those who simply cannot grasp complexity. Change managers must challenge the needs in play to verify them and beware of people who blindly stake-out extreme positions for an excess or absence of process. Greedy builders may think fewer inspections would be an improvement, but they won't be living in the house after the project is over. A balance of outcomes is not just a compromise, it is often a healthy blend of the real needs and ideas from multiple perspectives. Use a balance of goals, perspectives, and tactics to change wisely.
Perfect processes do not fix people problems
Humans societies and organizations are complex, so it stands to reason that solutions to our collective problems cannot be simple. Change management plans will often rely heavily on process improvements and training to accomplish goals, but this may be too simplistic (and optimistic). Process improvement and even perfect processes cannot address underlying cultural issues, and they certainly cannot fix people problems. This is because complex divergent things (a.k.a. human cultures) cannot be fixed by simple convergent solutions. One checklist to rule-them-all produces drones, not thriving humans. In fact, it is possible that human cultures cannot be ‘fixed’ at all in the classic sense of the word. However, they can certainly be improved - and that is a noble goal.
Conversely, a friend noted, great people can overcome many bad processes. Certainly everyone can recall a co-worker or customer service representative who knew precisely who to call or how to bend (or break) process rules to get things done. Perhaps you were fortunate to know someone whose friendliness and optimism was so pervasive that it influenced hearts and minds well beyond expectations. Imagine the little robot WALL-E simply waving at people and the ripple effect of opening everyone's along the way. The benefits of relationships and good people to an organization’s culture are the result of that human complexity. While hard to quantify, these benefits are real and everyone knows it. Unfortunately, they also cannot be created by the perfect process despite our many and best efforts.
If you've seen change done well or poorly, or if you have managed change, which lessons resonate with you or what lessons and odd perspectives would you add?
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PS: Older/Alternate version of the lessons:
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