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7 - The Process Of Guiding Change

Most decisions precipitate change - a commitment to do things in the future that are different to what was done in the past. The change may be minor or major; it may take a small or large amount of effort; it may be one-time or ongoing; it may institute a new behavior or replace an old one; and it may have positive consequences, negative ones, or a mix of both for different people.

In terms of team decisions, a change may be entirely internal to the team, but more often it impacts others. Some will be needed to participating in effecting the change, others will be impacted by it without needing to participate (though they must often adjust to the consequences). The decisions made by a team that impact others within a company require the support of management to communicate to others, gain their cooperation, and ensure they do what is necessary.

It's generally observed that people are resistant to change. Even when a change is entirely positive, it requires them to shift from familiar and comfortable routines to doing something different - and people tend to be reluctant and pessimistic. Some will struggle to avoid change and maintain the status quo, and this may happen even when the status quo is not very good - but it's "the devil you know."

In other instances, there are negative consequences to change, which can be quite severe. A change may result in terminations for employees who are no longer needed afterward, or it may cause some employees to take on additional work. What is best for the organization is not always best for the employees, and what is good for some employees is not always good for all.

The manager's first responsibility is to make sure that the negative consequences of a change are fully explored. The task of the team is to consider each change in its full context. They generally see the positive outcome they mean to achieve but can be ignorant (and sometimes intentionally so) of any negative consequences.

A second responsibility of the team manager is to coordinate with others in management roles to communicate the change and get the support of individual employees whose participation will be necessary - this is generally larger and more persistent than the process of defining the change.

Why Do Organizations Change?

In the present age, it's generally taken for granted that change is constant and seldom questioned, but the author identifies sixe broad forces that bring about change:

1. Workforce
2. Technology
3. Economics
4. Competition
5. Market Trends
6. Politics

(EN: The author doesn't offer much in the way of explanation, nor do I think his list is comprehensive.)

Some companies keep an eye on the horizon, adapting to the changes that they expect will impact their firm. While being proactive in preparing for the foreseeable future is almost universally considered to be a good idea, it comes at the risk of making unnecessary changes (because events that were anticipated do not occur) and wrong choices.

Significant change is usually planned near the top of an organization, and managers are asked to guide change, regardless of whether they agree with the conclusions of the analysts - and as such must do the best they can to understand the reasons and promote change within the organization, even when they happen to disagree with its necessity.

The scope of a change varies: it can be a minor adjustment that affects part of the organization (even as small as one person) or it can sweep across the entire organization.

The speed of a change also varies, in that a change may require a quick transformation or a slow evolution. Companies that plan ahead tend to make slower changes with a smooth transition - those who react to external forces find themselves in panic mode and must make disruptive and sudden changes.

The degree to which a company will struggle with change depends largely on its culture. Older and larger firms that focus on tradition, which have long-term employees and long-standing procedures, react poorly to any change as it poses a threat to the status quo. Younger and smaller ones, which focus on innovation, generally weather change better because there is less attachment to the present way of things.

The Manager's Role In The Change Process

In essence, a company's reaction to change is the aggregation of its employees individual reactions to change. This is where the front-line manager's performance is critical - in knowing his people, having a sense of what they value and how they will react, and working with them to gain their commitment to new ideas. The high-level managers who want a change are little involved in making that change happen.

With this in mind, the plan to change should include management of the change process - understanding that employees will be asked to do things differently, that they feel some dedication to the status quo, and that they will react in different ways to the demand to make adjustments to their working routines.

The first-line manager's role is in communicating organizational changes to employees and helping them to interpret how it impacts their roles. The manager presents the big picture and translates it to the smaller picture for his department or area of responsibility, then communicates with his employees as a group and as individuals so that they understand and accept the changes to their roles.

Understanding the personalities of employees is helpful in predicting how they will react to change - fundamentally, whether they will embrace change or resist it depends of their personal values and whether the change helps them better achieve them.

The author presents a facile quiz, but one which details some of the personality traits that will determine an employee's perspective on change in general. The degree to which an employee has the following traits determines the level of resistance he will have to change:

• I like work to be organized and predictable
• I feel comfortable in my present role and my daily routine
• I accept the present assumptions
• I like certainty and wish to avoid risk
• I like my job, just as it is
• Tradition and established rituals are important to me
• I dislike being creative or spontaneous
• I prefer to focus on my work and avoid thinking about the big picture
• I prefer to focus on details of the work rather than the outcome
• I feel rules are permanent should not be challenged

(EN: This seems worthwhile, but a bit facile. I do not think that people accept "change" without qualifying what that change happens to include - such that a person is open to any kind of change. The danger in stereotyping a worker as friendly or hostile to change in general is that they will accept some kinds of change and resist others, and a general conclusion will lead you astray. Better to understand their values and assess each change on its idiosyncrasies.)

How People Are Affected by Change

Every person reacts differently to change (EN: and any given person reacts differently to different changes). Some accept change readily, and make adjustments very easily. Others experience a great deal of stress and lead a great deal of attention and coaching to help them through the transition. A manager should have a sense of this, preferably in advance, so that he may apply his efforts efficiently and effectively.

The author briefly describes William Bridges's transition model, which fundamentally looks at change as a "neutral zone" between the old ways that will have to end and the new ways that will begin. This model is fairly simplistic, but identifies an important fundamental: some things change, other things stay the same. Employees should be comforted by the things that do not change, and coached to accept the things that will.

(EN: What the author omits is the need to do a thorough analysis. Some employees are reluctant to adopt the "new ways" but the much larger problem is uncertainty, as many mangers present only some of the changes and neglect to mention others - leaving employees feeling panicked because they do not feel the understand the full scope of the change and betrayed when changes that were no communicated reveal themselves, and with the sense [sometimes entirely justified] that their manager is keeping things hidden in order to manipulate them into accepting a change. Hence, the importance of putting effort into considering and communicating changes.)

Responses to Change

The author concedes that it is difficult to predict a given employee's response to change. It's largely a combination of the degree and manner in which the change affects their work, their own personality type, and their past experience with changes, particularly those of a similar nature.

The author looks to the "ABCs" of psychology that can be predictive because the way that an employee thinks and feels will determine how he chooses to react to change.

:

• Affective - A person's emotions and attitudes
• Behavioral - Their motivations to take action
• Cognitive - The way they acquire and categorize knowledge

(EN: Because the author is attempting to be clever in presenting them as "ABC" I sense he may be omitting and distorting concepts, and at the very least is getting them out of order. To make it worse, he doesn't explore it much further, so creating a clever acronym is entirely gratuitous.)

Individuals' proclivities are impacted by their understanding of the organizational culture, along with the information they receive and behavior they observe in others. The author suggests that the manager is highly influential, provided that the manager has earned trust and respect.

Brief reference is made into Oreg (2006) who studied trust relationships between management and workers to find that the degree to which employees had "faith" in organizational leaders is strongly correlated to the anxiety about change, resistance to change, and their evaluations of the results of change. Thus, establishing trust and respect between management and workers is critical in selling change - and this is a task that must be done far in advance of a change needing to be made.

A manager who is describing change to employees is, in effect, suggesting to them a better situation in the future - which is entirely ineffective if they do not believe in what the manager has to say or trust that he is being honest with them. Companies and managers who find that they have to beg for trust and ask employees to make a leap of faith are those who have not earned the trust of their employees. And if employees do not have trust in management on a day-to-day basis, there is no basis for trust when a crisis arises or a major change must be made.

Dealing with Resistance

Employees who readily adapt to changes need little attention, but those that resist can pose a problem. If you strong-arm people into compliance, you will gain superficial compliance only for the short run - employees will work around the changes, and may depart. With that in mind, coercive measures such as threatening disciplinary action should be a last resort, implemented only as a precursor to dismissal.

Some people have a transitory resistance to change - they recognize its rationale but have difficulty making the adjustment - whereas others are "clearly dysfunctional" in that they flatly refuse to accept the change and will work to undermine it. In such instances, it is important to attempt to understand the reasons that employees are resisting. Some examples are:

• Sense of Loss - The employee feels he will suffer in some way, whether it affects losing status or social connections, having less job security, etc.
• Sense of Injustice - The employee feels that his concerns were excluded in the change planning and that the new arrangement isn't "fair" to him, particularly when additional duties are assigned without additional compensation
• Sense of Confusion - The employee does not perceive the necessity of change and does not have adequate information to know what is expected of him, so clings to older ways in which his role is clear.
• Sense of Futility - The employee understands his role, but feels he has insufficient resources and direction under the new system to succeed at achieving the objectives he has been assigned

The author suggests that the resistance to change can be mitigated and overcome by examining these reasons, often merely by providing information to help the employee understand his new role or the resources and training necessary for him to feel secure in his ability to be successful in it. Ideally, the change plan will have addressed both issues, but in many instances something has been overlooked that the employee has identified.

(EN: I sense the author is leaving out a major factor in resistance - that the change is actually quite bad. Not all changes are well and sufficiently considered and decision-makers can act on a whim. The first task of a manager should be to assess the validity of a change and seek to understand the consequences - and in some instances, to lead the resistance rather than seek to demand compliance to bad orders.)

The Change Process

The discussion this far has focused on managing a single employee - but it is also necessary for a manager to support change for groups of people within an organization.

Brief reference is made to Lewin (1951) whose metaphor for change was the period between "unfreezing" the organization and "freezing" in again in a new configuration. Particular attention should be given to the unfreezing process because the greatest cause of resistance is that employees wish to remain frozen in their present roles.

The prepare-change-integrate model is also mentioned:

• Prepare - Present the change to employees before it occurs and encourage them to be prepared. Identify and reduce resistance in advance, and create a sense of psychological safety
• Change - Provide information and training that will be necessary for employees to make the transition as individuals, engaging coaches and experts to help employees prepare
• Integrate - Help employees to understand their new role in the context of the organization, recognize and reward the desired behaviors, and continue coaching until they are settled in their new roles

A planned, coordinated process of change is always better than the alternative: employees resist change because it is unpredictable and disconcerting - when they know the desired outcome and can envision the way in which they will make the transition, there is less resistance.

The success of organizational change is ultimately about getting people to do things in a way that is different to what they have become accustomed. The change is complete when the "new way" becomes the status quo.

Systemic Change

The authors speak of staff, systems, structure, and culture as the DNA of an organization - changes that affect these elements tend to be larger and more disruptive than those that do not. Moreover, change to the elements of DNA often involve multiple departments or business units - and it is often a trade-off of efficiencies: a change that is good for the shipping department may require more effort from manufacturing department.

In the present day, change is not a singularity, but is often an ongoing process: employees are constantly shifting and adapting to the exigencies of the moment, and there are few systems that remain in place for long. (EN: This is more common in the present age, but has always been common in firms that has great fluctuations in demand, not merely volume but the nature of what is demanded, such that mass-production approaches are incompatible.)

Large changes are often handled in phases, which hare a series of smaller adjustments that will lead to a major change in total. The advantages of the phased approach are:

• Small scope - It is easier for employees to understand a small change than a large one
• Small scale - A pilot program or trial period can be used to ensure the change is positive
• Realistic goals - A large goal may be overwhelming, but a smaller one is less daunting.
• Loose planning - Each phase can be planned as needed, and management does not need to commit to details that may need to change
• Quick feedback - Management and employees do not need to wait for the entire system to change before witnessing and being rewarded for their contribution
• Alterable - It is easier to adjust a smaller increment in change without jeopardizing the grand plan

For most companies and industries, the ability to plan a major change that will take place over the course of many years (or even a single year) is limited and it's never wise to commit to a systemic change because the environmental factors may shift during the process.

Change Process Model

The author presents a model of a change process, which outlines the major steps of an organizational change:

1. Anticipate Change. As soon as you sense things will be different, identify who will be impacted (stakeholders) and conduct hypothetical scenario-planning sessions. Demonstrate the value of the change and solicit concerns from participants.
2. Justify Change. Communicate the problem that will be solved or an opportunity that will be seized by making the change, creating a compelling vision of the benefits of making the change. Provide details so employees understand and accept that the new arrangement will be better, and reach out to anyone who is affected (not merely those who must participate directly)
3. Form a Team. Organize a committee of all who will be directly involved or indirectly impacted, including not only management but employees whose daily work will be affected. Ensure they are involved in planning and executing the change, as well as monitoring it afterward.
4. Document a Plan. Involve the members of the change-management committee in developing a plan that communicates the details: the as-is state, the to-be state, and a list of things that must be done to make the transition. Develop a timetable and specific milestones, as well as monitoring and metrics.
5. Announce the Plan. Communicate the committee's plans to the organization - with emphasis on those who will be directly affected, but also for others within the organization even if they are not affected. Inasmuch as possible, execute communication broadly and quickly so that they hear it from you before they hear it through the grapevine.
6. Execute the Change. Arrange for resources and training to be provided, then ask the employees to change to the new way of doing things. Keep communications open and be vigilant for side-effects.
7. Reinforce the Change. During and after execution, recognize the progress and the achievements of the change to reinforce desired behaviors until they become habitual.
8. Evaluate the Change. During and after execution, ensure that the change is achieving its desired results. It may be necessary to revise or entirely revisit the plan if the outcomes are not achieved.

Most of these steps are fairly straightforward, though some organizations see them as optional - with the biggest variable being the amount of planning and communication that organizations conduct. However, those that are attentive to change and its impact on employees tend to implement change more efficiently and effectively.

It's also mentioned that proactive changes are often handled with care, whereas reactive changes tend to be more hurried and chaotic as management feels the need to act quickly. But again, both the speed and effectiveness of a change depend on coordination and management.

As an aside, the authors also advocate having a larger and longer vision. Employees are frustrated and confused when there are a flurry of small-scale and short-sighted initiatives that do not seem to be contributing to a grander plan. Managers should also take a broader perspective of change in general: many changes may be happening at the same time, and the net result may be panic and confusion even if each change is handled well.

(EN: Another benefit that the author fails to mention is that handling a change well builds confidence and trust for future changes - and handling it poorly undermines confidence and trust. Focusing only on the present need to change, without considering its impact on the long-term morale and culture of the organization, can be very detrimental to future efforts.)