Reverse brainstorms to kick start change
February 27th, 2011 § 2 Comments
Stream of consciousness by jurvetson
Why are organisations consistently so poor at implementing change.
One of the reasons for this seems to be lack of confidence of how to manage change.- In organisations today we are very experienced with quantitive data but not so much with the people issues. One hypothesis (whatever the drivers) is management think it is their role to have all the answers.
Of course there are many more reasons why change fails and I would be interested to hear some of your ideas by comments via the link above.
Research on change management consistently suggests engagement and involvement of employees are key ways to shift from failure to success. This has to be one of those situations where the term ‘uncommon sense’ applies.
The question for today is – How can we assist leaders to engage employees around the given change whilst generating commitment to the future?
Last year we developed a tactile tool that can be used with leaders and employees to assist in co-creation. Our short YouTube video will give you an overview of the cards and the principles behind their design.
To assist some leaders in change for sustainability, I recently conducted a Reverse Brainstorm session using the Change Management cards. I thought I would share the process and reflections here. Reverse Brainstorm is a powerful way to unpack issues and build a way forward, the cards offer a different dimension providing content that gives a basis for conversations that need to occur.
Our question for the reverse brainstorm was “how do you undermine the organisational change initiative currently going on to ensure it fails?”.
The group of about 20 on 3 different tables selected their change initiative based on shared experience. There was a variety of experience in the room for people to draw on about bad things that happened to them or others around organisational change. The butchers paper was quickly filled with examples to undermine change.
They were then introduced to the cards and given an understanding of how to use them during the exercise.
Then with a pack of the cards per table they were tasked to collaborate to “build” a way to implement the change so that the issues they identified in the brainstorm “did not” happen.
They were not told how to do this, the group was experienced enough to provide their own structure based on the potential of the tool (Change Management Cards). With a less experienced audience you could create a more structured approach to use with the cards.
Group One looked chose to begin with the Joker cards and identified the key cultural or systemic issues that contributed to creating their problems. They prioritised and selected half a dozen Joker cards and went through all of the Tool cards selecting tools/approaches that they thought would be useful in turning around the issues identified.
Group Two looked at the issues they had identified and using the Tool cards worked out which tools may be useful to proactively ensure the issue didn’t happen in the first place. They also had conversations about the role cards and the importance of the roles identified to overall success.
Group Three struggled with the percieved lack of structure, (an example of leaders uncomfortable with people issues who see it as HR’s role and therefor avoid it). Left with that tension, they finally decided to use the Process Cards as a structure for their change initiative. They then allocated Tools (from the tool card suite) to relevant parts of their process where using them could make the most difference.
Feedback and learnings for the groups
There is no one way to change – each group needed to process and develop an approach that worked based on their experience and goals.
We don’t know what we don’t know – using the cards or similar resources they realised they could broaden their scope and have more informed conversations to identify appropriate ways to achieve their outcome. Also the more the people you involved who knew about the different dimensions of your business the better
Group three realised they did well in the planning and review phases of the process, where they struggled was in the implementation phase. They realised that their review outcomes were consistently poor because they really didn’t know very much about implementation and engagement.
The key insights they gained were about the possibilities of co-creation with their people, realising they could get a much richer outcome tapping into the collective wisdom of their people. This session also created an understanding of how to engage with their people and begin the process of co-creation.
What have you really signed up for? 10 questions to test your psychological contract with your employer
February 13th, 2011 § 4 Comments
jour328 by Guillaume Brialon. Courtesy Flickr Creative Commons.
Recently the concept of the Psychological Contract has been bubbling up for me. The key contexts that it has been coming up around are for people who are changing roles, and where change is occurring within organisations.
To assist those unfamiliar with the concept I will use a basic Wikipedia definition;
“The psychological contract represents the mutual beliefs, perceptions, and informal obligations between an employer and an employee. It sets the dynamics for the relationship and defines the detailed practicality of the work to be done. It is distinguishable from the formal written contract of employment which, for the most part, only identifies mutual duties and responsibilities in a generalized form.”
What this means is that when we join an organisation, we get a paper contract. We may have conversations about the role in more detail, or not. We usually have expectations drawn from our past experience with organisations, our perception of the organisation we are entering, or just influenced by our own life experiences in general. Very often it is the unsaid conversations that could clarify the contract (be it paper or Psychological) that would then enable us to understand exactly what is happening and if it is a fit for us and them.
I believe that there are a number of reasons why those conversations are not had and I have included some of them below, I would be interested in your thoughts and or experiences as to why you think they do or don’t occur:
- perception of the hierarchy of the organisation and relationship to authority
- management should not be questioned – this perception can be held by both the employee and/or manager
- self image of the employee and their ability to voice their questions
- the employee not understanding that the role and environment that is “sold” to them may not exist as represented
- concerns by the employee based on the job market that they should take this job rather than testing if it is a good fit for their skills and values
To explore this as a change management concept today I will share an example of a psychological contract at the recruitment phase of employment, and in my next post I will explore one later in the life cycle of employment when an organisation is undergoing change. The reason for sharing the two different perspectives is to reflect on how change or even perceived change can significantly impact the ability of an individual to deal with that change both at the time of change and into the future.
In our first example relating to recruitment, when a new employee comes on board its safe to say that they are keen to get on with the job and make a good impression. If they join the organisation and the role and environment are what they expected, they are motivated and can get on with the job. If however the role and or environment are different to what they expected or were “sold”, you already have a problem. Their commitment to the contract is now influenced by the organisations ability to deliver on it. Some people finding themselves in this situation intuitively understand the concept of the psychological contract, of course they may not use that term but they know its more than a bit of paper. At the point where this occurs they usually step back to take stock of the unexpected situation, and make a decision as to the fit given the additional information that they now have. Usually they then make a choice as to if they will stay or move on. This is easier for them given their perception that the contract has been already broken by the employer.
Others individuals who may have different life experiences, self image or personal circumstances are not aware what has occurred. Some may even have experiences that are reinforced yet again by this situation and half expect it to happen anyway. What occurs then is they often don’t go through the process of analysing what has occurred, or looking at the gap of promised/expected and delivered. These individuals are still a problem for the organisation, in fact they are a bigger problem than the individuals described above. The reason why, is because they don’t take stock of the situation and they don’t process the fit and make a choice. They become prisoners within the organisation, and sometimes they find others like themselves and can create quite toxic pockets of culture that many organisations find difficult to deal with.
Recently a friend of mine was chatting to me about a role that I had recommended him for. He was unsure if he wanted to move from the life of consultant to employee. He enjoyed his freedom to think and be creative and was concerned that an “employment” relationship may change that.
His concern was “what will i be doing when I get there?” Naturally because of his capabilities reflected in his resume, it would be reasonable to assume that the organisation would see a fit with his skills and experience and offer him the job because he was the package they were looking for. Or is that reasonable? Unfortunately even though many organisations attempt to find a match so often this doesn’t happen.
We discussed the concept of the psychological contract and given he was in a situation where he was unsure if he wanted the role or not, it seemed the perfect opportunity for him to explore it in more detail and have the conversation that so many people and organisations don’t have.
The type of questions that you can ask in this situation include:
- what percentage of the role will be thinking vs doing? is that percentage expected to change over time?
- how much travel will be expected of the role?
- is there scope for working remotely? what support is provided for this if any?
- what are the average working hours expected of people in this type of role?
- what type of budget does the role have?
- what tools are used within the organisation to support the function?
- what understanding and skill level exists in the immediate team? – in the organisation generally?
- is the organisation open to innovation for tools and processes in this area?
- is the organisation risk averse?
- how does the organisation typically cope with change?
There are many other questions that can be asked and we would love you to share them below. The interesting thing about asking these questions is that depending on the organisation, going back to them and asking them these things could be seen as refreshing and showing initiative, or challenging and taking a risk. When discussing this issue with my friend we agreed that if the organisation/manager was challenged by him asking these type of questions, then it probably wasn’t a fit anyway.
So the outcome for this individual is that he had the conversation, it was well received and he took the role. The opportunity for him and the organisation is now to keep these conversations going to maintain the relationship and the motivation. If the organisation cant keep up its end of the bargain of what is now a very clear “complete contract” (as much as is possible given the openness of both parties) then the individual will be able to take stock and make an informed choice about his future.
In my next post i will explore the Psychological Contract a bit further down the employment relationship cycle and look at how we create prisoners through poor change management practice.
I would love to hear you comments or questions about your experiences with this type of situation.
The state of change today
January 27th, 2011 § 4 Comments
The_Butterfly_Place_67 by Talking Tree. Courtesy Flickr Creative Commons.
No matter what we do today, be it work, home or in the community we are all dealing with change every moment of every day.
When I googled why org change fails I got about 156,000,000 results (0.34 seconds). This tells me that it’s a subject that we as a society are struggling with.
I began working in change about 20 years ago, funnily enough we were struggling with the same things then. We had some great wins thanks to insightful leaders and committed and talented people (you know who you are), and of course some not so successful ones due to not so insightful or courageous leaders. I have always had the blessing of being able to surround myself with awesome people who are also keen to make a difference.
There is definitely a pattern here, where leadership is key to success, as is commitment to making a difference. What do I mean by leadership? To me leadership is not about “management” or just the people who get the big bucks like senior leaders. Leadership is about anyone in a given situation who is able to lead through their role no matter what their position within the organisation.
During the last 20 years I have moved in and out of the change space, but no matter what I do it is always connected through that change lens.
One challenge that many of us have, especially if you are located within an “organisational system” is helping leaders at all levels in the organisation understand the need to attend to how change is implemented within an organisation, be it around structure, process or systems.
Too often the reasons given are:
- we cant afford the resources,
- we don’t have the time to do all that stuff
- …and so many more
The questions that those responses bring up for me are:
- Can organisations actually afford not to deal with the issues necessary to bring your people on the change journey?
- Can organisations afford not taking the time to engage their people in the change?
- In short, what is the risk of taking these choices, to the success of the initiative?
Lets look at some of the stats that are readily available today that help us understand the consequences of those choices:
- Research shows that 70 – 80% of all change initiatives studied fail
- This rises to 90% failure rate for culture change programmes
- When you drill down deeper only 6% of change management projects are completely successful - 32% are ‘mostly’ successful :S
- Fewer than 34% of major reorganizations produced any meaningful improvement in performance. Some actually destroyed value!
Looking at these statistics – how do you get stakeholders to sit up and take notice of the importance of doing effective change management? How do you get them to understand that when they respond in the old way, they are actually making a choice? How do you help them understand the real consequences of that choice on the success of their initiative? I’m currently working on a project to assist with addressing these challenges, that will enable you to get to a place where you can put forward an alternative approach to the business. One designed to maximise the success of the initiative, to help move you toward the 6% of fully successful projects. I look forward to sharing it with you as it develops.
So the state of change today is the same as the state of change 20 years ago…what are we going to do about it? I look forward to hearing your thoughts and comments and some robust conversations as we work to change the state of change. Also, if you have any stats on change we would love to have you share them here.
References
Beer, M & Nohria, N (2000), Cracking the code of change, Harvard Business Review, May-June, pp. 133-141.
Blenko, M, Mankins, MC & Rogers, P (2010), The key to successful corporate reorganization, Forbes.com.
McKinsey (2006). Organizing for successful change management: A McKinsey global survey. McKinsey.
