Over the last 30 years, I have seen a lot of buzz words and management fads come and go. The area of organizational change has certainly generated more than a few new acronyms and theoretical approaches during this timeframe. Many of us are involved in and responsible for making change stick in our respective organizations. In a world where the majority of programs and projects fail due to a lack of focus on the people side of the equation, we all ask “what’s the secret formula for success?”
At TSI, our seasoned group of performance improvement consultants considers the following fundamentals as three basic elements needed to drive and sustain organizational change:
- Impacted people must clearly understand what they need to do differently,
- Those impacted need to gain the skills, knowledge, confidence and tools to successfully perform their new roles, and,
- The right people need to be incented and held accountable for achieving measurable and sustainable results.
Sounds simple doesn’t it? If it’s that simple, why do so many efforts fail? Well, chalk a lot of it up to human nature and the challenges that can come along whenever people assemble under boxes on an organizational chart.
To increase your odds of successfully driving organizational change, consider the following best practices:
- Getting people to adopt and sustain change takes more than the traditional communication and training tasks. Not to say that these two areas aren’t important, but other levers often need to be pulled. Determine if your change program includes all the right elements, no one size fits all.
- Involve influential stakeholders early in process and solution analysis and design. This increases the likelihood of effective requirements definition up-front with increased downstream buy-in, understanding and adoption. Focusing on business processes, while keeping the end customer in mind has proven itself to be a valuable framework time and time again.
- Communicate a clear and simple business case for change. Don’t assume people will figure it out on their own. In fact, assume they will not. And even if some individuals won’t agree with the reasons for change, they will appreciate the upfront effort to share critical information and will be more likely to follow early pioneers and adopters. In addition, celebrate and reward wins wherever possible, small and large, as part of an on-going communication strategy.
- Assign dedicated roles/teams to assess operational readiness, develop migration/transition plans and support successful cut-over and sustainment of the new solution and/or environment. An effective way to get from point A to point Z is to define Z, work backwards to A and assign responsibility for executing the tasks needed for the successful transition.
- Pilot and test solutions before full roll-out and incorporate lessons learned in subsequent implementation waves. Fail small and learn vs. fail big.
- Try out agile and fast approaches (e.g., SCRUM and Work-out) to rapidly design and implement small chunks of change. In today’s fast moving economy, many groups do not have time for long, drawn out change exercises.
- Finally, identify and actively involve the right sponsors and advocates in your change efforts. Don’t be afraid to prod leaders for active involvement and support, they will appreciate your focus and discipline on important goals and objectives.
Keeping the 3 basic tenets of successful change management in mind and following the above best practices will pay huge dividends to you and your organization. At TSI, we are always available to help rapidly power up and enable your efforts. We would love to hear about your challenge and what works in your companies.