I need a discussion for week 7 and a response to 2 Classmate for my Class Leading by change by putting people first and a response to 2 other classmates

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JWI 556

Leading Change by Putting People First

Week Seven Lecture Notes

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MANAGING DIFFERENT TYPES OF CHANGE

What It Means

The change leadership principles we have been exploring in this course have stood the test of time, and

work well across a variety of different types of change projects. But not every type of change benefits

from having the same set of tools applied in the same way. Technical or operational changes may require

more training on new equipment, processes, or workflow. Organizational changes, such as a restructuring

or merger, typically require more leadership around culture and vision. Changes involving strategy may

need additional focus on aligning Mission and Behaviors.

Why It Matters

 Not understanding the challenges inherent to different types of change can lead to an ineffective

“one-size fits all” approach.

 The complexities of a merger or acquisition can be particularly demanding for change leaders

who are not prepared for them.

 The technical training and support needed for team members who are asked to develop new

skills must empower them to adapt to the new ways without a drop in productivity or quality.

“The change leader’s job is to create

advocates for the change at every level of

the organization.”

Jack Welch

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SPECIFIC CHALLENGES OF LEADING DIFFERENT TYPES OF CHANGE

Last week, we focused on scaling up when more people are impacted by a change initiative. This week’s

topics are a continuation of that general theme, but we are concentrating specifically on the different

types of change that leaders have to deal with, and on what needs to be addressed to maintain a people-

first focus during these changes.

The most common types of change initiatives include:

 Operational, Technical, or Process Change

These sorts of changes are typically led by managers or business leaders rather than HR

professionals. Unless the change impacts a system or tool that is managed by HR, it is possible

the HR team may not even hear about the change. When HR does play a role in these sorts of

changes, it is usually in providing training. If Learning and Development falls under HR, get

involved in the design of support tools early in the process to help operators think through: (a)

what behavioral changes will be required from the change, (b) how the team will be prepared to

make those changes, and (c) how they will be supported after the initial roll-out has been

completed.

 Change Driven by Crisis

Whether the crisis is a legal/ethical one, or an unexpected turn of events caused by the sudden

departure of a CEO, a sudden change in the market, or a big win for a competitor, the role of the

HR professional is most often to support alignment with Mission and Values. During times of

crisis, employees can lose faith in business and head for the exits. HR leaders can help senior

executives develop clear and consistent messaging on the path forward, and be there to provide

a compassionate and confidential sounding board when employees need to talk.

 Organizational Change

Restructuring, whether because of a merger or acquisition or because of a downsizing, is the

most common type of change HR leadership is called on to support. During these times, we must

be advocates for people – helping them understand why the change has occurred, helping them

find their place in the new order, or structuring generous severance and support packages for

those who moving on.

 Strategic Change

Depending on the scope of the new strategy, this may or may not be an area where change HR

leadership is predominant. The most critical role HR leadership typically plays during strategic

change initiatives is working with management to ensure the right people are in the right roles,

and that they have the support to execute the strategy.

 Growth Change

Perhaps not a separate change category, but this is one that is focused on positive opportunities,

not on negative ones. This is an area where HR must be leaders in assessing the future needs of

the company and building a proactive talent development plan to meet those needs.

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REORGANIZATION

In one of our readings this week, “Getting Reorgs Right” by Stephen Heidari-Robinson & Suzanne

Heywood (2016), the authors present some disheartening data about reorgs.

“According to a McKinsey survey we conducted, more than 80% fail to deliver the hoped-

for value in the time planned, and 10% cause real damage to the company. More

important, they can be damned miserable experiences for employees. Research

suggests that reorgs – and the uncertainty they provoke about the future – can cause

greater stress and anxiety than layoffs, leading in about 60% of cases to noticeably

reduced productivity.”

The reasons they cite for these failures may sound familiar:

 Employees actively resist the changes

 Insufficient resources – people, time, money – are devoted to the effort

 Employees are distracted from their day-to-day activities, and individual productivity declines

 Leaders actively resist the changes

 The org chart changes, but the way people work stays the same

 Employees leave because of the reorg

 Unplanned activities, such as an unforeseen need to change IT systems or communicate the

changes in multiple languages, disrupt implementation.

They go on to argue that “[h]ow you go about your reorg is as important as – and sometimes more

important than – what you do.” They suggest a five-step process that can help change leaders approach

reorganizations with a set of tools that can shift the odds of success in a more favorable direction. In brief,

these are:

1. Develop a profit and loss statement that can be shared with employees. This presents the

case in clear business language and helps everyone understand the business need for the

change.

2. Understand current weaknesses and strengths of business units and people so that the reorg

makes sense and is tied to real performance improvement.

3. Consider multiple options in the design of the new organization so that what the organization

looks like doesn’t take the place of how it functions.

4. Get the plumbing right, by which they mean creating new job descriptions, setting up new

financial structures, and accounting for new IT processes.

5. Launch, learn, and course correct so that the reorg evolves and addresses shortcomings.

Such processes, especially when coupled with a change model like Kotter’s, can provide additional

lenses through which we can approach change initiatives. The more tools you have in your toolbox,

the more options you have for choosing a change strategy that addresses the specific challenges

you are facing. The following pages present two addition tools that have proven to be highly effective

for change leaders committed to advancing a people-first change agenda.

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WORK-OUT

Jack originally conceived of the Work-Out process in the late 1980s as a change tool to:

 Anticipate fast-changing business and economic conditions

 Eliminate unnecessary steps and activities

 Give people the self-confidence to challenge the way work is done and take risks to do it

differently

To foster the new mindset, Work-Out sessions were designed to maximize dialogue about real business

problems. Over the course of two to three days, participants developed specific and measurable

solutions, and senior managers were forced to make immediate decisions about process improvements.

The problems were generally divided into several components, with a small team assigned to each. Team

members worked together to generate a list of potentially high-impact improvements – some incremental

shifts and some radical breakthroughs. At the end of the session, teams presented their ideas to one or

more senior leaders with decision-making authority at a “town hall” meeting of the larger group. The

leaders engaged the entire group in dialogue about the ideas and made yes or no decisions on the spot.

Then, assignments were made to implement the approved changes quickly.

Work-Outs are organized into three stages: planning, holding the Work-Out event, and implementing

approved recommendations.

1. Planning. Participants prepare for the Work-Out event by defining the main problem to be

addressed, the key pieces of the process, and the measurable improvement goals. Having

defined these, people with the relevant experience and perspectives are selected for the teams.

Part of this approach’s power lies in bringing together people from different locations, functions,

businesses, and levels who might not otherwise work with each other. Work-Out planners also

develop thought-starter questions, process diagrams, and data packages to kick off the teams’

discussions and ground everyone in a concrete understanding of the issue.

2. The Work-Out event. The Work-Out event itself usually takes place over two days, although

there are shorter and longer variations depending on the nature of the problem, the number of

people in the room, and the company culture. During the event, teams share information and

perspectives on their assigned issue, then brainstorm improvement ideas. The ideas are

narrowed down to a shortlist of those with the greatest impact. Often, the groups come back

together at this point to get each other’s reactions and deal with any emerging overlaps. They

return to their small teams and begin to develop detailed recommendations about the top ideas.

The Work-Out event concludes with a presentation of the recommendations at the town hall. A

decision-maker is often joined by a panel of other senior managers. Candor and transparency

must be at the heart of this public discussion forum.

3. Implementation. As with any change tool, Work-Out is only useful to the extent that team

members are empowered to actually implement the approved recommendations. One of the

benefits of having a panel of senior leaders participating in the town hall meeting, in addition to

the decision-maker, is to ensure widespread buy-in and empowerment to act after the event.

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Work-Out may be used as a one-off event to tackle a particular problem, or it may be adopted as a core

organizational process. The latter approach offers benefits that go well beyond solving an immediate

problem. It drives real cultural change toward speed, empowerment, and candor. It gives everyone a

voice, regardless of organizational level, and both promotes and demands that we get “every brain in the

game.” It also helps to develop leaders who are prepared to act transparently and have the self-

confidence to engage in real-time public discussion and decision-making.

RAPID RESULTS

Culture, calcification, and complexity are powerful sources of resistance to organizational change. Each in

its own way smothers motivation and reinforces dysfunctional behaviors. Together, they suck the life out

of change efforts. Much of Kotter’s eight-stage framework – especially the foundational steps of building

urgency and creating a guiding coalition – is designed to overcome this resistance. Rapid Results offers a

tool to punch through resistance.

The Rapid Results approach sets up, in a controlled and deliberate way, the conditions of a crisis.

Success is clear and measurable. The focus is firmly on the result to be achieved. The combination of a

challenging goal and a short timeframe creates a strong sense of urgency. Rapid Results also fosters the

willingness to experiment because doing business the way a company has always done it will never

accomplish the goal.

The short-term structure forces team members to focus on doable, bite-size ideas that will have the

greatest impact. These projects are rarely vulnerable to the scope creep that can paralyze more

traditionally designed efforts. Feelings of participation and teamwork are high as good ideas are

welcomed from anyone, regardless of formal position, and acted upon quickly. A good Rapid Results

project has five key components.

1. It must fill a compelling need. That is, it must create urgent demand for action and results.

Establishing urgency and demanding change are the duties of the leader or manager. It is

therefore helpful to have a senior-level person serve as the project sponsor. The sponsor sets

expectations, helps form the team, and oversees progress.

2. The team must be empowered to take action. The best teams are comprised of people who are

closest to the issue and to the work, including frontline people and their managers. Members

should represent a range of expertise and perspectives relevant to the results to be achieved.

They can also reach out to others to add missing skills and insights as necessary.

3. The team agrees to a challenging, measurable goal, to be achieved in 100 days or less. The key

is that the goal must be difficult, but doable. If the goal is not challenging enough, it will fail to

unlock the level of energy and experimentation required. Too tough, and team members will feel

like they are being set up to fail. If it is not measurable, the team will not know when it has

achieved its goal. If it does not take fewer than 100 days, results are no longer rapid.

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4. After brainstorming and generating ideas, the team develops a work plan for implementing

achievable, high-impact ideas. By high-impact, we mean that they are expected to make the

greatest contribution to the goal that the team selected. This determination is based on team

members’ judgment as they consider the array of ideas they have generated. A plan can evolve

over the course of the project, but it must provide a shared road map for what needs to be done,

including a timetable and means of accountability.

5. Finally, the team must disciplined in its follow-up and have management oversight for the duration

of the project. The team should meet weekly to report on the actions members have taken and

track measurable progress toward the goal. Team members should also meet periodically with

the sponsor, who can help if the team runs into difficulty, but also keep the pressure on to reach

the goal.

Rapid Results projects are flexible and can be used to achieve meaningful change in a wide range of

issues, industries, and countries. They have been used to increase revenues, take out costs, reduce

workplace injuries, improve manufacturing throughput, and speed up processes. Like Work-Outs, they

can be used in a one-off way to target a specific problem. But they gain power and momentum when they

become part of the larger cultural norm of how we do business. People learn how to be better team

members and leaders and gain confidence to take on more ambitious goals.

LEADING CHANGE IN A MERGER OR ACQUISITION

While mergers and acquisitions can contain all the types of change listed above, they deserve special

attention because they bring with them a whole set of additional challenges. Beyond just complexity, you

will likely find yourself dealing with:

 People who hold grudges because the companies were previously competitors

 Cultural differences that may be subtle, but which can have a negative impact on alignment

 Old allegiances to “our way” of doing business

 Competition for jobs where there are redundancies of roles

 Tensions from the threat of layoffs

Understanding and successfully integrating corporate cultures is one of the most challenging tasks

because culture is such a tough term to pin down. This is one of the reasons we have included the

excellent article, “The Leader’s Guide to Corporate Culture,” by Groysberg et al (2018). In it, the authors

lay out an Integrated Culture framework that identifies eight characteristics of culture and explains both

how people interact (along a spectrum of independence to interdependence) and their response to

change (along a spectrum of flexibility to stability).

The insights they share are critical in understanding the subtle forces of culture and how these forces

support or undermine change initiatives. These styles include:

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1. Caring: focused on relationships and mutual trust

2. Purpose: exemplified by idealism and altruism

3. Learning: characterized by exploration, expansiveness, and creativity

4. Enjoyment: expressed through fun and excitement

5. Results: characterized by achievement and winning

6. Authority: defined by strength, decisiveness, and boldness

7. Safety: defined by planning, caution, and preparedness

8. Order: focused on respect, structure, and shared norms

They explain,

“Each style has advantages and disadvantages, and no style is inherently better than

another. An organizational culture can be defined by the absolute and relative strengths

of each of the eight and by the degree of employee agreement about which styles

characterize the organization. A powerful feature of this framework, which differentiates it

from other models, is that it can also be used to define individuals’ styles and the values

of leaders and employees.”

They do note, however, that, “[a]lthough each style can be beneficial, natural constraints and competing

demands force difficult choices about which values to emphasize and how people are expected to

behave.”

Pay particular attention to this article as you work through your case study assignment. Take note of their

guidance on the following:

“In a merger, designing a new culture on the basis of complementary strengths can

speed up integration and create more value over time. Mergers and acquisitions can

either create or destroy value. Numerous studies have shown that cultural dynamics

represent one of the greatest yet most frequently overlooked determinants of integration

success and postmerger performance.”

This is something that a people-first focus on leading change must address. Use these tools to help you

assess the culture in your own organization, and take note of the “four levers for evolving a culture” they

outline.

As you work on the assignment, in addition to the guidance on corporate culture covered this week and in

previous readings from Kotter, pay particular attention to themes like balancing action with planning, and

making the best choices in light of the goals of the merger and the resources available. You are also

encouraged to refer back to the reading from last week on “Accelerating Corporate Transformations.”

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LEADING OPERATIONAL, TECHNICAL, AND ORGANIZATIONAL

CHANGE INITIATIVES

Process redesign requires people from diverse departments to collaborate and honestly assess how

business gets done best. Both Rapid Results and Work-Out bring together diverse groups of people to

set high goals for fixing important processes under aggressive timelines of 100 days or less. In this way,

they help build an emotional and unified sense of urgency. For this reason, one or the other should be

seriously considered as part of any change effort.

As already noted, effective change methodologies foster change-focused communication among people

who may not otherwise be in contact. Change leaders should be actively involved in addressing,

launching, and sponsoring best-practice sharing and results-focused teams. They must ensure that

results and learning are communicated widely throughout the organization in support of the change

efforts.

When additional training is needed to shift to the new way of doing business, we must think carefully

about how that training should be provided. Kotter summarizes the shortcoming of many training

initiatives.

“People are expected to change habits built up over years or decades with only five days

of education. People are taught technical skills but not the social skills or attitudes

needed to make the new arrangements work. People are given a course before they start

their new jobs, but aren’t provided with follow-up to help them with problems they

encounter while performing those jobs.”

Leading Change, p. 112

His advice:

“I see no evidence that all organizations should spend millions on education during

attempts at major change…In many cases, clever design of educational experiences can

deliver greater impact at one-half or less the cost of conventional approaches. I also think

that training can easily become a disempowering experience if the implicit message is

‘shut up and do it this way’ instead of ‘we will be delegating more, so we are providing

this course to help you with your new responsibilities.’

The point is this: Some training could be required at this stage in a transformation, but it

needs to be the right kind of experience. Throwing money at the problem is never a good

idea, nor is talking down to people.”

Leading Change, p. 113

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GETTING THE MOST OUT OF THIS WEEK’S CLASS

As you read the materials and participate in class activities, stay focused on the key learning outcomes

for the week:

 Understand the specific challenges of leading different types of change

Return to the large-scale change initiative you previous identified for your organization. What

category of change does it fall into? If it is a complex change initiative, it is quite likely that it will

include several different types of changes to going on at once. Make a list of the top 10

challenges this change brings with it. Use Kotter’s model and the other readings from our

course as a guides to help you identify the challenges. If you are working with a team, conduct a

Work-Out or Rapid Results event to engage stakeholders in identifying challenges, and

proposing ideas to address them.

 Examine the complex factors of leading change in a merger or acquisition

If your organization is currently going through a merger or acquisition, you have an excellent

opportunity to apply what you have been learning in this course. If you are not on the leadership

team, there may be opportunities to volunteer. Speak to your boss and discuss this. Explain that

you are taking this course, and it would be a fantastic way to use what you’re studying for the

benefit of the company. If you are not in the midst of a merger or acquisition, search for news

articles or cases on companies that have gone through a merger or acquisition (there are lots of

them out there) and look for what specific actions they took, what went well and what they

struggled with.

 Apply proven practices to lead operational, technical, and organizational change initiatives

HR leaders can play important roles in working with managers or operational leaders to assess

and support the learning needs for employees who are being asked to develop new skills. If you

do not have a lot of experience in developing learning tools, spend some time researching

different models. If you have Learning & Development professionals in your organization, reach

out and schedule some time to talk. Like most professionals, they are likely to be thrilled at your

interest and will be eager to help. As you explore options, look at the various delivery mechanism

you could leverage such as online learning, one-on-one coaching, formal classroom training,

mentoring etc. Look for ideas to build a better training solution that gives workers the supports

they in an efficient way.