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JWI 556 Leading Change by Putting People First

Week Five Lecture Notes

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MAKING IT STICK What It Means Implementing change is, ironically, often easier than ensuring change lasts once the process has finished. You might think with all the hard work that goes into making the change, we would never allow ourselves to revert to the old ways, but guess what? It happens all the time. Not only is this a waste of the time and money invested in making the change, it can actually make matters worse than if the change had never been attempted. It will be clear evidence for naysayers that if you just wait it out long enough, all those annoying change agents will go away and everything will return to the way it was in the good old days. Why It Matters

• Once the change is made, you will likely need to enhance teamwork and cooperation as people adjust to new ways of doing things.

• You have to anchor the change in your team so it can stand up to resistance that may come from the larger organization.

• Making the change stick cannot be something that unintentionally stifles future innovation.

“Change only sticks when it becomes the way we do things around here.”

John Kotter

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TOOLS AND TECHNIQUES TO IMPROVE TEAMWORK AND COOPERATION

“Change takes time, change takes buy-in from lots of people for meaningful

and lasting success.” Jack Welch

Winning is about getting your team working together to make the change a success. It’s easy and natural to think that the change process is done once the change has been made, but this is not the case. Both Kotter and Jack are clear that: (a) change is never “one and done,” and (b) the changes, if they are good ones, should be a launch pad to bring about even more change. If we are going to build powerful teams filled with change agents that embrace change as a way of life, we have to address the topic of culture.

“One of the theories about change that has circulated widely over the past fifteen years might be summarized as follows: The biggest impediment to creating change in a group is culture. Therefore, the first step in a major transformation is to alter the norms and values. After the culture has been shifted, the rest of the change effort becomes more feasible… I once believed in this model. But everything I’ve seen over the past decade tells me it’s wrong.” Culture is not something that you manipulate easily. Attempts to grab it and twist it into a new shape never work because you can’t grab it. Culture changes only after you have successfully altered people’s actions, after the new behavior produces some group benefit for a period of time, and after people see the connection between the new actions and the performance improvement. Thus, most culture change happens in stage 8, not stage 1.”

Leading Change, pp. 164-165

If you can get your team working well together, bigger and better changes will continue to happen. You can use smaller change initiatives as a proving ground for team building and for refining your approach to change leadership. When the team sees how well they worked together to make the first change happen, they will be able to lead by example as others will want to learn how they did it. There are several cultural values and practices that can support this:

• Voice and Dignity This reflects Jack’s deeply held belief that all people want and deserve to have their ideas, opinions, and feelings heard and their work and effort respected. He is adamant that, in addition to being “the right thing to do” from a moral perspective, it makes companies more competitive, ensuring that every brain is in the game. As he reminds us, "If you have done a decent job hiring, then everyone in the room is smarter than you. And you need their input."

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• Candor This is the willingness to be open about what you think, to speak up. Jack is the first to admit that candor is an unnatural act. People are conditioned from a young age to withhold criticism, sugarcoat bad news, and avoid conflict. Many organizational cultures reinforce this tendency. But he tells us that candor generates: (a) richer ideas as more people get into the conversation, (b) more speed as ideas are debated and acted upon more quickly, and (c) cost reductions through the elimination of meaningless meetings and reports.

• Flat Organizational Structures and Empowerment to Take Action

This both reflects and reinforces a culture of personal empowerment and accountability. These principles are impossible to uphold in the absence of candor, voice, and dignity. They are essential to driving lasting change; while candor, voice, and dignity invite an individual’s best ideas, empowerment and accountability translate these ideas into effective action.

STEPS TO ANCHOR CHANGE IN YOUR TEAM

“Major change often takes a long time, especially in big organizations. Many forces can stall the process far short of the finish line: turnover of key change agents, sheer exhaustion on the part of leaders, bad luck. Under these circumstances, short-term wins are essential to keep momentum going, but the celebration of those wins can be lethal if urgency is lost. With complacency up, the forces of tradition can sweep back in with remarkable force and speed.”

Leading Change, p. 138

Before we get ahead of ourselves in leveraging the new change talents we’ve developed in our teams, we have to make sure we don’t let the changes they have accomplished slip away. Even once the change has been made, it will take work to keep it going. This is especially true for the people who were not on the “inside” as the change was being made. The insiders on the change team – our guiding coalition – embraced the new processes as they were being developed. They learned the details about what has to be done to implement them, and what supports are available if matters start to get dicey. Others did not have this advantage. Kotter warns us,

“Until changed practices attain a new equilibrium and have been driven into the culture, they can be very fragile. Three years of work can come undone with remarkable speed. Once regression begins, rebuilding momentum can be a daunting task, not unlike asking people to throw their bodies in front of a huge boulder that has already begun to roll back down the hill.”

Leading Change, p. 139

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Sustaining hard-won changes often requires a combination of carrots and sticks. Some examples include:

• Reward early adopters Short-term paybacks can drive behavior. Look for ways to reward the adopters who dive in and commit to the new way. Depending on the scope and nature of the change, this may be large – perhaps even an actual bonus – or a more modest, “The first 100 people who complete the registration process for the new ordering tool don’t have to submit inventory counts this week.”

• Leverage vocal supporters Engage senior executives and other respected people to make noise about the positive impact of the change. This doesn’t need to be over the top, just a few well-placed comments can help.

• Send out regular reminders Don’t let communications slip after the change is implemented. Continue with reminders on how the new processes work and where users can get support if they need extra help.

• Keep the wins coming Don’t forget the “what’s in it for me?” messaging that was a critical part of your communications in leading the change. The more that new users can see real examples of the advantages of the new way (saving time, eliminating errors, speeding up production times, etc.), the more they will be willing to embrace the learning curve and stick with it.

• Eliminate temptation Whenever possible, the old ways of doing work should be eliminated as soon as possible when the change is launched. Sometimes, you will need to keep dual pathways while the legacy system gets phased out, but the more you can shorten that timeline, the better. As long as there are options to continue with the old ways, you open the door for detractors to sing the praises of the old way every time a small hiccup occurs with the new system.

• Invest in training Don’t underestimate the amount of support that may be needed to get users comfortable with new protocols or tools. Make sure your training plan is clear, does not become a burden, includes concise “quick start” guides, and access to real people who can answer questions quickly.

• Collect a pipeline of ongoing improvements Few changes deliver perfect solutions right out of the gate. Spread the message that you need everyone’s help to identify the bugs and suggest ways that the processes can be improved even more. Resisters tend to come on board when they feel they are listened to and engaged in the process improvement.

• Tie performance appraisals to the new model If the change is important enough that it has a significant impact on how business gets done, then make sure the required new behaviors are being evaluated. Team members must know that this change matters, and that they are being evaluated on how they engage with it.

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CULTURAL PRACTICES THAT STIFLE INNOVATION

Jack offers a healthy view of innovation – that it is (a) continuous and (b) not the work of geniuses. He says it’s not about ‘eureka,’ but about finding a better way every day.

“Learning from outside or inside, that’s innovation. Steady continuous improvement as a way of life – with every comp plan backing it up, with every role model highlighted. That’s how you get great innovation across a company.”

Jack Welch With a successful change initiative under your belt, there may be temptation to deify the new ways. It’s hardly surprising given all the work it took to get there, but don’t let the victory of the successful change lull you into thinking you have arrived. Celebrate, yes, but be prepared to keep on changing. The new way, however great, must be a springboard for further improvements. This brings us to culture, and the question of how we build a culture that is open to ongoing innovation and doesn’t stifle it. Since the term “culture” gets thrown around a lot and interpreted in different ways, let’s remind ourselves of how Kotter defines it.

“Culture refers to norms of behavior and shared values among a group of people. Norms of behavior are common or pervasive ways of acting that are found in a group and that persist because group members tend to behave in ways that teach these practices to new members, rewarding those who fit in and sanctioning those who do not. Shared values are important concerns and goals shared by most of the people in a group that tend to shape group behavior and that often persist over time even when group membership changes.” “[C]ulture is important because it can powerfully influence human behavior, because it can be difficult to change, and because its near invisibility makes it hard to address directly. Generally, shared values, which are less apparent but more deeply ingrained in the culture, are more difficult to change than norms of behavior.”

Leading Change, pp. 156-157 While it may be obvious that certain cultural characteristics support change while others undermine it, it’s not easy to fix these. Culture is woven into the fabric of an organization through a thousand threads of approval and disapproval, reward and censure, hirings, promotions, firings, conversations, symbols, language, clothing, formal and informal power structures, and more. New hires are subtly socialized over many years. As Kotter points out, culture “exerts itself through the actions of hundreds or thousands of people,” and “because all of this happens without much conscious intent, [it] is difficult to challenge or even discuss.” These insights have two implications for change leaders:

1. It is futile to try to change culture independent of changing behavior. Culture change is no match for layer upon layer of socialization and history. You can’t try to change the culture at the beginning of a change initiative, either. It must be addressed toward the end of the change process, after people see and feel the results of the change and embrace the new behaviors.

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2. A major change initiative may be completed successfully, thanks to the tireless efforts of the change leader, the guiding coalition, and the project team members. It may begin to change people’s behavior and their sense of what is important and possible. But that alone is not enough for the changes to stick. Without deliberate, ongoing efforts to anchor the changes in culture, the old ways of doing business will soon smother change and reassert their dominance.

Kotter points out,

“Shared values and group norms are persistent, especially the former…When shared values are supported by the hiring of similar personalities into an organization, changing the culture may require changing people. Even when there is no personality incompatibility with a new vision, if shared values are the product of many years of experience in a firm, years of a different kind of experience are often needed to create any change. And that is why cultural change comes at the end of a transformation, not the beginning.”

Leading Change, p. 164 In the second half of our course, we will take a deeper dive into practices we can use to shape the behaviors we need to drive innovation and anchor it in the organization’s culture. These will include steps to:

• Do away with territorialism that pits one group in the organization against another • Squash the “not invented here” syndrome that is tied to misguided company loyalty • Promote and reward candor as a tool of speed • Eliminate overly bureaucratic structures, replacing them with “flat org” charts • Leverage tools like Work-Out and Raid Results to generate new ideas and take action

As we wrap up the first half of our course, we close with Kotter’s word of caution to remind us of why so many HR professionals struggle with the task of “changing the culture.” We do this so we can direct our energies in ways that keep a true people-first focus on change.

“I’ve seen a dozen cases over the past decade in which the senior VPs of human resources were assigned to ‘change the culture’ in firms with no overall transformation process or in firms with a project that was run independently or ahead of bigger change efforts. Typically, these HR managers struggled along for a few years trying hard to do something useful. They would produce statements of desired values or group norms. They would hold meetings to communicate this information. Sometimes they would launch training programs to ‘teach’ the values. But as staff executives, they were in a weak position to introduce a major change that would affect the entire organization. And the basic conception of the proposal – to get in there and hammer that culture into shape – made success virtually impossible from the outset.”

Leading Change, pp. 165-166

As we head into the second half of our course, let’s focus on what we can do to change this.

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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:

• Examine tools and techniques to improve teamwork and cooperation Review what we have covered in this and other courses on the proven practices Jack has used to improve teamwork. Yes, there are a lot of them, but focus initially on the following:

o Voice and Dignity Provide regular opportunities to explore new ideas and get all the brains into the game. Use every team meeting as a forum to voice concerns and seek solutions. Be generous with praise for those who are engaged and willing to share. Not every idea will be a winner, but it’s essential the team knows that they collectively share responsibility for growth and that new ways of looking at things are always welcomed.

o Candor Embrace, model, and reward candor as a tool of speed. Call out issues that need to be addressed, and face challenges directly and honestly.

o Flat Org Structures that Empower Action Get out of the way of your team. Remove as many process and approval roadblocks as you can.

• Explore steps to anchor change in your team Think back to a successful change initiative you have been part of in which the changes became anchored in the way the team operates. How did they get anchored? Identify specific steps you learned from that experience you can leverage in your own change to keep things from slipping back to the old ways. Think specifically about how you can: (1) reward those who embrace the new ways, (2) eliminate temptation (or even opportunities) to revert to previous processes, and (3) empower people to take the changes and run with them, and not be held back by old systems or bureaucracies that may have been necessary evils of the old way, but are now just roadblocks.

• Address cultural practices that stifle innovation Call out complacency and traditionalism when you see it. Don’t allow people to deify past successes in ways that blind them to changes going on in the world that necessitate new ways of doing things. Look outside your organization (and even industry) for examples of best practices, and shamelessly “steal” those to drive innovation. Never lose sight of Jack’s challenge to “find a better way every day.”