My top 3 advice for organisations going through a transformational change
Let’s get right into it. Here are my top 3 pieces of advice for organisations going through a big transformational change…
1. Get your network right - they will make it happen
It goes without saying that successful transformational change is challenging in organisations and that’s because it’s all about your people becoming so excited or internally motivated about the change that they’ll go through the uncomfortable, lengthy and often time consuming process of making it a reality. All whilst they keep business as usual humming along.
So logically and somewhat ironically, it is critical to get the right people at the core of your change network - surrounding them by the specialist, the technical and the formal leadership. So when things get tough, this core can be called upon to go above and beyond to bring others back on track, or find those with the energy and drive to get involved. They will form the intricate internal web required to create your movement - or reignite it when required.
“When called upon in these tough times, these people from the core of this network feel compelled, driven, drawn to be at the front…”
I have a client at the moment that is truly run-off-their-feet busy and this network is the number one element that keeps the transformation going. They have been in the ‘lull’ of their transformation, the toughest period is usually 1-2 years in, where staff are past the initial excitement and are feeling the high demands of their ever increasing workload with no reprieve in sight.
When called upon in these tough times, these people from the core of this network feel compelled, driven, drawn to be at the front; to do extra hours (on top of their day-to-day) to showcase how ‘cool’ the new solutions are and through this genuine excitement we naturally create ripples of energy around the change. Here we’ve harnessed this energy to tap into curiosity, competition to build on the momentum this core create and move the majority. Protect the core!
2. Don’t ignore the culture - it will eat into your ROI
Even if your next transformation isn’t considered a cultural change, you’d be damned not to think about the importance of culture - and that’s the truth!
I once had a client that wanted to standardise how things were done at their operational site and because it was only front-line ops teams changing how they did things, they didn’t ever talk about culture. They didn’t consider the behaviours they wanted to see improve or change, and how this related to the inherent culture of the organisation or even this business area’s subculture.
Their main focus was on training and equipping them with the skills they needed to improve immediate and long term performance metrics. Was the change successful? …in parts…
Where good leaders bought into training and having success in their teams, they leveraged their culture to create steady and sustainable change. They worked with it. Where leaders didn’t quite buy-in, they had lukewarm success at best and the training investment did not produce it’s promised ROI.
Behaviour change was never planned or tracked and therefore never flagged as needing direct support of subsequent interventions. I’m sure that many of you have seen examples of this.
💡 Further food for thought on rather large transformations… If the new culture has been identified, and your ‘laggers’ haven’t been able to see themselves in this new organisation you’d like to transform into - your role is to help them see where they do see themselves and move on.
3. Plan, check, intervene - be creative & flexible
In project management it’s known as plan, monitor and control. In change management…
You must PLAN - knowing your people, the future state you’re reaching for with your vision and where you are today to understand the transition required.
Once you’re on your way, you need to create various methods of CHECKING all is going to plan and when it isn’t, you need to intervene. Why not control? Well that’s simple - change is all about people - and we all know that even though we may want to control our little toddlers - it’s impossible. Especially when the stakes are high.
So we need to have a toolkit of INTERVENTIONS at the ready, just in case our people don’t behave as planned. And start thinking about all that you have at hand, to measure how this is actually playing out, lead and lag indicators.
I’m not sure there’s a better example of what I mean here than that of a young child having to travel by plane for 5 hrs - for the first time. For those without this intimate experience, we parents plan for every possibility; from the change they have to make in terms of shouting demands (as they do in the car), to having to equalise their ears as we take off - having absolutely zero prior experience of this before.
“So we need to have a toolkit of interventions at the ready, just in case our people don’t behave as planned.”
We can spend time talking about the ‘north star’ of the fun times we’ll have when we arrive at the other end or maybe your vision speech is all about the “...wheeeee! how much fun is flying going to be”. We can prepare them with the ‘what’s in it for them’ - lollies, iPad time, sitting at the window. We can collaborate with them by getting them involved in packing, to airport processes like ‘helping’ with check-in or choosing their snacks and an in-flight buddy for the trip. We might even set them internally motivated goals (as we know them pretty well)… all of this prep does not guarantee a smooth travel experience.
In fact, the amount of planning that some parents do for all possibilities is far more outstanding than this shortlist. And this is when the interventions come into play. Ready for every eventuality with some very creative intervention, parents plan for the inevitable ‘undesired’ behaviour the trip will cause. Crossing their fingers it will all be over vomit free!
Want to know my tried and tested tricks on and off the plane? Maybe you’re wondering how to spot your core, or need to settle on what your cultural challenges actually are?
