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Achieving a successful transformation within your organisation starts with having a deeper understanding of Change Management. With the right level of awareness, integration of a robust change model and understanding of a few key principles, you can ensure a much greater chance of successful delivery. Here we will walk you through the key principles you need to focus on to achieve transformation success.
For any change to be a success there must be a detailed account of what needs to change. Everyone involved needs to have a strong understanding of both the endgame and also why they need to change. This “why” is often described as the burning platform or the compelling reason for changing. Only with the “what” and the “why” defined, can you start to craft the message.
However, one key piece that we tend to miss is identifying the measurable value of the change. This is not the “what’s in it for me”, the WIIFM – though that too needs to be clarified – but how will we know that we have arrived? What is the measurable change benefit or expected return?
As with any major initiative, the ability to measure and communicate the value of Change Management is key to winning over the hearts and minds of those impacted by change. While there is greater awareness of organisational Change Management as a profession, these quantifiable benefits are often hard to articulate.
Your first step in defining the change benefit is to look at the Business Case that is driving the change. It should include both a detailed description of the reasons for change and the benefits the organisation hopes to achieve.
The proposed benefits of a successful implementation must invariably have two properties. The first is that they are quantifiable or measurable. Typically, this includes that the proposed change will improve the organisation’s bottom line, whether it be through efficiencies or increased sales. Second, the proposed benefits will be based on a percentage adoption of the new changes by the organisation.
Once the anticipated adoption levels and the business case benefit numbers are known, then it is a task of simple math to quantify the financial benefit or dis-benefit of increased/reduced levels of adoption.
Let’s take an example of a change that is targeted at delivering $5m of efficiencies based on 80% adoption. First off, huge congrats to the team for calculating the business case on more realistic expectations of 80% adoption versus 100%. However, what if only 60% adoption is achieved?
In that case, your change benefit has just decreased by 20%. Now your new ways of working can only be expected to deliver $3.75m worth of efficiencies – quick equation of 5 x 0.8.
This assumes that the programme gets delivered on time thanks to your improved Change Management capabilities and with none of the original benefits case elements eroded by other factors. However, this is a good place to start when you are proving ROI. There is no better way to get management on board than to link potential poor adoption to projected missing target savings.
So you have a fantastic change initiative – foolproof even, yet your presentation to the programme governance board is met with significant pushback from some key senior stakeholders.
The second key Change Management principle is to build a coalition for change. In John Kotter’s 8 Step model for leading change, originally published in 1988, he highlights the need for “an army of individuals to guide, coordinate and communicate about the change”. It is still no different today.
You will need to spend time upfront earning the support of your key stakeholders by communicating the vision. In these one-to-one discussions you need to explain the nature of what is changing and actively listen to any concerns they might have. Any negativity that would have aired in public can then be dealt with individually. When this job is done well, it builds engagement from influential people, ensuring advocacy at the level of the steering group.
More importantly it builds top-down advocacy within each functional area. Do it well enough times and you will have built a coalition that will enable your governance presentations to run smoothly and receive the necessary sign offs much more predictably.
Our next key Change Management principle is to assess your organisations’ readiness for change. Are you ready for change and how do you know? A poorly prepared change initiative often creates issues that are unmanageable down the line.
Fail to understand what the organisational and cultural repercussions of your change are and your lack of understanding will create roadblocks at every turn. What you need is a structured approach.
Three ways in which you can prepare for the change before you start implementing include conducting:
A Change Readiness Assessment is an evaluation of the willingness and ability of people within an organisation to adopt a change. Through engagement with those affected, you can uncover a number of findings which point to root causes which can ultimately mean the difference between success and failure. Addressing these root causes can then become an integral part of your Change Management strategy.
The benefits of well-run Change Readiness Assessments include:
Only when an organisation has used its Change Management toolkit to ensure that it is has adequately planned for the reaction to the change across every single impacted function and team can they then start to roll things out.
One size never fits all and never will. Corporate ecosystems are underpinned by a variety of different functions with their own cultural idiosyncrasies. As such, all change journeys are highly personal to individuals and their teams. The key measure of success for cultural change will be the extent to which they buy into the new culture on a personal basis.
Therefore, the fourth Change Management principle is to make change relevant to every individual affected. Each employee needs to feel a keen engagement with the personal benefits that change will bring – both in terms of well-being and efficiency. Remember WIIFM – what’s in it for me? This is when it comes into play.
The Change Manager needs to consider the following aspects when looking to understand how functions, teams and individuals prefer to consume change:
Let’s take neurodiversity as an example. 15-20% of the population are neurodivergent, that’s 50% more than the number of left-handed people. The fact is that people prefer to ingest change in very different ways, and understanding any neurodiversity that they might have is a big deal in terms of working out how to communicate and explain the change in question. For instance, don’t show dyslexic stakeholders busy slides or send them long emails; provide visualisations and demonstrations to get both their advocacy and some really insightful feedback.
You may be asking; how can you possibly be this specific in delivering change? The answer to which is that it is not as hard as you think if you have invested into creating a Change Agent Network.
A critical component of any change programme is a robust Change Agent Network, facilitating organisation-wide stakeholder engagement and communications throughout the change life cycle.
Change agents receive dedicated training, enabling them to disseminate communications to a wider audience. A well-run network typically benefits from having advocates at three levels of the business: Sponsors & Leaders, Team Leaders & Middle Management, and Key or Super Users. This supports the mitigation of risk that middle management often presents in its opposition to change.
But having Change Agents in the mid and lower tiers of the business also ensures that people are receiving the change message from a source that they respect and who they feel understands their situation with regards to the change. Recipients of change are often most receptive to new ideas and ways of working when the changes are advocated and communicated by their peers or direct line management.
For additional reading, check out our case study on Next Generation Technology Program Delivery where our team developed an integrated roll out strategy across various stakeholder groups, ensuring collaboration while also satisfying essential regulatory requirements.
Our final Change Management principle is focused on sustaining stakeholder awareness around the change.
Most of us have a knee-jerk reaction to change. We will try out the new initiative and push through emotional resistance or technical difficulties; however, when a deadline is introduced and pressure mounts, we revert to previous behaviour. That is when your change success rate can start to suffer.
It is critical to continue to take the temperature on change during large transformational programs. You can use the Change Readiness Assessment, running it again, or you can kick off a Stakeholder Assurance Assessment.
The result is a change dashboard that accurately identifies the pain points, allowing senior management and the change team to accurately plan future change interventions in order to sustain the change already introduced.
The result is a change dashboard that accurately identifies the pain points, allowing senior management and the change team to accurately plan future change interventions in order to sustain the change already introduced.
Highlighting the pain points in this way is very attractive to time-poor executives who need straightforward analysis. Once the areas that require attention have been highlighted, it is time to work collaboratively through the identified challenges and develop robust solutions.
The key benefit here is the promotion of a culture that drives a repeatable and robust analysis of where pain points are in the programme, followed by a proven methodology for fixing the problems you identify in order to drive significant efficiencies that will stay.
In a nutshell, change is hard. However, with a greater awareness of organisational Change Management and its benefits, a change model integrated with programme delivery and a few key principles for Change Management introduced through this guide, we believe that you have a strong chance of improving your programme’s success.
Thank you for the contributions of James Lewis on this article.
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